Dearest Family, Friends, and random others who stumble upon this blog,
I am alive.
I know this may come as a shock after over four weeks of silence, but it is indeed true.
As some of you probably know, I have had an exceptionally busy first half of term. All SCIO students take two tutorials per term. Meetings with primary tutors happen every week. Secondary tutorials are supposed to take place every other week during term. I happened to be placed with a professor who preferred to teach these tutorials every week for the first half of term. This made doing anything outside of reading, writing, and attending lectures nearly impossible. Activities I did not have time for included, but were not limited to: sleeping, breathing, breakfast, movies, internet activities, blogging, sanity, etc. I am so thankful for the SCIO community and how supportive they have been when I would get frustrated with my studies. People would check up on me and make sure that I took breaks periodically while studying so as not to get overwhelmed. When I had a long night of reading and writing ahead of me, there were always others who would come to the study room with me and hold study parties and study breaks of ice cream at G & D's.
I will now attempt to play catch-up with all that has happened over the last four weeks. (Please forgive the exceptionally long post that is to follow)
My primary tutorial has been very enjoyable. Each week I am given a piece or two by the same composer and a short reading list. From there I have to write a 1500-ish word essay on whatever I want. This freedom, while exhilarating at points, is actually quite daunting. Some weeks it has been easy to critique scholarly opinions and understand the complexities of the pieces that I am working with. Other weeks I hear the music and my mind goes blank. (I am sure you can guess which weeks I prefer.) Regardless of the number of ideas I have the average finishing time for an essay that is due at 10 am is usually 3 am with a final read through and edit at 9 am. Though this may seem like the result of procrastination, I spend almost every waking moment with my nose buried in books. There is no time to waste time.
After attending lectures for a few weeks I can definitely say that The String Quartet After Beethoven, and Techniques of Composition are my favorites. Walking to the Exam school for a lecture at 9 am is not a chore when I get to hear about my favorite musical ensemble. A couple of weeks ago the professor talked about Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, which is my favorite piece of music of all time. It was nice to not only to understand what the professor was talking about, but also to have known pretty much all of that information already :) Techniques of Composition is also quite enjoyable. Although I am not learning many new things, there is a lot of review of theory I material, the lecturer is quite engaging and I feel like I truly understand the material at this point.
My secondary tutorial, Music History, was much more enjoyable than I had originally thought it could be. Although learning about motets and madrigals was basically like learning a second language, I feel like I have a deep understanding of the topics we studied. I am amazed at how much information I was able to cram into my already overstuffed brain in just four weeks. That being said, it is nice to focus on Romantic music and beyond.
Pirates of Penzance is going quite well. We were successfully able to run Act 1 yesterday and did some smaller dissection work today. I have enjoyed playing a giggly and hysterical girl. The cheese of the show rivals that of 1960's Batman, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Our show will be over in less than two weeks, which is tragic and also exciting. I have made a lot of great friends in the cast and I am not looking forward to leaving them, but I also love performing in front of an audience. I am hoping that next term I will have plenty of opportunities to perform as well.
Orchestra is highly enjoyable. My stand partner hates Mozart just as much as I do, which is brilliant. He was highly entertained by the political turn of events this past week and was quite inquisitive at rehearsal. Our American conductor was a bit put out by the results, which made rehearsal interesting. I really love the music that we are playing. Sibelius No. 2 is my favorite, but the Hanson is growing on me as my mind has started to treat it more programmatically. Our concert is next week in the historic Sheldonian Theatre, which I am told does not have the best acoustics, but it will be fun to play in such an old theatre.
That pretty much sums up my regular activities. However, I have had a multitude of exciting things happen over the past month.
During third week I had the opportunity to play in the pit for a production of Guys and Dolls. One of the cellists was unable to perform on the last day so I got to play for two of the shows. The American accents were really good in this production, which made me feel a bit like I was home. The candy that many of the pit members brought with them made me feel like I was on another planet, albeit a tasty planet.
During third week I also went to see Kiss Me Kate. Some of their American accents were spot on...others not so much. It was a really fun night out with my friends and a nice break from all of the studying we do.
On Friday I submitted the final proposal for my end of term research paper. I am writing about how modern worship music has impacted evangelical worship. Hopefully this will give me a chance to explore the power of music in a theological setting. Prayers would also be appreciated that my ethics procedures are approved for this project in a timely manner so that I can interview some worship leaders to get their take on this issue.
Today I had the opportunity to visit with some unexpected friends in Stanford in the Vale, a lovely little British village. When I went to see Cats about 6 weeks ago my friends and I met a lovely British family who invited us to join them for lunch at some point in the future. Today we joined them for their town's remembrance day service. They gave us a tour of their town and everything was so quaint. It's amazing how a 30 minute bus ride can take you so far out of the Oxford city mindset. We had lunch at their house after the service and I was able to pet their cats. These past few weeks I have started to realize how much I need cats in my life. (Fortunately if I can get into grad school here there are some airlines that allow you to bring your cat as a carry-on so Sigvard can come with me!) We then went on a tour of Bampton where a great deal of Downton Abbey was filmed. I stood on the spot where Lady Mary was married and where Matthew was buried. Although I have a great deal of work left to accomplish for my tutorial, today was such a beautiful day to take a break and to be reminded that real homes with real families still exist, and not just through FaceTime.
This week has been a rather challenging week filled with interesting experiences. Thursday felt strangely empty when I didn't have to rush off to my tutorial on less than 3 hours of sleep. It has been hard to motivate myself this week without the extra deadline, but with the craziness of a concert and performances in 7th week and an exciting theatre trip this coming week I will have to jump back on the motivation train soon. My friends both here and at home have been an amazing help to keep me going throughout the craziness of this adventure. I am so thankful for all of you.
I commend each and everyone of you who has made it to the end of this post.
~ Brynn
