dear diary.

[Teiana]

Dear Diary.
My course (A214, level 2 music @ OU) starts tomorrow. I'm listening to one of the 'set works' music pieces. It's Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell. I had never heard of either before the course. What surprised me was i liked it. Sounds silly when i write that down, but i just yesterday decided to put it on my iPod ( i hate iPods) and try and listen to it. I expected to find it dull, and admittedly, bits of it probably are, but actually, quite a lot of it i rather like. which is nice, and a relief, since it means i shan't find it a drag to listen to it a million times over. I had to look Mr Purcell up in my big book of composers that i got from a charity shop a couple of years ago. It says he was born in London in 1659. I really don't know anything about music any time before about the 1960's or so, so that's rather a long time ago. I just looked to try and find something else that happened then to give it some context. Hmm, wikipedia says that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked then. (fictionally, obviously). It (the composer book) keeps mentioning 'the chapel royal'. I shall have to look that up. Never heard of it.. though i wonder if it's a chapel for the queen...

This weeks been a bit weird about some family stuff i can't talk about here. But, onwards and upwards.. every day is a fresh start, or something.

The only problem with the composer book is it smells of mould. Musty old book smell, because of being second hand. Not really in a good way.

going to watch neighbours on tv now. back later.

[Teiana]

only it turns out that most of the bits i thought i liked, were my iPod mysteriously cutting the Purcell with something called Concerto Grosso in D maj... i don't get, why when i copied the tracks in order onto the iPod, it chooses to play them in another order, without warning.. Very mysterious....

Still i saw an interesting analysis of it on some BBC link, so i am better informed than i was this morning, all things considered. Which almost makes me feel like i have done a days work, for once.

I have been wondering today about frameworks and how we make sense of the world. We all have patterns and frameworks of various kinds that we use, from mental models of quite simple things to more complex ones like our family tree, or whatever.. I was wondering today, about how some people cope better than others with being in a fluid, changing environment. I started contemplating whether it had anything to do with the number and strength of the frameworks they had in place...
maybe.. people who have many, strong frameworks in their 'mental model collection' can cope easily when other environmental things are changing and uncertain, or, when one of their frameworks is broken. Maybe the remaining ones provide a meta-framework which keeps things feeling stable.
But on the other hand, maybe it's not like that. Maybe....the people who cope best with changing fluid situations actually only have one framework and the whole thing flexes... or, maybe, they are very good at building and breaking frameworks (imagine contrasting person (a) who takes ages to build any kind of framework, and therefore, clings to it defensively because of the investment put into it.. with person (b) who can build and destroy and rebuild frameworks very very fast, and therefore has no need to protect them defensively as they are paperlike, disposable..)
i haven't fathomed it out yet but i think understanding this model might be useful. I don't like change, mostly. Sometimes i embrace it, but generally, sudden small changes bother me.

[Teiana]

of course now i've done all that 'proper' listening today my ears need a rest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRQKnhv38Ys

probably not the best link in the world to that track, but i can close my eyes and pretend i'm driving at night, stars and lights everywhere, cool air, going somewhere exciting. Probably a sad sign that these days i mostly have to pretend that.

[Teiana]

i liked this today

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the ... ilure.html

[Teiana]

dear diary.

tried the instant chat service omegle today. well, yesterday. First convo dud, second excellent, then a load of dud ones again. It's a shame really, i was so happy after the good one. It's a bit surreal i think, but it's such a shame about all the weirdos.

It's the middle of the night, which is a good time for going to sleep.


zzz

[Teiana]

Dear diary.
Five days officially into my course and i'm struggling. I'm very angry with myself for not engaging with the course materials and i'm afraid to tell the tutor because i don't want to prejudice their opinion of my skills and abilities. I am worried if they label me early on as a struggler they will be unable to get past the mental model of that and give me high grades even when i deserve them. I really want high grades on this course.
I need to calmly work out exactly why i'm not engaging with it all. I keep blaming one thing or another, but it's clearly a mixture of reasons. I wish i had someone to study with it would make a world of difference.
My car's not starting again, which is frustrating. My fault as i should have driven it last sunday but 'things came up' ('emergency' dental problem) and so everything got behind.
argh @ me! how is it i can 'know' what it is i need to do, but still be unable to get myself to do it?
I believe that:
If i actually wrote up a proper study journal and made notes about everything even though i don't have any official notes i'm 'supposed' to make, and if i broke the work i need to do down into manageable chunks and marked off on a paper when i had done each one,
that i would get through the stuff that is 'this weeks work' and then that would give me a sense of progress.
However the reality is all muddled up with thoughts about how some of it seems impossibly hard and other parts insultingly easy..and if i try and do something that's 'too simple' i just become even more frustrated. I am 'self-taught' musically, in that so far most of the stuff i have learned i have learned bits here and there rather than following any set program. We tend to look for things in life that reinforce our existing beliefs and this has implications for learning - it's been easy for me to skip over things i didn't understand and cherry-pick what i learned. Which has left huge holes in my knowledge, randomly.

[Teiana]

Dear diary. So much for dieting! In the next few days it will be both chinese new year and pancake day. My two favourite feast days! Can't wait. Plus i have been promised pancake for breakfast on valentines day too! hehehe.
Sat down today and made myself work through the block 1 exercises from my music course. Some of them I didn't do very well but i did at least go through them all. Trouble is I read music erratically: i understand what a lot of it means in theory but i don't 'read' it well for playing purposes, i tend to look at it, guess what it means, and play that. And i can't tap one rhythm with my foot and another with my hands. It's like that thing where they say rub your head and pat your stomach, then swap.
Bought the haiti single while i was getting the chinese food in. Feel a bit guilty though because at the time of the earthquake i intended to make a proper donation and i haven't yet. Still they will be rebuilding for many many years.. i'm putting this here because it may remind me.
Also today i was getting all green-eyed monster over the neighbours landrover. Yes i know four by fours are evil etc etc but it doesn't stop me wanting one. I wouldn't have to have one forever, just to play with for a bit. My own car languishes in the garage with a flat battery - again.
Of course i understand all the reasons why i oughtn't to have one, and i'm not planning on getting one, not least because of the price! It's just one of those things you think about when you're staring out of the window. It snowed last night but had gone by the morning.

[Teiana]

dear diary. I logged in here with the 'prayer' "be lots of posts". But there weren't any. <sniff>
starting to get scared about getting any actual study done. Wanted to get ahead on course - that slipped back to thinking being on time was ok, now i have no idea but my TMA will be due 9th march, which is now less than a month, and the tutorials a week before that, and really i probably need to have at least understood all the work up to that point so i can ask relevant questions in the tutorial.

i'm not being very systemic about anything lately. i bought a new bookmark yesterday in the hope it would help me focus on doing some reading. I don't really even have any reading that needs doing either - it'a just that if i sit and read i can fool myself into thinking i have achieved something. I can say things like 'well i read three chapters today'. Which is no help at all when the course materials i have are practically based around my watching clips of dvd and doing keyboard exercises etc. But i can't find a way to make that feel like i have achieved anything. when my attention wanders i need to be able to go back to the place i was up to, but i can't find a way with this stuff.
(clearly i need to find a way to connect the bits together, like strings, so i can follow the links between everything, even if i have to artificially create them, at the moment it all feels like lots of random blobs and not a pattern or network)
i hate getting old. I want to be young again and not have everything be such an effort the whole time. i'm not as lazy as that makes me sound. It's more about - there's a saying i like 'stroking the fur on the cat the right way' or 'riding the horse in the direction it is going'. I believe when you're very young it's much easier to be working with the direction of things and not working against it. As we get older there seem to be more directions, and that confuses the issue.

[Teiana]

just watched the movie ferris buellers day off. funnier than i remembered, and i knew i liked it.

i love '80's movies so much. there's a spirit of 'everythings possible' in there which has been lost in modern times.

i also recently watched a dvd about how they made the movie the pirates of the carribean curse of the black pearl. that really blew me away as to just how much work went into it. i shall watch it again and again i think. so many people were involved in just even getting a few moments from being an idea onto a screen. i want to make a movie before i die.

[Teiana]

tomorrow i have to have a filling at the dentist. Although it won't be finished tomorrow i shall have to go back. I am not looking forward to it at all. I shall be in for sympathy later.