Why yes, I am a Giant Ant. Since I had a little bit of time between two of my classes I did a single-round eliminator tournament with all the members of Mas N' Steel and Matt Flynn was the winner. After such a long entry last night I don't really feel like discussing the nuances of my day since nothing of particular interest happened. Just one of those days that I'll refer back to when I'm on my deathbed and I wonder where the time went.

Fifth Grade

Highlight: Fifth grade was the peak of my popularity. I was friends with all the cool kids even though I still had velcro shoes but soon enough they were to be replaced by British Knights! Sweet! Ok, they still weren't Nike or Reebok but at least I had the option of tying them. This is a really cheesy highlight but the best part was answering Dear Santa letters written by the kindergarten classes. It really made me feel good, but then again, I felt good all the time in 5th grade. Hell, we got to play kickball during classtime on nice days.

Lowlight: Somehow I managed to get my name on the board with two checkmarks, which meant I was sent to the principal's office. I can't remember what Mrs. White said but my reply was "a long way 'til college." Everyone laughed and she got really, really pissed. Now that I'm a teacher I can understand that sometimes the littlest things can set you off into a spiral of student-destruction but back then I felt it was totally unmerited. Come on, two checks? It's not like I got into Jessica F*hey's pants like one Matt Sch*uer. I was so mad because I was totally in love with her at the time. Unfortunately, she got really hairy in middle school and everyone called her orangutan at the lunch table. I think it was this traumatic experience that turned her into the...less-than-virtuous girl she was in high school. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: April 14, 2004 - Charades Ah, Wednesdays. Today went smoothly enough but the World Music Rainbow concert ate my entire afternoon and evening. I think the Rainbow Concert is a fantastic idea--it brings in lots of people and money and publicity but at the same time, I played for six minutes and thirty seconds tonight, yet 2:20pm-11:15pm were taken up. In nine hours, I could write a pretty good panorama and learn the lead part. But six minutes of performance? To quote Alex, "come on!" On the whole we apparently played well but I was too focused on my miscue of page turning to really notice. I personally played pretty poorly because I spent way too much of my thought on dancing like an idiot rather than standing directly in front of of my pan, which of course caused my muscle memory of some areas to hit the wrong notes. Somehow I managed to turn the page to something blank halfway through the song. Chris not only kept playing but guided me back to the right page and showed me the line we were on. Hooray for Chris. To pass the time we were off-stage, we played some charades. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was fun, but it certainly passed the time really quickly. From the music section, Jamie acted out the 80's hit Once Spitten Twice Shy. Oh man, Ryan and I were crying we were laughing so hard. Even thinking about it now it makes me laugh. Spitten? Maybe that's what they call the title in Munchen, Deutschland but not here. Matt and I helped carry one of the Gamelan instruments back from Ruby Diamond and I will NEVER complain about moving pans again. Four of us carried a 500lb instrument back. I admit, I was not carrying my fair share--I had the top set of bells, where they were much smaller than Matt's set. Anyway, even for me to carry...oh, 100lbs over my shoulder for the 34 mile stretch of desert with prickly cacti between Ruby Diamond and the music building was strenuous enough. Matt was tough--he carried the middle section and easily had the largest percentage of the weight. Hooray for Matt. I need to ponder a good 6th grade story because right now I am drawing a complete blank. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: April 15, 2004 - Highlights and Lowlights: Sixth Grade Do I try it? Do I try the extremely challenging move of the same day quiz-SUSSAI? I've always wanted to do it, just to see if your scores really are that much lower rather than giving it on a day that the students are already pretty happy. Since it's my last semester of TA'ing I think I'm going to do it. What do I have to lose? I'm very confident that although the semester for my students didn't start as smoothly as in the Fall that everything will be done on time--at least by the people that want to get things done on time. Speaking of SUSSAI's, I am very confident in my giving all "poor"s in Music Bibliography. Honestly, it's the worst class I've ever had. EVER. We've done literally the same thing all semester. We get to look at books that we'll never use. God forbid we learn anything. Jamie was kind enough to take my copies to Kinkos for my presentation/performance in Music of the Caribbean. Only about 20 people showed up so it was really a waste of money but whatever. We had a visitor from Trinidad that threw off the timing of just about everything so I couldn't save the last 20 minutes for Dr. Olsen's video. He made me feel that everything I said wasn't completely accurate but I am certain that it was. It really wasted a lot of time, although he did provide some very interesting tidbits. My performing did not go so well. On the third note of playing I scraped my finger on the metal coil that holds the pan onto the stand. As the blood slowly dripped onto the higher octave of notes I had a very difficult time focusing on the actual music. Out of fear of flinging blood on anyone I decided to omit any fast passages, which made the piece kind of dull. After class I cleaned out my pan, washed out the wound and went to my last Mas N' Steel rehearsal. Although last spring was supposed to be "my last Mas N' Steel rehearsal ever" it obviously wasn't and I think because I went through it last year it wasn't quite as meaningful this year. We only played for an hour despite our concert being tomorrow. I think Ryan's anything-done-today-won't-help-us-tomorrow mentality was pretty accurate but nonetheless I still would have liked to have played for the full two hours. I'm still kind of sad that I'll be done with the group, but with only eight of the 20-some of currently in the band returning it really won't be the same anyway. If nothing else, though, really talented people will be back next year.

In other news, the damn Taurus won't start again. DON'T BUY A FORD.

Sixth Grade

Highlight: Ah, entrepreneurial me. In 6th grade we were required to cut our articles about science to read in our class. Being a nerd who had ample science articles sitting around I starting bringing them to school once a week and selling them for $2 each a couple periods before science class so the buyers had a chance to write the requisite paragraph. I usually sold at least 5 which enabled me to buy lunch at the school like everyone else instead of seeing what my mommy packed me. I usually just bought fries, some chocolate milk and those Little Debbie Snack cakes with the white icing and the chocolate chips on top. Ah, I used to be so unhealthy. I miss those days...oh.

Lowlight: Mark Luzzi moved to Naperville when I was in 4th grade. He was the first kid to have a Koosh ball and his family was extremely wealthy. I used to stay up at night and pray that his family would come to my door and explain to my parents there had been a mix-up at the hospital. Once I was in their family, *I* could have the Nike Air shoes and the Koosh balls and the Banana Republic T-Shirts (not that I would set foot into a Banana Republic until a good 12 years later). Despite the fact I had velcro shoes and his had the swoosh on the back, he and I were still good friends in elementary school. I'd go over to his house and we'd play Nintendo on his huge TV or football in his backyard with his hand-signed Joe Montana football. Once we got into 6th grade he was able to stay cool, though and I was not. I rarely saw him and I will never forget the first time I saw him--it was probably two months into school and I ran up to greet him. He promptly informed me that he was now part of the popular group and he wouldn't be able to be my friend anymore. The conversation was something like this:

Me: Hey Mark!

Mark: Uh..hey Mike...listen, I'm now part of the popular group and I won't be your friend anymore.

Yeah, that was it. I was wearing my favorite Bugle Boy shirt at the time and I had just left the band room. I remember being more shocked than upset at the time. It didn't really set in that I was no longer cool until that night. At least I had a seat at the loser lunch table with all the other band kids. Our band director also had a little white dog that would urinate in the percussion section. I also left a love note in Hillary M*rshall's band locker after being talked into by Hillary's best friend (and later one of my college friends) Susan K*mp. Hillary never responded (most likely due to my Bugle Boy shirts) and is now married. I used to keep the initials of every girl I was in love with scrawled on the inside of my band locker. I'm sure it's still there. Not that I really have any desire to go verify the fact that of x girls, x-x wanted anything to do with me. I think I had my sights set too high. The one girl in my league that actually wanted something to do with was Abbey V*gel and she moved away the day after she told me. She told me right after we had finished drawing the female reproductive organs in health class. We later colored these diagrams to make them look like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: April 16, 2004 - Highlights and Lowlights: Mas N' Steel The party's over now.

Tonight officially ended my six semester tenure in the lead section of the FSU Steel Band. The concert went well, although there were not as many people there as in the past. Not only were there no people standing in the aisles but there were open seats. None of my friends, Jamie's friends, Matt's friends (or even fiancée) or really anyone else's friends came, so that was kind of sad. After the concert I was swarmed by about 30 Asian women who asked me to sign their chests...and by sign their chests I mean bow in my direction and say, "You so good". It was very bittersweet as we wrapped up the panorama. I'll miss playing with those guys but so many people are leaving (at least: me, Jamie, Evil-Chris, Dan, Ross, Jara, Tom and Ian) that next year's group is going to be held together by a couple really talented people (like Chris, Michael and Matt) but it will mostly be newbies. Well, anyway they'll definitely have their work cut out for them next year, though I'm confident Chris will be able to whip everyone into shape.

After the concert we went to On The Border. Earlier in the day Dr. Gretchen from IU came to give a talk in our Atonal class. We went out to lunch at the Charcoal Grill and we bonded over our deathly allergies to peanut butter. She cares a syringe with her in case she eats it. Wow.

Mas 'N' Steel

Highlight: The Spring '02 concert. It was outside and although it was hot as sin, rocking out with Matt Flynn in front of a very receptive audience. A close second was my first solo. Everyone thought I was the worst player in the group, and I probably was, but once I played a solo on El Montuno people started talking to me.

Lowlight: My first three weeks in the band I skipped three rehearsals because I was so bad I couldn't convince myself to go and embarrass myself. Here are a freshman and sophomore on both sides of me just humiliating me because they were so good and I was hunting and pecking for notes. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: April 17, 2004 - Highlights and Lowlights: Seventh Grade Boy, I did a whole lot of nothing today. I spent the most time napping, shortly followed by the four hours I spent watching the Cubs lose to Cincinnati. Stupid Reds. In the time I was awake, I managed to clean my living room and get dealt the greatest Euchre hand possible. I've never seen it in real life but there she is. I guess getting the 10 of clubs would technically be better but there is still no conceivable way to lose this hand. God, my day was boring. Writing about Euchre. Chris came by for a little while and then Jamie took me to Publix (since my damn car doesn't work).

I know I've been kind of slacking a little bit and not posting these the night they were "due" but I'm going to get back into my old, good habits again soon. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow (really today) and I hope I get a lot of it done (I haven't yet).

7th Grade

Highlight: Brian Kopf and I made it to the state finals for our science fair project, The Dissolving Rate of Red Starbursts. It was a pretty stupid project but we always had the red ones left (now the only ones I eat). Anyway, we would have won but someone (me) left some required piece of paper and although we had the highest score at the finals because of this single piece of paper we had to forfeit our trophy. God, we were nerds. Anyway, that same year I talked Brian into helping me use all my brother's toilet paper/paper towel/Christmas-Present-Paper/Assorted Cardboard tubes (which he religiously saved and stockpiled) for a huge fight. We ended up breaking all of them and Steve was pretty pissed. I'm sure he still harbors a grudge against me and keeps me on the "Kill" list. If you know Steve, you know he really does keep a Kill List. Hopefully once he makes it a little further through college he'll find drinking and drugs and that'll mellow him out a bit.

Lowlight: In our 7th grade science class I got stuck in a group with Ken Thomas, the "coolest" kid in our grade. I had just gotten a pair of tie-shoes a year ago and was very proud of them. He, on the other hand, coming from a disgustingly rich family, had the newest pair of Nike Air Jordans. The new craze from Nike was to have the actual airbag viewable from the sides. These shoes cost well over $150 in the early 1990s, which was about 5x as much as I was allowed to spend on a pair of shoes. Anyway, Ken was having a good laugh at my shoes (the only things visible through mine were my feet--I had had these same shoes for about a year and a half) so I mustered up all my courage and asked what he'd do if I took my pen and popped the air bags on his. He shrugged, took my pen and popped a hole in each shoe. The next day he had a brand new pair and did the same thing. The next day he had another brand new pair. Somehow after those three days he was at least nice to me. I guess my courage was good but damn that bastard and his parents' money. I felt so poor after that I was going to be a business man and focus on nothing but making money so I could buy my kids nice shoes every day. Oops, sorry kids. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: April 18, 2004 - Highlights and Lowlights: Eighth Grade Thar she blows, me maties. If this isn't one of my best pieces of art, I don't know what is. Mike sent me a picture of it and it's just as neat as I remember. If you want to see it in all of it's glory click here and expand it.

I woke up promptly at 9am and worked diligently on my arrangements until about 3:30. With those finally checked off my list..what? They're not checked off my list? Oh that's right, my printer ran out of toner at 6:15, right after all the stores closed. Not that I could have run out to get some anyway, since the Crap-Taurus doesn't start. The rest of my day was filled with general malaise. I somehow managed to knock a full bottle of wine off the top of my refrigerator and Jamie and I cleaned it up. I made my worst batch yet of chicken and dump(ling) soup. I tried a new recipe for the dumplings and they all dissolved into the stew. Thank god I had some stale oyster crackers to throw in.

I now must work on my atonal term paper because I'm meeting with Dr. Rogers at 2:30pm tomorrow to go over it.

8th Grade

Highlight: I guess my first real smooch happened on the band trip to St. Louis. Hannah L*ngren. Ah, yes. We started off by playing truth or dare. I also got my first drum set. It still lives in a big stack in my parents' house. For some reason I can't remember much about 8th grade. I ran track and was pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, we got a new kid from South Africa named Simon P*gh and he was faster and got all the glory. That bastard. So where is he now? According to googlism.com: simon pugh is looking forward to building a strong partnership with the club that many of the firm’s staff support Whatever the hell that means. We also had a big basketball competition at the end of the year where all of the 8th graders formed two lines and your line had to make a basket before the other team and then pass it back. If you scored first, the person shooting against you was out. When there were two people left, they each went at the same time and I beat Mike Martin for the win. That was my crowing basketball achievement before punching that middle-aged buttsniff in the stomach some 12 years later.

Lowlight: I had a terrible allergic reaction to eating Cookie Crisps for breakfast. It was a terrible idea by parents to get me to eat something other than cookies for breakfast so they got me this cookie-cereal. We were watching a movie in science class and I felt like I was going to pass out. I asked to go the nurse and tried to walk to the nurses' office. I passed out twice on the way and when I got there I had a temperature of 96.something degrees. I got to stay home the next day of school. Mike W*tczak also put his penis on my desk during a homeroom period. God, that kid was weird. I knew listening to that "Pearl Jam" wasn't good for you. He was walking back to his seat from the front of the class, whipped it out and set it on my desk. He was sent to the principal's office. I think my ruined my chances with this girl named Emily, though her last escapes me at the moment. It started with a B and she had red hair. Buchanan? What was it? I also had this terrible retainer that honestly was the size of a small coaster. I wore it because I didn't want braces...until Mr. Zemasky, the effeminate English teacher, told me I wasn't allowed to talk in class when it was in and gave me F's whenever I had to spell a word for our weekly spelling quizzes. If I did take it out to talk he pretended like I still had it in my mouth and he couldn't understand me. That bastard. I remember we had a 16-year old troublemaking student but he was expelled when he brought some sort of weapon to school. Let's see...1993...so it was probably like a mace or something. I remember Tyler L*ndberg catching Christopher R*ndeau pleasuring himself in the bathroom and thereby ruining any hopes of Chris' popularity in high school even though his parents moved to the new, exclusive Ashbury area. Mike R*que also tried to push me into a locker but I managed to punch him in the neck and get away safely. That was as close as I came to being put in a locker...at least for a couple of years. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Monday: April 19, 2004 - Angry Font It's my angry font!

Such a fine day ruined by such bad news! Atonal was fine, highlighted by a great demonstration of square dancing as a means of explaining atonal transformations. I met with Dr. Rogers about my term paper and she and I spent the first half-hour talking about nothing but square dancing. Ok, it might sound pretty lame but in actuality it was very cool. The bad news, of course, is that I won't be the director of Mas N' Steel in the fall...or ever. I thought I'd be able to be cool when the decision finally came but I'm really pissed. I'm not sure what qualifications I needed to have...other than being a doctoral student in Ethno. Apparently somehow this qualifies people to direct the ensemble. See, being a fool, I thought the qualities would be something along these lines:

1) Experience playing pan (check).

2) Experience playing percussion (check).

3) Experience directing ensembles (check).

4) Experience teaching (check).

5) Knowledge of all things pan including but not limited to technique, construction, music, styles (check).

6) Proven abilities as a leader (check...please refer to my SUSSAI forms).

What the hell happened? I have a g*ddam Fellowship that recognizes my teaching...granted it's for music technology, but teaching is teaching. God only know how good a teacher I could be with a subject I really care about. What else do I have to do? Leon High School is practically playing an All-Mike-Catania concert for their Spring Concert. Not that anyone other than Matt Flynn has been around long enough to play gigs with me where I played lead, but I'm pretty damn good. Give me a CD--I can play it back after I listen to it a couple times. Need an arrangement? Oh, that's me too. I do my best to get into it at concerts, do a very respectable job arranging (except for Michael's triple parts with low B's) and most importantly, I know music. I understand it like few people can because I have to rip it apart and rebuild it day after day. And when I'm not rebuilding it, I'm building it from scratch. Yeah, that's right, from nothing. Not only can I build a damn good piece from nothing, there are things that only theorists would appreciate that no performer or audience member would ever even think to look for. And that's the way I like it. I like being able to put together quality works that sound great that have those hidden things. Oh! Who did all the research so we could get a new set of cellos? ME! Me again! I see a recurring theme (leitmotif) and it's ME. ME ME ME. I build you a f'ing website that brings in 1600 hits in a year after your old one got 37 hits in two years (and no, that counts 0 hits to this journal).

Ok, so wallow in mediocrity. Chris and Michael are only going to carry you so far. I hate to break it to you, FSU faculty and future grad students, but without me, Jamie, Jara and Tom, you're already in big trouble. Unfortunately, in this situation, all the uncomfortable elbow-touching isn't going to bale you out. Really, my only wish now is to go somewhere close enough were I can build my own program and just rub it the face of Florida State. Am I being a sore loser? You betcha. Am I being unfair to the new guy? Probably. I guess..no, I know..I don't care. At all. Man, I'm so pissed.

So anyway, this page is coming down this weekend and will be replaced with this. So, press Control-D to update your bookmarks because fortunately this page will not be removed but you won't be able to access it any other way (for the one or two of you that still go to the Mas N' Steel homepage first). [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: April 20, 2004 - Emo Kids Hey emo kids, it's 4-20, time to get high and talk about how the stresses of your life are preventing you from changing the world. Here's my little entry in the emo style...

dark. i rejected the sun's attempt to take me from my dreamscape and continued to sleep, the only time i am happy. my protest against both the electric company and owners of the laundry machines in my apartment complex prevented me from showering or changing my underwear for the fifth straight day. i gave my lemming-like classes a quiz and then their sussai forms. i'm sure they're too busy listening to john mayer and other pointless bands to even think about all the work that goes into that class. after class i sat home in the engulfing darkness of my soul-trapping apartment and listened to some underground music i bought on vinyl because it was on vinyl. since i don't actually know how to operate my record player i had to settle for imagining the lyrics over these pieces i've been writing on my guitar. even tho they're only two chords i think it really captures me and my fish-in-a-blender sort of life. oh, i need to write that one down on my list of band names. instead of going to music bibliography i went to the local dump to pick up the rest of the clothes for my summer wardrobe. in the only positive thing that has ever happened to me, i found a frayed copper wire that i can use for a belt. that reminds me, everything sucks. so after getting high and contemplating why i am such a loser and that honestly i am the only significant person in this universe i went to my last class and listened to some salsa music. it was ok--it was no Easter Bunny Eating Pheasant Placenta but it was still ok. i went to the mas n steel party after my class and pretended to partake in the jubilation of others but really i knew that i was just another concert closer to the warm embrace of death. i stayed up until 5am thinking about some band names and finishing a paper before i got high again, sewed some new patches on all my clothes and went to bed. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: April 21, 2004 - Jamie's Crying Other than getting the Taurus started my day was very uneventful. Hence, here is Jamie's day.

I should start this entry by saying that I feel very flattered to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to post my own content on Mike’s journal. I hope no one is bored by the tedious details of my life. There’s no way I could ever match the excitement of Mike’s entries, for I will not be talking about studying atonal theory, looking at my fish or consuming large amounts of fast food. Hope no one is too disappointed! But anyway, Mike, I’m truly honored that you’ve entrusted your journal to me – you’ve made my week worthwhile. I’d better move on before I begin to cry – I know you wouldn’t want your journal-space invaded with something as silly as emotion.

Wednesday (yesterday) wasn’t terribly interesting. I woke up early to finish my paper on using feminist psychotherapy with victims of sexual assault for my Women’s Issues class. Yes everyone, social work majors do conduct research, write papers and study more than the art of holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Around 11:30, I hear my favorite roommate get into the shower, and I panicked. My class wasn’t until 1, but her hobbies include taking 30 minute showers and spending 30 minutes following her showers in the bathroom doing God knows what. While I waited, I put some water on to boil for my lunch, and around 12:20, I took the fastest shower of my life while my lunch cooked. Yeah, I’m that efficient. I scarfed down my food while blow-drying my hair and somehow made it to class on time.

In class, I was approached by my least favorite classmate of all time who offered me homemade cookies. I do love chocolate chip cookies, but my hatred of her advised me not to eat them. She’s such a weird girl. The first class of the year, I made the HUGE mistake of speaking to her. Apparently introducing myself meant that we were to be best friends forever. I quickly realized that she was the most annoying, dramatic and needy person I’d ever met, so I spent a few weeks being a complete bitch to her hoping she’d realize that I had no interest in being buddies – apparently she didn’t get the memo. Luckily she only attended about 4 classes the entire semester, but man, those 4 classes were hell. I wish I could put into words what she’s like, but it’s simply impossible. This class session together was quite possibly the worst. She touched me a lot, and by a lot, I mean constantly (she makes creepy-elbow-guy seem normal). She sat behind me, and she’d touch my hair, telling me how much she loved my haircut (which, by the way, looks like shit because I’m in the process of growing it out). She’d touch my shirt telling me how much she loves my clothes. She’d put her hand on my back to fix the tag of my shirt because it was bothering her. Instead of tapping me on the shoulder to get my attention, she’d touch me in a weird place right under my armpit. Ick! Just thinking about it gives me the intense desire to go take a shower. Good thing this semester is over, and I never have to see her again.

Anyway, I digress. After class I went to Mike’s only to find him sound asleep but looking quite hot in his new Kenneth Cole shirt. I unsuccessfully tried waking him up for about five minutes while he talked to me in his sleep, asking me where Brian and Emily had gone. I wish he’d said something incriminating instead, but oh well – maybe next time. Finally he woke up and we went down to jump his car which had been dead for about a week. This time we were actually successful at jumping it, and we drove to Sears to get a new battery. While we waited, we did a little shopping, and then I went to my Death and Dying class. I stayed up real late to finish my paper on Bereaved Parents, which is damn good by the way.

Today (Thursday) was exciting because it was my last day of undergraduate classes ever! I had my favorite class first, Social Work with Groups. We had a very emotional last class period. My teacher runs the class like an actual therapy group, so we’ve all grown very close. It was a nice ending to a really incredible class. It ended a little early, so I used my time before my next class wisely – I went to Ross. I bought some damn sexy new shoes. My next class was terribly painful as always. When it was finally over, I walked over to the other side of the University Center to get lunch. The guy behind the counter gave me my free muffin as he does every Thursday – I’m not quite sure why, but I’m not going to complain. In my Human Sexuality class, everyone had to finish their class presentations. Presentation days are usually extremely boring, but not in this class. One girl did hers on sex toys for women – it was interesting to say the least, and she brought us all little gifts. How nice! Then we had a face-reddening presentation on anal sex. The girl asked everyone who had ever had anal sex to raise their hands, and surprisingly 56% of the class had done it at least once. I was surprised it was this high. Of course, everyone in that class is pretty open-minded to begin with; otherwise we probably wouldn’t be in the class, but still, that’s really high. I said goodbye to my favorite TA, and that was the end of my semester – Yay! Tonight I’m going to have dinner with Mike and do absolutely nothing else. I’ll let him fill you in on the rest of the day later tonight. By the way, Abby’s first birthday was on Tuesday – I’m sure all of your cards and presents are just caught up in the mail. I’ll be expecting them soon.

Thanks for having me do your entry Mike; it was fun!

Well let that be a lesson to you, loyal readers. Appreciate my updates! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: April 22, 2004 - Excellent Smithers "Excellent, Smithers..." (in my best hunched over Mr. Burns' voice.) My SUSSAI Experiment is complete. I divided my sections into three groups: Pop quiz/SUSSAI, Pop Quiz/Wait until next class period-SUSSAI, and SUSSAI/Know-Ahead-Of-Time-Quiz. I'm curious to see how the results pan out. I hypothesize that the class that took the pop quiz and then the SUSSAI immediately thereafter will give me the lowest evaluations followed by the ones that had to take the SUSSAI knowing they were about to take the quiz followed by the ones that had a day and a half to forget they took a quiz. Who knows, though. The dynamic of the classes, while similar, might not be constant enough for it to really be publishable in American Teacher Weekly.

In my last day of classroom teaching at FSU, things went as smoothly as could be expected for having so many students all freaking out about the final project at once. I scored a B+ on my Bibliography midterm and I hit our class and professor with all "Poors" on her SUSSAI except for an "Excellent" on if I liked the book (which I did). Meg gave a "she's a witch, burn her" presentation as soon as she left the room, possibly unaware that our professor was standing right outside, undoubtedly listening to every word. Only six out of 40 showed up for our last Music of the Caribbean class, including one grad student who I haven't seen since day 2. Jamie and I went out for dinner after class and I ended up buying a big 40oz stock pot. Now my chicken dumpling soup won't overflow like the smaller pots, which means less kitchen cleaning for me (or my guests). [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: April 23, 2004 - Enhanced Searches Academically, I have reached the Dead End of FSU. I signed up for my last 3 credits of summer classes after finding out that today was the last day to sign up. It was a massive runaround but I got it done. Bam. I mailed out the rest of my pieces to Eastern Virginia along with the first invoice. Bring on the money! After class I ran some errands with the bird slayer, Chompy. Amongst the new purchases was a new filter for the cichlid tank. I plunked down the $85 to replace the suck-starting filter that came with the tank. It was a good investment because now the fish aren't all gasping for air at the top. I went out with Kathy n' Co. for some beverages at Andrew's downtown. I like her friend Chris a lot and I'm confident by the end of his stay here he will have divulged at least one government secret. So far all I've gotten is that Elvis is not only alive, but working as an army strategist. Well, that explains the current affairs in the middle east, now doesn't it. Chris and Michael brought me two new fish for the tank so I named them...Chris and Michael! They're both still alive. Jamie and I also went to the Warehouse to check out Evil-Chris and Ross' bluegrass bands. We got there too late to hear Ross but we did get to hear Chris. It was really cool. When they weren't singing they were really good. The vocal parts were really lame and just generally stupid but the music behind it was pretty cool.

I noticed when reading how people came to the site that most people do not know the difference between a biography and a bibliography. I've seen Paris Hilton Bibliography, Luol Deng Bibliography, etc. What retards. So, to answer some questions/comments commonly asked by Google of my page:

1) Yes, I know I have a Chompy fish here.

2) No, Chompy does not "do it" with the cichlids/

3) I do not have the recipe for Ruby Tuesday's mock mashed potatoes.

4) And finally: No, Mas N' Steel is NOT better off without me. You bastard.

More high school stories to come next week! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: April 24, 2004 - All-American Ford, Tallahassee Nathan called me at 9:30 and woke me out of a very sound dream. I tried to play it cool as though I had been up and being productive but I'm sure he was able to figure it out. Jamie and I went to visit Jamie's dad at his Habitat for Humanity project house, conveniently located in the ghetto of Frenchtown, usually a place where they don't even allow White-Out or white bread. Everyone there was really friendly. Jamie and I were in charge of the menial task of hammering the cripples in. Those are the inner door frames. We were told how to do at least a dozen times, even though it could be explained once like this: hammer this board into that board with none of the edges sticking out. Some "good Samaritan" decided that I wasn't holding my hammer low enough and gave me a ten minute lecture on "physics". Normally I would have kindly explained to him that my method was giving me a 100% accuracy rate and not leaving huge hammer-gashes in the wood but I just nodded since he was undoubtedly either an Episcopalian or worked for All-American Ford. All-American Ford? How do they have the time to do community work? Oh that's right, because they're supposed to be fixing cars. At least they're not out killing babies. At least on Saturday mornings. Even though Jamie and I collectively only hammered in about a dozen of these boards, we still got the requisite painful blisters. See, now *my* hammer technique could have avoided this...oh wait! I know it's not a competition but my method could hammer a 12 gauge nail in six strokes, whereas his took no less than ten, so I have double no idea what this guy was talking about. Whatever. Anyway, we got some Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then I took a shower and got ready to go play with Jara and Nathan. We found out on Thursday that they were moving the time from at night to the afternoon to accommodate the guest--a Florida cosmetologist turned legistalture(ess). This was an extremely conservative group, complete with her thanking her husband for "allowing her to do this [running for Congress]". This woman apparently does not have a college degree yet is the head of Education. Cripes, no wonder FSU doesn't have enough money to hire me, she could barely put a sentence together without ending it with a preposition and on those rare occasions she was able to do this, it was because she was so busy spewing negative things about the current guy in D.C. that she forgot they're bad things to end sentences with. :D It was out on this farm near Havana, a really beautiful place deeply saturated with old money. They paid us well, though and gave us an extra $20 tip. We gave away all 15 of our fliers and had to write out contact information on a bunch of napkins for the rest of the people. I figured 15 would be enough after our last gigs but apparently they couldn't tell that our Ornette Coleman, free-jazz versions of Bacchanal Lady and Margaritaville were not intended to sound that way. We did manage to end in the same measure but the egg-shaker was too small to be able to played slowly and Jara's part being all upbeats made for a wacky "beat". Now that I know that the lobbyists were paying for this and not the couple I should have asked for twice as much money, but live and learn. They had this rooster running around as their pet as well as as some Guinea birds, apparently used as watch-birds because they go crazy when strangers are around. They also had some really great golden retrievers that followed me around and demanded petting time. I graciously let Jara and Nathan go home and unpacked all the crap by myself. And by all the crap I mean the congas and my pan. I'm so gracious. Jamie said Mike's recital went well and was well-attended. While inconstant with my running for Bastard 2004 campaign, I planned on going but the times of the gigs changed and I had already agreed to play. We had some pizza for dinner and then set to work on selling tons of my crap on eBay. As of yet, there have been no bidders but I started everything at a dollar in the hopes of just getting all this crap out of my house before I have to move. We borrowed Jamie's Dad's digital camera to take pictures of the crap so I took a couple of Chompy today. I disturbed her from slumber and she wasn't particularly happy about it. Below is a picture (of a picture) from when Ab was a wee pup and would insist on playing with Chompy even though she wanted to sleep. The title of the photograph is "You stupid bitch, let me sleep." [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: April 25, 2004 - Highlights and Lowlights: Ninth Grade You'll all be pleased to know the total of all my for sale items on eBay have finally reached the elusive $4 plateau. I can't really describe what all I did today because, well, I just did so much. And by so much, I mean run a load of dishes in the dishwasher and rekindle my Yahoo Euchre score back up to 1700 after my six month hiatus. Obviously a large part of my day was spent photographing Chompy in suggestive poses. For some reason, I thought selling things on eBay would rid my house of all the clutter. It didn't. Most of the clutter comes in the form of large, pool-table-sized chunks which are difficult to box and ship to gullible strangers. The Cubs won again today--go Cubs. The NFL draft also was completed but I didn't recognize any of the names drafted by the Bears or Packers. Although I am now a Green Bay fun (until the Bears decide to send Rex Grossman to the gallows), I couldn't help but see how my once-beloved Bears were doing. Four FSU players were drafted but all in the second round. I finally got a second rejection letter today, this one from Georgia Perimeter College. At least now I know that the universities are, in fact, getting the mail I send them. The light blue team won, for those of you following the Trading Spaces Home Free fiasco. The "lucky viewer" who won her mortgage was probably the most boring woman ever caught on television. Not only that, her house was terrible for a "homemaker". I don't think you should be allowed to say "I'm a full-time mom!" when asked what your career is. It's not your career. According to dictionary.com a job is: A regular activity performed in exchange for payment, especially as one's trade, occupation, or profession. And don't give me that "my payment is in love and kisses from little ones!" Go get a job. No one is making you have kids so stop living our your own failed lives through them. The winning team, though, had a child and that's fine by me. Both of them have jobs and neither of them take themselves too seriously, which is crucial when you have a child that will make fun of you incessantly until you're dead or at least in a rest home, out of their front of their mind.

High School - Freshman Year

Highlight: Playing with the Wind Ensemble. They were really good and I felt really cool as the only freshman playing with them. Oh yes, my life was that sad.

Lowlight: Standing at the bus stop at this A-Frame house with this kid that smoked. I used to hide my head in my coat so I didn't inhale all his second-hand smoke. He was the same kid that "gave love a bad name" with Jessica F*hey in her pool that summer. His name was John and he said that his uncle was the guy that came up with the "Pink" in Pink Floyd's name. Good thing I had never heard of them at the time or I would have just laughed in his oily face. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Monday: April 26, 2004 - Measuring Caloric Intake Just for kicks I measured my caloric intake today. Today was not a particularly healthy day but nonetheless very average. Between the four helpings of roast beef, five potatoes (conveniently mashed), a couple of those Lil' Debbie snack cakes, a vat of ice(d) cream and some super pretzels amongst other delicacies I managed to rack up a count of about 4500. See, I'm baffled by this number since that's twice what is recommended to even gain weight. As I finish off another 420 in chocolate milk, I can't help but wonder what is wrong with my body. I try to stay as inactive as possible in the hopes of at least promoting a Buddha belly but even that is not happening. So it's 1:37am and in the past 24 hours nearly 5000 calories have been in and out of my system...actually counting the Guilder's Spicy Mustard Chris and Michael got me for my birthday, I'm sure I surpassed 5000. I'm still hungry, though. I don't think I could eat a second dinner but if someone offered me some like, I don't know, Sno-Caps or a steak I could probably manage to snarf it down.

I had my last atonal class and my God Chompy, it was a real snoozer. I tried to turn in my paper but since I didn't have the score I'll have to settle for dumping it off at the Atonal party tomorrow night. I received a bit of good news--my pan will be ready Thursday or Friday and I can pick it up this weekend. Weird, after all this waiting I can't believe that I will have my own pan. I still need to spend the extra $360 for the flight case and the double-braced stand. While both have lesser versions that are cheaper I figure that I should just invest in the best and not worry about it later. I'm very excited, anyway. I think I'll take it out to the amphitheater behind the recital hall and play outside this weekend if it's nice enough weather. I think I'll have to play outside because the full boring of the pan might make it too loud to not deafen Professor Chomp here.

I guess it's time to address a couple more of the ways people got here...

1) Mike and Chompy need parents, not workaholics: Don't worry. Neither myself nor Chompy could ever be confused for a workaholic.

2) Chompy could NOT direct Mas N' Steel better than me, even when humping The Ab.

3) And yes, Dr. Rogers and I DO do atonal together, so there.

I cleaned out the message board today after ignoring it for about a year. Apparently, although this is a university sponsored site, the type of location where education, wisdom and understanding are supposed to occur, the board has been ravaged with postings of sheer ignorance, stupidity tempered with a large dose of immaturity and immorality. I am all for the internet being an open forum for all types of discussion but that's what needs to occur--discussion. Discussion occurs when two conflicting sides are able to address issues not spew vocal feces for all to view.

Happy 2000th visitor to the Mas N' Steel site. The hit was from somewhere on the FSU campus. Who could it be? This page had its 3333rd visitor today from Bell Canada. It was most likely someone wanting the notes or MIDI for "Happy Birthday" on steel pan. I can definitely see why they would need this--the notes on pan are very different than on any other instrument. In fact, we don't even use the same tonal system as "western" music. We really only have one note, so all of the music is tonal. Since I had so much free time and I, for one, am interested in tearing down stereotypes, here is my peace offering. It's Happy Birthday, arranged for pan. Download it all you want. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: April 27, 2004 - Michael Buchler: Genius Qué dia! I spent from 10:30am to 5pm in the music library today trying to finish my bibliography final. Finish--Hah! I know what you're thinking--that's not a picture of the music library. And you're right, it's not. I couldn't find one so I had to settle for one of the music buildings. I did get a lot done but not nearly enough. There was a large contingent of people working so none of the books I needed were shelved properly (if at all). I still don't have my CD #2 for my Music of the Caribbean class and I'm starting to panic. Why oh why did I wait until the last minute!! I think Theory-Chris wins the procrastination award of 2004, though. He finished coloring his atonal analysis at the party where it was due. I'm sure his paper will be better than mine even if I was done first, so I guess it all evens out. I had a really fun time at the Atonal party even if between Kathy, Rob and Dr. Buchler I didn't really have a chance at winning in Set. I can't even fathom how smart Dr. Von Glahn is if Dr. Buchler refers to her as a genius, since I consider HIM to be a genius. Dr. Rogers is a genius too, of course and it was nice to see that they exist as normal people outside of the School of Music just like everyone else. Last night they found out about my blog so I hope they don't go searching for it. Although, to both their credit, I don't think I've written anything particularly negative about either one of them. Hopefully the word won't spread like with Brian's journal with all the faculty getting a daily dose of Uri before class. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: April 28, 2004 - Music of the Caribbean All this time I thought I was teaching an "easy-A" class but apparently I was wrong. I am pleased to report, however, that over half the class did get A's with almost an equal amount of F's to B's. My breakdown last semester had a higher ratio of F's and less A's. Apparently the smart do get smarter and the dumb still get dumber. Unlike last semester, though, only two of the F's were for attendance reasons. I still have to do the thing I hate most--email people and tell them why they got the grade they did (if they're not going to get an A or a B from me). Oh well, a couple small undergraduate hearts to break.

I spent most of my day at school again today trying to finish my Bibliography final. I was successful in my mission. Hoorah. I also got the CD for my Music of the Caribbean midterm, which naturally I haven't started yet. It's already 2:30am and my eyes are killing me after doing nothing but grades for the past five hours. In the future I just need to give exams instead of projects because it takes freaking forever to grade projects. Speaking of projects, I do have a certain student this semester who used one of his/her links to his/her livejournal. Being crazy about journals I had to read it. Well, well, well, Chompy. Turns out Student Z had some not so nice things to say about me. He/She accused me of not doing anything in class. Well, I've got news for you Student Z, take Music Bibliography. The books aren't broken, so there's no excuse. I guess it doesn't matter now, he/she failed. I'm just kidding, I'm not that vindictive. Or am I? Du du duh! No, of course not. I'll consider punching him/her in the face for the unkind words but I won't tarnish FSU's great reputation by taking it out on him/her academically.

Some people were supposed to come over for a Bibliography party but, except for Fran, no one came by. Not even Meg, that crazy bimbo. Too bad I still have her bag over here. I feel like I did a lot more today than I have to show for it. I spent a lot of my afternoon cleaning for this "party" but the only party I ended up having was a pup party. And a red three party. Oh and what parties they were. Finally, I talked to Alan Coyle today and apparently he never got the package of scores I sent him. Included in that package was a note saying I wanted a left-hand lead. So, today I received news that the drum that was painstakingly built was a normal one. So now I have to wait another month and a half while he builds me a new one from scratch. Damn!

OH, one last thing. I had an unusually large amount of hits today from FSU. Did the faculty find me?! Du du duh! Stay tuned! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: April 29, 2004 - School's Out Forever And thus ends another chapter in the education of Mike C. My morning and afternoon were completely occupied by the writing of my last final A Schenkerian Approach to Caribbean Music. Although any member of the theory faculty would undoubtedly give me a big fat F for my bastardizing of Schenker's theories, I'm confident I applied it well enough to the music of the Caribbean. My methods were not as useful as I had imagined, especially on the amusical music of Jamaica. Bob Marley, you can stay--the rest of you can go smoke yourselves into oblivion. Oh wait, that's why you're writing the music that you are. Don't get me wrong, drugs of all types from pot to opium to absinthe to cocaine have produced some of the greatest music the world has ever seen from Berlioz to The Beastie Boys and I am certainly not inferring that drugs should not be a golden key to the compositional process but come on, Jamaica. I ended up stalking Dr. Carter today trying to hand her my last bibliography assignment. It was very late but she still took it. I don't really even care if she counts it or not. I'm done and that's all that matters. Since it's the last day, I figure I should grade all my classes.

Atonal Analysis: Dr. Rogers, I'm sorry that all your previous students have said such nasty things about you. I must admit that the prototypical reply of "Ok, fine" was a little off-putting at first but then I realized that wasn't supposed to be as condescending as I thought (I hope not anyway). Even if you give me a C, I learned more in Atonal about both theory and pedagogy than any other class I've ever taken. Sure, there were too many articles to read and we didn't really discuss them but that's ok. The balance and the pace were great and it accommodated everyone in the class except maybe for Alex, who knew everything ahead of time. Final Grade: A+

Music Bibliography: Other than regurgitating everything I've said in previous postings, I can only say that this was the single worst class I've ever had to take. At least in the other terrible classes I've taken I at least had the option to learn something if I had wanted to. Not only did I *not* want to learn anything, there was nothing TO learn. Final Grade: F(-)

Music of the Caribbean: A truly uninspired class with dull material. My gut feeling was an F but the fact of the matter is that I did come away with more knowledge than when I started the class. If Atonal was the model of how to teach a class, MotC was the antithesis. I do now know, though, what not to do. The largest thing was, if (glord forbid) I should ever say that attendance is mandatory, I'd better damn well take attendance consistently. If I want to put a class to sleep quickly, I need to lecture for 80 minutes twice a week and not allow any sort of student participation. The books were inane and the assignments didn't really introduce me to anything I wouldn't have done on my own. Final Grade: C-

Thesis Hours: Dr. Clendinning was great with me all semester both in a mentor role and as a theorist. I admit that I was worried when I left Dr. Buchler to work with her (especially after some truly horrifying stories from others from people I might or might not have worked with) but she really demonstrated everything to me as well as I think she could have. She also was willing to listen to me rant about things that had nothing to do with my thesis. Final Grade: A

Steel Band: Well, it was another thankless semester complete with a panorama that sounds like some sort of pan-gas passing hybrid. The concert was wrought with mistakes and on the whole we were unprepared to play for my sixth semester in a row. Aside from the musicianship, I had a lot of fun and was grateful for the opportunity to play with some really great musicians. I think my arrangement of the Chopin went well enough but I still don't understand why I had to do it. What about Mary? As far as mediocre world ensembles go at the FSU School of Music, I still think we're among the best of the lot. Gamelan is better rehearsed and sorority girls dig the salsa band but we have Matt Flynn. Final Grade: B-

Jamie and I spent the afternoon squabbling over board games. I got some pretty disgusting Olive Garden take-out for dinner. Oh and dear, dear searchers, please stop seeking links about my bad grammar. I hate you guys. Your semester grade is an F. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: April 30, 2004 - Zzzzzzz My summer started uneventfully with a leisurely wake-up call at 11am. I then wasted my entire day. Steve went to the Cubs game but I did not see him on TV. Apparently his MIKE sign was not big enough to make it onto WGN. Meg came by to get her bag but other than that, I did nothing. Some of the new searches for the page have been so weird I can't tell if they're real or not. And enough with the grammar ones, be creative! Look for some random words to make better sentences! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·