Performances in Trichotomy

Star Trek and Butterfly

The Star Trek performance two weeks ago, and it was fun. The pianist who was supposed to play the Skywalker theme and Darth Vader theme did not show up until the very last minute - as in I was just about to step out to play Darth Vader march from memory in his place, when he ran into the green room. And he didn't even complete playing the Skywalker theme. So that was sad.

But otherwise, the thing was a hoot. The Treausurer and the Taiwanese pianist played the cantina theme (complete with alien head-gear), and I played the Anakin/Padme theme and the end credit. It made a lot of people laugh. Then I played my arrangement of the Star Trek theme with the Dramatic Sop, her husband who narrates Captain Kirk's lines, and the trumpet player. I think Dramatic Sop and the trumpet player could both have used some warm up time - they both had intonation problems. As a result, some of the references of Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek the Next Generation, and Battle Star Galactica I'd worked in didn't get to come out. But otherwise, everyone enjoyed it. La Professeure's took a video of it, and it very shaky because she was trying not to laugh.

It was also the day when Dramatic Sop and her Tenor friend do the audition for this year's Carnegie Hall concert. The Tenor, however, didn't get the memo that he should be around at the end of the concert, so, when the concert ended, the organiser had to make everybody wait while I run out to find him. Luckily he was warming up in the bathroom so I could hear his voice on the ground floor. I ran back to the auditorium just as the organiser was giving up and had just told everybody to go. So we did the audition really quickly and he and the Dramatic Sop blew everyone's minds.

I went to to his performance of Madame Butterfly wit the Amore opera last Friday. It was excellent. The whole cast was strong, and the orchestra was sizeable, considering it's a community production. I feel that I haven't been to enough concerts since I'd moved to Long Island, and it takes going to a good concert to make me realize how much I have missed. I also ran into the Taiwanese pianist and her friend there too, so that was nice.

I had another call from the organiser yesterday about next year's Carnegie Hall concert. He changed his mind about the program and said he's considering doing the 'slow movement' from Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganinni (basically variations XI to XVIII) in additionthe Rondo of Chopin's 1st concerto, and aske me to choose between them. It was not a difficult choice for me - the variations are easier to pick up by virtue of them being slow, and I find Rachmaninov easier to learn than Chopin anyway, and I get to play the famous 18th variation with an orchestra - so, lower investment and higher impact - it was a very easy decision to make. A bonus is that he's planning to put the Chopin last on the program, meaning that I won't be closing the concert that year. That would be a nice change. The only thing is that I hope he actually manages to put together an orchestra large enough to handle the Rachmaninoff.

In any case, there is a lot happening on the music front.

• S

"I know he doesn' like it, but he's so good at it."

It was a lazy day last Friday at work because our group scheduled an off-site team lunch. Traditionally, we get nothing done for half a day when that happens - last time our manager took us to a cocktail bar afterwards and we just talked for the rest of the afternoon. This time we didn't go to a bar, but instead we went back to the office, but instead of working, my co-worker talked me into playing Xbox.

My new co-worker plays FIFA on Playstation, so he knows the game. And he said he as going to beat me 5-0 on it. Unfortunately he chose weaker teams (Birmingham City and Blackburn Rovers) against the stronger teams I chose (Man U and Barcelona), which means that, even though he created a lot more chances than me, he only managed to score once over 3 games. I beat him once over pentalties after drawing 0-0. I played with another co-worker who was a newbie too, and beat him 2-1.

I was not motivated to work lately because I've been stuck on a research project. I thought I would be done with research when I left grad school, but no such luck. I've been working on the design of our new system for the past month now, and choosing between 4 storage solutions. They all have strengths and weaknesses, and the more I look into each one of them, the more flaws I find. So I ended up doing a breath first search on the flaws of these systems - I take the least-bad solution, dig deeper, I discovered problems with to make it not the least-bad solution anymore, and repeat. It was not efficient and I do not enjoy it. The end product is a whole lot of design docs that people can read.

My Columbian teammate told me that our tech lead feels bad because he didn't do his job to get everyone to work on things they enjoy, but he still gets me to do the research because "[NDS] is so good at it."

I feel like if I was actually good at it I would be done by now.

• D

Dance showcase

Our ballroom dance studio host periodic dance events where people can go to dance, perform, and watch performances. We've never been to those because they're expensive, but we "graduated" from our first ballroom dancing skill level a month or so ago, so we ended up going to the showcase last Sunday, where they hand out "graduation certificates".

It was fun dancing, and to see people from the studio outside the context of a dance studio. The best part, however were the professional showcase. We even had front row center seat and get to see the dancers up close. I also realized that our studio is the biggest in the chain, has the most students, and made the most noise. We had to 'perform' with the other students who also graduated from our level. It wasn't as demanding than Carnegie Hall, but it was still fun.

We stayed there for 4 hours - 7 till 11, but I'm still not sure if we got our money's worth.

• N