Bands, Details, and Burn!

First off, I hereby remember those who died on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday morning six years ago, 11 September 2001. I observed a moment of silence at 08:46 ET on Tuesday, even though I was in class and probably wouldn't have been talking anyway. I felt safe taking time out to close my eyes and say a short silent prayer simply because the problem the professor was working was super easy.

Anyway, it was really rainy Tuesday morning, and I felt bad because I had to borrow a friend's umbrella just to go from Benedum Hall to my room to Benedum Hall again. Apparently I'd forgotten things when I got up in the morning.

Speaking of which, I decided that the number of the day was 734, because when I rolled out of bed, my atomic clock read 07:34 with an indoor temperature of 73.4°F. Being who I am, I obviously found that too interesting to not take note of.

Backing up to Friday night, though, band practice was pushed back an hour because we had a performance at the Petersen Events Center immediately afterwards. Apparently, because the Grambling State University Band was coming to Pittsburgh (for the football game on Saturday), they sold tickets for a "Battle of the Bands" show. It was actually a "battle" between competing local high school bands that simply featured Pitt and Grambling at the end, but whatever. They sold tickets. They made money. They're happy.

I actually found a ticket to the event lying on the ground outside the next day, so I picked it up and kept it as a memento. The litterer was sitting in section 120, row L, seat 5! But that's not the point.

The point is that we were dressed in our practice uniforms for this performance. As usual, I put all of my important belongings, such as my wallet, phone, and student identification, into a plastic baggie which would stay in the knapsack we are given to hold music and other things.

After the event, I checked into my dorm room, and out of habit, put my ID in my right pocket. Then I changed clothes, transferred everything (except the ID) into my new pants pockets, and left for the trumpet party.

Needless to say, I found myself in Panther Central at about 01:30 answering numerous questions (such as my street, ID number, birthdate, etc.) so that I could get a Verification of Resident Status form and an emergency unlock code for my door. And about five minutes after I got into my room, I realized what I had done.

Grrr. This kind of stuff makes me mad. Which is why I'm usually a very "details-oriented" person. Apparently, I had had an off-day.

Saturday brought a good game, but some considerable rain, and that was another problem. All of my band music got soaked. So I went to practice Tuesday and had to peel apart the flimsy papers in order to hold them flimsily (with a great deal of trouble) so that I could attempt play... until a gust of wind "flimsified" the music once more, at which point it would often stick to itself. I later was able to make fresh photocopies of everything (literally everything) from the music the section leaders kept, but I still felt bad about it.

Especially because I had, only four hours prior, mildly burned myself in OChem lab. I was wearing a heat-resistant glove, but they're not waterproof. So a few milliliters of nearly boiling water (on the order of 90°C or 195°F) was pretty much poured straight onto my right pointer finger before I could even realize what was happening, at which point I simply dropped the flask into the sink. Luckily, it didn't break.

My finger hurt for a few hours as I self-treated it with cool water, because that's what you're supposed to do. It's much better now (about 9 hours since)... almost like nothing even happened, except there's a tiny bit of stiffness. I can even write without much discomfort, which is good, because tomorrow's OChem lecture is going over just about every nomenclature convention for organic compounds known to man... or rather, devised by man. And there are a lot of them to write down.

I'd write more, but it's rather late, and I've got to be rolling out of bed at 07:34 again. Ugh. Hopefully this bad stretch won't extend itself to a full week; I've got important things coming up soon.

Random tangent: There are going to be some Greek letters in my next post, but which ones? Maybe I'll write out the entire Greek alphabet, just to make you wince. Unless, of course, you're not intimidated by such things.