A New Blog, New Job, and New Clothes

Hello and welcome to the first of my weekly blog posts! Since I’ll be heading to the UK to pursue masters studies in September, I thought blogging would be a fun way to keep everyone back home updated on what’s going on in my life, especially since writing has always been one of my hobbies.

My current plan is to release these posts every Friday evening, where I’ll be recapping what’s happened the past week, though time zone differences in the future may mean that you could be reading this on Thursday or Saturday. The one exception to this rule will be this first week’s posts, as there’s a reason it begins from the previous Sunday instead. For the time being, these first few pre-UK posts will be sort of a test run to establish a proper workflow before things kick into high gear in a couple of months, so expect some format and content changes every week until then as I work out the kinks.

Life Update

This will be what my weekly blog posts consist of, and should be self-explanatory. If possible, I’ll add in accompanying photos either in a collage or event-by-event.

On the 19th, I officially began my summer job as a production assistant for Early Music Vancouver’s (EMV) summer festival. My office for the day was UBC’s Old Aud, where I provided refreshments to the cast of Orfeo (the opera EMV is producing as part of this year’s summer festival) as they rehearsed.

During my lunch break, I tried to watch the World Cup final, but the only place on UBC where I could properly watch it was fully booked. I ultimately had to rely on iShowSpeed’s livestream to get a picture of the match, and I did manage to catch Spain’s winning goal against Argentina.

Since I already brought in the majority of refreshments during my first day, I only needed to add the items I bought since then on the 20th, so the entire process was far simpler. However, I also helped to move the harpsichord and organ needed for Orfeo into the Chan Centre from the truck they were being transported in. While moving the harpsichord was easy enough, though it needed to be done rather delicately due to how fragile it was, moving the organ required the combined efforts of six people to accomplish, mainly because it weighted 600lbs.

After I got off work, I gave in to my urges and purchased the maple syrup can hoodie I saw at the UBC bookstore when I looked around during my lunch break. Since it was a clearance item, buying it was a no-brainer.

For the 21st, I helped set up and strike EMV’s free event at Granville island, which included the instruments and sound system being used. Since this process also involved transporting equipment to and from EMV’s office nearby with the help of a rental van, this day ended up being the day I was most involved with my job so far. Still, I got to listen to some amazing early music and watch some Baroque dancing along the way, all in the atmosphere of Granville Island, so I’m not complaining.

(As a side effect of being on Granville Island, I was unable to set up refreshments for the Orfeo rehearsal. I hope the cast made do without their usual service.)

Thankfully, I learned that the cast were able to make their own coffee when I returned to the Old Aud on the 22nd. Aside from refreshment duties, nothing out of the ordinary happened during this day, though I did need to do a mid-lunch break restocking of coffee creamer and buy some more fruit afterwards.

I helped grommet large pieces of cloth on the 23rd, which will be used as drapes for the production of Orfeo. This involved sandwiching holes I cut in the cloth between two brass rings, before squashing them together with a clamp, not unlike making a button badge. In total, I had to grommet 72 holes (12 pieces of cloth with 6 holes each), nd the entire process took around 2 hours, even with the process I used to speed things up.

The 24th was similar, although grommeting was replaced with moving more things into the Chan Centre, specifically into the Telus Theatre. This only took less than 30 minutes and didn’t involve anything too heavy, so it was less painless than my other moving duties.