check out my new website at: mark.idratherread.net

I updated my concerts on my myspace page.

Thanks everyone for the emails and cards and stuff!

I'll post more later, this semester is crazy!

Good News

Well, the school year is off to a busy start, and everything is going well. I've got a couple of items of good news that I didn't have a week ago.

My grades all finally came in. I can feel the suspense building, wait for it... I got straight A's. 4.0. Yeah. Regardless of my dad's belief that lessons and history classes don't require grades, I finally got both of my A's.

Secondly, and even cooler, I got a scholarship. Well, I guess it's more of a financial award. Dr. Weinberg informed last week that he had some good news for me and hew told me earlier this week that I was getting some money! He wasn't sure what the amount was so he didn't want to say anything. So now that I've finally found out I can post it. I got $2,250! Apparently what happened was that the music department found some money (how I don't know) that they needed to award. Out of 20 people nominated by their professors, I was one of 5 picked for it. Yay! That will pay for one quarter of my tuition this semester.

In other news I will be splitting a recital with one of the other students in the studio. Amy (not the one I'm married to) and I will be playing a recital on April 26th at 3 pm in room 232 of the music building. Don't get too excited, it should be pretty low-key. No one needs to rush out and buy plane tickets or anything. I will also be entering a PAS Multiple Percussion Competition in April as long as I get everything done in time. All in all it's going to be a crazy busy semester for me, so we'll see how everything goes.

I think that's it for now. I'll post some new stuff if there are ever any updates. I also hope to update my MySpace page in the next week or so, and then everyone can see what concerts I'm playing this semester.

Wait, what is this again? I didn't know I had a blog...

So, here we go again. I'm making the effort to get back on the bandwagon due to intense familial pressure (in other words, I had a couple of comments about it at Christmas). So between Christmas and now not much happened. Amy and I watched 21 James Bond movies in chronological order, and I played a lot of video games, and now we're watching Arrested Development. Now that school is back in session things are starting to pick back up again. I got hired to play with SASO again, and I will be playing xylophone on the Comedian's Suite by Dmitri Kabalevsky. I guess that's about all.

In school news, I'm going to be very busy this semester. I know, it shocked me too. Anyway, I'm excited to be taking drumset lessons in addition to "normal" lessons (everything else), and I'm also doing a very cool independent study. I'm calling it The Use of Technology in Percussion Pedagogy. It's exactly what it sounds like. I'm also in Wind Ensemble again, and Percussion Ensemble and CrossTalk as well. And I can't forget my new theory class, which I have to take because I didn't do so great on my theory diagnostic. It's called Comprehensive Theory and will cover everything I learned in theory in my undergrad in one semester. So we'll see how that one goes. It's already boring... I'm going to try and make blogging a requirement for my independent study, so if that happens, I'll mention it here and anyone who is interested in that can follow that blog as well.

Finally, I'm rereading the Wheel of Time series again so I'll be ready for the last one that comes out this fall. I even bought the rest of them I didn't have (4 out of 11, 3 of which I haven't ever read).



I suppose I can try and keep this updated a little more regularly, that's as close to a promise as I'll get.