I go ungold in a couple days. Probably time to use up the rest of those banner ads like there's no tomorrow, because I don't think I'll be able to stay gold right now.
I've also finally got to the place where I can talk about this. Next year is looking like a shit-load of fun because it turns out they won't accept me to the department. This really comes as no big surprise because I've gone straight through high school, college and on to grad school and NO ONE in the department is that way. I have a sneaking suspicion they just assume that any time spent in the real world is better than none of it. That or they just don't want to accept anyone under the age of twenty four. If you look at the playwrights alone, one of them has a television company, another one has three published plays already, and the third one is a free-lance director. I have none of those things.
Besides, all things considered, while I like Prof. Gandalf, I tend to disagree with most of his theories and since he's written his own textbook, that rarely helps. It also tends to drive me crazy that the department as a whole tends to look for things to make them look like an academic powerhouse and win lots of awards and enter lots of academic papers and that sort of thing. In my mind, that shouldn't amount to anything if no one will attend your performances.
When I was in high school, the choir director looked at my choir... Before I tell this story I'd better explain that the choir I was in did require an audition, but as long as you could pretty much match pitch and claimed you could read music, you could get into the concert choir. Compared to the rigours undertaken by the show choirs and the chamber choir, this was no big deal, but it was a step up from the other un-named choir that anyone who signed up was allowed to get into. We were allowed to go on some of the tours and trips. We sang at the Large Group festival and had recieved straight ones every single year since the Beginning of Time (The Beginning of Time in this case being the early 80's).
Anyway, the choir director looked at us and he told us that as some of us graduated and went on to college, even if we weren't music majors we should try to get into the college choirs if we wanted to. He said most of us were just as good as the students who were in the major track. Never assume, he said, that just because some freshman music major tells you that their choir played the Kennedy Center or Carnegie Hall or the Met or whatever that they're better than you are. I get requests in the mail for this choir to go to those places all the time. We could do it, we could pack up and go sing at any of these places.
But you know what the difference is, he said, between those places and the competitions we DO attend? Those places are asking for a major attendance fee. You pay a lot of money to go and perform just so you can put it on your resume and say you went there. Most of the places we go to ask us to come, and they don't charge us for the priviledge to compete. If someone wants to charge you for an honour, it probably really isn't one. Just, remember that, OK?
I think the department is really into paying for honours rather than putting their money where it needs to go. Which, in a lot of ways, is why I'm glad I can't get in, but in another way, if I'm not there, where am I going to be?
The Boy's doing well, he likes it pretty well, it's a nice place for him, so we're not going anywhere. But, what do I do while he's doing it?