Life after MBA

Life after MBA is definitely a strange and good place to be. I guess that technically, it's not entirely started yet because according to my friends still in school, classes aren't beginning until next week, but mentally I'm in the post era.

I'm not really doing anything radically different. Most of my time is being spent doing lots of cleaning. Digging my desk out from under the mounds of paper that accumulate in the end-of-semester frenzy. Actually putting away my clean clothes instead of piling them up (hey, they were in neat piles, at least!). Clearing off our kitchen table so that we can attempt eating there again instead of shoving food in our face in front of the t.v. Purging the bottom kitchen cupboards and making them functional for all the cooking and baking I now have time to do.

I must sound like such a slob -- if it's any better, just call it being human. ;)

Just after we came home from being up north for the holidays, the video card on our computer bit the dust. Luckily, all the stuff on the hard drive was fine. This was a tad ironic, as it's the computer that we bought when I started my MBA. It lasted for a good 4 years, so we decided to purchase a new one and transfer the hard drive onto a portable drive. Still working on getting the new one up and running with all of my preferred settings.

The most exciting thing, to me: I bought a keyboard!

It's only 61 keys, as opposed to 88 keys, which I'd been holding out for, but the price tag was so much lower than the 88 keys, I decided to go for it and I'm really glad that I did. Most of what is missing are the lower keys, but there is definitely enough here to satisfy my needs for now.

I've only had it set up for a couple of days, but it has already shown me that it's part of what I've really been missing. I'm not a huge t.v. watcher, but don't always have the mindset to read a book so I'd been substituting my piano time with time on the computer. While that has been fine, it hasn't left me feeling nearly as balanced as playing has. I'm a bit of an information junkie and could keep surfing all night long just reading more and more without ever feeling satisfied. In contrast, I derive such a sense of inner peace, an emotional connection, that I feel much more fulfilled and at balance with the world.

The keyboard also comes with a training program, Yamaha-style, that I want to explore. I was trained in the classical method and then completely broken reign with that at York and studied post-modern music. I think that any learning method adds value. It also has MIDI capability, and I would like to use that to begin composing again.

And in keeping with my previous entry on the effect of sound, I am going to pick up this book:

From the publisher:

In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music--its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it--and the human brain. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, Levitin reveals:

-How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world
-Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre
-That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise
-How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our heads

And, taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin argues that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. This Is Your Brain on Music is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.

Exciting times!