good news: i went to hear cesária évora last night, and she was wonderful. i had intended to go an hour before the performance and buy rush tickets, but when i stopped at the box office right before they closed for the day the girl informed me that there would be no rush tickets that evening. quelle desastre! but she then told me that if i wanted to take this opportunity there was one pair of excellent orchestra seats available… so… i said i’d think about it. then i ran into peggy and we talked and before i had a chance to think about the box office was going to close, so i just ran in and bought the tickets! they were quite nice, thirteenth row center. and césaria évora is amazing. it’s difficult to describe her style. i guess it’s closest to jazz music with blues vocals, but that doesn’t really tell you anything. just get a hold of something by her and give it a listen. at the end of the concert everyone got up and danced briefly. i really think all concerts should end with dancing (if the music is danceable). funny point: during the whole concert there was an elderly person in the very front row whose head just kept moving to the music. during the faster songs it was quite funny to see this incessant bobbing. even during the soft slow songs s/he was nodding away. when i am old and have white hair i want to go to great shows and get great seats and bob my head to all the songs, if not dance entirely.
bad news: i got my english paper back. i didn’t do so well on it as i hoped to (it’s not a horrible grade) but it’s okay. our gsi gave us this nerve-wracking half-hour talk BEFORE handing back our papers about how the first paper really isn’t that important, it is not at all indicative of what our grade in the class will be, we shouldn’t go sink into depression, etc etc. and she sounded quite sincere. but the thing that makes me feel better is she actually took the time to type up two pages of commentary on my paper. this is like what my instructor did when i took my super-excellent writing course at cty, and i think it is the way essays ought to be handed back. we ought to get detailed comments stating what we do well and what we don’t do well, and why, and how we could improve. that way we know what our strengths and weaknesses are. so leslie did that, and i’m grateful to her even if she didn’t give me an especially good grade. now i have a much better idea of what i did wrong (and i did write my paper somewhat hastily, so i can’t really weep over all that time lost) and how i can improve for next time. i’m quite impressed with her comments, actually, because what she criticizes directly mirrors my thought processes while writing, so i really understand a lot better what i should have been doing and why what i did doesn’t work as well.
in the meantime… i have a party to go to tonight! 🙂 michelle and her apartmentmates are throwing a ‘be any hitchcock character you want to be’ party. 🙂 i’m just going to tie a scarf around my head and wear a little black dress. i figure that someone must be dressed like that in some hitchcock film.
[note, 4/10/14: Imported from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 