Gig day today - Hye-woon had two church events for which they needed a cellist, one in the morning in Queens, and one in the afternoon out in Long Island. So, I spent the whole day out and about, racking in not enough money to really warrant spending so much time doing that - but in the end it's all good, because it was pretty fun (even though we played a rather strangely harmonized arrangement of Amazing Grace), and we also got out two free meals (good food too!). After the second gig they only gave us a ride back to Flushing, so I-Ting, a fellow Mannes student from Taiwan who was also playing today, and I walked around a bit and bought bubble tea (she got a bit on my case cause I call myself Taiwanese and couldn't even read the menu at the bubble tea place :-/), then she gave me the lowdown on where to buy Taiwanese bread (those yummy buns with all sorts of filling) next time I'm there, and then I got myself three DVDs for $20 :). Pirated, of course, but eh. Got back to my dorm around 9pm...that's 12+ hours for $175 and two free meals. Aiya.

So I'm passing up a nice job that I could have had with a wall street firm doing some java programming which would have paid $20 - $30 an hour. Why? Because they want a full time person (even though the job itself is only temporary, to help the firm finish a project) and with my teaching in Philly on (most-likely) Mondays and also my wanting to leave enough time for practicing (no more craziness like last year working a full-time job plus a part-time job plus cello) I had to choose...and going for the job I feel like would pretty much undermine my decision to focus on music for these two years. Money can wait...for now, I want to taste passion.

So I'm finally moved out of the dorm and into my new apartment in New Jersey for good! Frank, Jared (who's staying in our apartment for a week or two or so) and I moved all our stuff in over the past two days, most of it yesterday with a U-haul (or, from our perspective, a We-haul :-P) truck. We even brought over Mark's old couch, which he was going to dump...heh heh heh. Cheap bastards, we are, yes. Other than that couch, we pretty much have no furniture though, so a couple shopping trips are in order.

My favorite soccer team, [SK Rapid Vienna] is now (with 99.9% certainty) Austrian Champion for the 2004/2005 campaign!!! They've been on an insane roll lately, winning their last couple games 5:0, 6:0, 1:0, 4:1, and 4:1. Moments like this make me wish I never came to the US - just to imagine being in the stadium (I've only been once to a live game ever, not counting this past winter's indoor soccer tournament) makes me all giddy :-P. Then last weekend, when it became clear that they were (with 99.9% certainty) champions, roughly 1000 fans spontaneously decided on the Austriansoccerboard forums to congregate on the Vienna Stephansplatz and celebrate - ooohhh, how I wish I could have been there! Instead, I've been wearing my SK Rapid jersey for the last couple days :-P Today, when I was making my last trip between the dorm and the new apartment must have been an interesting view: short asian guy wearing a soccer jersey (unrecognized by most here, I'm sure) and carrying a cello and a big-ass (and heavy!) bag full of food (cans etc. that roommates didn't wanna take with them) on the subway. My shoulder still hurts from lugging all that stuff :(. But back on topic:

Kommt, sagt es allen Leuten,
ruft es in die Welt hinaus,
kommt, sagt es allen Leuten,
der Meister ist in Huetteldorf zu Haus!

(a slightly modified version of the German lyrics to "go tell it on the mountains")

So a week from today is my audition for the the theory program at Mannes. I decided to go ahead with this idea...for next year, it'll only be $8000 more (instead of regular $24000 for a masters) since it'd be my secondary degree. And if I don't like it, I can always quit. We'll see how the audition goes...I'm pretty confident in the theory and analysis part, but my weaknesses right now are keyboard harmony (figured bass!) and score reading. Plus I may have to write an essay on some topic in music history/culture, like nationalism in late 19th century German music, or on Schoenberg's 12 tone system etc. And then this other prof said last week that I should be prepared to answer what aspect of theory interests me, and also have some knowledge of that area. So, this coming week I'm basically going to be hanging out at Mannes practicing piano, harmonic progressions, figured bass, and doing research in the library.

...which sucks, because on Thursday, Georg and a friend of his are coming to visit from Vienna! Should be fun - I'm thinking about taking them down to Ocean City on Sunday.

Alright, ye anonymous readers. Dat be all for today.