My readers will excuse me from the unnecessary duty of describing the denouement.

I think I'll copy Jason and have you guys listen to some music while you're reading. I realize this concerto is 36 minutes long, so I would suggest just starting it at the beginning and leaving it alone until you've finished reading. The first movement (0:20 - 18:40) is the best anyway. I'm listening to it while I type, and me gusta it. By the way, I saw this piece performed live in concert a month ago. You guys probably didn't hear about it because most of you were gone by then, so I guess I can say a little but about it here. It was a "Tchaikovsky Spectacular" at the Verizon Amphitheater (next to Wild Rivers), and they played Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, this Violin Concerto, and then ended with, of course, the 1812 Overture, including fireworks and really loud canons. I mean, really really really loud. BAM. Like that. Except louder. And not using half of Kevin's name. Yeah, I know, crazy.
The Violin Concerto that I've picked out for you is, un-coincidentally, one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. As in, top five or so. Right up there with Tchaik's Piano Concerto #1, Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Barber's Adagio for Strings, and, of course, Shore's "Breaking of the Fellowship".
Tchaik and Rach, by the way, will not be the only ingenious 19th century Russians mentioned in this post.

Well, none of that had anything to do with this week. I suppose I'll start talking about that now.

WAIT A MINUTE. Classical music did have something to do with my week. So a few days ago I was listening to KUSC via internet radio and they were playing Vivaldi's "Winter", also in my top five favorites of all time. (I have like twenty in the top five. Don't worry about it.) And once it was over, Dennis Bartel (love that man) came on and said something along the lines of, "Well, now we're gonna play the exact same piece, but with traditional Chinese instruments". And he was not a liar. It was amazing, to me at least, how much different the Chinese version sounded. You could still recognize it for "Winter", but it was . . . very strange. I don't know how else to put it. Nicole would like it. I say that only because she likes Vivaldi and she knows Chinese. Maybe I'll look it up and see if I can find it.

Guess what? I can't find it. All I'm finding are videos of people playing Vivaldi in China with European instruments. And some random figure skating videos. And now that I reread what I just wrote, I am reminded of a classic Sheldon Plankton line from the episode "The Algae's Always Greener". But let's move on, shall we?

Our single home meet took place last Saturday. The top 15 finishers get these fancy T-shirts. And by fancy I mean not really that fancy, in fact pretty run-of-the-mill, but nice anyway. I finished 13th out of [looking it up . . .] 75 with a career-best 27:54, which was the first time I had broken 28 minutes in the 8k. And, yeah, I got the shirt. Don't think that's so great, though. Our competition was pretty relaxed, to put it respectfully. To put it less respectfully, we swept the top 11 and had all 16 of our guys in the top 20.

Tomorrow's meet, which takes place in Williamstown, Massachusetts, will be a lot more competitive. How competitive? Stay tuned for next week's episode to find out.

Remember how my version of decorating a dorm room is putting 35 maps on the walls, 25 of which are ski resort trail maps? Well, as a consequence of decorating my room in such a way, I find myself spending even more time studying these maps than I used to, and that's one hell of a tall order in itself. I bring this up because while studying one of my maps, I noticed something about the way certain trails were named, and I thought some of you, but mostly just Rachael, would appreciate it. Snowbasin, a fantastic mountain in the north of northern Utah (yes, that description is intentional and accurate), is home to such runs as Get Back, Anytime, Strawberry Fields, The Walrus, Twist & Shout, Penny Lane, Let It Be, Taxman, and Blackbird. There are probably a few more references on the map that perhaps you, Rachael, could spot, but are beyond my Beatles knowledge. If you care to look:
http://skimap.org/data/219/7/1257018122.jpg

How is it that I end up talking about maps every week? Well, as long as we're on the subject, I may as well bring up a couple of things pertaining to my History of Cartography course. One of them is a paragraph in a book, and the other is a sentence or two (fine, three) from my professor's mouth. Let's start with the paragraph.

Just another passage in a lengthening line of snippets I've read that make me think someone was writing for an audience as specific as me and only me.
And now for some words of wisdom from my professor that leave me wondering if she'd like to read my Senior Project paper at some point: "Oh yes, Google Maps are great. So much easier and quicker. You can find out where places are without getting out of your chair, or, heaven forbid, supporting your local independent bookstore that sells maps."

But we mustn't dwell on maps for the entire blog post. Let us turn to something of almost equal importance to me: chocolate. Last night, over dinner, a conversation took place among the members of the XC team that should have taken place long ago: dark or milk? I was disgusted to discover that, among those whom I previously considered friends, lies a significant proportion who prefer milk to dark. Shame on them. Which gets me to thinking, I'm not sure which all of you prefer. I know Nicole likes dark, so she's safe. But to the rest of you: Are we destined to be close forever, or should I sever my ties now? In other words: Dark or milk?
NB: I love white chocolate as well, but that is neither here nor there. This is between dark and milk.

Let's change subject again. I miss Sandy. My mom sent me a recent picture. Look on my Dog, ye Mighty, and despair (at her cuteness)!

 Further related to Sandy: my mom had Raku's mom over some time in the last week or so (along with some other people), and this happened:

There is no escape from the cuteness terror. Not even for Raku's mom's hands.


Perhaps I could say something about academics this week.
We've begun reading the Qur'an, and I have learned two things. Well, more than that, but I am sharing two things right now.
1. The structure is completely different than that of the Bible. It's all out of order, not chronological in the least. It's like Genesis being near the end, Isaiah being at the beginning, and Revelation being in the middle.
2. The message is pretty much the exact same thing. I know it's a bit early in the semester to be generalizing about the entire Qur'an, but I can't help but think that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are pretty much the same thing, with the only real difference being which people they consider to be prophets and which they consider to be pretenders.

Russian lit has already reached Awesome Level 1, and it's only been two weeks. Last week, I said Karamzin was boring, and I stand by that, but this week we've been reading Pushkin, and I think it's fair to say that if everything else in this class sucks, Pushkin will have made it worthwhile on his own. Add "The Shot" and "The Stationmaster" to the list of stories you should probably get around to reading at some point. "The Snowstorm" and "The Lady Peasant" (audio version!) are also pretty good. This weekend I'm going to read what is often considered one of his masterpieces, "The Queen of Spades", (no link because you're not allowed to read it before I do) on which I may give a quick review next week. I have all of these stories in one volume, so if you're like me and you hate reading on the computer, you can borrow it when next we meet.
Another thing about Pushkin: He was a badass. According to Wikipedia (and my professor, so consider it true), he fought in 29 duels throughout his 37 years of living, and he retired with a .9655 survival average. Pretty good, huh?
Also, he was 12.5% black African. Yeah.

I'm going to close this out with a picture so incredibly beyond the realm of ordinary awesomeness that I can't even think of how it would be possible to describe how awesome something 1% as awesome as this would be.
It's also a picture that you guys aren't going to appreciate because you don't know that that guy in it is Teemu Selanne from twenty years ago, and even now that you do know that that guy is Teemu Selanne from twenty years ago, you still won't appreciate it because you don't know that Teemu Selanne is one of the greatest hockey players of all time, and holds pretty much every Ducks franchise record that exists, and even now that you know that Teemu Selanne is one of the greatest hockey players of all time, and holds pretty much every Ducks franchise record that exists, you still won't appreciate it because you haven't spent literally your entire conscious life rooting for him.

And now he's dressed as Mario.

 

R.I.P.

2012-2013 NHL season.