21 November 2014

Papers, Prodigal, Novels, Dancing and Doctors

I'll try not to get too bogged down in the minutiae of little stories because I'm technically writing a paper right now. It's on Christian artists and their role in contemporary culture, so at least it's something I'm interested in. The only problem is that I know too much about the topic and I'm having a heck of a time narrowing down my thesis.

Through a crazy set of circumstances, I am now the proud owner of one of the limited edition CD sets of Prodigal's discography. I'm listening to Electric Eye as I type and it is brilliant. I'm not a sound engineer so I'm probably not noticing as much of a difference in the audio quality, but it's kind of nice to not have the pops and clicks (though it's weird not hearing the more prominent ones). If you want one of these, word is there's only about a hundred left, and from my understanding, when they're gone... that's it. Trust me... you want one of these. As I'm listening, I'm being reminded again just how brilliant their songwriting is. And the rock genre doesn't hurt anything either.
Also, I really want to do choreography now -- got some really good ideas for the title track and Bobby just now. I've wanted to choreograph those two for a long time now but have never been able to get a bead on what style it should be (because, as previously mentioned on this blog, I refuse to do the easy thing and sully such brilliance with a lyrical dance).

On the NaNoWriMo front (yes, I'm doing NaNoWriMo at college. I'm a trained professional -- don't try this at home): my thirteenth novel has also been dealing a lot with themes of art and theatre and the nature of sacrificial love and friendship and then loss (spoilers: she dies). I'm over 44,000 words, so I'd say that's going well.

Speaking of spoilers, my roommate introduced me to the magic that is Doctor Who. (I promise to try to not fangirl too much on this blog -- I do enough fangirling over DA and Prodigal et al. to keep me busy for a while.) Peter Capaldi is brilliant. Favourite quote: well, all of them; but one that kills me every time is the one where he's looking at Clara and suddenly bursts out, "What's wrong with your face? It's all eyes; why are you all eyes... GET THEM UNDER CONTROL." Also, I've been watching a lot of the Fourth Doctor on YouTube and I'm seriously considering making myself a scarf like that.
Seriously though, the ending to the Season 8 finale (like the last ten minutes) is one of the most beautiful things I've ever watched (starting with the Doctor's monologue about who he is). I really appreciate how deep the show is (and the overall lack of strong language and inappropriate scenes). This season explored a lot of inner struggle and questions on the Doctor's part and I really appreciated seeing him wrestle with his own morality like that.

The college Christmas musical is coming up (next weekend!) and I just found out on Tuesday that I'm going to be dancing in it! I was in the choir anyway, but dancing is always better. Tomorrow we work on (and finalise) the choreography.
I also sort of committed to staging another dance in my home church (post forthcoming about the first one when I have time to finish it). I have a song that's already been choreographed that I can do, however, I have to reteach myself the choreography and get it to performance quality in less than a month. And write two papers and write finals and do a presentation... I honestly don't know if I'll be able to pull it off. I hope so though... this would be David Meece's One Small Child, which is a gorgeous song.

So that's what I came up with for an update in half an hour of typing. Impressive, yes? Hopefully I can start posting more soon. I miss this place.