Teacup XXXVIII

[Ingwe]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Really?! As you can see (from my name) I'm also a huge fan[/understatement]. My absolute favorite, in fact.

Oh yea, noticed that before. I became curious about Berlioz when he was mentioned in the movie Star Trek: First Contact. Then I listened to some music, really liked what I heard, been a heck of a fan ever since! Music is the one thing that makes life in the dead of winter that much easier to take, and it's the one thing that can inspire and motivate me to do about anything even on the worst of days!

[Noble Elf Lord]

As for my weekend, we found out that a goshawk has made our backyard its territory. I got two pics of it, I'll put em here at somepoint.

[Midge]

*sigh* I actually ran out of things to do here (like... literally) at work in the first 20 minutes. I've got another hour and a half! Facebook is NOT that exciting! Man...

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Ingwe

Oh yea, noticed that before. I became curious about Berlioz when he was mentioned in the movie Star Trek: First Contact. Then I listened to some music, really liked what I heard, been a heck of a fan ever since! Music is the one thing that makes life in the dead of winter that much easier to take, and it's the one thing that can inspire and motivate me to do about anything even on the worst of days!

Allow me to re-create that great scene

[Riker walks into Picard's cabin. Picard is listening to an opera aria.]

Riker: Bizet?

Picard (switches music off): Berlioz

And it's the beautiful opening aria from Act V of Berlioz' opera Les Troyens .

Music in the winter actually doesn't work as well for me. I'm more of a summer listener. Not that I don't listen in winter, but less often. Audio books become my mainstay for winter.

It's awesome to meet another Berlioz fan!

[Midge]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Music in the winter actually doesn't work as well for me. I'm more of a summer listener. Not that I don't listen in winter, but less often. Audio books become my mainstay for winter.

I've never encountered this issue before... that's pretty interesting.

[hectorberlioz]

Yeah, it is interesting actually. I've found that in the winter, audio books are more congenial to my moods. Especially for going to sleep, nothing does the trick better :-). I might also mention hot chocolate as a winter favorite of mine .

[Midge]

i think that hot chocolate would be a year-round favorite of mine, except that I don't like drinking hot things in the summer.

[hectorberlioz]

Hot chocolate CAN work in the summer, if you drink it on cool nights. But yeah, summer is not a great time to be gulping hot drinks ;-).

[Midge]

I do like Christmas music quite a lot. I don't usually listen to it in January, but if it's the right artist, I will.

Mannheim Steamroller usually re-emerges around July for me. Right now, I'm listening to "Silent Night" sung by Taylor Swift. ...You know, she has a pretty cool last name.

[Mari]

Christmas songs are cool. And some of them CAN be listened to year round, since they can also be categorized as choir music, church music, or classical.

[Jonathan]

In theory yes, but that would ruin their "Christmas feeling"
I really like listening to such music in December though.

[Mari]

Yes, but you need practice
Besides, if I can own well over a hundred different Christmas songs, it won't matter if a few of them are listened to all year long. By the by, Christmas music season starts around September for me and ends halfway through January or sometimes even well into February.

[Midge]

Yeah... I start listening to Christmas music usually in July. I mix it in with my other regular music around that time. I quit abruptly after Christmas day, usually. Sometimes I won't, though.

It bothers me that radio stations do that too. They don't ease out of Christmas music. It's Dec. 26 and suddenly it doesn't even sound like Christmas was yesterday! *sigh*

[Grey_Wolf]

The weather here has turned absolute "the day after tomorrow" the prequel. BRR!!

[Jonathan]

Yes, it's like my childhood winters as I remember them
Think of all those poor people who have never seen snow chaos or experienced the sensation of a really biting cold

[Grey_Wolf]

Indeed - poor ppl who live with +30 - 40 C every day and not a snow-flake in sight ever.

[Amael]

And as for those who live in the regions between 10 C and 20 C climates, they usually have earthquakes, volcanoes, mudslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, high wind, floods, or some sort of other geological or climatological nightmares!

[Jonathan]

Yes, usually. Just as frequently as it snows up here...

[Grey_Wolf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQa2NuM8JTQ

Best to ya all from ur friend Anders

[Tessar]

Well, I realized a couple of things today... And the outcome is that for the moment I'm dropping Italian and I'm going to start learning Spanish just as fast as I can.

I found out that because my dad is Hispanic, I can say that I am also Hispanic on forms even though my mom is not Hispanic, meaning that I would automatically be more likely to get scholarship money (which I REALLY wish he had told me when I went into college). So for grad school I'm going to check off Hispanic. Anyways...

My dad speaks Spanish but never spoke it to us as kids... for some reason he didn't want us to learn it. But there is a huuuuuuuuuge demand for bi-lingual business people in the area I live in, and the demand is for English/Spanish speaking people. Sooooo if I do get that business degree AND I can speak Spanish, I'll be more likely to get a well paying job.

Pretty neat, huh? I'm glad because it looks pretty similar to Italian in some ways, so it's not like I've wasted my former efforts, and it will be useful for continuing to learn the Italian later on... and I'll need the Italian for sure if I hope to have an opera career .