You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is.

Happened today! Sadly my parents had to cancel at the last minute coming up (up? down? across..) from Oxford so I was Alone in the audience (...in the nicely large audience I mean, and no I wasn't, I sat with some of the staff). But the uni orchestra sounded very good!!

To check out further:
♫ Sibelius 7! Just full of lots of lovely Sibelius bits ahh. I kind of forget now because it was the first thing that they played. It was a piece the conductor/my supervisor actually said he's always wanted to do and could conduct every day for the rest of his life happily ;;; Aaaa. They played it really well.
♫ Wagner: Parsifal, an Orchestral Quest (arr. Henk de Vlieger)  To check out especially for the pretty specific LotR moments I heard there!
♫ And finally my piece :)  Actually played in between the other two.  It went really well I think, and they also recorded the rehearsal so I should be able to splice together a good recording over the like one two notes that weren't quite perf!  People said nice things!  Ooof, it's just really hard to have any... idea of how it went I guess because I'm too close to it!  I definitely don't mean to sound lukewarm about this, it was an amazing experience (and.. yeah so much more positive than anything like this before, not that I've done anything on this scale) -- I think it'll settle in a bit maybe!

--

As a sort of sidenote to my amazing html 5 audio discovery.......  THAT ATE A LOT OF BANDWIDTH!  Dreamwidth specifically, and most specifically of all the photos tag, so I have taken that tag away for now.  What I'm not quite sure about is does it automatically load the entire track on pageload, because it sort of looks like it does.  And that would definitely be conducive to Issues!  Next, is there a way for it not to do this (probably, actually.) [ETA: yep, I think this is it.  Oops, that's an embarrassing mistake!]

Meanwhile, the music host I've been complaining about because it just upped and died (the site was still there but no media played or could be uploaded) for upwards of three weeks without explanation... seems to be back!  Again, without any explanation, so free or not I will probably be looking to continue to move, but in less of a hurry now.

edit: well gosh, that's neat!

Ahaha oh dear, I really do feel like I'm winding down for the holidays ... !  But I need to keep getting stuff done ;;

And CHRISTMAS PRESENTS!  Are a thing I need to get moving on ...

Actually got up early (for me!) and went for a run!  Winner!

Alas there are a lot of issues on the concert-organising front (like our second pianist dropping out...) so I'll need to spend some time emailing round and I don't know what.

But I also want to make sure to really get a lot of music done today, so:

• finish sketching out Brooding oboe movement?
• actually reopen the strings thing and take a look...
• should actually practise at least on instrument as I Planned to every day and haven't properly in weeks.

Also, this is rather a long shot, but does anything poetical, or historical with a good (and out-of-copyright) written record that could be, um, sung, spring to mind when you think of Dorset, England??  Haha.  There's a choir competition ('inspired by the people, heritage or landscape of Dorset') and I do want to write something bigger for choir anyway.  I was thinking of Mary Anning the fossil collector, but I can't find much in the way of actual texts.  I mean I'd like the idea of doing something kind of... collage-y, with letters/accounts but still, I need something for a start.  And I think Thomas Hardy and William Barnes may have been done quite a lot...  HMM.

I now have a google doc from the Meeting Notes template that is outlining the chronology of the war which is the background and increasingly the foreground to the fic of how-on-earth-do-I-write-this.  And getting on towards 10 000 words of scribbly notes!?  I need to go back and focus on the start of it, see if it even is remotely the same fic.  And figure what on earth style it should be.  I think I have a sort of ending now, though!  

 and unngh so jetlagged!  I'd been telling myself 'oh I'll just write off wednesday', whilst at the same time secretly planning and assuming I could get all kinds of things done but yeahh given that I was basically awake most of the night (nice, short flight! I mean, that's sort of why!)... nope :)

The architecture is so different here...!  Back to Bristol and windy hilly streets, rows and rows of brick terraces, or blocks...  Having just come from Connecticut suburbs and all the spaced out painted wooden houses!  (Wood houses are so pretty, we really don't do them here.)  

Anyway.  I had a really nice week.  Very chilled.  Quite a few times sitting with my grandmother or walking around the center and a few pauses where we were probably both thinking "unnghhhh what shall we talk about??" but I hope she realises I really don't mind!  We did talk about the family history and back she met her husband.  (In the war, she was working a "very minor government job" in Washington and he was working as a civilian engineer with the navy--then they got him a nco job or something so he wasn't drafted off somewhere else.  They were married Sept 12 (I think?) 1945...)  So much interesting stuff.  And going back a bit further my goodness everyone had a lot of kids!  Both her parents were one of seven children.  We talked generally, books, religion, politics (!)...  

ALSO, the place she lives -- 'retirement community' I guess it is? basically loads of apartments but there's also a dining room and facilities like that and it is right next to a next level care place -- is really nice I think.  BUT ALSO.  Kind of hilariously high-school-like in some ways.  We went down for pre-dinner drinks to meet her "Friday table" -- the bar guy knows everyone and walked straight over to her with her large Scotch -- and created some minor drama by apparently sitting at a table that had been "reserved" with a glass of water!  This infamous "British lady who gives the British a bad name" walked over and told Grandma and her friend this, and they just looked back "...oh?" and did nothing.  And then explained to me this is a very rude lady so that's why they were not as accommodating... Also you can't reserve tables with glasses of water.  (Also the people it was reserved for didn't show up for ages so I don't feel too bad!!  I was like... we could move... or there is a perfectly good table the other side you could reserve..)  The difference from uh high school is that people will start talking behind people's backs when they're rIGHT THERE.  ......Wow I am making this sound very bitchy!  it mostly isn't!  it's very nice!  but I can see how people would make movies.  All the social drama.  one of Grandma's friends was from The New Building, which, despite being... over five years old? ... is still regarded with some suspicion.

Saw a few good dogs!  including a ridiculously tiny very small silky black dog that lives at reception after someone apparently abandoned it outside :(  

Also saw a lot of my aunt and uncle, and their dog who is very enthusiastic and amazing.  And one day went to NYC with my cousin who lives there and went to the Whitney art museum and then wandered a bit.  (A very small bit according to the map, heh.)

I'm not sure what day it is now -- I was really really sad getting into the car leaving, then I snoozed and that covered it over a bit.   This is a very disjointed entry, of course.  

Films!  I saw on the plane:

• Mad Max (finally!  it was, indeed, so very good.  after 15 minutes of ??what is going on?? I just got so into it, though I still don't know most people's names.)
• Inside Out (also! so! good!  I cried.)
• and I saw that Frozen short.  D'awww.  Nothing bad happened, it was cute.  Elsa being this most super-devoted and loving sister..
• I also started watching Cinderella, just for fun, on the way out, and finished it on the way back and, eh, actually it was quite lovely.  Also Cinderella/Lily James was really beautiful oh my gosh.  (also!  ahaha, all the sex faces intense expressions when the Prince touched her back or, yep, her feet.  There was a lot of foot stuff in the story so I guess they just went with it ^^)
• And watched The Age of Adaline!  Which was... in the end kind of surprisingly slight and simple, but I liked it.  (Aaand I cried, but only because of the bit with her dog, dogs getting old and sick is sad.) 

Oh and I also spent more time than I meant to moving furniture around!  Again, ahaha.  I'm totally squeezing another record cabinet thing (salvaged from parents' renovation) into the hallway.  Storage spaaace!