Another to-do list (Suzanne)

1. Start practising again. Gah, it’s so bad. From last Thursday to this Thursday, there have been three days where I didn’t practise at all, two days where I practised less than I was supposed to, and only two days where I practised what I normally do. It’s just that so much has happened this week and I kind of forgot to do it.

2. Send out emails with meeting minutes. I got elected to the position of MSS secretary last Thursday. Elected, of course, meaning that I was the only person who ran for it. Music students are generally nothing at all like law students, in the sense that if you held an election for a really small position like first year rep in law, a million people plaster their propaganda all over the building and your email inboxes. In music, on the other hand, only one person runs for president, only one person runs for secretary, very few run for activities officers, and the people that do run are law students. (Yes, music/law is highly overrepresented on the new exec committee, 4 out of the 13 members being music/law students, compared to about 10-15 music/laws out of 400 overall undergrad music students). So yes. Despite the fact that the elections aren’t really the bastion of democratic legitimacy, we’ve got an awesome committee, and it looks like it’s going to be a great year for all things fun and musical.

3. Compose, perform, and collaborate. At the beginning of the year, the head of woodwind set all the first years a project: collaborate with a composer, or another performer, to produce an original avant garde work to be performed at the end of semester. Guess what I procrastinated until the last week. Today I basically spent all afternoon working on my creation to get it done in time for someone to learn it for Tuesday’s concert (Yasuko Hiraoko room, Sidney Myer Asia Centre, 5:30 pm). The first year clarinetists all got together and composed a three movement suite, so we’re performing a movement each, and I’ll be collecting my movement from a fellow clarinetist tomorrow.

4. Have fun! JCH ball was yesterday. It was great, not too much drunken debauchery and all that jazz. I got to see four generations of fresher dances, which was pretty awesome, and meet a few ex-JCHers. And on Monday and Saturday I saw my music tutor and her trio perform in a series of joint college concerts between JCH and Queens. Very pro.

5. Catch up on reading. Yesterday I felt guilty about going to the ball because I’d be 60 pages behind on reading for LMR. Then I realised I was already 100 pages behind anyway, so 60 more wouldn’t make a difference, and I felt immediately better.

6. Arrange plane tickets home. Don’t want to be stuck in Australia over winter break, do we?

7. Buy phone plan. I haven’t been able to call anyone on my cell in almost a month because I ran out of credit. I don’t know how I survive.

8. Make a difference. I’m doing the Student Ambassador Leadership Program thingy which you might have seen around campus. It’s usually second years and above, except that because music students are different from law students, nobody from music ever wants to sign up for it. If they didn’t catch those keen as mustard first years nice and early they’d never have any SALPers in the music faculty. So basically, I’m going to these workshops and seminars, which, to be honest, are a little bit of a waste of time and don’t really accomplish much, but it gives you pretty good opportunities and resources to start your own volunteer projects and things, and a lot of past participants have been able to use the program as a springboard to do quite substantive things, so I suppose it’s worth it. Went to camp over the weekend. Was pretty fun, but I was a bit annoyed about missing a day of practise.

9. Get life. (See two posts back) In particular, there’s a Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert which I absolutely HAVE to go to because they’re playing some of my favourite stuff. And I really should visit at least the State Library since it’s so close.

10. Pick up PPL essay tomorrow 4pm. Do I really want to know?

11. Australian Youth Orchestra auditions came out, and I really need to decide whether I want to try or not. On the one hand, it’s a good way to get exposure to high level music making and practise the audition process. On the other hand, I can’t afford it because it’s freaking expensive, and it also tours during the summer and winter holidays, which are the only two times in the year that I get to see my family. I could audition and not get in and that would get me the benefits of experience without the commitment, but then that would indicate that I’d need to work harder to get to the #1 spot that I have to be in to get a job in performance, and I’m not too sure I reaaally want to know about that.

12. I should clean my room. I live in a hovel.