VISI, day 15

Yesterday (for it is yesterday now) was fun.  After breakfast in the morning, I went to my performance psychology class, and we rounded off the two weeks of classes with talk of exercise, nutrition, medication, and more quasi-meditative techniques.  It was very relaxing, and I'm glad I went.

We only had one lecture yesterday morning: an overview of 19th-century French poetry.  After my French classes in high school being alternately very dull and very interesting, I was sceptical as to whether I wanted to go, but I got up and made myself go because I knew it would have information I would find useful, whether or not I found it interesting.  Sure enough, it was both dull and interesting in places, and there was indeed useful information.  It was truly an overview, as an hour and a half is not enough time to delve into 19th-century French poetry, but we were able to look at the major movements and their figureheads, which was enlightening.  We also looked closely at a poem of which I am performing a setting, Baudelaire's L'invitation au voyage, and so that was very useful.

I then hopped over to the student union building to get some lunch, and in so doing, get change for the bus.  I finally had a matcha frappe ... oh man those things are good.  :D

I scurried off to the first of the VISI participants' concerts, which was a good concert - varied repertoire, plenty of expression, a sense of being in a community that understood where each interpretation was coming from and where the technique might still need work.  

After the concert was an hour-and-a-half session on French diction with Mme Landry, which did not teach me very much that I did not already know, but the things that I did not know turned out to be rather important - such as the fact that harmonizing the vowels in a certain word can turn it into an entirely different word ... sometimes with grave consequences.  It's a matter of slang, and it's a good thing we find these things out!

I then went to my only coaching, which went well - a well-rounded coaching dealing with marrying consonants and legato, richness of tone with phrasing, etc.  After that, I hurried out to catch a bus, to go meet a very good friend of mine ... an hour and a half away.  

The bus/train/bus ride passed fairly quickly, but she was caught in traffic so I was about half an hour early.  When she got there, we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant, wandered a bit, went to her boyfriend's (parents') apartment, said hello, went to the taekwondo school at which her boyfriend teaches ... and then, when he was finished, we all chatted and hung out.  I was finally introduced to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which was just as hilarious as it had promised to be, and ... yeah!  We talked and laughed.  The neat thing about it is that we all know each other from way back, and though I didn't know her boyfriend as well, he remembered me (we all met on the same forum), and so we did have that in common.  It was a pretty sweet time actually, and I ended up staying two hours past when I was originally going to leave.

I hopped on a bus at 11.30 and got home at 1.30, safe and sound - if a little bit unnerved.  Some people were kinda sketchy on each of the legs of the trip, but no one was inappropriate or anything.  So it was fine.  

And then I went to bed, and slept in till ten.  Now I have to go to laundry, and then I should go to a workshop on art in conflict resolution, and then I should get ready for the Schubertiade tonight ...  bright red grad dress, here I come.  :D