Eugh exams

Well, after thirteen years of not being examined, except by doctors, it's started again. It was only a Mock exam for Literature, but still. Ouch in my head and ouch in my fingers.

We knew that there would be questions on Jane Eyre and Othello and also something on the character of Blanche DuBois and an unseen poem. I had decided in advance that I would avoid the classics so was pleased by the choice of unseen poem...

...Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Sorry, I had to go and Do Stuff for a while there... ...See, this is why it's bad being interrupted in mid-blog. You completely lose your flow. Anyway, I then had to go to a church to sing with the choir for the purpose of recording tracks for our new CD. Of course, the equipment wasn't behaving so Helen stressed a few months off her life before running back to the Music Department to get alternatives. Eventually we got going and apparently it went as well as was expected. Hurrah. Next recording date is in April... Ollie recently started working on a piece for strung quartet and choir, inspired by the Russian deity Poludnitsa. He wrote the second movement to start with, just for the strings, and then rearranged it for string orchestra. On Wednesday afternoon he was having it played (and recorded, I think) in a competition, along with three other pieces, by a string orchestra, voted on by the orchestra and judged by some... judges? Not long after this, the votes came back - the judges had placed him second of four and the players had voted his piece the best! They'll now be taking it on tour with them! Fab. You can hear the string quartet version of the piece on MySpace, on a page I had to set up for the purpose. I was shocked by how thoroughly disorganised MySpace is, when it comes to doing things with music.