I promised to clean up my room and closet this weekend. Reorganized everything, discarded junk items and shredded papers. Yeah, it took a couple hours to do, but i think it was worth doing. I don’t know if it’s the act of cleaning that gets my productivity juices flowing or if it’s the fact that my room is now clean, that I want to do work now?

I filed my tax return online yesterday. Overall, wasn’t too bad as it took about 4 hours total (research, collecting docs, etc).

I added 2 pounds of weights to each hand + write and now it feels like a workout. If you can burn 95 calories/15 minutes playing Wii tennis, I’d imagine that the weights probably boost the calories burned per 15 minutes to around 120 calories. I was also wearing a warmup pants and jacket, which probably adds maybe 5-10 calories (than if I just wore a t-shirt and shorts).

Overall, I played 1.5 hours today. I could only play two boxing matches today (got too winded) with the weights.

In Chapter 1 of Swafford’s biography of Brahms:

Brahms worked at the Lokale (brothel for drunken sailors) as piano player, who also read poems. Apparently, his experiences at the Lokale haunted him throughout his adult life and could partially explain his misogynist views and his rather peculiar take on women….and his music, of course.

Brahms’ teachers were Cossel and Marxsen.

Chapter 2 (Kreisleriana) talks about Brahms’ early development and the influence that German literature (Goethe, Novalis, Hoffmann, etc) and stories/fables had on him and his music. He mostly taught ‘talentless’ students and continued to play at small venues for pay. His teacher, Marxsen instilled in Johannes, the virtues of music (melodic structures, etc) from the Classical period…theme and variations, etc.

Will read Chapter 3 tonight (Two Journeys).

Hit the snooze button on my alarm clock one too many times this morning…so didn’t have time to exercise in the morning. So after work today, I played 30 minutes of Wii sports (tennis) and worked up a decent sweat (~180 calories/hour). Pretended it was a real game of tennis and swung the wii remote as hard as i could. I wonder how many calories I’m burning by playing Wii tennis 30 minutes a day. Can’t wait for boxing (reportedly, 250 calories/hour)!

I bought these ankle/wrist weights (2 lb) to help me burn extra calories. Afterwards, I’ll wear these on my ankles to work (under my trousers, of course) to burn even more calories.

Major project…won’t have time to work on this until after I learn Brahms op.118 and Rachmaninoff Moment Musical No.4. and perform at November recital. So most likely Nov 2007-spring 2008.

I learned the first page today (20-30 minutes). Got used to the left hand fingering and can play both hands close to at tempo. But I need to remind myself to slow down and really focus on the details. I don’t have much time to practice anymore (probably no more than 2.5 hours/week), but I can divvy the piece up into chunks and be able to learn it within 2 months. Normally, I try to learn as much as possible (rushed) and the final result is, not surprisingly, far from good.

The good news is that this piece sounds a lot harder than it really is.

My desk at my apartment is a mess. Can’t do any work there. But it’ll be clean by Saturday, I promise!

Bought these Sennheiser HD-580 headphones from amazon (had 25 dollar gift certificate), so came out to about $105 with free shipping. I tried it at work and they sound decent, but then read about how only with a headphone amp will the great sound become apparent.

So made an impulse buy of sorts (well, i did do my research) and decided to splurge on a Headroom Total Bithead headphone amp (portable). This can be powered by computer’s USB port or by 4 AAA batteries. Only heard nice things about this amp, so I don’t have buyer’s remorse yet. The other option was to build my own amp (cmoy) out of a tin container and some parts from radio shack, but decided it wasn’t worth the time.