I guess I'm a glutton for punishment--four different concerts this week (singing on two composition recitals and in the Voces Novae concert, and playing in my piano studio Liszt concert), and then I just set up 12 appointments with students between today and the test next Tuesday. So, maybe no more bloggings this weekend.

One project done: I'm about to turn in my take-home test for Teaching of Music Theory. Now to focus on the other, much less practical current big project: a paper on possible functional thinking applied to solmization in the 14th century.

My baggage finally made it, about 9:30 last night. Just one more funny story from the trip. I was staying in Pittsburgh with my college roommate and good friend Andy, and he was extremely generous to drive me around everywhere I needed to go even if it meant he had to sit around and read while I was doing stuff. So anyway, after attending the rehearsal on Saturday (and running up and down the nearby Cathedral of Learning and writing graffiti on the blackboards on floor 23) he drove me to the director's house for dinner, where the misunderstanding took place as we were being introduced by the director's wife to some of the musicians:

Director's wife. This is Tim, who made the edition of the Benda cantata. And this is his partner, Andy.
Tim. ...in crime!

Andy thought I handled the situation well, but it was awkward for at least a moment. I made sure to call him "honey" a few times over the weekend though.

Finally, my break was nice, but boy am I jealous of Nate.

Rachmaninoff had big hands.

I just got home from a rather eventful flight! I know this happens to people sometimes, but man, it's frustrating! I'll try to keep myself from belaboring too many points here:

Act 1: Pittsburgh
After the concert, Andy got me to the airport almost 2 hours early for my flight, and I had no problem getting through check-in and security. They didn't bother to tell me at that point, but it turned out my flight was delayed. It was coming from New York, so it made sense, with all the weather problems. The people at the desk kept me on the same connection from Cincinnati (my layover) since there was a chance it would be delayed too, but booked me also on a flight the next day. I asked if I could get my luggage in Cincinnati to work on my handouts for class on Monday, and they said yes, no problem, just ask there.

Act 2: Cincinnati
I got to Cincinnati about 2 hours late, and about 1.5 hours late for my flight to Indianapolis. The people at the desk told me that I was actually only on standby for the flight the next morning, and it was completely booked, though I should try anyway. They also told me I couldn't get my luggage because that would be "too hard." However, they gave me a free t-shirt, and put me up in a hotel. Also, apparently not realizing that I had already gotten a meal voucher, they gave me another. Since I'd already eaten, I used the voucher to grab a couple of beers at the hotel restaurant. (It was going to be just one, but the waitress convinced me: "You sure? Your voucher's for seven dollars." "Yes, I'm just heading to bed." "Well, I can get the maid to bring one to your room." "Well, okay.")
Beer and exhaustion put me pretty well out until 6 AM, when I rushed out to the airport to find an unfriendly attendant telling me that my chances of getting on the flight weren't exactly "looking wonderful, just so you know." I had a rather disgusting breakfast (McDonalds would have been better), and then waited. The flight was delayed of course, and finally about an hour after it was supposed to leave and after everyone had boarded, the unfriendly attendant came up to me with a ticket. I got hopeful for a moment, but she just said, "I booked you on the next one. Because you're not getting on this one."
Okay, this act is long enough, so I'll just say the flight was delayed, and then delayed, and then also delayed, for scheduling and then mechanical reasons ("the flight in was bumpy and the bathroom water spilled all over the floor"). The 10:48 flight ended up leaving around 1.

Finale: Indianapolis
My bag didn't show up, apparently because although there had been plenty of time for it to get on one of those flights I was supposed to be on, they weren't entered into the computer.

Well, on the plus side, it's a good story! I'm tired, but I'll get back into the swing of things no problem in the next few days I'm sure. It was unfortunate, still, that I had to miss teaching in Pedagogy class and my choir's recording session.

I had thought Iowa was going to be a fair bit cooler than Southern Indiana. It's probably true, but I certainly didn't mind so much today when I looked at the thermometer and it read 63. I went on a really nice long walk and took off my sweater within minutes.
I'm increasingly struck by Grinnell every time I return. Most of my friends complain about how tiny Bloomington is, but then they've never been to small-town Iowa. I was walking for close to an hour in the early afternoon, and I could almost count on two hands the number of moving vehicles I passed, which made it wonderfully quiet. I really enjoy that, though not so much that I miss it when I'm in Bloomington.
I do miss the look of Iowa sometimes, though. Southern Indiana is beautiful, there's no question, but somehow Iowa's beauty seems more profound. Maybe it's the flatness and thus the sense of largeness: you can see why it was once considered an ocean of grass, in which one might drown. I think it also has to do with the population density and the level of build-up along the roads. I can't think of anything in Iowa analogous to SR 37, leading from Bloomington to Indianapolis, with its packed traffic, ugly intersections (admittedly interspersed with some pretty woods), and progressive build-up. Things just feel more spread-out here, more self-sufficient.
It's a particularly striking landscape now, with snow left in all the shadows, and with the results of the recent "[ice] storm of the century" (to quote Alliant Energy) still all around. Some of the blocks that have been less attended to by clean-up crews have mid-sized hedges of stacked fallen branches lining the length of the road, and the evergreens lining the back of our yard are bent over and pointing every which-way.
I wish I could post pictures, but I left my camera in Bloomington, and mom and dad's is in the shop. Oh well.

I'm remembering, as I often do, that blogs are not a good place for subtle thinking--the kind of extemporaneous writing they facilitate doesn't lend itself to subtlety and I realize my earlier post about the place of religion is no exception. Ah well. Interestingly enough, that doesn't mean it can't work, and I've really enjoyed reading some of the posts linked to here today.

I actually took a nap today. It was surprising--I almost always have such trouble getting to sleep, and I probably haven't really napped in years. But somewhere in the middle of "Chromatic Alteration and Extrahexachordal Intervals in Fourteenth Century Polyphonic Repertoires" my eyes started glazing over, so I put the book aside and fell asleep on the couch. I only slept 20 minutes, but I'll have to be careful--it's a slippery slope, and if I don't watch it, I may end up like Claire or, worse, Maple!

Finally, a preview of the image I prepared for Thursday to convince my classes (especially the 10:10 one) to sit in the first couple of rows, something I do to facilitate a positive atmosphere in class:

A student asked me today if I was her ear training teacher. I was ashamed that I was unable to answer either way, though less ashamed considering she had to ask. (Turns out the answer is yes.)

On the plus side, I've gotten a lot of compliments on my appearance today, largely due to my awesome blue shirt, a birthday present from some awesome parents.

I've been thinking some recently about the role of religion in our society and our lives. It's interesting to just observe what goes on at a church service. If I takes the perspective that religion is an entirely human-made phenomenon, I can see why it could seem creepy: the ritual, the "blood," the communal speech, and the kneeling all smack of the spooky cults one sees on television and in movies (or even stories for that matter--the Da Vinci Kod?). But there's a beauty in it too, even if we've made it all up. Ritual has a bad rap in our society, but the conception of a higher meaning is wonderful, as is the idea that one's duty is not to one's self, but to others.

Still, it's clear that many--perhaps most--of the people I know in the academic world view Western religion as a somewhat toxic phenomenon. The simple word "church" has a negative connotation, and any advertisement or attempt at evangelism is derided and viewed with utter suspicion. Now, I don't know what my opinion on the whole evangelism thing is, and I tend to think that people in other religious faiths probably have about as much Truth as I do in mine, but I don't see why conversion would seem like an automatically bad thing. (The use of force is of course entirely different.) I'd never go so far as many and say that Christians are persecuted in our society, or that evil "secularists" are trying to undermine our morals: I think that's ridiculous. But the view of religion as a poisonous influence seems just as dangerous.

I really think the worst problem is lack of education. I think most people don't even know the Moslem concept of "People of the Book" (wikipedia it if you don't know)--so many people think of Moslems and Christians as natural mortal enemies. This concept, though, puts the divisions between sects of Christianity into perspective, at least for me! If we are in important ways similar to our Moslem neighbors (though there are complications in this line of thinking), how can we seriously tell each other we're so different? And I think many people don't approach the texts of religion as texts, but as preconceptions. In reading the Bible, the history of Western religion seemed utterly fantastic to me (fantastic in the sense of "strange"). A way of living and understanding the world for a single homogenous society turned into a powerful kingdom, then was scattered, and defined itself in opposition to the ruling culture. Then Jesus preached a way of living within that culture. A number of his disciples thought he would return right away, and started religious communities that lived as if the end of the world were indeed right around the corner--and then had to deal with reality, and how they could continue to survive, administratively, dogmatically, and intellectually. Now we mash all that together and think we can define it in any simple way??

I apologize that this post is so rambling, but there's so much that's interesting to me here. Our lack of experience with other religious cultures and lack of religious education, stereotyping the "other," the strange history of Western ideas of religion, the compelling nature of religion. And then, the exoticism of the unknown "other"--it's funny to see how compelling Buddhism and Hinduism were in the West when they were first seen as viable religions and even today, as well as to see the initial successes of missionaries in China (though not so much more recently, obviously) and Japan, but then to see how disfigured these new manifestations of these religions are from their origins. And, then, to think about how different the Christianity of today is--predominating in the Americas, Africa, and to some extent in Europe--from its first communities in modern-day Syria, Israel, and Egypt. There are fascinating parallels to Buddhism, which must have undergone massive transformation from its origins in India (where it is a very distinct minority religion today) to China and Japan and other Eastern Asian countries.

Okay, that's enough seemingly random, unconnected thoughts for today. They sounded more coherent in my head, but I think they're interesting enough issues that I'm leaving them for now. They're so important--we avoid religious discussion today to the extent that simply calling one's self a "Christian" or posting a passage from the Bible (as I did!) in one's blog can feel distinctly uncomfortable, even though, if done sensitively, it should harm no-one.

I was listening to WFIU this morning, and they were reporting on local news. The story was about IU's moves toward starting a program in Public Health, and one of the benefits was apparently the possibility of collaborations with Purdue. My favorite quote:

"Collaborations with Purdue University would be particularly beneficial in studying the connections between the effects of disease on humans and animals."