Rehearsal

Rehearsal: the act of practicing in preparation for a performance.

This week, I've been thinking of the importance of rehearsal -- both in terms of music rehearsal and in terms of life rehearsal.

The music rehearsal thoughts:

Well, last week my handbell stand partner fell and broke her wrist. She's a strong ringer and a person who brings a lot of personality and life to the group (actually, everyone in the group brings a lot of personality and life to the group...but a group suffers anytime one member suffers). We've found ways to compensate for her absence as her wrist heals, but it's going to be a long and difficult process for the group. Our rehearsals are going to require added concentration, extra effort, and probably extra time.

And I feel guilty, because I'm planning on missing a rehearsal in a couple of weeks. This seems like the scummiest thing that I can do at this point in time. But the alternative is to spend only 1.5 days (instead of a more reasonable amount of time) with my family, who I haven't seen since Christmas and probably won't see again until August. That also seems scummy (and very undesirable). I'm feeling pressured and guilty and I want to try to figure out a way to be at that rehearsal and spend a decent amount of time with my family, but it's just not feasible.

The life rehearsal thoughts:

Yeah. I've decided that the line between "rehearsal" and "performance" in life is really, really blurred, and perhaps nonexistent. Sometimes I take the view that a lot of life experiences serve to prepare us for future life experiences. And other times I take the view that a lot of life experiences that feel preparatory in nature are actually performances in and of themselves. This week I've decided, very informally, that these two views are not mutually exclusive: rehearsals are performances and performances are rehearsals.

At first, it feels sort of odd to think of a rehearsal as a performance. But it is, really -- in rehearsal you are supposed to try your best with the intention of noticing yucky things that you should work on perfecting later. And a true rehearsal is one in which you are somehow evaluated on your performance in the rehearsal -- either by yourself or by some observer or director. Honest and genuine feedback is a necessary and desirable component of rehearsal. So you really should treat the rehearsal as a performance.

And at first, it feels sort of odd to think of a performance as a rehearsal. But unless you expect that performance to be your absolute last one, the performance becomes a rehearsal for future performances. Your mistakes, instead of being annoying or "something you just need to work on," really really sting. And the praise you receive, instead of being nice or welcome, can make you float and can stick with you for years. But the emotional load that feedback from a performance takes serves only to make your upcoming rehearsals and performances more directed and more productive.

But the intertwining of rehearsal and performance in life is painful. Because when you realize that you've messed up in rehearsal, you realize later, to great chagrin, that what you thought was rehearsal was actually a performance.

Well, actually, it was both.

Truth cannot contradict Truth

One thing I fully appreciate is when a person is willing to enter into the craziness that is my life and help me work through my thoughts, confusions, and struggles. Last night I called a friend from college and basically yelped "Help!!" And the result was one of the coolest conversations I've had in a long time.

We didn't "solve" anything. In fact, I think we both walked away from the conversation a bit more confused than we were to begin with. But I'm okay with that, temporarily at least. Why? Because the process of the conversation itself was so cool.

The basic topic of conversation was: What do I agree with and disagree with in the Catholic Church? My friend, who is the "type" of Catholic that I am (hm, a "liberal" but devout Catholic), has views that often match mine. As a consequence, he became pretty engaged in the discussion and we set out to work together to challenge ourselves on this topic.

It's difficult to explain the type of interaction that we had, but it felt challenging and directed yet exploratory. We asked questions. We compared our answers with the stated answers of the Church. We articulated hypothetical sitations to ponder. We made up multiple definitions of words and then tried to figure out which definition was most plausible, most frequently used, or most correct. We ranted about views that felt offensive, yet contemplated their ultimate merit. When we disagreed, we tried to figure out why we each held to our particular view. We made up more hypothetical situations. We considered the effects that experience, emotion, and logic were having on our answers. And we asked more questions.

My friend raised a particularly interesting question in the midst of all of this discussion: Does God judge someone based on their ability to understand?

A slightly different way of phrasing the above question: Is there a "middle ground" somewhere between accepting and rejecting an idea? If you don't reject an idea, have you necessarily accepted it? If you don't accept an idea, have you necessarily rejected it? What effect, for example, does ignorance have on your basic ability to accept or reject an idea?

As a nerdy tangent, I thought about these sorts of issues (on a much nerdier basis) in topology class in college. Given a topological space, there exist open sets and closed sets, but they aren't necessarily exhaustive categories. For example, depending on the topology you're working with, you can have sets that are neither open nor closed. The way this comes about is that neither open nor closed are defined as the opposite as each other, but are each defined based on specific criteria. You have to meet a certain set of criteria to be open, and you have to meet a different set of criteria to be closed. Is the acceptance or rejection of an idea similar in that each requires a certain meeting of criteria? Or are acceptance and rejection of an idea similar to how we define "open" and "closed" in relation to doors -- where a door can only either be open or closed?

Canonical puzzles

Happy Birthday, J.S. Bach!!

Bach was born on March 21, 1685. The man was a musical genius. GENIUS. In his lifetime, he was known primarily for his tremendous ability to play the organ -- and he was especially known for his improvisation skills on the instrument. On at least one occasion, he generated and played a 3-part fugue on the spot! There are rumors that he improvised a 6-part fugue, but the evidence is not solid -- that would be beyond the capacity of any modern composer, I'm told.

Here are some fun facts about the guy:

- Bach was a devout Lutheran. At the end of almost every one of his compositions, he wrote the letters "SDG," for Soli Deo Gloria ("To God alone be the glory").

- In 1705, Bach walked 260 miles to hear the famous organist Buxtehude play. To make this journey, he took a month's absence from his job.

- Bach was once thrown in jail for a month because his employer at the time didn't like that Bach had accepted a new job.

- Bach was a prolific composer. He was also a prolific...father. He and his first wife (his cousin, ew) had 7 children together. After she died, he married Anna Magdelena and together they had 13 children. That's 20 children in total! Sadly, 11 died as young babies. :(

- Bach enjoyed creating and solving musical puzzles.

- Bach incorporated lots of symbolism and code into his music. As one small example, he inserted his "musical signature" in many of his pieces. His musical signature was, well, his last name: B-A-C-H. In the German music notation system, "B" = B flat and "H" = B natural. So to add his signature, he would simply weave the 4-note motif (B-flat, A, C, B natural) somewhere into his piece. He also incorporated statements of his faith and belief in God into his music.

- The Bible that Bach owned and scribbled notes in was found in Frankenmuth, Michigan!! Go here for the story.

- Bach's comment on playing the organ: "There's nothing to it. You simply hit the right notes at the right times and the instrument plays itself." :)

To commemorate this special day, I am listening to Bach's "Goldberg Variations" while working. However, my favorite Bach composition of all time (thus far -- I've probably only heard 5% of his music) is his "Little" Fugue in G minor. I was introduced to that piece in elementary school. My elementary school music teacher wanted to teach us the concept of a "fugue," and he used Bach's fugue in G minor to accomplish the task. We all listened to the piece together and were told to listen for the reentries of the fugal theme. Every time a new voice (part) entered with the main fugue theme, my teacher placed a pacman on the blackboard. When the final booming bass voice entered with the the theme, he placed a huge pacman on the board and it gobbled up the others.

I can't listen to that piece now without envisioning the little pacmen. I'm sure that Bach is proud. :)

Multitasking

My outfit for today is a green and white t-shirt, jeans, green and white earrings, and green and white shamrock socks. Yes, I am a geek -- I like to wear holiday colors on holidays (green or red on Christmas, red or pink on Valentine's day, etc.). But I am proud of myself today for being so efficient in meeting (via my outfit) the multiple requirements of today:

- It is St. Patrick's Day, and I definitely am wearing an abudance of green and white. The shamrock socks add a particularly nice touch, in my opinion.

- MSU plays George Mason today in the basketball tournament. By wearing green and white, I am showing support for MSU -- Go State!

- Bucknell plays Arkansas today in the basketball tournament. Although I'm not wearing orange and blue, my t-shirt is a Bucknell t-shirt. It reads "Bucknell Houseparty. Old enough to know better. Still too young to care." Hehe. 'Ray Bucknell!

Reacting appropriately to life

Here are two interesting and funny (as usual) but really kindof sad articles from The Onion. More than just interesting and funny, though, I think they're pretty thought-provoking.

Rotation of Earth Plunges Entire North American Continent Into Darkness

Poverty-Stricken Africans Receive Desperately Needed Bibles

In the first article, I hate to admit it, but I actually can identify with overreacting to everyday events. You're all shocked, I know. I don't know how to change that part of me. At least I've almost grown out of being scared of the dark.

In the second article, I can identify with using well-meaning but not direct enough approaches to try to solve problems I see with life.

Both of these articles are parodies of the interesting ways in which we humans sometimes react to circumstances in life. Sometimes I wonder what the correct response really is, though. And are overreacting and using indirect approaches worse than not responding at all?

World, meet Ghengis.

A group of my friends gets together once a week to play strategic board games, and I typically have a great deal of fun there. Last week, in the middle of a long and frustrating game, my one friend mentioned that in order to do better at the game I simply needed to unleash "my inner warlord." Amused at the whole notion, I playfully wondered outloud if my inner warlord has a name. My friend, without hesistation, replied "Ghengis."

Although I hate it when it happens, Ghengis occasionally rears his ugly head (or "comes out to play," in the words of another friend). Here are some observations that I've collected on the behavior of Ghengis:

Ghengis comes out to play when...
1. I feel isolated (Ghengis gets most of his exercise this way)
2. I feel betrayed (Ghengis acts fiesty in these situations)
3. I am frustrated with the world
4. I feel attacked
5. I see someone hurting someone else (Ghengis becomes almost intolerable if the person doing the hurting attempts to justify his/her actions)

Ghengis either goes to sleep or is already sleeping peacefully when...
1. I have fun and laugh
2. I am really looking forward to something
3. I feel appreciated or liked
4. I believe that people actually care
5. I feel organized and on top of things
6. I have 25 lbs. of chocolate nearby

The effects on Katie when Ghengis is roaming freely (the Ghengis-Katie interaction):
1. I retreat from people or shun their advances
2. I mope
3. I simmer and occasionally lash out. I mean, Ghengis lashes out.
4. I get caught in a downward spiral. This means that if Ghengis originally comes out to play because of one of the reasons above, he continues to amuse himself with some of the other reasons.

If anyone has other observations about Ghengis, let me know. I'm currently thinking of grounding him, but he's too annoying to catch. Maybe another day.

You just never know...

Random thoughts and questions from this past weekend, in a feeble attempt to deyargh:

- Chocolate cake makes for a wonderful dinner experience. It does not make for a wonderful dinner though.

- So much can be conveyed in just one glance from across a room. People don't take advantage of this nearly enough.

- Guys, if you're getting mad because a girl dances with others because you don't ask her to dance, consider changing your strategy.

- I am actually looking forward to tackling my taxes this week. I sort of dig pretending to be an accountant for short amounts of time. My mindset will change, as usual, as soon as I remember just how bad the directions are on the tax forms.

- I don't enjoy managing people. I am not cut out for it, and I don't pretend to be cut out for it, and it generally stresses me out.

- I am a complete and total sucker for beauty and passion when it is displayed in people around me. Complete and total sucker.

- Yoshi is the best possible character in Mario Kart. Why? Because he's green and he's a dinosaur, of course. And he's the least annoying of all the characters (except when I play him, of course). ;)

- There's almost no chance in this world that I'll be able to have my wedding where I really want it to be. This bothers me immensely this week. It's sort of funny, because I don't think of myself as being that picky. Okay, who am I kidding? But still, there are things that I (really) need to work on before I decide upon a wedding site. Silly friends who get married and gush about color schemes and cakes and get me all excited. :)

- Trying to get 788 handbell ringers to ring together is no easy task. But it doesn't mean that someone shouldn't try.

- I am not good at guessing what acronyms stand for, even if given clues. :)

- It's a bad sign when you find yourself having insomnia because you're trying to figure out what was your favorite date of all time, and why. (Date as in "date experience when out on a date", not Date as in "person.")

- I have a very disorganized to-do list for this week. So as part of my to-do list for this week, should I take the time to organize my to-do list? These questions plague me. Oh well. :)

Remember THREE.

I’ve always liked the number 3. But today I’m especially fond of it:

First, I just found out today that I’ll be attending 3 weddings this summer/early fall. Two of my friends just set their date yesterday, and I’m so excited.

Second, I just found out today that I’ll be seeing 3 friends this weekend. Well, technically I’ll be seeing more than 3 friends over the course of the weekend. But these three people (2 former profs/friends, 1 non-prof friend) in particular I haven’t seen in a long long time. The last time I saw one of them was May 19, 2002. That’s a long time ago!! :)

Third, today is officially the start of Lent, so I’m thinking a bit more about the number 3 in the context of the Trinity.

I always thought that the number 3 sounded pretty small. But today I’m struck by the notion that the number 3 can sometimes seem pretty large. Yep, pretty large indeed. Today, 3 is definitely large enough to fill me with excitement. Or maybe 3 just seems especially large today because this morning my officemates and I had a stimulating discussion about yoctoseconds. :)