Martin Orr's Blog

A general overview

Posted by Martin Orr on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 at 20:29

Two weeks into term, here's a bit of what I'm doing. The courses I'm doing this term are: Analysis II, Linear Algebra, Methods, Quantum Mechanics and Markov Chains. Of these, Methods is probably the most interesting as it is techniques I know nothing about. Linear Algebra is particularly boring; this is not really a good term for pure courses. I am also going to the lectures for one course on General Linguistics, and this week I will be starting classes in Mandarin Chinese as well as continuing my German classes.

On Thursdays I am singing with the Trinity Singers, the non-audition chorus run by Trinity Singers who are doing Handel's Messiah this term, and doing some of the organisation for that. We appointed a Singers Secretary last week, relieving me of much of that. And on Wednesdays I am going to swing dancing classes. This is nice because it is not just a university organisation although there are quite a lot of students who go. This is also one reason why I like Emmanuel United Reform Church (besides being Protestant and non-Established): there are few students there but well-integrated with the rest of the congregation - hard given the temporary nature of students and the ease for a church of catering to them as a distinct group.

-- Martin

no comments Tags emmanuel, languages, lindy, tcms, tripos

Busy week: TCMS

Posted by Martin Orr on Sunday, 08 October 2006 at 16:43

I have finally got some time to rest after a very busy week. First we had two events to recruit new members for TCMS: the Chaplains' Squash on Sunday night (a small, fast event within the college) and the Societies Fair on Tuesday and Wednesday (a huge university-wide event). Finding people to run the stalls was hard; our new Director of Music also decided to hold a party to meet college musicians at the same time, and our committee had to put in a good appearance at that.

Said Director, Stephen Layton, is a fairly significant international conductor, so why he chose to come to Trinity I don't really know. But while his primary responsibility is for the College choir, he seems very enthusiastic about getting all sorts of students involved in playing music. This looks like an exciting future for TCMS, although this term things don't look so good: we don't have a huge number of concerts lined up, and the termcard still isn't finalised (but that is always late). We did manage to appoint directors for the Trinity Singers and Players this week (our non-audition chorus and orchestra), and the Singers have already begun rehearsing Handel's Messiah.

-- Martin

no comments Tags tcms, trinity

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