(no subject)

[merchimerch]

My research seems to have taken off - there are so many things to see at the moment. I went into the music college yesterday morning to watch a rehearsal and it turned out that I just happened to show up on concert day. So, the rehearsal ended at 10 AM, but there was a concert at 11 AM. Who has concerts at 11 am? The funniest thing is that a fair amount of people - maybe 50-70 showed up. The whole thing was a strange love-fest for the halq cholg'u (reconstructed, soviet-style) instruments and ensembles. They had 4 of the former graduates of the college who are now in conservatory come up and give a speech and the director of the ensemble gave a speech and so did the director of the college and the director of the halq cholg'u orchestra in the Conservatory. All the professed love still doesn't answer the question for me about what relevance this music has in the hearts of people now adays. It seems to still be a place where people who were trained in halq cholg'u playing experience a lot of emotional satisfaction, but I don' t know anyone else who really likes it. Of course I'm more allied with the an'anaviy ("traditional") instrument players who are always civil to their halq cholg'u counterparts and say that the two styles should be able to coexist, but always express a lot of dislike and distaste for halq cholg'u in private, more candid moments. Plus, in the conservatory, there seems to be many students who are clamoring to leave the halq cholg'u department for the an'anaviy department. I haven't heard of a single an'anaviy play who has wanted to give up the traditional instrument to take up it's reconstructed counterpart. Still I think its interesting that so many players seem so invested in maintain these reconstructed ensembles and departments. The director of the college quoted the president at me when I asked him what relevance the halq cholg'u stuff has for the future of Uzbekistan. He replied that Karimov said that we must "honor our Soviet past" and not forget it. I suppose that makes sense, I just wonder where the audiences are going to come from as we get further and further from the Soviet era.

However, I got rejection #2 for this application season - I didn't get selected to teach summer school at UCLA. It bums me out, but I'm not too suprised, they have a lot of more senior people than me applying to do the same thing. Nonetheless, this is 2 rejections in a row and I'm starting to feel a little down about it all. I know that my most probable applications are still out there, but I'm still starting to get worried. I've had a pretty flawless record of getting the grants I apply for, so 2 rejections in a row feels like a lot. I'm only asking for funding for one more year of grad school. I am terrified of going into more debt.