Mitraillette #713

Because she can.

• Grading parties at Moe Joe's with Jay (and Sherri when she's not under the weather) are making me almost as productive as I used to be in A*burn!
• Laura the cat/housesitter came over today for her Frontline tutorial with Sam & Lucy - it went pretty well altho both of them looked at me like, "No fair changing the rules of the game. Everyone knows you're supposed to do that at night so that we know when to hide."
• Still unseasonably cool in the Upst*te - might have a rather seamless climate re-acclimation (kee) this year when I get to France.
• Jay has been showing me his graphic communications students' final projects - how wonderful it must be to have students really keen on what you're teaching and the majority eager to do a great job, and THAT for more than just their GPA. Hmmm.
• I really want to sing the Mendelssohn "Ich wollt meine lieb" aka "I would that my love" as a duet with Susan Ch*ndler after I get back, either as a potential piece for UU (Elaine suggested for Valentine's Day service) or just for fun. Sent her a YouTube sample the other day, don't yet know if it's piqued her interest. I think we would sound great.
• My dream of being skinny before Paris did not come to fruition. Spring break totally messed up my workout momentum (and my schoolwork momentum for a long while too actually). Crap.
• Not that it matters; I'll be so broke this time that I won't have money for any fun French clothes anyway (the biggest reason for being skinny there). 
• Way to look at the bright side, Susan!
• Oh, I'm all over silver linings, y'all.
• Already missing the kits; must stop thinking about that. What's that quote about regret being the most wasted emotion? Dread should probably be #2.
• Sammers has decided he likes those Alessi thin breadsticks as much as I do. He is a much bigger pest when I'm eating those than with anything else. Ice cream is a distant second, and beyond that he really doesn't pay attention. Get those breadsticks tho and you'll have a certain tawny cat climbing all over you.
• Do you feel caught up on Susanfixes?
• I'll keep trying. There's REAL hope that the blogging is on the upswing again; I've been writing letters and journaling the last few weeks almost as much as before the great Clemson Funk set in. As I told my cousin Beth in an email this eve, the Susan-in-France postcard machine might even be back in business (systematically sent regular pc's to all and sundry every single overseas trip prior to 2009 - rather spoiled everyone actually). 
• On verra.

Bai.

Part 1. Modesty Be Damned; Part 2. Susan the Perfectionist, some will say; the Most Qualified Critic, I say :)

I posted this on FB also but here I'll go ahead and say that I'm quite proud of my still being able to hit a high G this many years after high school and with so many intermittent long periods of No Real Singing.

Couple of rough spots but it's an incredibly difficult piece - overall we sound pretty good and I'm very proud of all my notes except that last high D :( . It makes no sense to me that it would sound so awful when my high E sounds fantastic :) and high G sounds Quite Respectable if a little reedy. Anyway, mine's the voice on top as you listen - hopefully it is blending most of the time and can only really be heard individually on my long high holds, where it is not supposed to blend as much.



The biggest difference between singing in HS and college and now is that I'm HUGELY nervous now and never was before. The nervousness tightens my throat which is why this piece went crappy on my end, I felt. I just never got opened up all the way to get on top of the notes that would have been the most fun :(  Still I love the piece and I had mentioned it to a bunch of you. So here.



Sherri and I want to do it again sometime - maybe by then my throat butterflies will have dissipated. I'll post if it turns out better :)

tee hee

Doing comparative and superlative with the 104s the other day we asked the standard question about how many MP3s they had (then progressed to who had more than whom, who had the most, the least, etc.) The most any of the students had was 6000.

Tee hee.

I have 11,600.

Who's hip NOW?

Camille

I happened upon this accidentally last spring; first view of Camille.


Or click here if that one is making your eyes water.

Still one of my faves of hers.

This is probably my favorite clip of "Ta Douleur" (the one from the crazy anti-knitting vid).

Or non-eyewatery version au cas où.

Camille

Mystery Bill

Once in a while I learn something new about myself. The last few days I learned that while I hate blog lurkers I also hate commenters who don't make themselves fully known.

Do you know who Bill is? I don't know that many Bills; here are my choices:

• Bill in "Wedding Bell Blues" - fictitious character or maybe Billy Davis Jr. (and if so, no idea why he wouldn't be out doing something exciting with Marilyn McCoo instead of reading random blogs)
• Mr. Bill - definitely a fictitious character, altho highly entertaining
• Bill the Cat - another fiction, another source of huge entertainment (secretly hoping it's this one)
• Bill B. - BB expert and savior
• Bill W.Chauga Bill (post-posting correction requested by Bill in question) - hiking buddy extraordinaire who doesn't usually call me Susan and who denies being the Bill in question
• Bill M. - high school/hometown friend and Real Live private eye who never calls me Susan
• Bill S. - husband of former coworker at the Book Stop who used to call me Susan but with whom I haven't talked in many years
• Another Bill S. - husband of prof/friend/mentor from Aub*rn who calls me Susan but who I'm sure has more fun things to do in his retirement than read silly blog babble
• Bill J. - from high school who I haven't seen since 1983 or so and who never would have called me Susan
• Bill F. - brother of friend John F. - never met him so I doubt he'd be reading my blog even tho his brother has been known to lurk here occasionally
• Bill, as in "I'm just a" - song character and/or political tool - one sings so presumably it could read but I doubt it's reading my blog, the other doesn't read but instead is read... or not, approved, or not, etc., again probably too busy to read blogs if it could indeed read
• Omitted Bills - elementary school Bills (really they were Billys) and probably some forgotten Bills from Howard's or Longbranch or Uptown at BG... among others I'm sure...

Bills (and other people) should let a person know who they are if they're going to comment on a person's blog, or maybe they should just comment completely anonymously so a person knows they shouldn't wonder who the Bill is. Or they could start blogging at least so their Blogger profile bears a little fruit when a person clicks on it and so Mutual Stranger Blog Reading can occur. It's only fair, moi je pense.



And no, Bill, this is not a proposal. Just a still-rockin' song.

If we never find out who Bill is I guess at least he has afforded us all a few minutes of nostalgic fun with the 5th Dimension (assuming you all are old enough for that).

Don't stop believin'...

Who knew I was going to go to Paris with a bunch of Journey fans?! There are numerous fun concerts while we're there, it turns out, and most of the students are planning on going to two or more, but one person saw during our orientation meeting last week that Journey would be among them.

I had time for about half of a wistful thought, partly wondering if it would be lame to do such an un-French thing while over there and partly wondering who in their right mind would want to go see my favorite high school band with me, when three or four students all started clamoring for ticket info and, upon seeing my own eyes already lit up, someone decided to make it a quasi-official group outing (well we won't be using program fees for it but still...) avec le prof!

So in case deplaning in Paris and living there for the next 6 weeks weren't enough of a way to make this year's birthday season special, I'll call the concert an additional belated offering. I'm just sorry Steve Perry won't be there.

We conducted the rest of our meeting with internet recordings of "Faithfully" and "Any Way You Want It" playing in the background, and occasionally re-teased one member for having thought Journey responsible for that age-old classic: "Eye of the Tiger." Nyernt nyernt.

When all else fails turn on some music...

Recent tweet from Andy about Amazon's free music offerings...

Don't Taunt the Fear Demon, or: Mitrailleuse to Celebrate a Good Mood and Some Darn Fun Zapatitos

Albeit journaly...
No idea what sparked the mood change (we're talking spiritual 180 in the space of about the last 25 minutes, and no, the wine was not started til 2 minutes ago) but here goes anyway...

• The continued good fortune of having a tech-addicted friend :) - Andy is selling me his old ipod and his old camera. I had been contemplating purchasing a nano and a new digital camera before France so I would (a) not have to drag my (teeny but still...) exterior hard drive across the pond in order to have more than a first-generation Shuffle's worth of music with me and (b) have halfway decent pix upon my return to the USofA.
• Freshly-vacuumed house. Ahhhh.
• Watching my favorite Buffy ("Once More, With Feeling" of course) and only moderate work planned for tonight (even tho lots more was left at school but we're s'posed to be bein' positive here) so looking forward to a reasonably early turn-in and probably close to 7! hours' sleep.
• Laughing at the kits with their newest toy. They recently decimated the last of our little round rabbit fur balls-on-a-string. On a whim I tied one of Miss Lucy's pajama strings onto it and you wouldn't believe the hours of fun.
• Very slight chance one of the French Table students might house/catsit... depends on whether she gets accepted for an internship she applied for or not. Not to wish ill on anyone but... well we'll just be patient. (har)
• Kinda impressed at my vinaigrette skills which apparently have not stagnated in my recent few months' stint of ranch dressing. Miam!
• Clean sheets! Is anything better?!
• Kind of in love with Sufjan Stevens. Especially since last night online I found out he knows how to fold fitted sheets. I used to be very good at this (having learned from fitted sheet folder par excellence Sara Lee Clay) but not lately for some reason.
• Equally in love with Martin Clunes, or at least with his character on William & Mary.
• About to dig into the aforementioned vinaigrette on a huge pile of romaine with a hefty bowl of cappellini with Classico Cabernet Marinara and a ton of grated parm. Yummy, not unhealthy, and a nice side of actual non-spag sauce cab.
• Very slight attitude adjustment slash reality check about life. Any shift would have to be good compared to where I've been the last couple of weeks, but this is particularly clarity-enabling, at least for now (she said cryptically, to avoid either calling the snake or looking into the proverbial mouth o' gift horse).
• Of course it might just all be thanks to my new shoes... Promised myself no clothing purchases until Paris June sales (woo hoo!) but relinquished on shoes since I needed a second pair of fun-but-comfy's for gobs o' hoofing along the metro tunnels, Louvre hallways, dog turd obstacle course boulevards and cobbled streets of Lutèce.

Sneaky post post correction alert. Bad Susan.

keep 'em guessing...

J. came in again yesterday to ask me something about Table and I again had headphones on...

J. : "Radiohead?"
S. : "No, Francis Cabrel."

Tee hee - two more disparate reaches of the music spectrum could hardly be imagined. FC is kind of a French James Taylor.

J. kind of shook his head like he might be almost ready to give up figuring me out.

Which is just as well, because I just made the same decision about myself (again) recently, too.

Har.

kinda makes me wonder 'boutcha

Well... J., the acting FR section head came in on one of his visits to our office to ask me stuff (happily, I feel OK about it now and no longer stress when I see him approach - guess I'm making progress after all around here:) and I had my headphones on (they're pretty much attached to me nowadays - I really can't work in here unless I tune out everything else - granted it's a big office and all that but I think it has more to do with my current mindset - I never used to be so distractable - oh go ahead and laugh but honest I wasn't - at least not about ambient noise, etc.!)

Anyway he's like most of us language geeks and just assumes everyone is as buried in their target language as he is (and often I am, but...) He had this really excited look on his face like he just knew I was listening to some really fun new French music as he asked me, "Ooooh, cool!! What are you listening to?!"

I waited a second as I unheadphoned my ears, then answered, deadpan:

"Radiohead."

The whole office erupted in laughter, him and me included. It was partly truly funny but it's true, too, that apparently we all need to get lives.

Now you all know I'm well-ensconced in my language-geekdom but it's funny that now everyone is wondering whether I don't have some hidden ultra-cool side to my personality...

tee hee

.....

This will make Andy happy. He's been trying to get me into Radiohead for ages and while I don't dislike them, there were only a few songs up to now that I really thought were very fun. But this live recording he sent me from NPR is tremendous.