VISI, day 7

Today has been less tiring than the last few.  I put my blankets underneath me, adding to the mattress, and only slept under a sheet - it's a good thing Vancouver is warm even at night, otherwise I would have frozen.  Even as it was I kept waking up because I was cold, but I got a better sleep and was able to cajole myself out of bed.

I went to the performance psychology seminar at nine, during which we looked at our motivation and ignition tactics, as well as whether the focus was external or internal.  I found that much of my motivation was internal, but I feel very much dependent on the outer attention and approbation I receive, which I found interesting ...  The things which ignite me were simpler, but harder to focus on - I thought about rewards, and then thought about the things I receive after a performance ... more concrete than my motivators.  It was an interesting exercise, but difficult.  I walked out feeling tired and beaten down - not through any fault of the instructor, no, she was wonderful and understanding and encouraging - simply because it is difficult to look at what motivates me without thinking about how difficult this all is, and how tiring life seems to be these days ... 

Sitting through two lectures was hard, but not impossible - very interesting topics, as always.  The first was about how Schubert conceived of his Lieder, covering topics including original keys, transposition, published vs. manuscript copies, etc.  Fascinating.  Probably more so if I'd been more awake.  The second lecture was about the sonnet Silent Noon (Dante Rossetti).  Very much an English class - a bit more advanced than IB, but more or less the same thing.  I connected very closely to it ... makes me wonder again about writing as a career ... 

(no, I still think I have to do more than one thing.  I need variety.)

After the lectures, I showered and had lunch, then went for the two coachings of the day.  Both were somewhat piano-centric, which was nice for a change - I could work on the things that the coach told me, but I had a little bit less to remember.  The second one was particularly good: I worked on Die Mainacht, and the focus of the coaching was really dramatic - what is the story I am telling, how can I make the phrases work for me in this way, and so on.  It made singing the song a lot easier with just a few small adjustments!

My pianist and I practiced briefly afterwards, and then I headed back to the dorms to make supper.  Since then I've been checking up on the world and talking to people.  I'm going to try to head to bed around ten tonight, and wake up at six - another Manitoban said that it worked really well for her, with the schedule we're keeping, to be up earlier than classes started rather than later after they finished, with the added bonus of still more-or-less being on Manitoba time. 

'Post-script': when I first arrived on campus I saw a truck that said "UBC Plant Operations".  I thought, oh, wouldn't it be funny if it actually had to do with plants, since there's so many around?  But I had seen similar trucks on my home campus, and it's just the physical plant operations - maintenance and such.  The next day (or later that day, I don't remember), I saw another truck like that ... except it had a trailer, and it was full of gardening implements.  It turns out it really does mean plant operations!  The trucks show up all over the place, tending to the flowerbeds and trees and such.  One flowerbed went from prairie wildflowers to bedding plants in about two days.  It was a bit surreal.