For a singularly uneventful day, I was really busy today. Mostly prep work for everything that had to happen. I took my last Spanish test and prepared for my final presentation. I got so bored of all my original ideas - talking about Pablo Neruda, Spanish art, toucans (new favourite bird), etc. So I decided I'd take my longterm obsession with House music and turn it to good use. Basically I'm talking about why I like both classical music (very general) and house music because though they seem like incredibly disparate genres, they actually share a lot of musical principles. I should really go in for novel writing, because the so-called "shared principals" are the greatest work of fiction the age has seen. I mean, I like music, and I chose to talk about it because a) I'm really picky about my music and b) I haven't studied it as much as art, lit, or even film, and therefore it's more challenging to discuss. Anyway, my professor previewed my presentation today and approved, so hurrah! I will include the list of clips I'm playing soon. Lots of Daft Punk, Modjo, some New Order, Cassius, Bob Sinclair, more Daft Punk. For a 5-10 minute presentation it's all very intense. I feel half smug and half embarrassed about it. Maybe I should have just sung the Indian national anthem or something. Although now I'm a US citizen so perhaps that's out. You never know who's watching.

I suppose the good part is that with one exception, no one in the room will have a clue what I'm talking about. It's not as if elementary Spanish II covered the fundamentals of polyphony or whatever else I'm pretending I've mastered. Oh the joys of baffling your audience...I mean, just imagine me - me! - standing up in the front, alternately playing Chopin and Daft Punk to a bunch of students more interested in the sangria our professor promised us. Sharing my music is also another point of discomfort -- most people I've played it to don't enjoy it a great deal and certainly can't access the ecstatic feeling I get when I hear a really good mix. There's something sort of sublime about it, at least in my mind. When I put the music up, really loud, that great 4/4 baseline consumes my body and becomes a surrogate heartbeat. I get to the point where I feel like the beat is coming out of my body, that the music is an actualization of some deep, subconsious rhythm that rarely comes to the surface.

I'm a bad daughter. My mum got home tonight and I didn't say much to her. I'm frightened of leaving for NJ this weekend. It's so sudden. I wish I were going back to school for another year. A real job - it's too much pressure. I feel like I'm a shiny metal spring, being wound tighter and tighter with every passing day. There's a lot of potential energy in that. I hope it comes out in a good way. Of course, within an hour of her arrival, my parents had a brief row over the dishwasher. So really, it's an excellent thing that I'm leaving and ditching this god-foresaken watering hole.

But I'm still scared.