I'm taking a quick break, drinking tea and eating chocolate (so healthy, but it's 70% cocoa--Kilby!), and listening to Switchfoot. Then I'm back to work for a couple more hours (but I'm so tired already). I have to finally hit a practice room, finish fingering my Bach fugue, play through my Guilmant symphony, sight-read the Schutz oratorio I'm to accompany on continuo for Early Music Singers starting tomorrow. Besides practice I must begin sketching my final orchestration project--a transcription of a Tchaikovsky piano piece--and make some progress on the analysis of my 16th century chorale motet for my research project. The massive theory test tomorrow will get my attention over breakfast. It's at 9:35. Of course, these are just projects I'm mentioning. They don't account for the daily stuff all of which I'm thoroughly behind on.

But Christmas Fest rehearsals are awesome. Tonight's was a high-intensity marathon lasting 68 minutes. It was filmed by Twin Cities Public Television for some reason. It was fast-paced and fun and focused. I enjoy stretching myself by going off-score after the second reading and forcing my memory. Might as well, since this all has to be memorized a week from Saturday.

Already today I've rescued my roommate from falling out of bed on her head (God mercifully protects!), eaten a 3.5 minute breakfast in the caf, registered a choir anthem with Ferg at 7:30, realized a figured bass including augmented sixth chords and analyzed music using them as modulations to flat-six (I know you wanted to know that). Then I went to chapel, lunch with organ buddies, practiced oboe, attended woodwind class, learned about early Baroque opera (Yuk, I must add), and squirmed through the most awkward, uncomfortable, long hour in instrumentation yet. My professor reached new heights of creepy-weirdness today. Then another meeting, turned in another paper which I graded, grabbed quick dinner, and headed for mass choir rehearsal.

Rinse and repeat.

Five weeks from now I'll be done with this semester.

Thoughts in the past two weeks have actually occasionally gone deeper than French Augmented Sixth chords. (Like, for example, German Augmented Sixth chords. Being German, they're deeper, IMO.) Joking aside, there are some things I'd very much like to be writing. Like further reflections on that passage that keeps coming back to me: Philippians 3.

But these will have to wait until I've finished writing about Johann Walter's place in the history of counterpoint.