I am trying to do more biking, and have been tuning up and adding to my vehicle to make it useful in more situations. One recent addition is lights (front and back) for night time safety.

I hadn't done much biking at night in the past - usually only a few blocks on familiar low traffic residential streets - so I hadn't been prepared for tonight's ride home along the bike path where every few tens of meters, another cyclist would emmerge from the shadows without helmet, without light and in a few cases, without visible reflectors. What? How? Why?

Bike paths aren't very wide, and in the few cases where I was trying to pass one of these reflectorless, lightless, helmetless dark clothing wearing idiots pedalling with their knees out, I could only hope that there weren't invisible bikes in the oncoming lane.

Besides that, it was a pretty nice ride, and while I did fall off my bike, it was on a grassy patch, so nothing broke.

In case anyone is wondering, age has not made me saner.

I've just spent an hour sifting the bran out of whole wheat flour using a tea strainer all in order to make a) a base for a cheese cake, and b) whole wheat pasta that doesn't fall apart, when in fact there is white flour and non graham cookies that would work nearly as well in the kitchen already.

Apparently, this is what "vacation time" will make me do.

I don't have the papers in my sweaty little hands, but I finally received the authoritative confirmation that I have satisfied all the requirements to graduate from McGill University with a B. Mus. (Music Theory, Honours ) and a B. Sc. (Mathematics, Honours).

Wow.

I wasn't sure I could do it, and at many moments I believed both that I wouldn't make it and that I shouldn't have tried, but apparently my irrepressible stubborness and the urge to do it my way worked out in the end.

Of course, I can't help but wonder what on earth I was thinking when I agreed to all of those "learning experiences" that turned into this six year trial by the seat of my pants. Naivety is surely a big part of most surprising accomplishments.

To any one working on any degrees right now, good luck, and to those who have finished some already, congrats!

Finn

It's panic time in Finn's little world. I wish I could get things done in the time I allocate to them - study schedules only make you feel more guilty when you have to break them over and over.

I don't like deadlines, and I don't like deadline pile-ups. I hope there aren't any casualties in this collision of course work.

Finn

As it is the time for academically motivated sleep depravation, my body has started to show the wear by letting me do something magical: sing low A, as in low low A, as in 110 Hz. Though this new found power to sing bass is due to some illness inflaming my vocal folds, I am totally rocking as the coolest soprano ever.

Finn

Having just seen Persepolis, I can't help but wonder, on average, how many generations (in any region) over the last thousand years lived and died in the society they learned to expect as a child?

We have the impression that time has been moving faster in the last couple of centuries, with changes as consequences to technological innovation and political variations. Certainly peace seems short lived if ever present in many parts of the world, and within my short life time, major technological developments have changed communication opportunities and strategies, even in politically calmer areas. Given this recent record, what we are doing preparing for our current lifestyle as opposed to gathering the breadth of skills potentially applicable to our uncertain future?

Not everyone is expecting things to be peachy kean for all the world in the long term. If you haven't heard, look up what Norway is doing to protect our food crops in case of catastrophe.

Maybe I should have taken that botany class.

Finn

I think I've be come distressingly forward in my classes. After much time of acting like I know what I am doing in other parts of life, it's hard to scale back and treat teachers deferentially. Sure, I respect their experience and knowledge, but that doesn't mean I will sit there passively if they answer a question incompletely or wrong. And if I add something to what they say, it isn't to imply that I think less of them if they messed up or what ever - it's hard to think on your feet and I am just trying to help.

Well, I am trying to help as well as let out some of my ever accumulating smarty-pants steam.

Of course, I try to do this only in classes where the atmosphere is some what casual and it wouldn't necessarily be a huge waste of time to consider further information.

I wonder how bothered my peers are by this habit of mine, if at all. I mean, I am sure that some aren't comfortable with it, while others don't care. Weirdly, or perhaps reasonably, I've been finding that education students are less cool with my "authoritative" interruptions, maybe because they are more sensitive to the formal teaching dynamics.

Anyway, I'll try not to let it bother me/bother them too much. *sigh* I'm just not comfortable forgoing full disclosure or full discussion for the sake of some silly power dynamic. I mean, don't we all have expertise to share?

Finn

I have to do a presentation for my 20th century music analysis class. I am always on a mission to validate music outside of the usual canon, and I want a reason to make my class look at spectrographs (usually presented as colour indicated intensity maps of the frequency spectrum over time) instead of scores. So what can I do that will make full and good educational use of these intentions?

There is this David Bowie song, "Heroes", co-written with Brian Eno, that was reorchestrated by Philip Glass as the first movement of his fourth symphony. Aphex Twin remixed the Philip Glass version with David Bowie's vocals from the original release and, of course, his own set of adjustments. By using spectrographs of the three pieces, we can trace the mutated snipits from the first two in the last, and see the timbral character of these three different genres of music. The song is a defiant lament of lovers separated by the Berlin wall and Aphex Twin's final product evokes that scenario more directly than the other two, or so it seems to me. Why? well that is what I'll be getting into for the presentation, which I still have a couple of weeks to write it.

Anyway, I get to talk about Davie Bowie, Brian Eno, Philip Glass and Aphex Twin for credit.

*mad giggles*

I can't tell if this makes me cooler or geekier overall, but either way it will be fun, and just might make up for still having to do counter point.

Finn

I've found a new internet vice: Degrassi High:TNG

I looked it up after catching part of an episode while I was home for the holidays. The episode was the first of a two parter about two "straight" female characters falling for each other. How could I not try to find out what happened after an intro like that?

It turns out that CTV has seasons four through six free to watch on their websites, so I have means to get sucked into more mischievous high school drama with really obvious lessons about life and a high concentration of the things that go wrong in it.

*sigh* why do I have such weaknesses?

Reading the last update from crankybear, I realised that focusing on the process is likely something I too should remember.

I feel like I have been eager to get my undergrad finished for the last three years. I've been counting down the terms for quite a while, and having the end in sight feels like a big tease. I remember feeling like I was ready to be a grad student back in second year, but I am pretty sure I was wrong. I am finally beginning to recognize the difference between having ideas and doing something with them, and what I have been struggling with has been, and generally will be, the latter.

When making arguments about the value of a degree for those who don't continue along the lines of their major, the words "effort" and "work" and "achievement" often come up. For many people, it's as much about the subject as it is about demonstrating the ability to meet the demands of school. Perhaps I've been kind of slow to apply that argument to myself, but I should. I doubt I will make much use out of the four classes I'll have taken on writing counterpoint (renaissance and baroque styles), but completing them will mean that I could study and learn and apply what was asked of me, even when my motivation is not the thrill of selectively introduced dissonance as much as just getting through.

So let's see what I can learn from doing the work, instead of secretly believing it to be beneath me.

P.S. if you ever want to get humbled quick, I suggest taking up conducting. It's essentially exposing all your leadership weaknesses through arm waving and sqwaks.

CBC Archives has put together a media collection of the contraceptive pill, and item I listen to or watch disturbs me greatly. Did we really get here through the patronising kindness of male scientists? Is this deference in females, reporters and reported, still around and I've just not noticed?

Check out: http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-69-572/life_society/pill/


The radio clip of Catholic leaders responding to questions at a U of T lecture/debate in 1968, following the publication of the Pope's encyclical human life, is both painful and fascinating. You can feel the difference in education between the women questioners and the male respondents and MC, and it is amazing how thoroughly that permits condescension.

Of course, I would never, given my situation in life of time, place, and relative equality, phrase any of the questions they raised in those words, but I don't know if I could get any better answers.

Ugh. Another clip, with a scientist promoting the "monthly injectable" ends with a statements wrt the idea of a male pill that "The hormones involved are very toxic, and besides, what woman would trust her husband to take a pill everyday".

*shudder*

Finn

The snow is comming back! Yeah!

Go to see this movie. The dialogue is unnaturally awesome, and the music is totally worth it.

Finn

not surprisingly, I was late getting to my exam today. I wasn't worried about the exam, and figured that like the midterm I should be the first to finish and leave, so the time lost didn't worry me. However, I did not manage to find my calculator before hand (it's a classic gadget I've had since grade 6 that still has childhood sticker on it) and was horrified to find this physic exam, though elementary, requiring lots and lots of calculations. The whole exam took me at least an hour more than it would have otherwise because I had to do long multiplication and division over and over and over again.

Have you ever tried calculating 2^(7/12) from 2^(1/12)? Sure, the first is only the seventh power of the second, but multiplying decimal values is bothersome and awkward.

Anyway, I hope the marker notices my comment of not having a calculator. They didn't specify the degree of procession in the exam or question instructions, so they shouldn't be taking off marks if my calculations turn out to be slightly deviant. There were only two questions where I had to pretend that 2 = 2.034, which isn't so bad, right?

*sigh* no one uses calculators in math exams. Why do they think musiciens need to be able to use them?

Finn

In 12 hours I will have finished the partial differential equations exam. Studying for this has been an exercises in quasi-paniqued exasperation. This class was very badly taught, the notes were badly prepared, the idea construction process left too much opaque for too long, the text book was not inappropriate for the level of students in the class, but it was light years ahead of the prof's teachings, and don't even get me started on the assignment dates and solutions that either don't exist or answer easier questions than we were asked.. I know I always complain about math pedagogy before an exam, but seriously, this was not well done. It did not help that the prof couldn't understand questions from students because of language barrier issues. Put all of this in a classroom that always puts me to sleep, and we have a miserable term of feeling both overqualified and underprepared for any assessment. My bad habits around assignments submission and collection means that I have no idea what my mark is going into this exam, but I am not too hopeful either. If this class was so badly done, how aweful is this exam going to be? I feel like my "honours" for my math degree is hanging in the balance of this class, and from here, the future isn't all that bright.

Well screw all that. Tomorrow morming, I am going to chortle my way throught this exam. Yes, that's right, I laugh in the face of applied mathematics. Serious, I usually get a kick out of math exams, unless I am seriously dreading them, and in this case, I am passed caring, so Fun Times, here we come. Yee-Haw!

Is it weird to feel that at twenty four I am finally growing up?

hmph, maybe it's just a phase I am going through.

Egads, what if adolescence is a periodic phenomenon?

Finn

Since my back has been aching, I though it would help my concentration if I went swimming today, but now I am sleepy and ache all over. *sigh*

at least I am in a pretty library and can watch the snow fall outside.

Finn

Since coming home from the SMT conference on Sunday, my life has seen a lot of big time changes. Like so many revelations, these have demanded chunks of time to be processed when I don't have time to spare (but who needs to attend lectures, really? That's what published notes are for, and this way I don't get annoyed at the prof for skipping things, misleading us students or being too slow.)

The conference in Baltimore was awesome and hugely affirming. Now, when I say awesome, it is not to suggest that huge new insights were found and shared with the music theory community - it was more like business as usual. The experience was awesome though, in that context giving way that made it clear that I could enjoy being part of this academic field and I could even contribute to it. It was lovely to feel like it was the ideas that mattered, more than the academic rank or name, and if I had good ideas, or as is more likely good questions, those were appreciated, even from an unvetted undergraduate. Speaking of which, I did met one other undergrad there, though only briefly, and she was interested in music informatics stuff which was cool. Anyway, I think all of the university politicking has done me good because I didn't feel intimidated by the professorial environment and felt free to participate in question periods and interest group meetings. The social periods were awkward up until I wandered into the Yale party to chat up a visiting mathematician, but I generally feel uncomfortable with cocktail times.

Through this experience I also realised that there are piles of books I need to read before I can start contributing responsiblity to this academic discipline, and if I am going to be a productive academic, there are a few methodological issues I need to work out too. Being a student means following someone else's learning regime, and while I have gotten a lot out of learning with and through others, I haven't had the chance to work things through to my satisfaction, or even discover what it would take to satisfy my standards, as they have been effectively irrelevant to the process. And, if I am going to be an academic, I want to be sure that I am motivated to learn and explore the field on my own as well as within a community.

An idea that has been bothering me for ages is the privilege of academic life. I have the opportunity to spend my life chasing and sharing ideas that I love because of the huge unbalance of opportunity that exists in the world today and that which has supported the "advancement" of western society over the last few centuries. In many ways, I don't think universities should exist, I firmly believe that the post secondary education system is propagating a misguiding elitism and is "manufacturing" too many degrees, and yet, here I am clamouring to take part?

If I thought I was just studying music and the mind because "well, why not?" then I would not be comfortable proceeding through the accreditation system that is graduate work. But this conference convinced me that I study this because a) I can't help it and b) I actually have something to add, insights to share, knowledge to generate. So, for the love of knowledge, which is a little bit cleaner than the love of money or fame (though not much, I admit) I am going to keep working towards becoming a researcher/professor. And if I am going to do that, I want to be sure I am taking the best path, and that I am learning whole heartedly, as opposed to this half assed passing of courses that we can do in undergrad.

To "make sure" that I am doing this right, and to find my own motivation and work systems, I am taking a year off before applying to grad schools. This year will be kind of like a sabbatical, where I try to learn and research all that stuff that I didn't have time or the concentration for during the last six years in a university. So this means that I don't plan on spending it trapsing around the world (though some traveling to connferences is likely).

I know myself well enough to realise that as soon as I arrive in a new academic community, I will get wrapped up in that newness and communitiness, getting involved and playing around instead of taking care of the holes I see in my educational background. So I am trying to take care of some of those holes before going off to the next stage.

My impression for histories is that the great contributors to the world of thought didn't treat the subject as work, or school. Their hunger for understanding was an integrated need, not a professional habit, and with a little time and space, I could cultivate that ravenous curiosity. That on it's own won't make me great, but it might help justify running with the privilege I have already, and time will tell how useful a process that will be.

It's nice to feel like I am fitting in somehow at the conference I am attending this weekend, but it also is weird to be very specifically underqualified. I probably reak of keaner newness, but people seem very forgiving thus far. I particularly like the interest group meetings because you can be a little closer to the people that are actually experts in the areas you think are cool.

Why do I have to go about getting "credentials"? can't I just go talk and collaborate with people over good ideas? This system of proving oneself through academic hardship seems sadistic from this angle, and I don't need to the show that I am interested. Nor do I want to go through someone else telling what I should and shouldn't study. There is plenty I have already identified myself.

hmm - I wonder if I can do a reading course next semester on all those books I realise I should have read before coming.

It also seems that at lot of the grad students here moving about in packs, not venturing off in new directions individually. Maybe I don't see the advantage because I can't find a posse that like the things I do, but I can't help but feel that it is harder to make an impression and get noticed (which is totally a part of why we attend these things) when you are just a face in a crowd.

I am kind of shocked at how there seems to be classes of participants, specficially the question askers and the non-questions askers. I am sure you can guess which is larger. Most of the talk I have attended
are dominated by the usual suspects with very good comments, by an large, and huge swaths of quiet attendees. Why don't they have things to say as well? I nearly always have questions, though often less than good ones, so it just confuses me to see so many receptive but seemingly unproductive minds in one place. Isn't this their field, their passion, their bread and butter? I realise that people not asking doesn't mean that they aren't thinking, so maybe it is a cultural issue more than a capacity one, but still, not so cool. Ah well, at least it lets me stand out in more ways than by my hair colour.

Finn