So I'm finally done with the semester. Took long enough.
These last two weeks have been particularly busy - I finally finished that piece for the two graduating grad students, and I think it turned out really well. Having to crunch for a piece isn't something I've had too much experience with, and it turned out to be really fun. It was sort of like NaNoWriMo in that after a certain point of deciding on structure and sonority, it felt less like I was writing music and more like I was exploring something that was already there - more like reading than writing. I got it printed up all pretty at Kinkos and both the recipients seemed to enjoy the piece.
Finals were pretty unspectacular, but during finals week, I had a few neat things happen. I wound up with a job at the Morgan Library as a help desk tech, which should prove to not only be reasonably fun and well paid, but with a good chance of moving up to working with the servers and with Sage Catalog. Then, on Thursday night, I drove Elliott down to Boulder after he invited me to participate in his Sufi Zikr ceremony. While I'm certainly not going to convert to Islam, it was definitely a very powerful experience, and well worth participating in. I had very little in the way of expectations, so it was neat to participate in something so completely different.
Today I picked up a bunch of Górecki and a book, Litany of the Sun by Gene Wolfe. Looks to be a fun summer