Well, it's been fun, University of Chicago :-(

No dice for me. The first letter I got back being a rejection letter does sting a bit. Oh well. Four more chances!

Thomas Paine was the greatest American writer in history.

He has no equal. Not even close. I'm writing a paper about him for my Western Civilization class, and the most difficult part about writing about Thomas Paine is that I can't decide which parts *NOT* to quote. Virtually every sentence from every book he ever published is rich with vigor and purpose and force, and I'm afraid if I don't just flip a coin for every sentence of his that I read, it will become a 500 page paper.

More thesis-ing

I'm on page 53 of my honors thesis. It's funny - I wrote about 40 pages of it last summer because last summer I thought, "This crap is really complicated. If I don't spell it all out right now while I'm actually doing it, I'm going to forget it completely." That was one of the best decisions I've ever made. So now I'm putting the finishing touches on it (13 pages of finishing touches, apparently), and then I'm done with this sucker. And not a moment too soon! I started writing it last July, which makes this Month #8. I sent a chapter of it to Dr. Chen, who said it was "okay." I was thrilled. That's the highest praise I think I've ever gotten from him about anything!

I want to be Polish.

A list of great Poles:

Artur Rubinstein
Fryderyk Chopin
Moritz Moszkowski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Yup. I'm moving to Poland. And I'm going to get a tattoo on my back that says "nie dam sie," which is Polish for "never give up." It was also Mr. Rubinstein's motto.

I'm still waiting to hear back from graduate schools. I try to look as nonchalant as humanly possible as I anxiously check my mail three times a day, but I don't know how successful my efforts are. Yesterday my physics professor asked me, in his awesomely Chinese way, "Ok, I throw you big rock. What if you get into Chicago and Florida? Where will you go?" Heck if I know.

My new favorite piano concerto

For a long time it was Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor. As of yesterday, the throne has been usurped. Behold Moritz Moszkowski's Piano Concerto in E Major. Mesmerizing beyond compare.

Ix-nay the Arry-bay Ouglas-day

So I didn't actually go see Barry Douglas.  I would have had to go by myself, and live music just isn't the same when you go by yourself.  It's kind of like going to a movie theatre by yourself.  There's no reason you can't enjoy the film, except that you have nobody to enjoy it with.  With whom to enjoy it.  To with enjoy whom it.  Something like that.  Anyway, I find some modicum of solace in the fact that I don't care much for Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1.  Actually I don't care for the No. 2 either, but I do like it more than the No. 1.

In other news, I think the Educational Testing Service sucks.  When I took the GRE tests (the general test and the physics subject test) back in early November, I sent my scores to the five graduate schools I'm applying to.  Somehow, they only managed to send it to two of them.  Two others never got them (I had to fax them the copies of my scores the ETS sent to me personally), and I still haven't checked on the fifth.  Lame.

In more exciting news, tomorrow I get to go see Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the WSO!  Woohoo!

Afternoon with Barry Douglas

Ok it's not as personal an encounter as the title suggests. I'm going to a Master Class (as a spectator, of course) at OKCU featuring Barry Douglas, who will be performing Strauss's Burleske and Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major with the OKC Phil on Saturday. I saw Barry Douglas about... 12 years ago, rehearsing something with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. This will be a blast from the past!