(no subject)

So, had my first choir practice, at which I alternated "being completely confused and occasionally making myself cringe", "hitting the right notes at the right time even if I was getting the words wrong" and "sitting quietly and wondering how everybody else seemed to know what they were doing, even the other new person".

It was fun, though. :) I have the scores, so the first thing I'm going to do is write out the entire lyrics in the order in which they're sung (as opposed to the scores, which require us to, say, go back to the first page every so often), along with working out what their time signature is.

Seriously, what kind of music doesn't have the time signature indicated? Choral scores, apparently.

Then, I'm going to pick one song and use a virtual keyboard program to get The Right Notes ingrained in me. Record myself singing the damn thing right (I can at least tell when I've gone wrong - I'm going to count that as a win), and play it on repeat, singing along with it. I think this is a good plan. That way, next week, when we do that song, I'll be more comfortable and less likely to swing madly between the alto and soprano sections accidentally.

Because I find this kind of thing fascinating

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Canadian currency. The Canadians are, I'm assuming, along with those of you who live within a few hours of the US/Canada border, but it'd be egotistical to assume that the rest of you know what it looks like beyond "colourful".

Possibly my favourite thing about the "new" bills (I say "new"; they've been around for years!) is that on the back of each one is a quotation from some work of literature that is meaningful to Canadians, expressing either some great aspiration or encapsulating some of what it means to be Canadian. I have the Five, the Ten, and the Twenty memorized.

As you may imagine, I don't often see denominations higher than twenty dollars. That would require a) having more than twenty dollars in cash on me and b) getting my cash from somewhere other than an ATM, which will only dispense twenties.

Today, though, I have in my hands not only a fifty-dollar bill, but a hundred-dollar bill! I've been intentionally not looking up the quotations on each of them, even though I'm sure they're on wikipedia, because part of the fun is finding out and holding it in my hands. So, without further ado, here are the quotations on each:

(On the fifty, which also bears a picture of William Lyon Mackenzie King):
"All human beings are born free / And equal in dignity and rights."
"Tous les êtres humains naissent libres / et égaux en dignité et en droits"
- From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

(On the hundred, which also bears a picture of Sir Robert Borden):
"Do we ever remember that somewhere above the sky in some child's dream perhaps Jacques Cartier is still sailing, always on his way, always about to discover a new Canada?"
"Nous souvient-il parfois qu'au dessus du ciel quelque part dans un rêve d'enfant peut-être Jacques Cartier navigue encore, toujours sur le point de découvrir un Canada nouveau?"
- Miriam Waddington

I like both of those. My favourite's still the five, though.