PIC 10b quotes, French words, AUD midterm, a face, and music

Lectures in PIC 10b typically start like this:

The professor of the previous class, finishing up talking to his students: "...But let me get out of the way so the next class can get started."
My professor: "No, no, we've got ten minutes. Take your time!"

I have started writing down other notable Wittman quotes.

• About the word queue:
  "I hate that word. Because it just looks terrible. It gives me the shivers. I hate writing it, I hate hearing it, I hate saying it. It reminds me of my 8th grade English teacher, who used to sneeze by saying queue."
• About this image, which was on the title slide of his lecture about binary trees: (Every document he gives us or shows us has a Star Wars image on it. He doesn't actually like Star Wars that much; it's more of a running gag)
  "Is that a squirrel?"
  "I guess so. You search 'Star Wars trees' and that's what comes up. A squirrel on a speeder.' "
  

It's time to update the list of awesome French words! (The bold ones are new!)

Orthographically awesome French words:

• créée - Feminine past participle of créer, to create.
• mangeaient - Third person imperfect plural form of manger, to eat. (I spelled this incorrectly when I first wrote about it!)
  
• étudiions - First person plural present subjunctive form of étudier, to study.
  

Phonologically awesome French words:

• semblable - similar - Because "blab" sounds like "blob."
• souhaite/souhaites/souhaitent - From souhaiter, to wish - Because they sound like "sweat".
• honnêteté - honesty - This one speaks for itself.

In Spanish with conditional si clauses you use the imperfect of the subjunctive mood:
Si tuviera mucho dinero, sería contento.
In French with conditional si clauses you use the imperfect of the indicative mood:
Si j'avais beaucoup d'argent, je serais content.

This bothers me.


Yesterday was the midterm for AUD 10B, which was quite easy - aside from the ten questions about projects that the professor neglected to put on the list of projects we need to know. Much more exciting than the midterm was the 20 minute hiatus that the back third of the classroom and I had to endure while the TAs hunted around north campus for a functional copy machine. The exam was also mysteriously missing a page which had to be distributed to all 120+ students. The girl next to me was clearly bored and slightly insane and started to hum elaborate melodies while we waited. The girl in front of me turned around and gave her a look which combined "Are you seriously singing right now?" and "I am going to kill you immediately."

While reviewing the review slides I stumbled upon another face that I have forgotten to document here:
These lovely gardens are those of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, in Maincy, France, landscaped by André le Nôtre.

It has occurred to me that I haven't written much about the music I have written this year, so here is an attempt:

• I have yet again revised my suite for string orchestra, with significant changes to the third movement, a new ending, and some performance notes - hopefully I am approaching a final version.
• I have also arranged both movements of Winter Solstice for percussion ensemble (which they mostly were to begin with anyway). They are very simplistic, but so were the originals. Plus, I can pass this off as branching out stylistically!
• Last Friday I finished a new MP3 work, in typical style. I'm quite fond of it still, though this is perhaps just becuase it's the first one since November.

A final side note: Today is Tchaikovsky's 168th birthday!