Hello everyone! I was really excited to log last week, but upon going to write Monday's article, I realized I forgot to take pictures (face palm). So instead, what I am going to do is give a brief summary of the funniest events of each day, and continue with the events of yesterday.

Summary of Last Week

Monday

On Monday last week, I had my first piano lesson. In the lesson, I tried to play the Beethoven movement I'm working on at tempo. My teacher pulled a trick out of her sleeve, and used the grand piano to record my playing, and play it back to me at half speed. She then pointed at each note I had missed, and at the end said that she gets worried students will jump out the window when she does that, but she knows I can take it, and then added that we're on the first floor anyway. She then told me never to bring something so sloppily prepared again. Here's a picture I got with my teacher. I think she's been reading these articles, and specifically asked to take a picture just so I'd include it.

Tuesday

Tuesday I had my first rehearsal for Westminster Choir. It was two hours long, and very demanding. The director is both hilarious and terrifying (in a good way). I tried to lay as low as possible, and not stick out. I made it through, so I must've done alright.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I went to a get to know the music fraternity event, and had a lot of fun. I have been invited to join, but I still think the concept of a Fraternity is stupid, and don't think I will.

Thursday

On Thursday, we had our second rehearsal for Westminster choir. This time, I accidentally made myself stand out (quite literally). I stood up to change seats (because the guy next to me had switched seats, and I wanted to be closer to the section). When I stood up, the director immediately asked me if I was ok, and then said "oh you want to sit in the front with the altos, don't you?" Of course I responded yes because I saw that as the best way of making the situation end. I then found myself in the alto section. That was really good when the basses (including me) made a mistake, and she went down the section jokingly hitting us with her music. Since I wasn't sitting there, she didn't hit me. The altos all laughed when I said "I knew to get out when I needed to".

Later that night, I almost fell over squatting at the gym. That's progress if I've ever seen it. You shall hear more about my incredible athleticism soon enough.

Friday

On Friday, I practiced a bit, had the third rehearsal with the Westminster choir. Someone sneezed in rehearsal, and then said "sorry allergies". The director responded "What? Are you allergic to me?" I can already tell this class is gonna be a lot of fun. Though after the class, the director asked me if I'm alright because I don't smile a lot, and I still wonder how she can observe that when I'm wearing a mask. After rehearsal, I drove home.

Day 11

My first game of flag football

Waking up and breakfast

Yesterday I woke up at 7am. I was slightly tired because I'd gotten back to campus late Sunday night, but none-the-less, I got ready, and went to get breakfast. On my way, I stopped by the printer to print stuff.

As per usual, there were very few people getting breakfast when I was there. I once again ate by myself, and played balloons tower defense 6 while I ate. I have been really frustrated about how much I have been losing whenever I play it. I usually play it when I just need a mind numbing task to do.

After I finished breakfast, I worked on school work, and finished it. Someone from Rider saw me reading through music, and came over to ask me if I'm a musician. He then told me that he was in choir in high school. I guess he didn't realize there's literally a choir college on campus. Maybe I will see him in the choir one day.

First class and lunch

My first class was form and analysis, and we analyzed some Beethoven (how fitting considering the tie I chose to wear). We are finally moving towards analyzing the form of whole movements as opposed to just phrases. The smart board had not been working for the last two weeks, and finally started working yesterday so that was a definite plus. My teacher is quite energetic, and good at making the class engaging!

After class, I got lunch with a girl from the class. We are both Christians, so we talked about college life, and the bible. I had a hoagie from Jersey Mikes. One funny thing, is I have realized I like hoagies with vegetables on them, but when I went to wawa over the weekend, I ordered the same thing I always order because I'm scared I wont like an experimental hoagie, and that I will have wasted the money I use to buy it. Perhaps one day I will take a leap of faith, but for now, Jersey Mike's is where I will order experimental hoagies. Though the only thing left to add would be peppers because I have put everything else on at this point (except cheese for obvious reasons).

Choir class

After lunch, we had choir class (for the choir that all underclassmen are in called Schola). The choir sounds really good, and I can really hear all of the details the director is fine-tuning as he fine-tunes them. I can also see them on his face as he listens because he has one of those faces that reads like a book. You can tell what sounds good and what doesn't simply by looking at his face. I took a picture of the chapel, but you can see people in it, and I don't think I'm allowed to post it because of that.

Reading by the lake

After choir class, I sat by the lake reading a new book of H.P. Lovecraft short stories I bought. The first one I read was alright, but I had a hard time understanding the significance of the plot. I will not lie, it kind of bored me despite the twist at the end. In addition, Lovecraft uses so many big words that it seems he's sitting there with a thesaurus trying to make himself look smart. The vocabulary is so dense that it feels like I'm reading a science textbook sometimes. I think it's probably because those words were more common in his time, but it's really distracting for me. Anyway, I finished the first short story, and sat there just thinking about life.

Data Structures and Algorithms

I then went to my data structures and algorithms class. Yesterday we learned about analyzing algorithms, and determining the complexity of an algorithm (at least very basically). We learned that in determining the efficiency of an algorithm, you need to consider the time it takes to run, and the space in memory that is required. We will only talk about time in this class, and we talked about how there are three cases to analyze: the best case, the worst case, and the average case. In the class we will only focus on the worst case for the most part. I just happened to get in a group with some of the smarter people in the class, so any time we have a group discussion, and I suggest a wrong answer, one of them explains to me why it's wrong. Then the professor asks another group for their answer, they say the same thing I said, and the professor says the same thing that group member said to me.

Yesterday, I asked if the guys in my group are involved in blockchain. When they said no, I said maybe we could have lunch some time, and I could tell them about a blockchain I'm involved in (that being Steem). One of them said it sounds like a pyramid scheme, and I'm trying to sell them something. So I dropped the subject, and will not bring it up again. I hope Justin Sun and the Steemit team will help him discover Steem on his own by making it renowned.

Composition lesson

After class, I had a composition lesson. The professor was a bit late, so we went over a little bit too. I showed him a song I'm working on, and he said he thinks it's a finished product, and suggested I move on to the next one. We then analyzed the Hindemith flute sonata together, and I learned a lot about Hindemith's style as a composer. What Hindemith seems to focus on is the intervals between notes as opposed to tonal harmony, or voice leading. His music is centered around the idea that there are more consonant intervals between notes, and more dissonant intervals between notes. The movement we analyzed seems to be trying to balance the two to paint a picture through the development of a few melodic ideas and motifs. Here's the sonata:

Dinner and Flag Football

After the lesson, I went to change, and then to get dinner. For dinner, I had chicken strips, fries, and rice. I ate by myself charging my phone.

After dinner, I went to find the field my flag football team would be playing at. For more context, I signed up to be a free agent for flag football, and a team picked me. Boy must they have been surprised to learn my snapchat has Mozart in it. They probably regretted picking me, but I don't regret being picked.

Before the game, we warmed up, and some of the guys taught me how to play some of the different positions. During the game, I wound up playing the center, and just being a shield for the quarter back from blitzes. The game started at 7:30pm, and lasted for about an hour. The other team was good at running because we were playing man coverage, and didn't blitz to much at first. They wound up getting a touch down because of that. However, we adapted, and the game ended early because the mercy rule dictates that if a team is up by over 30 points at 5 minutes, they automatically win. My team won 48 to 8. It was a good game for us. I really like my teammates, and look forward to playing again next week. Here's a picture of me after yesterday's game:

Going to the gym

After the game, I went to the gym to workout my chest. Even though, I had the cardio of the game, I had to make sure to keep on track for working out. My workout was rather quick though since I didn't have to do any cardio at the beginning. For the record, my chest really is sore today so I must've done a good job.

Reading for History, and bed

After the gym, I did the only homework I had left which was to read a chapter for history. I learned about music up to ancient Greece. I learned that the 7 note diatonic scale currently used in Western music, was first used by the ancient Babylonians, and then adopted by the ancient Greeks. It's really cool to know that part of our system of music dates all the way back to the Babylonians. I also learned that in Ancient Greece, music was treated like a science, and was taught along with Astronomy and Arithmetic. Which makes sense because @remalps and I have always talked about how the thinking for music theory, and computer science are very similar.

I went to bed around 10pm because I was really tired!

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this! I hope you enjoyed it! I will try to continue logging each day despite the hiccup I had last week.