Ask me questions!

Hello everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas (if you celebrate it-if not, I hope you had a wonderful whatever-else-you-celebrate!). I know I did.

For fun, since it's been a while, let's bring back the old Ask-me-questions thing! So ask me questions in the comments below and I'll answer them!

Expedition- Day 2

 I honestly don't remember exactly where this was. We saw this kind of view regularly.

August 15th, 2010
We’re at the Waterfalls Campground today. We had heard that it was a beautiful site, so we decided to spend a good day here. So today’s hike was a mere 4.5 kms.

We followed the creek for most of it (hiking South), until it split, one part going East and one going West. The West section comes down from a huge waterfall, which is where the camp gets its name (surprise). The campground location really is beautiful. Standing near the camp looks down over a hill, with the water fall on our left and the creek at the bottom.

Today was leisurely. We spent most of the afternoon playing in the water, washing our shirts and faces and hair. My feet feel wonderful after all the cool water. Surprisingly, the water is the perfect temperature, and not as frigid as one might imagine from a mountain stream. For drinking and cooking, we filter all our water. We have three hand pumps and to pump enough water for meals (for the 9 of us) takes about an hour. I’m getting used to the weight in my pack (about 40lbs) and really enjoying it. It’s really so far a remarkable trip.

Waterfall

 More waterfall.

 A really lovely pool in the creek, which was nice and deep and cool, perfect for wading.

The waterfall.

 I have to remember to ask my dad what these little flowers are. They were growing all over the hill.

 

My pack on the table.

 

A casuality.

 Ah, yes. Here we are. The Green Throne Privy (That's what they're actually called in the pamphlet). Yep, these are the toilets on the trail. Don't expect privacy.

Expedition- Day 2

(Nothing much happened on August 13th, as we just drove to Jasper. So we're starting on Day 2)

August 14^th, 2010

The vehicle loaded with our stuff!

 

We started the big Jonas Pass trail today. We had to pack up our base camp and move vehicles to the ending trail-head, and so by the time we left the trail-head, it was 1300hrs. We hiked about 8 kms to the Poboktan Campground. The trail is a typical mountain trail, muddy, rooty and constantly going uphill!

 It follows Poboktan Creek almost all the way and so the sound of the water is always nearby.

We made it to camp in good time and had the whole evening to enjoy the campground. The creek nearby is lovely, and the perfect temperature for soaking my feet after a day of hiking as my Plantars Facisitis always makes them painful.

 Cooking supper.

Our campground is really quite nice. There are 4 tent pad sites, a main area with a fire pit, two picnic tables, a bear pole and a “green throne” privy” (I’ll explain just exactly what that is in another post. :P )

The bear pole consist of a wooden pole nailed horizontally between two trees, with four loops of wire hanging from it. On each line there are two clips, one at the top, one at the bottom. You clip your bag of food to the bottom clip, and use the pulley system to host it to the top. The (formerly) top clip is now at the bottom, where you can clip it to one of the trees, leaving your food hanging at the top. It’s a simple, but very effective system.

The bear pole at work.

Our camp.

These are our tents. They are very light, and very small. They fit two people. Just.

We spent the evening enjoying the creek, and planning out the next day, an as it was our first night on the trail, figuring out exactly all the things involved when we get to camp. 

Jasper Expedition- Prologue

So, this past August, I went on a backpacking trip to Jasper National Park with my Venturer group. Our Company had been together as a group for the past 4 years, and so this was the final trip as a group. We'd been working up to it for a long time, and so
we were as prepared as we were going to be.

Our timeline looked like this-

August 13- Drive
August 14-18- Jonas Pass trail
August 19- Rest day
August 20- Day hike
August 21- Small day hike and driving home.

I'm planning on posting one post per expedition day every now and then. So hope you enjoy!

When will this stop?

I have to get this out.

 Perhaps you’ve heard about the four teen suicides in the past 3 weeks. Haven’t heard of them?

“Tyler Clementi a freshman at Rutgers University jumped to his death last week off a bridge a day after authorities say two classmates surreptitiously recorded him having sex with a man in his dorm room and broadcast it over the Internet.
Seth Walsh, 13, committed suicide last week after years of being bullied. The police interviewed several of the students who teased Walsh but determined their actions did not constitute a crime, news reports say.
Asher Brown, also 13, shot himself after being harassed at his middle school in Houston. According to news reports, his parents said they had complained to the school authorities, but the bullying continued. The school reports that no complaints were made.
Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old in Indiana, hanged himself Thursday after being bullied. He never told anyone he was gay, but his classmates acknowledged that he was teased because students assumed he was.”

(quotation from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blogpost/2010/09/suicide_of_gay_teenagers_four.html)

But this really isn’t even a gay issue. It isn’t even just a youth issue. This is an issue, because people all over the world, (although especially young people), are being told, sometimes indirectly, that whoever they are, whether they’re black, white, gay, straight, male, female, Christian, Muslim, is wrong, that they don’t matter, that they are something that can be laughed at, something that doesn’t have to be taken seriously.

Who you are is NOT WRONG. I don’t care what your “friends”, adults, Churches, classmates tell you. You are NOT a mistake, and you are exactly what God wants you to be.

People notice little things. If you think that somebody isn’t going to notice being called a retard, faggot, nigger or slut, think again. Let’s step up to the plate here, and make a change.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to accomplish by writing this. Most of the people who are reading this probably aren’t guilty of intense bullying. But as long as we stand back, and take the attitude of “not my problem”, this problem will honestly be all of our problems.

Peace.
Daniel

Update

Hi folks,

I obviously haven't been blogging recently, because I've very busy getting back into my regular schedule of life. I'm back at weekly piano and flute lessons, but not voice lessons yet because my teacher is busy being a new father. :) But I've started something new: Musical Theatre! Twice a week, for 3 hours. On Mondays, we alternate between dance and acting for the first half, and then have choral for the second half. And then on Thursdays, we have vocal masterclasses. It's fantastic, and I'm learning loads!

And of course, I have "school work" too. I'm also taking an online writing class, so that's good.

The theatre company I'm with is doing A Midsummer Night's Dream this November, so I'm just starting to get pretty busy with that too, directing, music writing, and lots of rehearsal scheduling! It's going to be fabulous.

Also, in case you didn't know, I went on a big backpacking trip to the mountains with my Venturer company, this past August. I'm working on a big series of blog posts on that, which I will post periodically.

Anyway, just thought I'd post a quick blog to let you know what I've been up to!

Take care,
Daniel

Indeed

Two-way dialogue is good.

The story of Daniel's spectacular day

I had a spectacularly wonderful day today. :) My flute teacher had this wonderful idea to take as many of her students as could make it on a bit a of  "school tour". So this morning, we toured to two local elementary schools and played a short concert (about 35 minutes long) for them. It was really fun, and they were great listeners. I have to say that I was also impressed and appreciative that the teachers were willing to take time out of their class schedules to bring their students to listen. Music is always worth the time. We all went to Subway for lunch afterwards. Yay for Subway, (always my lunch-out place of choice). I went home and slept for 1.25 hours,  even though it was only mid afternoon. I was really tired for some reason, more than just mid-afternoon drowsiness. After my nap, I cut the grass, sang for a bit, made myself a good, strong coffee, and practiced some piano. After my mother reminded me that I was on supper-making duty, I made some delicious barbecued chicken, roasted potatoes and salad. I'm not just bragging, it really was tasty! Anyway, after supper, I got out my shirt and tie and headed off to the symphony. Amazing. The program included Shostakovich's Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings, Debussy's masterpiece La Mer ("The Sea"), as well as some other fantastic pieces, two of which were composed by Canadian composers. Brilliant stuff. The Debussy though, was just exquisite. Debussy never wrote a Symphony, but La Mer is the closest he got though. It's an incredible piece of music and just indescribable when heard live. It's so full majestic and full of life, and so beautifully textured and colourful. I found it pretty moving and inspiring. The concert tonight was exactly what I had been needing for a long while- a chance to reflect, get inspired and have a "night out" with myself. Ha. I feel ready to tackle new challenges and endeavours. All in all, a good day. Tomorrow- busking at the farmer's market, a talk/workshop about efficiency, and the last performance of Word Problem in the evening. Which reminds me that I haven't posted about Word Problem yet, so some of you won't know what I'm talking about. I'll blog about it soon. I promise. Until then, take care.

-Dan

Quandary

quandary [ˈkwɒndrɪ -dərɪ]n pl -ries a situation or circumstance that presents problems difficult to solve; predicament; dilemma

Okay, so I'm in a bit of a quandary right now. It's coming up to the end of the school year, and I need to let my piano teacher know what I'm doing next year, so I can register. As you may know, I completed the Suzuki Piano program this past February, and I am taking my Grade 9 Royal Conservatory exam in mid-June, and so it seems like a good time to re-evaluate and make some decisions. The thing is, I honestly don't know what to do for piano next year.

Here are my options:

Option 1. Get a new piano teacher, and see where that takes me. My current teacher has actually suggested this to see how a different approach will help my abilities grow.

Option 2. Stay with my current teacher. Maybe work on my Grade 10 exam or on a larger work i.e. concerto.

Option 3. Take a year off from piano lessons. Focus on preparing for post-secondary, thinking about what I want to focus on, and preparing for that. Practice piano on my own.

I'm currently leaning towards Option 3. See, the thing is, as much as I love piano, I'm not sure that I have any plans to be a concert pianist. I think that my passion lies in a mixture of music and theatre. So, I guess what I'm saying, is if I don't have specific plans to pursue a life as a pianist, what's the point in studying that at university, and if I'm not going to study that at university, then I should be spending the time on things that will prepare me for university. I don't know... Obviously, I'm never going to stop playing piano, and the skill that I currently have will be of huge value to me in the music/theatre/composing world.  So yeah.

By the way, my current plan is to be a working actor with lots of musical theatre training and a composer/sound designer on the side. I love directing as well, so I guess my title would be actor/composer/director. I just have so many choices, and so many interests, it's just really hard.

Sorry, this has been rambling. Bleh.

Well, look who it is. It's me.

(you) Oh, Daniel, nice to see you here, it seems you don't post a lot here. Is this your blog? I come here more than you.

(me) Yeah, well, I'm sorry, but I'm really busy right now. It seems the menu of my life is full of all sorts of tasty exciting things, and I'm having trouble fitting them all in. 

(you) Like what? What could you possibly do besides blogging?

(me) Well, all my writing time is being taken up by Script Frenzy, and I'm currently preparing for my Grade 9 RCM piano exam in June. And I'm in the middle of Kiwanis Music festival. And I'm also getting ready to go to Toronto for a National Youth Shakespeare festival. I'm trying to get rehearsals in and also work with some friends on set/costume design for the above festival. And I generally have lessons and rehearsals and meetings every day. So yeah, not much.

(you) Darn you, you always have good excuses.

(me) ...

(you) What page are you on in Script Frenzy anyway?

(me) Page 61. I have 39 pages to type in 4 days.

(you) What's your script about?

(me) Shhhh. It's confidential.

(you) I see. Well, I guess I'll see you more after Script Frenzy.

(me) You will. I promise.

Prelude

Hi everyone, this is just a little piece that I wrote for solo piano. It's also the one that I am submitting to the Kiwanis Music Festival for composition. Here's the short blurb I had to write about it:

"Prelude is a short piece for solo piano. The theme is introduced in the opening bar, modified and developed, and then finally recapitulated near the end. It is largely inspired by the works of Scriabin and Rachmaninoff and should be taken at a moderate, very free tempo, using lots of rubato to convey the dark, mysterious feel."

Hope you enjoy it. By the way, if you can think of a more creative title for it, I would be forever grateful! Post them in the comments. :)

If there's one thing I've learned from facebook fan pages, it's that we're really not that different after all.

Two answers to music-related questions

A couple more answers to questions, these ones rather music related.

Why don't you like top hit songs, but like classical music, upbringing?
The main reason is that simply, I don't think a lot of the top hit songs are very good. But I actually do listen to some "pop" music (*cough*Lady Gaga*cough*). It really depends on the music. I won't listen to it just because everybody else is listening to it. It's got to express something or make me think. But I actually do like a wide variety of music! The reason I like classical music so much is that I think there's really something to it! And judging by the fact that a lot of the good stuff has been around for hundreds of years, obviously other people think there's something to it as well! But yeah, my taste in music goes from J.S. Bach to Benjamin Britten, to Beethoven, to John Adams to the Beatles, to The Smiths, to Regina Spektor, to Loreena McKennitt to Queen to REM to Lady Gaga. I just love music! I can't say I'm super keen on rap, or heavy metal, or techno, but I'll listen to almost anything short of that. As for upbringing, my parents played a lot of classical and folk music when I was younger, so that has probably influenced my music taste, but now, I'd say I probably listen to the most varied in my household.

Do you like Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos #1 & 2?
Oh yeah! Rachmaninov's piano concertos are some of my favourite piano concertos! He actually wrote four of them (as well as a another work for piano and orchestra, his Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini). Out of the four concertos, his 2nd and his 3rd are the most well known. The Third concerto has a reputation for being one of the most difficult in the repertoire, as it takes a huge amount of technical skill, expressive power and lots of endurance to make it through the 50 minutes of intense playing. The Second concerto is probably the most played, because it's incredibly beautiful, and very popular. I have a real preference for the First Concerto, which in my opinion is very under appreciated (although I think it's very rapidly gaining popularity). The second movement of the 1st is just exquisite, and has this amazing dialogue between the flute and the piano. Just amazing. And then everybody forgets about the Fourth concerto, which just saddens me, because I think it's a great piece and needs your love too. But it always gets forgotten in preference for the 2nd and 3rd concertos.

Answers (some of them)

What is your favourite movie of all time? And why?
Um, that's honestly such a hard question. I've got a couple. The Pianist would definitely be up there, just an incredible movie about survival, that really made me think about how fortunate I am and taught me a lot of lessons about gratitude. Moulin Rouge! is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, and all about L-O-V-E (lol). And of course, because I'm a fanatic about the musical RENT, the movie of the same name is one of my favourites too, and the core message is all about really living and living as if it's your last day alive. So those would be three of my favourite movies. But I have others, and I don't have only one.

If you had a billion dollars and hot chicks what would you do?
AND
If you had a million dollars what would you spend it on?
If I had a billion dollars, I'd build a beautiful little theater, and then rent it out to small theatre companies. And I'd obviously give a lot of money away. I'll pass on the hot chicks. :)

Why do you like answering questions?
a) It's fun!
b) It makes me think about things I might not have before.
c) and it makes my blog more "interactive". Lol.


If you had a superpower what would it be?
I'd like to be able to fly invisibly.


If you could change ONE thing about people (in general) what would you change?
I wish people were more open-minded. We've made so many mistakes in the past by not being willing to revaluate our opinions. We'd be a lot better off if we would listen honestly to other people without prejudice.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sondheim!

So, today (March 22), the greatest musical theatre composer that's ever lived, turns 80. Happy Birthday Stephen Sondheim! Sondheim's music is just so fascinating to me. His lyrics are so clever and inspired and his genius in being able to work character and emotion into music like no other musical theatre composer. Unlike other composers, he doesn't write the exact same style for every character, it differs depending on the specifics of the person. And his ability to combine lots and lots of separate melodies into rich, musical harmonies is just mindblowing to me. Just completely inspiring.