That 'One Year Off'

Oh hi there, collarbones.

…I’m not entirely sure if this is an NSV or not, but they feel and look like they have more definition.  I really hadn’t paid attention to them before (please don’t report me on neglect), but I was just like “oh, hey, wait…cool.”

…

Yup.  Slow Monday.  (It almost feels like Sunday, except for choir practice tonight.)

Ah yeah!  First day to conduct the piano ensemble.  I should look at the music again, since I really haven’t since September (when we picked it out for the high schoolers)…hooray.

And back!

Details (probably very bad details) later.

For now, I just want to say how good it was to be practicing repertoire again.  Worked on (re-)memorizing the last few pages of Beethoven’s Sonata No 23 in F minor (Appasionata) Mvt. I for what must have been a couple of hours (if that many) today.

Note to self: why the hell did you stop learning the piece.  It’s’ freakin’ gorgeous and you were only three pages away.  ><  (The first movement, anyway.)

Also messed around with movie-music sounding improvs, haha.  I…iii….I…iii…repeat, with repetitious “fill.”

Ah, piano.

I seem to be much more keen to play and practice more when no one’s home, and at the oddest hours (I just finish about 75 minutes a little while ago before I wasted more time on Facebook just now).

Anyway.

:D

Things I still don’t need for the New Year.

Listed in order of probable purchase, should I ever get to the point where I feel like I can purchase said item without breaking my bank.

Sennheiser HD555’s.  Unnecessary.  But…sublime.

SATA DVD-RW.  Also unnecessary, because I already a perfectly good IDE cable one…but it’s just so ugly in the window I look through every few months.  (This is sarcasm.  But it’s not that expensive…less than a tank of gas.  :/)

An nVidia GTX 460.  I’m running on an ATi HD3870, which is only starting to show it’s age in the games I play.  Which is astounding.

Garmin Forerunner 310XT.  I could get the little brother 305 for about half the price, but since I haven’t actually been out there running in about…two months now, this is a moot point.

Vibram Bikila’s.  Also for the running, which hasn’t happened in a while, so…yeah.  I’d probably get these before the watch.  Maybe.  I dunno.

4-core processor / new mobo / new RAM - all in one package to upgrade this computer from 2007.  It’s grown from an E4300 to an E8400, and the entire thing here would cost around way too much money, so it’s further down the list.  I’d need all of them to upgrade any part of it, which makes for one very expensive upgrade.  I’ve got storage space and the sound card…I just need these.  And the video card.

Nikon D90, to replace my D40.  If only because I’d want one to make my 50mm prime autofocus and have a sensor cleaner built in and have option to film and get DOUBLE THE MEGAPIXELS YEAH.  (rite gais?)

With my job at the school now (and still without too many bills), I’m going to start putting parts of my paycheck into savings.  I plan to move to Austin this summer (haha…interesting stuff here) and make a living there for a year while I apply to nearby schools (UT and possibly San Marcos) for Master’s in Collaborative Piano.  For the rest of this year, I intend to accompany, teach, practice, work out, work, and hang out with friends as much as possible as well - so saving up for what could be rough times starting out would be a good thing.  Also moving might get expensive.

…I’m looking into pianos to buy, though.  I’d ideally like a baby grand (due to space issues), but with the money issue, it’ll probably be a used upright…if I can find one and can justify getting an actual piano over a good keyboard that’s similar.  (Playing on the grand for the wedding totally made me miss playing a real grand piano.  Just…just the feel of it!  Urgh.)

I need to keep working out.  I’d like to start running again.  I’d like to lose another 10 15 pounds before the summer, making 30 for the year.  I’d like to finish Beethoven’s Appassionata (No. 23, f minor).  (I need to not buy any more Magic cards, haha…which is totally doable.)  I should spend less time in WoW (though I haven’t played but two hours over the past week…it was pretty crazy for about two weeks).  Maybe I can drop my subscription to WoW.  $15/month isn’t all that much for the amount of time you can sink into it…but it…it can get to be a lot of time.

I’d like to read some more books.  Maybe get a Kindle, should I get really into it (this would fall somewhere around the video card…ish).  Lord of the Rings, some classics.  Classics being, I dunno.  Recommendations?  I’m open to suggestions.  Currently reading Brent Weeks’ “The Night Angel” series.  I’m waiting for Patrick Rothfuss’s second entry in his Kingkiller thingy, and also awaiting the fifth “The Twelve Kingdoms” books…whenever those come out.  I suppose I could reread The Wheel of Time Trilogy…but I dunno if I want to read the 11 books over again and then grab the 12th.  I’m not sure if I have the patience for that.  Also Harry Potter.  Again.  :3

Maybe write more music.  Finish the cello/piano piece I had going.  It was nice.  Ran out of ideas.

And speaking of sleeping more, which I should do, I’m  going to do that now.

I’m not sure what this post was about.  I suppose it was a wishlist of stuff I could maybe see purchasing over the next year or so (…the only thing I’m actually pretty set getting are the headphones.  The rest could be…oh, if I win the lottery).  Then it morphed as a resolutions type of post as I got farther away from now and closer to later.  Though, I suppose it is technically later now, but now ‘now’ is earlier and later is even later.

I’ll stop rambling.

G’night!

Edit: this one post just about covers all of my interests, activities, and touches upon just about all the facets of my nerdiness.  :D

Whoooo!

Another week started in the workouts of yours truly.

Back squats: 5 @ 32, 42, 52, 58, 58

Bench presses: 5 @ 32, 42, 52, 58, 58

1.5 chin ups, 1.5 hammer-grip pull ups

Hooooray.

I really need to make those squat stands.  I’m sure I could get my form set correctly (really correctly) if I was able to ease into the weight, rather than having to ease it on to me.  Presses are about the same, sorta - I’m still afraid of the pinching of the skin between the thumb and pointer, and it’s harder.  I might make a lower…  Hrm.  Not sure how that’d work.  I’d like to grip the bars just about where our holder thing comes up, if that makes sense.

I wonder if I could put that into the squat stand somehow.

*shrugs*

Wedding music preparation go!

(Because I’ve totally already started.  Nyah?)

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Procrastination always bites me in the ass.

I’m working on the music that I’ve neglected for about a week now.  Dress rehearsal sometime next week, recital the next.

I just got in the music (all seven of them?) for the choir concert I said I’d do.  It’s the week after the recital.

Best man’ing a wedding on Friday.

Need to make a speech.

Never made that D&D game I was thinking about making for him.

Booooooo.

Back to practicing.

I’m supposed to run at some point today…but I may lift weights instead so I can run on tomorrow and not on Friday but instead of Saturday because of the wedding thing.

Latest updates!

Bridge to 10k, Week 2 Day 1.  3.98 mi, 47’11”.  Slow and steady, eh?  :P

Bought some 25 lb. plates, letting me get up to ~72 lbs on a deadlift.  Standing presses are hard.  (My arms are sooo weak.  xD)

Starting next Wednesday tutoring junior high school kids in science, from 8-3 PM.  That’ll be interesting.

After Christmas, they want me up there twice a week.

Brandon and I found an apartment complex we both like.  I’m seeing if they’ll have any 2 bed/2 bath (I could settle for 1 bath…but 2 bath would be awesome if they’ve got it) around Dec/Jan.

All of this adds up to me moving out (finally?) next semester.  It’ll be rough (I also need to save some money for tax time, because I don’t think anyone’s taking any taxes out of my paycheck yet.)

I seriously need to look at this accompaniment music.  I’m to have it ready by Friday night.  So…I’ll be doing that (hopefully) all Thursday and Friday beforehand.

Fixed my installation of Windows 7.  Pretty painless.  (I hadn’t installed some services like Parental Controls because I wouldn’t need them, but apparently Bioshock and Plants vs. Zombies require them to be present.)

I’m not gonna lie…I’m feeling pretty good right now.  ;D

(Also, I may be moving to Blogspot.  There’s a couple of runners from the C25k program that have blogs there…and I like reading blogs.)

Nyaaaaaaaaaah!

O hai thar, tumblr.

久しぶりですね、ツムベルーさん！

Long time no see, Tumblr.  It has been a while, of course.

Music.  No choir?  Hah, oh well.  Accompanying the college choir this Saturday.  Accompanying singer in December (music needs to be reading…in 2.5 weeks?).  I have not looked at colleges in a long, long while.  I need to get back on that.

Old Chopin works are calling my name.  Also old (but new to me) Beethoven sonatas beckon me to the piano.  And what do I end up doing instead?

Sit on the computer looking up Magic cards and decks, because my prime time to want to practice seems to be around 11 PM - 2 AM, when everyone else is sleeping.  Hooooooooooray.

In other news, Chris and Brandon actually got off of their butts and started running.  They’ve run one day of Couch to 5k so far, and they’re feeling pretty good about it.  We’re actually supposed to be running again in about…7.5 hours, so I should actually in bed, but I’ve got a few things on my mind anyway.

Met some WoW friends irl (in real life).  They’re cool people, and make me miss playing the game with them.  Not so much the game itself, but just being able to virtually hang out with them.  I met three of them for the first time over the weekend at a friend’s place, who everyone there all played the game together within the same guild that is now broken up.  It’s kinda sad.  They were Good People (TM).

I’m looking at the overly-fancy Garmin Forerunner 310XT to help me train for longer runs with the heart rate monitor thing and later the footpod.  The Forerunner 305 does everything I need to and is nearly $175 USD less than the 310XT, but…it’s so friggin’ awkward looking.  At the same time, that really shouldn’t be the deciding factor.  Right?  ><

I want to pick the cello back up.  Or any stringed instrument, whether that be bass or guitar or cello or violin (I have all but the bass, actually.  Electric bass is probably what I’d shoot for).  It’d be awesome to be able to play those as well as I do the piano.  I’m always envious of string players for some reason, or all those catchy guitar/bass licks I hear in the songs I listen to and want to be able to do them.  But I can!  In time, I suppose.

I’ve been keeping up with weight lifting for about two and a half weeks now, and realized I’ll be needing more weights soon, especially for things like the deadlift.  I have a 12 lb. barbell, 2x 10 lb’s, 4x 5 lb’s, and 2x 3 lb’s.  I saw at Target I could get 25 lbs for $30, and 10 lb for $15 or so.  I may also get another bar, because I don’t like the locking mechanism on this one.

Running with Chris and Brandon make me want to run farther and longer, so I may take a one day a week and not run with them and instead run a long run that day.  I hope to either make my next run 3.5 mi or 40 minutes.  It’ll probably be 3.3 mi and 40 minutes, realistically, but either goal would be great.  :D

Anyway, post is long enough.  Tumblr is supposed to be for microblogging, or something, and I’m using it like Blogspot.  Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.