Slightly Related Items of Interest

To make up for a lack of posts, I'm doing double duty tonight. Here are two random, but somewhat related items from Youtube.
*



*I would just like to say that while I'm mostly a-political* and I do my best to keep this blog neutral** I wanted to post this video because it really brings home what it's like to be gay and not have the right to get married because of that fact. Again I seldom touch on this stuff because I don't feel it's my place to proselytize to my readers, but just think what it would be like if you had to ask over a 300 million people*** if you could get married to the person you love. :shrugs:
*I believe in a democratic system and all and I consider myself a liberal but...after eight years of a douche for president you're either going to be extremely active in politics or shun it all in my opinion
**Two of the closest friends I've had have been deeply conservative. They're good guys and I value my friends, so I had to learn pretty quick how to keep my mouth shut because losing friends over something you don't care about is stupid.
***According to Population Finder the estimated population in the US for 2008 was 304,059,724. The estimated of population of VA (where I am) is 7,769,089. So yeah.

Completely Off Topic

But still amusing to me. I found this tid bit of information at List Universe and was glad to know that what I'm hearing is real. So here's the tid bit:

Intrusive R and Linking R are pronunciations of the letter ‘r’ in English dialects that don’t generally pronounce a final ‘R’ (such as New Zealand English). For example, in these dialects, when saying “don’t go far” – the word “far” has a silent ‘r’ – but the ‘r’ is pronounced in the sentence “he is far away”. This linking ‘r’ smooths out the phrase. Intrusive ‘r’ is when an ‘r’ is added where one doesn’t exist at all – as in the case of “Africa or England” – this would be pronounced “Africar-or-England”.

This principle also applies to "saw" and "idea" but I find "saw" much more amusing because it sounds like they're saying "sawr" which isn't a word and therefore highly amusing. I think this is a strange hold over from the Norman conquests because they French are all about making everything sound really smooth. So yeah, that's my exam week interruption. I'm going to watch Mock the Week and Firefly, completely ignoring the fact that I have a music history exam I probably should be studying for. Until next time, don't panic, like me, and go "oooommmm."

Tired End of the Semester Rambling

I'm going to make something of an admission which, if you look at the entries over the past three months(ish) shouldn't come as much of a shock: This has been the most stressful semester of my college career. The odd thing is that it's been stressful not because of the classes I'm taking but because I've procrastinated on so much of the work I have to do for those classes. And I think the reason I procrastinated more this semester than in previous semesters is twofold but basically comes down to one thing: applying to study abroad. In the first half of the semester I procrastinated* because I was stressed about applying to Westminster. When I found out that I had gotten into Westminster I procrastinated because, as much as I knew I needed to do the work, I just didn't give a damn. Of course I'm a horrible procrastinator to begin with, but this semester has been truly appalling. As an example I finished my Mozart paper about an hour before it was due. For me, that's terrible. I don't like doing that because it causes me to lose sleep, but I just didn't care enough, so I put it off. But just thinking about this semester and looking at entries from the past few months the main theme seems to be stress and when I think about why I was stressed it largely had to do with putting off crap until the last possible second.
With the end of this semester less than a week away (four tests, one project presentation) it's been slowly dawning on me how strange next semester is going to be. And as I tried to explain to my sister it's not just because I'm going to be in a different country. Granted saying "I'm going to be in a different country" kind of covers all the bases, but it's little things that are going to be strange. Not doing my radio show, not having band or chorus at their normal hours. Not seeing a certain group of people every single day, not having breakfast as Seaco. Not playing the clarinet or having a private lesson every week. No more randomly running into friends on college walk or trying to not stare at every one who walks past me (Yes, I'm weird.) Just weird little things that, yes, do get covered by not being at Mary Wash, but whose I'm absences I will feel nonetheless. I've been banking on having some kind of breakdown as my departure date gets closer, but I keep thinking about all the things I'll miss but it's more of a mental exercise than me actually missing them. I guess that will come in time, but I wish I was acting a little more sad than I am right now. I suppose that will come with time as well.
I think either my sleep debt is finally catching up with me or I'm getting sick because I'm just so tired. Ridiculously tired. And if I am getting sick, I'm going to be well pissed because now is not the time to be getting sick. So let's hope it's just my sleep debt.

Big Ball of Stress

So this week has gone from mildly frustrating to "Oh my god, why does the world hate me so very, very much?" in the matter of about five hours. I haven't been updating on Twitter or Facebook because they only way I can describe my current state of mind is by making strangled noises of frustration and then curling up in the fetal position. I just want this week to go away and not come back ever, ever again. Of course all of this means that I've been listening to Mika non-stop since this morning because clearly listening to a strange amalgamation of techno/pop/glam is the best way to deal with the massive amounts of stress I'm under right now. Funny thing though is that my roommate said that I don't worry about anything. Oh how wrong she is about that. I worry, I just don't let people know (thanks Dad!) unless of course they read this blog. Then they get to hear about it all the freakin' time.
First major stresser this week is a paper I have due on Thursday in music history. One of the key resources we need for said paper has been checked out by a mysterious entity who is not in our class. There's a neat little summary on Google books and I can kind of glean some stuff from various reviews of the book, but seriously. I just want to glance over the real thing so I can accurately describe what all the hubbub is about. But no, no luck there. Thankfully it's a not a very long paper and there are other sources I can talk about in more depth, but...I just want the book to come back so I don't have to worry about it.
Second major stresser is that I've been waiting for weeks now to hear about boarding at Westminster. I get a neat little email this morning fro, the housing officer at Westminster saying that they haven't heard from me and that I missed the deadline. However if I can get my paperwork in by Friday all will be well. I didn't get an email. I don't have the paperwork. And the housing officer guy hasn't responded to the email I sent him this morning. Now I realize there's a four hour time difference, but seriously. I sent it at 10am EST which would be 2pm GMT. He had time to respond to my email, or at least in my mind he should have had time to respond to my email. And what if I don't hear from him soon? Will I not get a room because of some clerical error or whatever? Then what will I do? :makes gargled frustrated noise:
I also had a tiff with my mom last night over a power cord I ordered almost a month ago that got delayed. I try not to argue with my mom as much as possible because in her mind she is always right and I am always stupid. So in an effort to not have a fight about the layout of the Dell website (which is frustrating and stupid, like most tech websites) I just tried to move on. She wouldn't let it go, so I had to say, in a loud voice, "anyway" just to get her to let go. It's just...aaargh.
Then of course there was my jury last night. Thankfully I didn't almost cry this time, so in comparison to last year's jury, much better. However I'm very glad I won't be doing this again. Very, very, very, glad.
So that's it. I hate this week almost as much as it hates me and I have my last radio show on Wednesday. Thank god I already made up the play list otherwise the show wouldn't be happening. I'm now going to play solitaire and listen to Mika. Because that's how I roll.

Edit: Westminster rooming situation has righted itself, thank god. And my Mom decided to buy me a copy of the book I need for my paper. Which may or may not get to me in time to be useful. In which case, I have a book on Mozart's Requiem that I really don't need. So yeah, one less stressor is still a good thing.

The Day After Thankfullness

It's the day after Thanksgiving and since I spent most of yesterday wishing it would be today, I'm going to list what I'm thankful for this year. It's largely the same as last year, with a few minor changes.

• My music, without which I would have little reason to be sane
• British panel shows which keep me amused and teach me things I would not have known otherwise
• My sister, who's the only member of my family I can stand for longer than an hour
• Getting into Westminster, because it means so much to my future and my sanity
• My friends, who I will miss desperately when I'm over in London
• Facebook and Twitter, which will allow me to keep in touch with the friends I will be missing desperately while I'm over in London
• The radio station and all the people involved in the radio station, which will hopefully still be around and intact when I get back next fall

So those are the reasons I'm thankful for eating massive amounts of food. And now back to watching Bones.

Ridiculous Human Being Continued

Here's the transcript from the round I mentioned in my last entry. Enjoy. And keep in mind that Ryan mumbles a bit (and has a rather thick accent.)

Ricky: was it because a) there weren't enough tour buses to transport her hangers on, b) five of her dancers fell ill after sampling deep-fried Mars bars for the first time or c) her trademark ostrich feather cloak was impounded at Glasgow airport customs.

(Bill talks about the ridiculousness of having a trademark ostrich feather cloak)

Ryan: It's actually b, because although that sounds like the most ridiculous one, you know the deep-fried Mars bar, if it's a or c then she's just a ridiculous human being (goes on to explain why a and c are more ridiculous than b)

Ridiculous Human Being

Before I post what I'm going to post I need to explain the origin of one of my favourite phrases. "Ridiculous human being" comes from an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, specifically the one Ricky Wilson hosted in series 18. For those of you who don't pay attention, NMTB is split up into four rounds, with three of the rounds being set in stone (one being the intros round, the second to last one being an ID parade of some sort and the last being next lines [I give you a line in a song, you give the line after it]). The first round of the show, however is up for grabs. In the episode that Mr. Wilson hosted the first round asked the panelists why a certain artist had to cancel a show or tour. Bill's team, which consisted of a DJ none of you have heard of (Colin Murray) and Ryan Jarman, where asked why Missy Elliot had to cancel a Glasgow show. The choices they were given are as follows: There weren't enough tour buses to hold her "massive entourage," one of her back-up dancers became sick after sampling a deep-fried Mars bar for the first time, or her ostrich feather cloak was impounded by customs*. While trying to figure out which answer was the correct one (it was the tour bus one) Ryan Jarman declared that if the answer had to do with the ostrich feather cloak, that would make Missy Elliot a ridiculous human being. So there, that's the origin of my favourite phrase to describe myself and most pop stars. Every time I say that phrase in my head I hear Ryan Jarman's voice. Anyway, onto the posting of things.
A friend of mine recently got into Mika's new album, much to my joy and happiness. And, like any sane person, the first song she really got into was "We Are Golden" (because that's what sane people do.) On her blog, when telling the world of her love of that song, she decided to embed a YouTube video of just the audio track because the actual video of the song was too fabulous for her. I wanted to point out that all of Mika's videos are fabulous, but decided against because I didn't want to explode her brain. However, I do feel the need to post the video for his new single before Thanksgiving break starts (aka before my last show) because I think it's the most ridiculous thing I've seen, save for the video for Bad Romance but really Lady Gaga is just her own category of ridiculous. So, in conclusion, Mika and Lady Gaga are both ridiculous human beings. As am I. Enjoy**.
Rain (with spiders!!!***)

*This entire section was done from memory which either means a) I've watched that episode way too many times or b) some of the information might be incorrect. I'm going to watch the epi. later and will tell you which it is.
**People need to tell him to stop dancing, or give him some proper choreography. My brain can't take much more, eventually it will explode. 0_0
***Oh "Vienna," you never fail to amuse me. Also, no spiders, just...watch the video.

I'm Becoming More Fabulous By the Day

Somewhere deep inside of me lives a three year old exhibitionist. Due to social norms and other things, that exhibitionist doesn't get out very much. However, when it grows up it wants to be Karen O. For now it will just have to revel in the glory of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video. For it is spectacular. I'm not a huge fan of Lady Gaga's music, but I respect her outlandish fashion sensibilities and blatant referencing of the Mighty Boosh. That's it. I have another blog to update and will hopefully be getting to bed early so I can wake up early. We shall see. Until then, don't panic.

What? Okay I'll Update...

It started raining on Wednesday, which is my excuse for not updating for over a week. The rain and cold made me sad, and not much happened. Not a lot has happened in the past few days to really warrant an update. There was new Doctor Who, but mostly it just made me excited for the series two-part finale. Hurrah for crazy John Simm. I watched a lot of BBC/movie adaptations of Jane Austen novels (Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.) Didn't nearly fall asleep during my radio show, but did have it on shuffle, which always makes me feel slightly guilty, but on the other hand I am essentially lazy so...yeah. Stephen Fry was on Bones which made me exceedingly happy, but then it was all dark and cold so the happiness didn't last for very long. Went out to dinner on Friday with some music major peoples which was fun and quite nummy. Bemoaned to Ana that I don't need a preview of British weather two months in advance, that I'll get use to it when I'm there. Saturday was Jane Austen day/complain to my sister about how frustrating my room mate can be at times. Sunday I worked on the analysis paper that was due today, mainly by transcribing into Finale the piano reduction from the adagio movement of Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet. I finally finished the entire transcription this morning, but somehow managed to finish the paper at a reasonable time last night. There was a pre-departure orientation for study abroad which was when I wrote a large chunk of my analysis paper because I know not to act like a dumb American and more about British culture than I really should. Thank you panel shows. Then there was DW which as I said before just made me excited for the Christmas/New Year's specials because I <3 crazy!John Simm. I also bought beer, some of which I plan on consuming tonight, something I've not done since I turned 21 (the buying part, not the consuming. I've consumed.) There's another analysis paper due next Monday but I'm far less concerned about that mainly because it's not due until Monday and I've already done the heavy lifting (Forte analysis). I also have a chorus concert this Sunday, but again less concerned with that because it's not until Sunday. Oh procrastination, what have you done to me? So that's it. I'll update when something happens.