Category Archives: Links

Cello Woes

This has never happened to me – usually I break a new A string by tuning it too quickly – but I have so much sympathy for him.

I have two concerts coming up within two weeks, and I’ve just realised that I need to replace my strings – all of them. I put a full set of Eudoxa gut strings on my cello in September of 2002 as an experiment, because I love the deep mellow sound gut produces. The D string broke first, followed shortly by the A. My emergency replacement A string is now unravelling (no surprise there; it’s a Thomastik Dominant, and the wrapping on Dominant A strings is coarse and dreadful); my replacement D string was salvaged from my original overstretched Aricore set that was put on six years ago; and the G and D strings are still the gut strings that have now stretched beyond proper sonority. I hadn’t realised all of this until lately, now that I’ve been really digging into the lower strings (love that Beethoven!).

I guess I know where the student payments that are beginning to trickle in for the new semester are going.

Calling All Local SpecFic Fans!

I have a cold.

This would be a yucky thing at any time, but I am currently in the middle of a ton of Real-Life work that is pushing aside regularly scheduled stuff like orchestra, practicing (yes, it does happen), teaching, prep work for teaching, and writing.

Not only that, I’m working a convention this weekend. What convention, you ask? Why, ConCept 2003!

Do you like fantasy or science fiction and live in Montreal or nearby?

Do you know someone who likes science fiction or fantasy?

This Saturday is the 2003 edition of ConCept, Montreal’s annual non-profit, volunteer-run science fiction and fantasy convention. This year’s guest lineup is very impressive. There will be guest of honour speeches, discussion panels, gaming, author signings, a dealers’ room, screenings, a charity auction, an art show, and more.

Check out the website for information: www.monsffa.com/concept2003.html

What the website won’t tell you:

Robert J. Sawyer, 2003 Hugo award winner, will be there.
Karl Schroeder, 2003 Aurora award winner, will be there.

Admission info etc is on the site. Things kick off at 9:00 AM.

So yeah. I’m currently experiencing severe withdrawal from my NaNo work, as well as crushing guilt over the fact that I wanted to have a ton of exam and homework correction done this week. And on top of it all, I’m fighting this rotten sinus/throat/chest thing.

I’m grumpy.

Just Because

There’s nothing like receiving a present on someone else’s birthday!

We went out to Fondumentale last night (highly recommended!) to celebrate Roo’s first quarter-century, and Maia-at-Twilight gave her a tin of tea from Betjeman & Barton, the Westmount tea shop on Sherbrooke. I bounced around because I love that shop, and seeing the red bag meant that good things were inside. Then Maia-at-Twilight handed me a little packet of tea, a present for no particular reason – the very best kind. “I had to,” she said. “Look at the name.”

Sonate d’Automne. Well, of course she had to.

It’s an eau de fruits, similar to a tisane, and it’s delicious. It has almonds, and a mellow smoky fruit flavour. Perfect for an overcast fall day. I think it’s about to become a NaNo tea. Last year’s NaNo tea was, of course, Twining’s Lady Grey. The drink of choice for the Great Canadian Novel (when I’m working on it, that is; once I realised that I had accidentally finished writing it, I decided to leave it until 2004 and then edit it, since it’s essentially finished and requires only the current chapters rejigged, and possibly a chapter added) is Vanilla Coke. Odd how I associate certain beverages with certain projects.

I scurried about tying up loose ends of work and such yesterday. As of eleven-ish, my contracts still hadn’t arrived in Massachussets, so I’m rolling up my sleeves to give the US postal service a kick to help them along. The Canada Post tracking service informs me that the packet left Canada on the 22nd, so the delay is on the US side. XpressPost guarantees three to five day delivery, so it ought to have been there last week. That sound you hear is my foot tapping.

Myers-Briggs: Being Predictable

Because I am highly amused by this:

INFJ – “Author”. Strong drive and enjoyment to help others. Complex personality. 1.5% of total population.

Take Free Myers- Briggs Personality Test

Maybe I just hang out with author-types, but it’s same answer that Ceri scored on the test.

What I found interesting were these scores:

Introverted (I) 61.54% Extroverted (E) 38.46%
Intuitive (N) 55.26% Sensing (S) 44.74%
Feeling (F) 62.86% Thinking (T) 37.14%
Judging (J) 57.14% Perceiving (P) 42.86%

Doing a bit of research I discovered that INFJs (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging types) typically displat traits such as, or similar to, the following:

Intuitively understand people and situations
Idealistic
Highly principled
Complex and deep
Natural leaders
Sensitive and compassionate towards people
Service-oriented
Future-oriented
Value deep, authentic relationships
Reserved about expressing their true selves
Dislike dealing with details unless they enhance or promote their vision
Constantly seeking meaning and purpose in everything
Creative and visionary
Intense and tightly-wound
Can work logically and rationally – use their intuition to understand the goal and work backwards towards it

Apparently, [t]hey need to feel as if everything they do in their lives is in sync with their strong value systems – with what they believe to be right. Accordingly, the INFJ should choose a career in which they’re able to live their daily lives in accordance with their deeply-held principles, and which supports them in their life quest to be doing something meaningful. Hey, that sounds kind of familiar…

And what’s right at the top of the career list for INFJ-types? Clergy / Religious Work, directly followed by Teachers. A couple lower we find Alternative Health Care Practitioners, Counselors and Social Workers, and Musicians and Artists.

So nice to know I’m pursuing paths generally considered rewarding for my personality type. And yet… not so nice to be this predictable. (That’s probably an INFJ thing too, I’ll bet.)

INFJ is apparently the rarest personality type, coming in at a whopping 2% of the population. Read all about ’em here, and here too.