Ugh...my weeks of hell almost over. The orchestra concert tonight went really well, the program consisted of Debussy's Prelude a "L'Apres-midi d'un faune", Britten's Les Illuminations, and Sibelius Symphony No.2, conducted by Yves Abel, who's an alum of Mannes (class of 1986) and now rather successful out in the music world (he's a conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, and has appeared with most of the world's leading opera companies. I liked him, though most people I've talked to about that (which really is only like 3 people) didn't seem to share the same sentiment. Oh well.

Quick recap of the last couple weeks...Chamber music concert #1 on 3/29 went ok...not terribly bad, but not terribly good either. Not that I'm completely not to blame - my intonation certainly wasn't the most reliable as I'm still trying to adjust to my teacher - but musically somehow I just never have a comfortable feeling with that group. I think especially with the violinist sometimes I just don't feel on the same level. Though, it was still definitely fun and a good experience to work with them on the piece.

On the other hand, my piano trio did pretty well I thought. We had one concert on 3/30 which was sort of our "dress concert" for the second concert on 4/4 in the Mannes Downtown concert series, a new series started this year downtown at the New School University (of which Mannes, which is uptown on 85th st, is part of). Our program for that was the third movement (Elegia) of Anton Arensky's piano trio, and the second movement (called TSIAJ, or "This Scherzo Is A Joke") of Charles Ives' piano trio. The second performance especially went pretty well, and the audience (the room was pretty packed!) really liked it too. Some deans from Mannes, and even the president of the New School, Bob Kerrey, were at the concert too!

Academically, these days have been pretty demanding too...two presentations for a class, one on different editions of a piece, and one on different recordings of a piece. The one on the editions, which I had to give three weeks ago, went rather poorly - well, largely because I didn't really start working on it until the night before and ended up pulling my first allnighter in a looong time to get ready. During my presentation I think half of what I said was not even said in coherent sentences...ugh. But the second one, which I had to give today, was pretty good I think. What a difference four hours of sleep makes :-P. Then, I had this canon to write for my theory class, which I spent most of last weekend on. That was actually really fun...though not originally my intention, it turned out to be continuous, or circular, which means that it repeats on itself without breaking the canonic pattern. Also sneaked in some fun stuff like augmentation and fragmentation and a quasi-secondary theme that derives from elements of the original theme material :-P. If you should so desire, you can grab a copy of it [here].

Next week, on wednesday I have my jury...basically a performance exam where you play in front of the entire cello faculty. I am *so* not ready for that...I'm supposed to play two movements of a concerto, two movements of a Bach, and a whole sonata, and the only thing that's moderately in good shape is the prelude to the 4th cello suite in Eb. Good thing I can concentrate on practicing between now and Wednesday, though I also have to worry about rehearsing with an accompanist. Well, first I have to worry about figuring out who my accompanist is (the one who I thought was going to play with me turns out only knows two movements of my sonata, so she recommended some else, who has yet to return my call).

While I am stressing out about the ten minutes that I'll be playing at the juries (I justify my stressing out about it with the fact that I need to do well to get some scholarship money for next year), my violinist in the piano trio is stressing out about a whole recital's worth of music to be performed in the prestigious Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on the 17th of April!! She made these really cool looking photo invitations (see online versions on her website [here] and [here]). I'm so excited for her to have this opportunity!

The good news is, juries are over...the bad news is, I ain't too proud of mine.Started with Bach, which went ok (my teacher said "the beginning sounded tense, but as the piece went on, it got looser...your intonation was a little off...it sounded like you had explored the structure of the piece, which I think the people on the panel found impressive"), but halfway through the piece, hands and legs started feeling tingly, kinda like when your limbs fall asleep but not as extreme. But that entirely screwed me up for the sonata (Brahms F-major) where everytime I had to suddenly shift high up (and there's a couple of those places) I'd panic and of course completely miss the shift. Arrgghh...I know that at least I passed the exam, but I think I can kiss my scholarship good bye. Oh well...that's what I get for loading up too many courses and ensembles and not having consistent practice time for my own stuff - lesson learned.

So to recover from this traumatic experience, I went to see "Kung Fu Hustle" with Frank in the evening. Which was a great idea, because the movie is pretty damn funny...it started a little slow for me (maybe it was my mood too) but then I just got completely sucked into the movie and its humor and at points just couldn't stop laughing loudly. Though, I think the movie does make too many gay jokes.

Following the movie, a little drinking back at the apartment...couple beers with roommates and three girls from next door, at some point when everybody except Frank and me was outside for a sec I grabbed one of the girls' digital camera and then found myself inspired by Frank's comment that he and his roommates at college used to do that and take random pictures down their pants (in the front AND in the back) and other body parts. Yep, so when Tana goes through her pictures she'll find amidst all the pictures of Brian, Antonio, Jared, Matt, Frank, herself, Aurelia, [other girl from next door whose name I still don't know] and me a random picture with a full-sized shot of... my right eyeball staring right at her (I thought that was more tasteful than a shot of my crotch would have been).

Today was a bit uneventful...went to school to talk to my teacher about yesterday, then had a short rehearsal; came back, did my taxes (what a pain), worked out, did laundry, then watched the Sixers beat the Heat in overtime. Yeah! Oh yeah, and my new laptop arrived, a tiny (1 inch thin, 3.5 lbs light) little Dell L400 with PIII processor that I got off of ebay for $250 including shipping! It's got a few scratches and stuff, but it came with better specs than I though tit would, and even a second battery. The only downside is that the cooling fan might be broken - it spins up when you turn on the comp and kind of makes a clicking noise which then dies down, but you can't feel any air coming out. But nothing unfixable, and it's soooo slim and sexy...It's gonna come in handy both for papers that I'm going to have write over the next couple weeks and for compositions on the road and at school. And surfing sessions at Starbucks :-P.

Tomorrow should be interesting. The next two weeks are gonna be apartment shopping time with the end of the semester (and hence the dorm kick out day) approaching fast. The practice room and gym this year have been nice, but nowhere worth the $1300/month that I've been paying (and the many headaches due to the spotty network), and my savings won't be able to take another year of that... Tomorrow Frank and I are checking out a place up near columbia, but where I'd really like to move out to is this apt in an area in Queens called Elmhurst.

On Saturday Mike Cho (Swat '04) is organizing a small Karaoke evening - that should be interesting: I'm neither a good singer nor do I really know Karaoke songs :-P.

As for sunday: We are proud to announce that yours truly will be giving his debut appearance at Carnegie Hall this Sunday! Hye-woon, [who is giving her debut recital there this Sunday at 8:30pm], decided to prepare an encore piece - a religious hymn arranged for piano trio, and I have the honor of playing the cello part. Wheee!

Yep, played in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall tonight...it was niiice. The halls look so beautiful! and the acoustics are sooo clear...Hye-woon managed to gather quite a crowd.

Yesterday night was fun - went to a Karaoke bar in Philly with Mike (Swat '04), Malik (Swat '02), Sanggee (Swat '04), Tanya (Swat '05, who got a teaching job in Casablanca!) and Mike and Sanggee's friend Sunghee (spelling?). Tanya turns out to have conducted the RA interview for my brother and apparently he passed with flying colors :-P. The Karaoke-machine was kinda weird - during all the songs it would just show seemingly random clips of scenery and people...One of the funniest moments was when we played the Thong Song and the video showed a group of some kind of dancers (male!) dressed in some kind of traditional-Asian-looking outfit and hopping around. And, I found a fellow Metallica fan in Malik to sing "Until it Sleeps" with :).

On Friday, Frank and I checked out an apartment in Harlem, near Columbia University. Or rather, we went to the place, but the landlord never showed...not that I'm too upset about it, since I'm kind of concerned about the neighborhood - the first thing we saw coming out of the subway station was this woman lurching around, obviously under influence of some kind of narcotic. At 2pm, under broad daylight. Yesterday, while I was busy teaching cello in Philly, Frank (along with Simon and Jared - Simon might join up as our third roommate and sublet to Jared for the summer) scoped out another place in Brooklyn near Sunset Park which seemed pretty nice from the pictures he took; but what's best is the view out the bay window of the Statue of Liberty. So, basically I'm now debating between Sunset Park in Brooklyn for the awesome view and relatively easy connection to the school, Washington Heights on Manhattan for its easy connection to school AND this table tennis club on 100th St where world famous players have played (though it is kinda expensive), and Jackson Heights/Forest Hills in Queens, for its proximity to some Taiwanese friends and Flushing.

Arg. This apartment search is driving me nuts! Frank and I walked around the Washington Heights area a couple days ago and I don't know - some blocks aren't too bad, but some blocks just aren't quite the kind of area I'd like to live in next year. Another option has become increasingly appealing: today, we went out to Jersey City and found it generally not too bad an area at all. Total transit time to Mannes runs probably around 45 min to an hour, but there's something about the town-like feel of the Journal Square area that resonates with me. Maybe it's because it reminds me a bit of Klosterneuburg, the town in suburban Vienna I moved to when I was 6 and lived in until moving to the US. We'll see; tomorrow morning I'm following up on an apartment on 108th and Broadway, which could be very interesting as well...all this while still keeping my eyes out for good deals out in Forest Hills...In the end, I'll just be glad to be out of my current room. This f*@#ing internet connection is just driving me insane - I can't even write out a single sentence without the connection stalling for at least 10 seconds!

My lesson this week went really well - I've been adjusting my posture and balance a little (it's amazing how just a few inches can have such a huge impact) and the sound just changed completely - so much more resonant and open! In my teacher's own words, I made a "quantum leap" :P. We also realized how my breathing changes when I get to difficult passages - which is most likely why my hands and legs went tingly during my jury. Speaking of my jury: I got my grade for the jury and the teacher's comment sheets. I passed (phew!); and aside from the things I knew I had screwed up, they even had surprisingly positive things to say. Tim Eddy's comment at the end of his sheet totally made my day: "Beautiful playing; interesting, engaging performer."

So, the end of the seemster is only 3 1/2 weeks away...3 1/2 long weeks, that is. Things left to do include: a research paper, a presentation on an in-depth formal analysis of a movement of a piece, a paper on a book that I have yet to read, and a 3-part invention. Plus, another chamber music concert and a master class next friday with the Orion String Quartet. Ughhh...

So yeah, another weekend trip to the Philly area for the regular teaching deal...except that at 2:30pm today, standing at the house door all dressed up in suit and tie (dress code for teachers at the Bryn Mawr Conservatory) and my bag and cello on my shoulders, I realize I left my car keys in NY. And with my mom and my brother both out doing teaching and accompanying choirs, respectively, I was stranded at home...luckily, Mike was a buddy and came in his car and drove me to the school, and then I finally reached my mom who came and drove me from the school to my piano student's house (where I arrived an our late :P).

Went to Emery Ku's senior recital at Swarthmore last night, which was awesome...a couple wrong notes here and there, yeah, but he had tremendous feeling for the pieces. Plus, he's an engineering major (not an easy feat at Swarthmore), and he also just happens to have won a Fulbright scholarship to study acoustics in England next year. Yeah, pretty accomplished guy. And good person too. And he played in my senior recital two years ago :). Bumped into a bunch of familiar faces there too - and made arrangements for chamber music over the summer with Mac Carlson '04, and Catherine Fukuda '07 - the "Swarthmore Concerto Soloist Trio", since it turns out that all three of us are Swarthmore Concerto competition winners (Mac in 2004, Catherine in 2005, and me in 2002) :).

Speaking of summer...looks like my plans are shaping up. Got a (part-time, I think) job with the IT department at Mannes and another one playing at church services in Queens every Sunday...continue weekly Philly trips to teach. A performance with my brother of a Beethoven set of variations at a concert of the choir he accompanies, plus maybe a recital at the Foulkeways retirement home out in suburban philly near where I live (been thinking that a Bach suite cycle would be an interesting thing to do). Got accepted into the Beethoven institute, a week-long Beethoven-only program at Mannes (and cheap too! $150 because I applied as member of a preformed group). Chamber music projects here in NY and in Philly. Hopefully some time to pick up on some programming projects and/or redoing this website and maybe some table tennis and book reading to curb the rapid decline of my communication skills (though maybe consistent sleep will do the trick)...oh dear, Swattism at its best/worst.

Completely unrelated: [a picture of me in Carnegie Hall during Hye-woon's recital]!

It's done - today Frank and I paid the deposit for the apartment that I'll be living in for the next year. It's out in Jersey City, which means the commute will be rather long (probably >45) but the area is pretty nice. I'll probably miss living in the city, but for that amount of money I'd only be able to afford living up in Washington Heights, which is relatively close to the city, but the area is not nearly as nice. My schedule is lighter next semester (no more 23 credits insanity) and as of now my earliest class starts at 11 so that's not too bad.

I've been feeling strangely aimless recently...I feel like a slave to my emotions these days, and my emotions are going kinda haywire. I used to have my emotions so well under control... Interesting how this year has changed me (probably a result of devoting myself to music and also the continuing relations with a certain someone). In a sense, I'm discovering a part of humanity that I've never allowed myself to delve into.

But is it the right way for me to go? Do I want to be so driven by my emotions? I used to think one of my strengths was the ability to go against what I felt like and do the "right" thing. Yesterday morning, I saw this listing on craigslist for a mini-studio on UWS for $680 and I found myself seriously considering that place, which would have screwed Frank because he was counting on getting a 2 BR place with me. Fortunately, I managed to work out a plan, where I said I'd stick with Frank and get a 2 BR if Frank couldn't find a 1 BR place he liked; in the end, it didn't matter anyways, because the apartment we ended up seeing yseterday afternoon and securing today was an even better deal. But still, that brief time where I felt like I wanted to go for the UWS mini-studio troubles me...

Perhaps the answer lies in exactly what I did - the compromise of helping him find a 1 BR place he liked and sticking with the 2BR if he couldn't. In other words, a balance between tending to my own wants and needs and "doing the right thing." Balance...I was never good at balance.

But to go back to that emotion thing and that certain someone...I hope that the person who has my old cellphone knows that that it's not the cellphone I care about...