Vivat Libertas

Measuring The Sky

Since completing my Grade 8 in singing with an embarrassingly high mark (for me anyway), a lot of things have come my way. I've sung with a couple of choirs outside of school, been paid token amounts for my efforts (hey, money is money), and somehow weaselled my way into a choir of semi-professional real ale drinkers  musicians. And on top of that, I'm looking for paid choral work in Manchester - so if anyone needs a soprano, kindly drop me a line. (Seriously. I'm a student. It's a foregone conclusion that I'm broke - but fortunately surviving off more than just noodles and ramen because I know how to cook.) And  I want to continue and maybe do diplomas and such. Anyway, sometime in late August I went up to St Albans to sing with one of the choirs that my former music teacher helps run, which was pretty fun (if exhausting) and I met a lot of nice people...and we got asked, at more or less the last minute, to sing at a wedding. Now, I don't really mind doing ...

Blog - physicsworld.com Interesting and disturbing article.

So parents get a lot of shtick sometimes, from the criticisms of resentful offspring to the sneering attitude that the vast majority of the population are more than capable of fertilising an egg. And I've got to admit that a lot of the criticisms are justified: parents make a lot of mistakes, mistakes that have lifelong impacts on their children. Parents can be selfish and irresponsible, often cruel. Parents can be ignorant, maybe wilfully so. Despite all that, I still want to praise parents. Sure, the vast majority of people can fertilise an egg and carry a pregnancy to term, but the actual business of raising a child - guiding a little human being through the world and making sure they come out as happy and well-adjusted at the end of it all as is humanly possible - is difficult. Right now I've got a seven-month-old niece. She's a charming little cutie pie and no matter what she does I'm her proud auntie, but all the same looking after her is difficult. I know; I...