New Sections, Paper Cups, and The Great Cheese Hunt

TL;DR:

• I added new sections to my blog posts
• Paper cups stressed me out a lot
• Cheese stressed me out even more

New and Improved

I’ll be documenting additions and changes to my blog’s content in this section, along with my reasons for introducing them. Think of it like update notes for a video game or an app. Since I’ll be testing a lot of new things over the next few weeks, expect plenty of comments here.

• Created New and Improved section to keep track of future content changes.
• Added TL;DR mini-section to give readers a brief overview of a post’s content.
• Added tags to each post. Ordinary readers won’t be able to see them for now, but they’ll definitely be useful for archival purposes in the future.

Life Update

Even though it was a Saturday, I still had to work on the 25th, as there were two harpsichords that needed moving into the Chan Centre before Orfeo rehearsals resumed there the next day. The first harpsichord that needed moving was the one being used for rehearsals in the Old Aud, while the second one was from the basement of the UBC School of Music. Each harpsichord had its unique challenge when being moved, mainly due to their location and the differing design of their legs, but the main difficulty of getting them onto the van that took them to the Chan Centre were the multiple sets of doors they both had to pass through.

After stocking up on some more refreshments, I resumed my hospitality set-up duties on the 26th, this time in the Chan Centre’s Telus Theatre. Aside from the change in venue, I also helped to set up chairs and music stands for the instrumentalists’ rehearsal, as the singers weren’t coming until later in the day. Since this was basically what I did for my stint as a stage manager during my last year at UBC, it was a rather smooth affair.

Once I was done setting up, I took a tour of the modified-for-Orfeo concert hall, where I saw the fabric sheets I grommeted now being draped above the stage. Guess that technically means I now have some experience in stagecraft.

(Side note: do three harpsichords, a viola da gamba, a theorbo, and a harp count as a string ensemble? Because that was the type of ensemble that began rehearsing as I left.)

The 27th was basically the same as the previous day, with the only exception being a restocking trip after I was done setting up. Since the cookies I bought last time proved to be rather popular, with the entire box almost being cleared out in a day, I made sure to get another box. I wouldn’t be surprised if cookies a notable percentage of my hospitality budget by the end of this.

After learning they were almost out, I was originally planning to buy additional paper cups on the 28th, but a coworker brought more in during work, so that saved me a shopping trip. Other than that, it was the same as the previous two days.

The paper cup saga continued on the 29th, as while there were enough cups when I was setting up on that day, I was informed that they needed to be restocked after I had left and rehearsals were finished. There is time for me to get a batch before heading to work, but it’ll likely be a small stopgap for a larger purchase in the afternoon of other supplies as well.

Ultimately, I managed to get all the paper cups I needed before work on the 30th, though not at the location I intended, as there weren’t any being sold there when I arrived. I instead brought some more refreshments at my first stop, then quickly moved on to somewhere else I knew they would be stocked. This also had the unfortunate side effect of me getting a worse deal, but I didn’t really have any other options left at that point.

While I needed to bring in some more snacks before Orfeo’s first performance on the 31st, the addition of cheese to my shopping list this time proved to be troublesome, as I had to hit up three different supermarkets in quick succession before finally finding something similar to what I wanted (a cheese platter, which none of them sold). In the end, I bought several packs of discounted bite-size cheese curds as a substitute, before spreading them out on a plate once I got to the Chan Centre. As long as no one notices this slight discrepancy in the type of cheese they’re eating, I say it’s mission accomplished.

There’s one last thing I’ll be doing, but it’ll be after I publish this post, so I may include it as part of next week’s. Stay tuned!

Book Club

In this section, I’ll be discussing a book I read during this week. Since I usually go through two books a month depending on their length and my downtime, this section won’t appear that frequently.

I started reading Value(s) by Mark Carney a few weeks ago, as I believe understanding how the current Prime Minister’s approaches problems is the best way to find out what direction he plans to steer Canada in. Since this book was published before he became Prime Minister, it’s interesting to see which ideas from it he’s currently implementing, along with the contradictions between what he writes from the perspective of an economist and actually does as a Prime Minister. The most blatant example of this are his recommendations on reducing emissions to combat excessive climate change in Value(s), while approving major fossil fuel infrastructure projects as Prime Minister, thus contributing to what he calls the greatest problem of our lives.

Even so, what Carney has written in Value(s) convinced me that he has a plan to navigate Canada through its current crisis, as some of the observations and predictions he foresaw turned out to be eerily accurate. In particular, his remarks during the 2008 financial crisis on American hegemony soon coming to an end were proven doubly true since he became Prime Minister, though I think he did not antticipate that it would happen under these sorts of circumstances. Despite his obvious shortcomings in areas he supposedly cares about, Carney clearly has a concrete and thought-out vision for Canada’s future, and nowhere is this more apparent than what he lays out in Value(s).