Records, that is. I moved my record player from the spare room into my bedroom, and man have I been enjoying it. I've already listened to six records and my ears are muy happy. I started with the stack of jazz albums that I got in Detroit over Thanksgiving. Sara Vaughan is better than I remembered and the Oscar Peterson trio brings me back to the jazz club in NYC.
I had my first session of training for InService today. It went really well--the guy who is doing all of our training reminds me a lot of my dad, at least in his public speaking, so that's kind of reassuring. I'm honestly enjoying all of this--I'm sure I'll see the day when I wish I never said that, but at least for right now it's kinda fun. I think i'm going to be good at it. Granted, they say the first few days are crazy, but once you get past that it's smooth sailing. It was long-ish (from 5 to 10) training, but it didn't get too boring so I managed to stay awake.
Most of this morning was spent working on the Delirious? flier (click
here to see it) and on updating various Student Life stuff. Hopefully I won't have to be doing that much more, which will free up a bit of my time.
This afternoon, after Caleb got out of class, he and I went to a sushi bar. It was a really interesting experience, and even though sushi is on the expensive side, I'm really glad we went. It was fun to watch them make our rolls and place the fish and everything. It all felt very "lost in translation" to me. We split a plate that had a selection of shrimp, smoked salmon, and alaskan crab rolls--not to mention wasabi that was so hot, even a smidgen of it (smidgen is a very official measurement, in case you were wondering) nearly burnt my tongue off. My fortune cookie told me that I would "do well and conquer every task undertaken." Glad to know I'm going to be the conquering type, since heaven knows I'll have a lot of that to do in thenext year or so.
Speaking of which, last night I had my share of, "Am I making the right choice/Should I really be going to Flagler/Am I even a decently creative person" thoughts. They plague me now and then, especially when I get busy. But I'm over it, and I woke up this morning feeling quite motivated becuase of it, which is good. A nice kick in the head now and then is good for me.
Oh! How could I even forget? The concert on Sunday night--it was great. I really enjoyed it, more than I thought I would. The three hour drive over there wasn't too bad, with Caleb, Daniel, and his friend Ryan keeping me company. We drove through some very shady (the honky-tonk kind) towns on our way to Norfolk, but it went by quickly. We also got the hour-long driving tour of Norfolk as we tried to figure out some place to eat. We ended up right back where we started, near the Norva, and the boys got Subway while I grabbed some yummy fried chicken from a local BBQ place across the street. It was good, though not even coming close to touching Sylvia's (the best home-cookin' ever) in Harlem.
After we ate, it was about time for the show, so we got our tickets and were squeezed into an extremely packed Norva. The show was sold out, and you could certainly tell. It got a bit frustrating for me, since I'm short. And of course, if you're short, all of the tall people in the room gravitate towards you and form a circle, completely blocking out your view unless you get on your tiptoes for the entire show. I think my calf muscles grew about half an inch just from trying to see.
Even if I couldn't see as well as I liked, the music was wondeful.
Tilly and the Wall was a happy group of kids, with beautiful tap-dancing and some really lush music. I'm borrowing one of their cds from Cameron as soon as possible. Coco Rosie, the other opener, was also really great. They were...hard to explain. A mix of rock, electronica, and trance--with a black french guy (who wore an indian headress the whole time) doing the beat noises, samples of alarm clocks and roosters, and a vocalist that embodied Nelly Furtado on acid. Yes, strange, but very enjoyable. They also had a slideshow going that showed artwork for the entire set. I really enjoyed that, although there were a few more "nasty" pictures that I could have done without.
Bright Eyes played a good set, and although I did enjoy it, it was offset by the fact that he had to go into 2 or 3 nasty political songs. It really bothers me when artists make uninformed, blatant personal attacks on political figures. True, he might be informed, but the songs certainly didn't communicate that. And the audience (60% of whom were high-school kids) cheering and going wild about it didn't help. Come on, people.
All in all, though, a good show. Daniel was kind enough to make most of the drive home, so I got to sleep a bit. We stopped at a 7-11 (ahh, I miss those) that had a hole in the front--the cashier informed us that someone had driven their car through the front. Somehow the drinks and coffee tasted better coming from a truly ghetto 7-11.
Caleb was supposed to come over tonight, but he had to work late. So I'm going to guilty pleasure myself with an hour of late-night tv and a bag of popcorn. Mmm.
