September 8: Week 3

First week of school, first week of school!! Have I ever had a better first week of school? Don’t think so! As I write this I am sitting in peaceful Yerba Buena park, waiting for my roommate to finish her eye exam. We are both in the 8am Western Civ class, which, whether or not you are a nerd, is worth getting up for, mainly because of the awesome professor. He’s energetic, extremely knowledgeable and genuinely funny, and often he plays music (classical) in the background while he’s talking. This makes it intense, because he has an uncanny knack for matching the music to the subject matter at hand (a little like the Classical Kids tapes). In the first class he made a comment about how things had changed since he was a kid: “I was in elementary school, this was right after the dinosaurs had died out” and this made me do a double take – GF, you never told me you had relatives from your own epoch living in San Fran! 

In preparation for this class, we all had to take a placement exam, the “Humanties and Writing Assessment”. I felt that I did quite poorly on mine, and made a drawing on the test to express this feeling. Below is the sheet I received in my mailbox, the last page of the test, with my drawing and the marker’s comment.

Oh, well. At any rate, one thing that is definitely not bad at all is my continued cooking prowess. 

Who says college kids don't eat well??

This afternoon the SF Opera presented “Opera in the Park”, a free event in Golden Gate Park. I attended with some of my new friends, not forgetting to grab a geocache along the way, nor to take note of the Haight-Stanyan music store.

Friends N and M (from BC!) with cache

I guess all the good names were taken.

Issac Stern in (very) mixed company!

The opera event was quite well attended, several thousand people at least. It was a real treat to hear the SF Symphony (my first time hearing them live!) – I think they may be the tightest, most perfectly balanced orchestra I’ve ever heard (live, that is). 

And this isn't even a quarter of the crowd!

Last but not least, something that caught my eye on the bus yesterday and made me do a triple take.

LOL!!

TTFN, and stay tuned for next week!

-Antisocial Violinist

Week 2.5: A little snippet of San Francisco life.

A mini park in the inner Richmond neighbourhood, tasteful and tidy, with freshly cropped grass and here and there a faded green bench. Trees on three sides, insulating the little patch of greenspace from noise and dirt. On one of the benches, in the sunshine, sits an elderly Chinese woman. Her coat and cane rest beside her. It seems as if she is more of a fixture than the bench on which she sits. Behind her stands her husband. He swings his arms back and forth, rhythmically, constant motion as opposed to his wife. He moves backward a few steps and continues. He makes his way around the park, stopping every few steps, without once ceasing to move. Now he bends over, places his fists on the small of his back, moves them in small circles, both together, now just his right fist, now just his left. All of his motions are small, but they never stop.

From the sidewalk enters a potential adult, hot and slippery with running. She notes the Chinese couple and selects her own bench, a little east and a little south of theirs, and facing the same way. She sits and becomes a fixture, like the older woman, and watches the shadows creep across the crazy patterns in the grass, spirals created by too large a lawnmower in too small a space.

Now enters a pair of dogs, a dachshund and a giant Schnauzer, one trotting bright and eager, one striding with measured steps almost four times the length of his companion’s. Two dogs, two leashes, two young men on the other ends. Both men appear to be the same age, although it is immediately obvious which of them is in charge. They select their bench, the schnauzer is turned loose, the dachshund is restrained, although his eyes never leave his larger companion. Snippets of conversation reach the potential. Business conversation: “The other thing I wanted to highlight is that even if we close up shop, I will do everything possible to help you.” “I want to give you some time to think about whether you’re in. My hope is that you will be”. Professional, well-cut words, like the way they both are dressed. Meanwhile the schnauzer is loping round and round the park, enjoying himself.

The Chinese woman watches the dog and smiles. She turns and looks over her shoulder at the potential. In shrill English, she comments “He poo-poo three times!” and holds up three fingers for emphasis. “There, there, and there!” She shakes her head, grinning, and the potential nods and smiles and wonders if the respectable young businessmen have noticed. Their conversation continues, the most civilized conversation in the world, and then they get up, the schnauzer is called, they leave the park, and the Chinese woman turns around and addresses the potential again: “They not pick up!” She points. “There, there and there! Not right.” On reflex, the potential responds “Maybe they didn’t notice.” But the older woman does not stop shaking her head and grinning ruefully. “Smelly!”

The shadows creep over the grass (et al) and the Chinese woman decides it is time to leave, and she rises and addresses her husband, in Chinese even more shrill and grating than her English was, and makes her slow, inexorable way across the street and into the house. Her husband remains, always moving, never still, watching the skateboarders in the street and listening to their crack and scrape and shouts.

At last the bench is clear, save sunshine, and the potential rises and does a quick and expert search of the bench. Then the next bench, and the next, and the next, and the light poles, and the sprinkler. And she sets off home, running, disappointed but not too badly, because you can’t find a cache every day, and more valuable than the cache was participating in that little window of public society, watching the excited dogs and the slow sunshine and finding amusement in the contrast between the businessman’s image and self-awareness and his dog’s total lack of either.

September (!) 1: Week 2

Enough with info sessions and paperwork, let’s play some music! I think that’s what a lot of us are feeling, including me. At least I have now officially registered, and the bright shiny “Fall 2013” sticker is prominently displayed on my badge.

My courses are the following:

Introduction to Western Civilization (commonly known as Western Civ, or just Civ)

Music theory

Studio

Orchestra

Baroque ensemble (I will get a baroque violin on loan!!)

Baroque violin (this class is taught by none other than Elizabeth Blumenstock, concertmaster of SF’s Philharmonia  Baroque)

These are all pretty obvious courses except Civ, which is a general education course on history, art and literature. It’s required for all freshmen, in the interests of turning us into well-rounded musicians. I am not sure exactly what the coursework will involve, but I look forward to learning something about culture that does not, for once, have anything to do with music.

Getting to know the other kids at GGH is, for the most part, enjoyable. I especially like cooking in the communal kitchen on the top floor. Late in the evening it's always busy, loud and cheerful up there, and very easy to integrate oneself into the social atmosphere. On Friday night we happened to be a crowd of all international students (five or six from China, two from Korea and me) and we had a wonderful lively time trying to teach each other our respective languages (I instructed the Asians in the proper usage of "eh"). Chinese and Korean are, surprisingly, quite different.

Group trip to Buena Vista Park this afternoon, where I found my 8th SF geocache. :D

Yes, I'm sure those flowers are growing naturally on that log....

SAN FRAN!!!

I have missed the greenspace in Calgary, so this was refreshing. We also walked through Haight-Ashbury, the original hippie neighbourhood. Still a pretty strong subculture there.

Have a good Long Weekend, everybody.
- Antisocial Violinist

August 15: Week 1

For the last 6 months or more, I’ve been talking San Francisco, thinking San Francisco, researching San Francisco and dreaming San Francisco, but none of those things can compare to actually living San Francisco. Officially, the adventures have begun.

For starters, dorm life has a lot of potential for fun and friends. GGH has four floors above the lobby; three for our rooms and the top floor for common areas (kitchen, lounge, etc). Each of the three inhabited floors has a theme: first floor is Pokemon, second is tea, third is pirates. I was lucky enough to be assigned to the tea floor (by far the most dignified). This means that the name tags on our doors are shaped like teacups, and all of the rule posters have pictures of the Queen underneath them. I share a room with a girl named Elizabeth, a vocal student from Pennsylvania. 

I have met quite a few people already. We had a floor meeting on the third night where the RAs went over the rules and gave us their contact info. Everyone had to tell the group their name, instrument and what kitchen utensil they would most like to be. I was going to say I would be a spatula, but that seemed too mainstream, so I said bundt pan. The kid next to me said window, which resulted in dead silence from everyone. Maybe, being from Chile, he didn’t understand the word “utensil”?? All the Asian kids were saying chopstick, until Jason (Dean of Student Life) told them they couldn’t all be chopsticks. 

Friday was apparently the birthday of a girl named Stephanie, and so she invited a whole lot of people to go to Off the Grid at Fort Mason. This is like a roving market, with lots of different stands and food from different countries. They congregate in a different spot each week. Fort Mason used to be an army base, and now it’s home to a lot of museums and businesses (even a music school).  Sort of like Currie Barracks in Calgary. I met several grad students, including the chap who won the composition competition last year and whose piece we will be performing at the first orchestra concert. 

It’s pretty exciting to be living on my own means, and to know that no one is making dinner for me anymore, and therefore if I don’t make it myself  I will starve. I thought at first that running thousands of miles away from home just to shop in another Safeway would be somewhat anticlimactic, but it’s still an adventure to do grocery runs myself. (Those of you who have been doing your own groceries for 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, stop laughing.) 

Advising and registration appointments are next week, so that’s when I’ll decide what classes to take. I auditioned for the baroque ensemble, and also placed straight into 2^nd year music theory and out of keyboard skills completely. There was a dictation exam as part of the musicianship placement test. I’d never done dictation before, and found it a real listening challenge, but fun as well. 

Tonight Elizabeth and I are going to a local choir concert, doing Brahms Deutsche Requiem. Before that, I still need to practice violin and find a cache, so I better not write anymore. Please let me know if you thought this entry was too long, or if there’s something I should have told about but didn’t.

-Antisocial Violinist