Day 7

Lisa: "I am the lizard queen!"

Using the above quote for two reasons:

1. Listening to a Powderfinger song yesterday "(Return of) the Electric Horseman" from Double Allergic (as I recall), which is one of those 30 minute tracks with like 5 different songs - one of which begins 'I am the lizard queen', and seems to be talking about characters reminiscient of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. In the first person I might add.
2. Began reading Planet Simpson, which F gave me for my 24th back in January - gives a brief picture of how far behind I am in my reading. Anyway, so the very first episode mentioned in the introductory chapter is "Selma's Choice", where Selma takes Bart & Lisa to Duff Gardens, Bart pushes Lisa into the 'water' on the boat ride, and Lisa thus becomes quite hallucinogenic-like. "We found this one swimming naked in the pond".

Woke up satisfactorily at 9:10. Still no milk, and I decided that I should try and stem my caffeine addiction, so I didn't buy any - it can wait till the weekly shopping expedition tommorrow.

Since I'm not ready to go to the library and borrow books for my Solomon assignment, yet, I watched lecture 1 of week 7. I decided that its better if I can get ahead in one area, cos that will help later on. I also read about a chapter of the textbook - the end of the first part of Genesis (introduction, chp 1-11) up to near the end of the second part (patriachs, chp 11-end). Thoroughly enjoyable reading - learning a bit about egyptian/mesoptainian history, not just biblical history.

Completed lesson 5 in Mandarin. Up to saying "I would like to eat something", etc. Still getting through it quite easily.

Did about half an hour on the sax, as far as I can tell. The reason its not so clear is that I did an intermittent warm-up of about 15 minutes while waiting for the site to load where the lessons are. It didn't, so I had to put it on hiatus and try later. I ended up downloading the first 10 lessons, just in case it happens again. Completed lesson 5 and about half of lesson 6. Rather difficult, but, logically, satisfying that I can get through it, and that it actually kinda sounds like something a bit tuneful. Most lines (consisting of at least 6 bars each) I have to repeat - often repeating a bar or a few bars many times so I can get it right - because of my notation to fingering problem. The last few lines today (in lesson 6) introduced B-flat (as in, middle B-flat, not low B-flat - which denotes the key of the sax). Interesting because it involves a key not used before. Essentially, there are 6 main positions - B is the left-hand index finger, A adds the LH middle finger, G adds LH ring finger, F adds right-hand index finger, E adds RH middle finger, D adds RH ring finger. However, B-flat involves moving the finger used to make an A to a small button between the B and A key - so its not easy to go from C (which is the LH middle finger ONLY), to B (LH index finger ONLY) to B-flat, to A (which is both fingers). Incidentally, there are apparently at least four ways to play B-flat, an interesting one being the LH index finger and the RH index finger (used to play F, with the other fingers).

Watched two films today - The Order (or The Sin Eater as it was released here), which wasn't good. I kept thinking, OK, so this guy takes the sin of these dying people as long as they confess. Um, well, thats what Jesus does - they don't need a human to perform this stupid ritual. But... I guess people don't believe it could be so easy. Strange that the Knight's Tale guy would even try and go for a film like that.

The other was Murder by Numbers. Hmm... forgettable, I think. Could've been done way better. The main problem was they never really explained the point - crime proves we're free? Right....

Unfortunately, while watching said film, missed the encore presentation of Australian Princess. Whatever shall I do now?