Jewel Yard

Top three reasons why I love the Juilliard website :

1. Above the yellow horizontal menu at the top right of the page, there are three pictures. The one above "Alumni" is a graceful dancer. Above "Press", there is a pianist looking quite dramatic with one arm in mid-air. The picture above "Friends" is a man dressed as a beast or a monster (see right). Is that what the friends of Juilliard look like? If so, sign me up immediately. I want to be their best friend forever (BFF).

2. At the top left of the Juilliard website, it reads, "DANCE DRAMA MUSIC". Whenever I see it, I always think it's just like my conservatory, except we don't have dance. Because, let's be honest, everyone knows we have enough drama.

3. This isn't directly related to how much I love the Juilliard website, but my friend Jared had the brilliant idea of switching all the homepages in our computer lab from our school's website to the Curtis and Juilliard websites. He thought it might be a good way to build up our school spirit and morale. I completely agree.

The Most Beautiful Rose in the Park

Rosa Parks
(1913 - 2005)

Foe Toe

Sorry, folks. This post merely functions so I can change my profile photo. As "fun" as my previous "happy as a clam" picture may have been, I actually don't look like that all the time. I mean, maybe I do sometimes. Like when I watch my site meter go up by five in one day or something of the sort.

I also made a similar face when I was just recently offered my first vocal role in my friend Lauren's Depeche Mode remix of something or other. I don't really have all the details yet, but I think my part involves the singing of sundry vowels with no vibrato or expression. My friends know how vocally untrained I am. They scoff at how I practice vocal trills in the resonant halls and bridges of our school. I sing sirens in the elevators and vicariously audition for all the lead soprano roles in every opera. Little do they know; I can actually sing it 8 billion octaves higher than anyone else. My friend Matt was thinking of this the other day over dinner, and realized that if I were to sing 8 billion octaves higher, it's quite possible that color would come out of my mouth. Or maybe light.

If that were to happen, I'd definitely make the "happy as a clam" face.

Pink - A - Boo

Blogged Down

Dear Faithful Readers,

Please accept my deepest apologies for the lack of blogging within the past week. I was away, and my workload has piled upon me like work that piles upon someone with a lot of work to do. If you liked that analogy, check these out :

Your eyes are like two circles with dots in them.

He was as tall as a 5'11'' tree.

The lake was as vast and blue as a large blue lake.

Anyway, I promise to be back in full-swing soon.


Until then,

Sophia-later

It All Ads Up

So, a few weeks after I started my blog, I signed up for some ads to put up, as my salary-less lifestyle is beginning to catch up with me. Actually, it's running me over. I think things are beginning to look up, though. Since I've joined Google Ad-Sense, I've made 77 cents. The downside is that they won't send me a check until I reach one hundred dollars. At this rate, I my check will reach me in 2063.

Thinking that I was on to something, I decided to log onto the Bank of Canada's investment calculator to see how this 77 cents could advance my fiscal future. According to their estimations, if I invest 77 cents at an annual interest rate of 2.5% with a 2% inflation rate now, I will gain a total of 2 cents interest by the year 2010. That's a grand total of 79 cents I otherwise wouldn't have had.

As if the financial benefits of Google Ad-Sense weren't enough, I enjoy spending time perusing my ads. When I click on Beeth's Oven, an ad comes up that claims it can "blast [my] musical skills to new heights with rocket piano". As a graduate school piano student, this is especially enticing to me. An Artsy Flemish Birthday elicits ads from the Dali and the International Rodin Galleries.

In some ways, I enjoy reading the ads more than my entries.

Newly A[choir]ed Musical Knowledge

Below are two signs I saw in a choir rehearsal room this summer :

Togetherness begins with listening. Listening begins with soft singing.

No amount of loudness can compete with any amount of rightness.

Musicians Duet Better

An Artsy Flemish Birthday

Yesterday was my friend John's birthday. Being the artsy fellow that he is, I took him to a gallery to celebrate his special day. It was all going well until I almost got us into a major car accident. I was busy admiring the architecture of a large church on the left, when he yelled, "Watch out!" I was still accelerating while the car in front of me had stopped to turn. Slamming on the brakes, I was tempted to thrust my arm out in front of John, like my mom did when I was a child. I was always sure that I'd die from a blow to the chest long before I would from a car accident, so I abstained. Luckily, all was well, and we stopped in time.

So, we arrived at the art gallery, and it was so beautiful. We admired works by Rodin, Singer-Sargeant, Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Rembrandt, among others. One of my favorite paintings combined portraiture with still-life. In it, a young woman was standing behind a table adorned with produce. She was cutting an onion and presumably crying from its sulfuric acid, but you could sense that she was crying about more than just an onion.

The wheels really started turning when we started looking at paintings by Flemish artists. I wondered, if someone is Flemish, does that mean they're from Flem? If so, where's Flem? Did they ever spell it "Phlegm" just to be exotic? Before I dove face-down into the bowels of stupidity, I decided to ask Jeeves about it. It turns out that "Flemish" is an adjective referring to an area of Belgium called Flanders. The people who live there are called "Flemings" (like "Lemmings"). Their regional anthem, De Vlaamse Leeuw, mentions a "proud lion", which I conjecture is on their flag (above).

I now hold the keys to all the secrets pertaining to the Flemish, Flanders, flem, and possibly even flamenco.

I Go To Hogwarts

I wasn't convinced at first, but now I'm nearly positive I attend Hogwarts, Harry Potter's school. Decide for yourself :

My dorm's inside is shaped like a hexagon (or some other "-gon"), and although the interior woodwork is somewhat new, it has a distinct old-world sort of feel. (I know this isn't very compelling, but read on.)

The staircases that lead into the various dorm houses are enveloped in dark gray, granite, only adding to the Hogwartian sensation. Sometimes, the stairs actually move, and it's tricky because you have to hold your balance and try to figure out where you've ended up.

We have a courtyard, and people often play frisbee if the weather's nice. If you glance quickly, the really competitive frisbee games often resemble fierce matches of quidditch.

We have conducting majors, as I go to a music school. They like to carry around what they call "batons". But, we all know they're really magical wands.

In the school's main building, when you get off the elevator on the fourth floor, the office directly in front and to the right belongs to Howard Potter. (I think this is one of my strongest pieces of evidence.)

I was so convinced that my school is Hogwarts, that I tried to walk through the wall while no one was looking. It worked, but I realized it was only because I went through a doorway. But, I'm pretty sure it would've worked even if it wasn't a doorway.

What really gave it away was when I saw everyone flying around on broomsticks. OK, this isn't true, but I have seen the cleaning people use brooms. And sometimes, they look at me like, "Why is she looking at my broom? Does she know that we're at Hogwarts?"

Sassy Seniors

One day this past summer, my mom and I took a friendly trip to the library so I could print out a paper. As we were leaving, we witnessed what could only happen in a small friendly little town: a hit-and-run accident.

This was not just any hit-and-run, but one that involved two elderly folks. My mom and I conjectured that they were probably leaving a meeting for the "Friends of the Library" club, as there was a mass exodus of seniors from the library prior to the incident.

So, as we were pulling out of our parking spot, we heard a cacophonous "BAMMM" and immediately craned our necks to the left. There were two large cars, a Buick Century and a Lincoln Town Car, both shiny and new, with tail ends kissing like the fornicating teens I witnessed this past summer at band camp. The monstrosities were steered by two elderly women whose silvery hair tried desperately to billow in the summer breeze, but was thwarted by multiple layers of Aqua-Net hairspray. Oversized, polarized wrap-around sunglasses impeded what otherwise could have been really helpful in this situation: vision.

One of the two drivers actually heard the collision, realized what happened, and slowly re-entered her space. The other driver, however, continued to back out. "Oh look, she's going to pull to the side to assess the damage of the situation," I said to my mom. Either the zesty senior didn't hear what happened or thought she could get away with the whole shenanigans, because the next thing we knew, Ms. Thang put the pedal to the metal and floored it out of the library parking lot, with black smoke and the echo of screeching tires trailing behind.

I'm not sure, but I like to think that maybe Ms. Thang's reading group outread the other lady's book club that month.