It occured to me while doing some Christmas shopping yesterday how horrible driving in Tallahassee is. Besides the traffic light sequences that were evidently timed by a four-year-old, most of the natives here are just bad drivers. Now of course, there's bad drivers wherever you go, but it's different back in northern Virginia. There at least, everyone is a bad driver in the same way, and the collective badness mixes together into a well-oiled machine. Yes, you're going to get cut off there, but the guy who cuts you off is "on your side" and you can almost anticipate the moves you'll have to go through on the highway.

It was a pretty successful end of the semester, although I didn't do all the things I would have liked to do. I played the hell out of the Arutunian excerpt I chose, and was stopped halfway through my up-tempo etude, so I believe that the audition yesterday went well. The pedagogy final was nothing unexpected so there should be no surprises with that grade. I also got back the results of the listening exam, on which I managed to get enough correct to pass the doctoral level. As the crowning fillip, I've essentially finished the first movement of my string quartet, so I can spend this upcoming break just tweaking and editing. All that good news sapped any kind of motivation I had towards studying for this evening's history exam, although I finally buckled down and did some after dinner and monday night TV.

The choir teacher on Boston Public last night did another horrible job of conducting. She was leading America or something of that nature and putting downbeats on beat four. When the song ran out, she was stuck on beat two and had to do a hasty cut-off. On show that's otherwise really musical for primetime TV, you'd think they'd at least teach her how to conduct; Richard Dreyfuss did better as Mr. Holland. Speaking of time-wasting television shows, out of seven and a half seasons worth of Friends episodes, I've now seen all but three. Should I be ashamed or proud?

This will be the last regular update until December 20th or so. On the 15th and 16th, I'll be in Alexandria, and the 17th through the 19th, I'll be traveling to New Jersey and Boston as I mentioned a few days ago. After a week back in Alexandria, I'll drive all the way back here on the 28th for the Gator Bowl, and after the 2nd, I'll be in Tallahassee for good. If you need to contact me, phone me at one of my locales or e-mail me at my normal address. If you'll be in Tallahassee that week before classes start, give me a call and we'll play Clue or something.

Seeya next week, homeslice.