Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

Do I smell seared flesh?

Sunday, Sept. 10, 2006
7:34 p.m.
It was a beautiful day for a barbecue. Yes it was. Patsy and I had lunch at a chichi restaurant in town, outside of which there was a big sound stage set up and hundreds of people were making themselves comfortable in lawn and camping chairs for some spectacle or other. I should have guessed, as I saw a cellist I know, red cello case slung over her shoulder, talking animatedly with someone as Patsy and I emerged from the stairway connecting the parking lot to the street. It wasn't until I met Larry the sound guy while we were examining our menus that I found out that the symphony orchestra was putting on a free show. We didn't get to hear it, unfortunately, but I'm very glad that it drew such a large audience.

Instead, we registered for our belly dancing class, braving the crowd of women milling about in the lobby. We filled in our registration forms, wrote our cheques, and departed as quickly as we could. I stopped at the grocery store after dropping Patsy off in order to pick up the few remaining ingredients I needed for my potato salad.

Then Hubby and I were off to the music department barbecue. I found out that it really was the music students' association's idea to take it over. It's just as well, but it hardly seems fair that our new chair should have this responsibility removed from his dossier. Why couldn't we have been so blessed? This means that there will be no more desperate runs in search of charcoal, no expenditures for paper plates and plastic cutlery. It's the end of one era and the beginning of another.

I met a couple of new students and reconnected with some old ones. One of the new ones is a singer who will most likely end up in my studio. The other is a bass player from Alaska who was badly in need of a shower and shampoo. I guess they don't bathe much in Alaska. I asked him why he chose Bushop's, and he replied that he was intrigued by an English university in a French milieu. He didn't say milieu, he used the English equivalent. That was my word just now.

So, we have only seven new students to the department this year, the residences are half-empty, and numbers in general are way down. The double cohort, i.e. the graduation of the last grade 13 and the first grade 12 classes in Ontario in 2003, has trickled down to its completion, and the new residence built specifically for this huge influx is now superfluous. Ha!

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