100th post: I'm almost done with finals!

Yeah! It's been an amazing finals week. Since last Thursday, I've had one thing due/happening every day (excluding the weekend) so I'm really glad that my finals are only ending tomorrow. Most people usually complain that their finals don't end earlier, but if mine ended any earlier I would've been much more pressed for time. So it's really a blessing that everything's so evenly spread out.

Finally got done with my Music 220A project today. Finished it in a total of 6.5 hours. Ideally I was supposed to have started it a while ago, and I guess technically I did but I did the bulk of the work today. Basically what I did was to write and record a musical piece using recordings of water - water droplets, the shower, a fountain, water cooler etc. Some of the sounds are raw, most of the sounds are processed at least a little using a computer program called ChucK, and a few of the sounds are synthesized like crazy. If you're interested to hear it, you can take a listen here , or right-click on the link and select "save source as" to download it.

And yup, even those broad chords in the second half are from a water source. Specifically, a fountain (the same sound that you hear in the background a couple of times that sounds kinda like rain). I think the theory of how that happened was the script I wrote constructed a delay every 500 or so samples, and at the high sample rate of 48kHz, that ended up producing a tone in and of itself rather than merely altering the original sound. By changing the frequency of the delay (i.e. 400 samples, 300 samples etc.) I could change the pitch. So it actually took a while to come up with those chords.

I like them though. I like the whole piece in general, even though some things didn't quite work out perfectly - like some of the stuff sound out of time even though they were supposed to all line up. But it doesn't matter too much. I like the piece - it's sort of calming. I don't know if I'm reading too much into it (I don't think I am), but I feel like it's a prayer for rain (hence the title Raindance). Not physical rain, but the kind of rain that softens dry ground and parched hearts; the kind of rain that is refreshing and nourishing, that softens soil for roots to go deeper and mends the cracks in hardened hearts. God's already begun to water the dry ground(s) a little here and a little there, but it's not enough and more rain is coming.

One more final tomorrow! I'm not worried about it. It's challenging, but somehow I feel really at peace with the fact that even in the midst of studying I need to, and should, take care of myself. Like it's actually more worth it to take some time to do nothing, or to write a blog entry, and of course to sleep, than it is to study more or cram more practice problems.

In other news... I'm officially an Econ Major!! Yeah!!! I'm so glad I finally declared. And it was such a blessing too. By right I can't declare this week - I can submit the online system request and submit the forms but the department says they won't approve it until next quarter. But I went to see my advisor two days ago, submitted my forms and requested to declare last night at around 2am. And it got approved this morning in just a matter of 8 hours! Yay. =)

God's just been really good to me this week. Not that there haven't been downsides or challenges. But it's like He suddenly awakened me to a new realization of His goodness during what's supposed to be the most pressurizing or intense week of the quarter. Funny. He would choose this week to do that.