it's been a long week

I got donuts in class today - our teacher had bet us that we couldn't do an assignment without making a certain mistake, and promised to bring us donuts if we did. Promise me sugary treats, and I turn into a little kid. At least I managed to eat it without smearing the cream filling (!!!) all over my face. At least I think I did.

Also, I like glazed and poofy better than cake-style donuts.

This has been such a long week, and I'm not really sure why. It's the middle of winter, it's snowing all the time (no one warned me that getting snow up my nose was a danger of coming to school up here) it's gray and gloomy all the time. Falling snow, though, is so beautiful - all the little white specks in the sky reflecting light, swirling and falling and rising and dancing like wild bacchants, unpredictable and so light-seeming and floating and so many of them. I performed in studio class, a piece by a German composer dedicated to a Spaniard based on Scottish themes. My practicing, though, has been haphazard.

One of the students set off the fire alarm Wednesday night by cooking bacon. I had just finished showering, and put on clothes and grabbed my shoes and coat and instrument and shivered in the cold for a while. Watching all the people coming out of the building was like an anthill that had gotten kicked in - people were running up and down the stairs, coming out of their rooms then going back in and grabbing something - an instrument, warmer clothes, keys, wallet - and running out and then huddling in a mass outside the building. Without my contacts, everyone looks more or less the same - I'm only able to pick out my friends by their relative heights and builds as they cluster together.

I wish I had a vacuum cleaner of my own. I borrowed a friend's tonight, and dusted and vacuumed my room, and then borrowed another friend's Swiffer and mopped the floor. It feels so nice to have the room clean.

I lost my colored pencils the other day, the day I went to a visiting artist's recital which was probably one of the best performances I've ever seen. Everything about the performance - how she moved, her facial expression, the way she put her bow on the string - everything created the perfect atmosphere in which the music could exist. Her playing, of course, was superb. I wish I could find my pencils, though.

What is this white stuff?

I am back at school and it is cold.

The ground is covered with a thick blanket of snow - a foot deep, maybe? This is my first winter with snow, and I'm a bit "snow snow snow snow snow!!!!" It's so beautiful - thick and white and sparkly and smooth, and I love the big gaping holes that footprints make. I love the fractal snowflakes, the little many-pointed stars. They're so tiny. It's amazing.

First day of classes was today. So far, I'm hopeful for all of them - the seminar looks promising, the South Indian drumming seems fun, theory is theory, my quintet should be awesome. I'm starting to get back into some sort of practice schedule.

It's so cold outside.