I made so many decisions in the past few days! I'm getting better :)

First and foremost, I'll be applying to med schools this summer, even if I still have residual anguish towards the admissions system...

Secondly, I'm not going back for a re-perm (or more accurately, a re-re-perm). If I don't have much perm left by June, I will just admit the fact that my hair is a wimp.

Third, I'm gonna take a light load (bench-work wise) in lab this week and not feel like a slacker for it :)

Fourth, a trip to Charlottesville this June is in order (I am thinking either June 12-14 or June 25-27).

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Positive thinking, positive thinking, positive thinking. 

The Nanocourse that I went to today was surprisingly therapeutic. It was a 4-hour session on how to give good scientific presentations from the perspective of an actor -- that is, how to think about scientific presentation as more than just a dry powerpoint session where you just click click and ramble away dense material, but making it an engaging and communicative story-telling session where you show your passion in the subject, like a performing artist. But a lot of suggestions made today are things one can apply on a daily basis - not just during a presentation - especially for a person like me :P

And well, most of it wasn't very new for me. A lot of them were things I was taught by music teachers anyway - how to cope with stage fright physically and mentally, etc - but it was not something I made the connection with scientific/academic presentations. It was cool to see the relevance.


On a similar note, the big "conclusion" at the end of my last cello lesson is that I just need to relax and take it down a notch. It happens particularly when I am playing Bach... though it shows up when I'm playing anything at all more intense than Twinkle Twinkle.

I think all Bach Suite movements build up in intensity fairly gradually, over the course of the whole movement: there's usually one big climactic moment, and it calms down to the conclusion from there. In my opinion, the fact that Bach builds up the intensity so slowly over a long period of time is what makes the climactic moment all so amazing. But it's also what makes Bach hard to play (among many other things) because it is hard to pace myself -- it's hard to play the movement if I get so worked up over every note that's "special" because not only do I run out of somewhere to go prematurely, but it's really draining mentally and physically.

So I need to learn to know when to take it down a bit, just so I don't die by the end of the movement :) Same thing with my work habits I guess. I think learning to relax on the cello will also be pretty therapeutic :)