Owlcory’s Weblog

Here at Temple University, we are in the midst of finals. I have multiple finals for each class. You can imagine how stressful preparing for 12 finals can be. I am only alive right now because I know how to turn into a robot when the situation calls for it. The past two weeks I have been an emotionless robot doing nothing but preparing for these finals. This weekend however, I will be filled with all kinds of emotions because my brother is getting married! I better not get too distracted thinking about that now, time to get back to work.

p.s. yes, the post title sounds like a horribly cliché movie title, but sometimes that’s the way life is.

I promised Phillies pictures. This game happened a bit ago, but I am still going to put these photos up because Temple’s very own Diamond Gems were there!

Citizens Bank Park

watching the game

sunset

skyline

the look on your face that says “I can’t believe I just spent 15 bucks on this stuff”

I actually remembered to get myself in one of the pictures. Left to right, Me, Matt, and Jeff.

Temple’s dance team, the Diamond Gems!

I don’t recall there being a furry green guy on the dance team….

Hatfield represented on the big screen. I grew up minutes away from Hatfield.

close up.

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Finals are taking over my life now. More to come on that subject.

Spring Fling was a blast like usual! Actually, I didn’t really get to hang out at spring fling last year because I took so many classes, but my choir finished really early this year so we didn’t have rehearsal. So spring fling was more of a blast than usual! For those of you who are wondering “what’s spring fling?” spring fling is when the Temple campus turns into a giant outdoor festival with live bands, food, free giveaways, rock climbing, and fun with all of your friends.

I recently came to the realization that the supertitles that I have been using for my photos are probably confusing. Starting today I will be using subtitles.

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These people are pouring away from the main festivities. Why? I don’t know.

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I ran into Rahul on the way to spring fling.

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I tried to get a picture of the guy on the right because he looked like Larry David from a distance. I really like the picture the way it turned out though.

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Spring Fling!

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A picture of me taking the picture of spring fling.

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Live music in front of the Bell Tower.

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Here is a closer picture of the stage.

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Sooooo many people.

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I mentioned earlier in the post that there was rock climbing, and I love climbing.

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They made me wear a harness as if I was some sort of beginner.

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My friend Laura climbed the wall as well.

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That’s me. Climbing one handed. I’m a pro.

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Wearing the harness was actually a very a good idea. I chose the hardest side of the wall and I couldn’t make it all the way to the top. I was a bit rusty. And for the record, they would never let anyone climb without a harness.

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There really were a lot of people.

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Blooming trees.

That’s all for now. Phillies pictures coming soon.

My vocal chords are really getting a work out this spring semester. It was only two weeks ago that I performed at the Kimmel Center with the Temple University symphony orchestra and combined choirs, and I am performing again this Sunday with the Concert Choir. I still have one more choral performance after that in the month of May. In addition to all of the choral performances, I have been preparing my songs for my voice final a month from now. I also get to sing in conducting class, music theory IV, music learning theories, and basically every other second of the day. I live for singing, and I sing for a living.

This is from our performance at the Kimmel Center last year.

I have been losing track of the days. This is a good sign. This is a good sign because I am at the beginnings of a life-long process of learning how to live mindfully. A great friend of mine lent me a book recently entitled Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. I am only halfway through the book, and I have already forever altered the way I perceive the environment around me. By living more in the present moment, I often find myself forgetting the current time/day/month/year. Losing track of the days is something I have always fallen victim to, but now I am losing track of the days for a different reason.

I have about a thousand exciting things to mention about my current events. Don’t worry though, I will just hit the highlights…

Dan (on the left) had a birthday. Peter (on the right) was there to help celebrate!

Live jazz downtown. Joanna Pascale sang Dan a special song for his birthday, “I Got The Sun in the Mornin’ (and the Moon at Night)” by Irving Berlin.

Peter always dresses so nicely.

Priscilla, Griffin, and Christian. Griffin, one of my best friends from home, goes to Pitt. It was a pleasure to have him on the east side of the state for an evening.

I can’t forget to mention egg dying!

I bleed cherry and white. (Temple’s school colors for those who don’t know)

My brother got a dog! Bailey’s the name, and if you take a second look above, you will see that we made him an egg as well.

We took a wrong turn on the way to a dinner party the other night, and this is where we ended up…

I look forward to riding my bike here for a sunrise. Peter and Emily below.

And I will end with a picture of me. This location was a great find.

They are random because that’s how my mind functions…

Story 1

In recent Temple news a new bagel shop opened up on campus. Einstein Bros Bagels is the name of the place.

This is wonderful news indeed, because now I can purchase extremely tasty bagels using my meal plan. They sell bagels, muffins, cookies, giant rice crispy treats, bagels, sandwiches, omelets in bagels, more bagels, and coffee drinks. Sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? Well it certainly is nice. The best part about Einstein is when they ask you for your name. They put your name on the order, and you can try out new names for yourself! You know, take them for a two minute test drive at the bagel shop to see if you like them. One of the names I decided to try out was Optimus Prime (pictured below) who everyone knows as the leader of the Autobots in the popular tv show Transformers. Of course everyone at Einstein was laughing at this outlandish name, but it made the day a bit more interesting for a few people. The funniest part about the whole situation is that they spelled my temporary name incorrectly, and I didn’t realize this fact until after I left. Scroll down and check out the picture below…

I am quite the optimist, so I suppose this name is more fitting.

Story 2

Let’s analyze this picture for a moment. A polar bear seems to have left his/her natural environment in order to rally for the human cause. Finally the animals are trying to help save us! Humans certainly need a lot of help. This polar bear was in our TECH Center the other day trying to raise awareness for global warming by taking a slightly different approach. He certainly gained a lot of attention, and I am saying “he” this time because I found out the identity of the polar bear a few days later. The identity of the polar bear brings me to my next short story.

Story 3

Upon joining the Student Peace Alliance (SPA) here at Temple, I discovered that the man behind the mask was one of the members of SPA. I went to my first meeting this past monday, and I am really looking forward to being a part of this organization. Peace is good. I am a big supporter of peace, and hopefully you are too!

I will end with this quote-

“One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

O spring, where art thou? Last week we were teased by one day of warm and sunny weather. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be warm. I am chilled to the marrrow of my bones after spending all of yesterday outside playing ulitmate in the poconos. Tough playing conditions too. It is very hard to throw and catch a disc with huge gusts of wind coming at you every 5 seconds. It is also very hard to play on frozen ground.

Speaking of double entendres, the title of this post refers to two different things going on in my life right now. The Right of Spring is a ballet by Igor Stravinsky that I recently studied in music theory class. It is a wonderful ballet. Stravinsky based the ballet on a dream he had involving a pagan sacrifice. Not an animal sacrifice, but a human sacrifice in which a young girl dances herself to death. Because the music and the dancing combined were unlike anything anyone had ever experienced before,  the ballet stirred up a riot during the Paris premier in 1913. You know your music is unique and groundbreaking when it causes a riot. Maybe the ballet should have been called The Riot of Spring?

There have been no riots in my life recently because I am on Spring Break right now. Spring Break with a capital S and a capital B to emphasize the words “spring” and “break”. My break certainly does not involve dancing to my doom, even though I do enjoy a good sock hop from time to time. My spring break rites include relaxation through meditation and music. I will be in Phildelphia for break in order to work, sleep, and get my head in the game for the second half of the semester.

At first I was surprised that there were so many people on campus over break, but after I thought about it for a second, they have every reason to want to stick around this great city.

I have a confession to make. I went to my first Temple basketball game this semester. That means that I missed out on a whole Temple basketball season! I wish I knew last year how much fun they were. You see, the old me that everyone used to know wasn’t much of a sports spectator. Recently, however, I have begun to appreciate the huge amount of effort it takes to get even close to playing sports at the professional level.

I took a few pictures at the last game I attended, but that should come as no surprise now. I like pictures. We all like pictures.

We got to see the team warm up.

It must have been a good warm-up because they beat Charlotte 75-61.

Here is the basketball band warming up. They are extremely talented. I have a lot of good friends in the band. That also should come as no surprise considering that I am a music major. I was especially pleased when the band played Magical Mystery Tour.

I only took pictures in the beginning of the game. I forgot about my camera because the game was just that good.

Two of my compadres. Greg, pictured on the right, is in the basketball band.

Spring break begins in a few days, and I am in desperate need of a break. In fact, it would take about three spring breaks to undo all of the stress I have been under these past two weeks. I am not complaining. I can now say that I play the french horn, the trumpet, and percussion. I can also say that I understand what an octatonic scale is and what it sounds like. Time to get studying for the rest of my midterms. Seven midterms down, three to go…

There is currently a lot to say about the song “Across the Universe” by The Beatles.

1. It’s a beautiful song. My favorite version is from the Let It Be…Naked album. Rufus Wainwright does a pretty good cover of the song as well.

2.  It was the first song ever to be beamed into deep space. On February 4th, NASA beamed the song into space to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the day the song was recorded.    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/across_universe.html

3. There is a wonderful new movie that bears the name of this song as its title. Hopefully you have seen it by now. It’s my favorite movie right now. The movie has been around since October, but it just came out on DVD this month. A bunch of my friends recently gathered to watch it, and I never thought so many of us could fit into one living room and comfortably watch a movie. We were right off campus in the Oxford Village apartments.

There was a ton of food.

Everyone thought this would be funny. For those of you who don’t know me I am the guy in the front who had no idea what was going on behind him.

Hey you in the yellow shirt! Pay attention to the movie! He was talking the whole time. But we still love him.

4. The Beatles are responsible for all of this. The Beatles have had such a positive impact on my life. I really do love music.

On Saturday I did my first observation as an aspiring music educator. I went down to Temple’s center city campus where we have music programs for young children and their parents. It was really an eye opening experience as far as what toddlers are capable of doing. Never underestimate children, because they are brilliant. I suppose it helps that they have more brain cells than we do. The toddlers I observed were between 10 and 18 months old, and they could beat rhythms on the drum, sing correct pitches, and react to music in a number of interesting ways. One of the little girls even decided that she wanted to conduct one of the songs by yelling out “stop!” and “go!” Everyone followed her directions too!

The children were smiling the whole time, and the parents were equally as happy. Music brings both families and random people together in ways that nothing else can. One of the big purposes of the program is to provide a model for parents to follow as far as singing to their children and exploring music with their children. Families don’t sing together as much as they used to, and a lot of parents today don’t sing to their children as much as they probably should. Of course, this is all coming from the perspective of someone who devotes his entire life to music, but everyone has the right to express themselves through music! Music spans all nations and cultures. People simply need music to balance themselves out.

I am really excited to learn more about music. I am even more excited to share it with others.