OK, I am a day late and a dollar short. The word for the immediately preceding weekend is RISIBLE [RIZ-uh-bull]. Here's why I like this word: it can be either passive or active. It can be used to mean "disposed to laughter." "That risible Emily giggles constantly, doesn't she?" But it can also be used to mean "causing to laugh." So when Emily gets a fit of the giggles while drinking a milkshake and shoots milk out her nose, so that her friends start laughing, too, she is being risible in both senses.
Now for something less risible (for me at least). This morning I started as a student in a university-level music theory class. The teacher and I had talked about it. Even though this is a second-semester class, she thinks I can probably catch up with the twenty-five other students. Here are the comments I wrote down in the first twenty minutes.
Most of the rest of the students seem to know each other. They probably took first semester together. They chat about the holidays. Some are nervous about this class. The only person who introduced herself to me was instructed by the professor to do so. Many of them feel it is weird to be back in the class after the holidays. They are already planning on the next holiday [Martin Luther King Jr. Day]. Every row in the room except mine was filling up before someone sat on my row--two seats down. The teacher was late by three minutes, so the students continued to chat: diet, a strange pair of earmuffs, a little bit about music and classes. I felt nervous and alone. I understand why, but that does not slow my heartbeat significantly.
I was caught without staff paper [for marking musical notations], but would have had no idea how to do the assignment [a review from the previous semester] anyway. I will have significant reading to do to catch up with this class. The review was terrifying. I didn't understand the terms although I had heard them. Although the other students were groaning, it is clear that they were getting correct answers. Most felt rusty. I have stuff to memorize.
So now I am going off to learn all the triads and key signatures. If I don't learn these tonight, I will not be able to keep up tomorrow. No pressure, eh?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
May you succeed and look back, in a risible fashion, later.
Good luck with the class. However, please don't become one of those stuffed shirt music people who perform just to hear themselves because the rest of can't understand and don't really care about what they are saying. Some of those people are as far from risible (in a performance setting)as a died-in-the-wool Baptist is from the front pew.
Yeah, I have been to some concerts hosted by our fair college and some of them put me in mind of my neighbor's cats when they are in heat. I mean, how do you keep a straight face? No, my goal is to be able to write some handbell music arrangements so they are decipherable to others.
Post a Comment