The mystery that is Tyler

So my friend Cat and I live in the dorms. East Owen, sixth floor. Literally, we are the only two occupants of this floor as far as we can tell. Except...Tyler.

We have never seen Tyler.

We only know his name because there is a summer school nametag on his door. It's pink and colorful - probably put up there by a bubbly girl. (not that there's anything wrong with bubbly girls...uh...)

The only reason we know Tyler is even there is that we hear the TV on. All the time. All the time. Every time we walk by. Since his room is on the way to our room, we walk by quite frequently. And the TV is always on.

Last weekend, there was NO SOUND coming from his room. We were worried. Had he left for the summer? Had he moved? Did he just go home? Was he...dead????

But no. Yesterday Cat announced, "Tyler is alive and well." TV back on, life is normal.

Maybe one day we'll see what Tyler looks like.

If we do, I'll try to take a picture. It'll be on the level of Loch Ness Monster or Abominable Snowman sightings. Internet craze. Insanity.

Stay tuned.

Life without a car

An overarching theme of my experience here at Michigan is walking. I did not have a car my first year, and I do not have a car this year either. (Last year my roommates had cars, so I could steal theirs for a few hours - awesome!) Coming from lovely SoCal, where cars rule the universe, it is an adjustment to the non-car life.

Don't get me wrong - I love walking. It is gorgeous here with all the green trees, the river running through campus, the old buildings. And when I get my bike from Abby, it is even more awesome to bike through the town, too! (My bud Abby has been kind enough to let me borrow a bike from her the last two summers. So amazing.)

Walking does have its drawbacks when you are running errands. For example, two years ago I bought a printer and carried it back to my dorm. As I lugged a huge box, a car drove by me and honked, the occupants laughing. "Don't laugh at me!" I thought. "Give me a ride!"

Or today. It's really hot right now, and it's hard for me to work when it's so hot. So I decided to buy a fan. Of course, Rite Aid didn't have cute little fans - they only had the 20 inch box fan. So, I bought it, and lugged it back to the dorm. Some random guy on a bike said, "So, you had to buy a fan, huh? It's hot today!" Right, buddy. Thanks.

I am all for green environment stuff and not polluting the earth. But man, I miss my car.

It's hot and I'm unmotivated.

That's it really. Happy 4th. At some point, I may get to see some fireworks. Not really sure how it's all going to turn out.

It's hot. 90, and 50% humidity.

Woo.

Pretty exciting, huh?

Guess I should go back to working now.

By the way, the movie "No Reservations" with Catherine Zeta-Jones was originally a German movie called "Mostly Martha." So far, it seems to be EXACTLY the same, but in German. Interesting...

Okay. Work.

Yes, I know I said that...

...okay, I'm sorry, I haven't written since Monday even though I promised I would. I do have an excuse, I promise!

This week I started taking classes at MSU. I am taking Analysis of Musical Scores, which meets Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 1-3. This week I also took (am taking?) a Jazz Pedagogy Class. It meets (met?) from 9am to 6pm, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. (interestingly, at UCLA they abbreviated Thursday on class schedules with an R - so Tuesday/Thursday classes were TR on the schedule. I like this. But I digress...)

Thinking that I would have to miss my analysis class, I told the professor Tuesday. But I went to jazz on Wednesday, and discovered that they had scheduled a lunch break for jazz from 12:30-3:30, so myself and another student could go to our analysis class! Oh...

So Wednesday and Thursday I had to RUN to the student union, inhale a piece of pizza, run back (on Wednesday I had to make copies of the pieces we were analyzing), run up 4 flights of stairs, and have analysis class for 2 hours. Then I get out of class, sit for half an hour, and take jazz for another 2.5 hours.

I am exhausted.

Thankfully, it's just this week that it's like this. During week 4, I have a conducting class that meets MTWR (see what I did there?), but it's only from 3:40-6:20. So that shouldn't be too bad.

In other news, studying for my comprehensive exam (henceforth referred to as "comps") is hard.

Okay.

I will try to write more this weekend.

Forgive my school-induced flakiness.