Cotton Jack, in Memoriam, 4/1/07-11/1/19

Just before noon, I saw a text from my mom. “It’s important,” she had said. The phone call that followed was one of my lowest moments in months. Our beloved, Cotton, had passed away at the veterinary hospital this morning. Twelve years, seven months. That’s how long he was with us for; most of that time with either us or one of our closest family friends. I started working on this tribute to our beloved Cotton about two hours after that phone call, and I’ve been in tears the whole time; today will undoubtedly be one of the hardest days in recent memory.

As second grade was approaching, I thought I was responsible enough for a pet, so I wanted to adopt a shelter pet. My parents made a deal with me: turn eight and assume primary responsibility (in all things except the financial realm; i.e, assume responsibility for feeding, watering, bathing, medicating, etc.) for the pet’s care, and I could get a pet. About six months prior to the date my parents and I had agreed, the aforementioned family friend moved to a new apartment, where only one dog was allowed in each unit. One dog stayed with her, we know almost nothing about the whereabouts of the second dog, and the third was Cotton. She faced two choices: either give him up to a shelter, where someone she wouldn’t know would hopefully take him, or give him to me a few months before I was technically allowed to have a pet by the terms of the initial agreement. Having weighed the possibilities and seen that I was probably responsible enough already, my parents allowed me to bring him home in late August of 2008. Here’s a picture we took on that day. He’d gotten out of the car immediately prior to this, and, of course, because I was only 7, I guess I didn’t realize that “young dog + open door - restraints = dog running away.” Luckily, my parents were all the wiser, and they were ready to catch him before he’d gone too far; over the next 11 years, he’d get to know that front lawn very well. We took a few pictures on our driveway before bringing him inside his new home for the first time. Here’s one of them, taken as soon as I realized my mistake (note that the leash isn’t clipped, so the only thing holding him back were my arms):

  By this point, he was already house-trained (thanks to our friend), but like any adolescent-age-equivalent dogs (or adolescent humans, for that matter), was quite the rebel. Our friend had adopted from a shelter in the North Georgia mountains when he was only a few weeks old: what I’ve been told is that Animal Control found him with another dog—a possible sibling— in the middle of the woods somewhere near the shelter, but that they weren’t up for adoption together. One-year-old golden/chow mixes can be pretty… what’s the word?... rebellious, shall we say. Those of you who are equestrians will know what I mean when I say he was really “green”—full of energy and a desire to do stuff, but not always the best at directing such energy in a constructive manner. So, we took our 45-pound bundle of energy and joy to Dog School. There, he successfully learned “sit,” “no,” “wait,” and “watch.” Before this, I remember spending weekends in the mountains with our friend (before the move, while all three dogs were together) and seeing all of them literally attempting to climb trees after squirrels or whatnot, as if they were cats. That’s one thing the training never got rid of: the idea that he was either nimble enough to climb a tree or should preen himself, in either case because I think he believed he was a cat. While in training, he met a Long-Haired Chihuahua named Simon, who also lived in our neighborhood and who loved to take walks around the same time we did, so the two of them bonded really quickly and became great friends.

We found a veterinarian for him, and that vet gave him a new type of food and a pill to take once a month. On top of that, he suggested that we change his main feed brand. Cotton wouldn’t eat, at least not very much, and not without much coaxing. Enter the secret weapon: grated Parmesan. I’m not sure how we found out about this preference, but it almost certainly wasn’t by a deliberate choice to give him cheese. Let’s be honest, I was probably distracted, and instead of getting his food (from an addition off the kitchen), I probably went to the kitchen and grabbed some cheese, then inexplicably gave it to him. Anyway, the cheese saved us, and he would eat both kinds of food. Then, he decided to go on strike, and refused to eat his “normal” food, opting just for a special formula of larger kibble meant to clean his teeth. He always loved t/d while we fed it to him, but we needed to get him a little more balance in his diet, since at one point he would only eat t/d, that special tooth-cleaning formula. Enter cheese once again. A second time, putting a little grated cheese over his kibble made all the difference. He got much better about this as he aged. A little cheese was always welcome when we switched feed brands—even when we were just switching flavors, and for most of his life, cheese must have meant: “either the humans think I did something good, or we’re having some sort of party.”

Going back as far as I can remember, he had this favorite pose, the “English Aristocrat Awaiting Afternoon Tea,” as we called it, in which he’d essentially copy the pose of the Sphinx at Giza, except he’d cross his front legs at the wrist and look up lovingly at the nearest human. Most dogs would probably be afraid of humans taking off shoes or slippers near them—not Cotton. No, he saw those things as prime belly-rubbing implements, and would in fact seek out one of his humans when we were putting on or taking off our shoes so that we’d indulge him in a belly rub. He was OK with shoes, but what he really wanted were slide-on sandals. Waking up and seeing him likely before I saw either of my parents most mornings was always a highlight of my day, and getting some quality time with him while I made my breakfast each morning was great. He loved nothing more than time with us, and I know the feeling was mutual.

I’m a mess right now, but something Konrad Lorenz wrote really rings true.  “The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being. The bond with a dog is as lasting as the ties of the earth can ever be.” (Many Heartlanders out there will recognize this quote, and for those of you out there, I really feel as devastated as Jack did in episode 904.) Almost every year, in late spring, I’d leave Marietta behind, and, for two months or more, wouldn’t see Cotton, or play with him, or feed him, or do any of the things I loved doing with and for him because when I left Marietta, it was to travel south 10 hours by plane to Brazil to visit my relatives. When I would return in time for back-to-school shopping, it would always be like I hadn’t left at all, or I was only gone for a few hours. You know that feeling when you’re so close to another person, that even when you don’t see them for ages, it feels like you saw each other only yesterday? Whenever I went on vacation and left him in the care of either another family member or a kennel, then returned from that outing some time later, by his expressions, it always felt as if no time had passed. The bond that exists between a dog and an owner: one of total self-giving on the part of the owner, such that the owner will do anything for the dog; and of total surrender and unconditional trust on the part of the dog, such that the dog will never stop loving and trusting the owner, and in fact trying to grow that love and trust at any moment, is incredibly special, and I loved every day of those twelve special years we knew each other.

It truly was a great honor and privilege to love and care for Cotton all these years, and I’m a better person now because of my experiences with him. He really was the pet of a lifetime, and even though I’m devastated that he’s gone, I’m thankful beyond words for the good times we shared and the memories we made during these twelve years and seven months. Cotton, you brought joy to our lives every day, and you will be deeply missed. 

The Power of 300 Words

Yesterday, I was working on some homework for my Microeconomics class later today. It was nothing I hadn't seen hundreds of times before-- I had, after all, done many, many hours of practice with the material my sophomore year at Walton. Now, the PPC, opportunity cost, and competitive advantage are really easy. But back then, in the moment sophomore year, they weren't. I didn't immediately realize it, but I was really struggling. I remember not doing well on the first test; it's normal that the grade on the first assessment of the year is a little lower because everyone has a learning curve to the teacher's testing style. Then, came the second test; about the same grade. Then, the third; even lower. No amount of adjustments to the new material or teacher, or even bad days could explain that. It took a lot of courage on my part, but what I did around mid-February changed everything: I asked for help.

From then until right before the AP exam in May (like, literally maybe 24 hours before), my teacher was always there to answer any questions, work through any practice problems, or bounce off any ideas (that more often than not were very wrong), but she was willing to do those things nonetheless.  That made an impression: I mattered. No matter how many times I failed, she was always willing to help me get back up and get better. It's because of her help that I got a 5 on the AP Exam that spring, that I grew to love Micro, and that I feel really good about this Micro course I'm now taking here at Emory Oxford.

The homework brought back memories of those days in Econ, and of how grateful I was that she had helped me. So as soon as I finished the work I had, I sat down and wrote her an email thanking her for everything she taught me that semester-- and it wasn't just economics. Her impact was way bigger than that, and she deserved to hear that from me, to know that everything she did made a difference, that her dedication was noticed. It took me about 15 minutes to write, and writing that email has been the best thing I've done this week.

This morning, after I left my geology class, I checked my email before heading to the dining hall for lunch. She had responded, and what she said really made me thankful that I took the time to write the email. It's pretty clear from the email I got that she is deeply touched by what I wrote, that she's thankful that she had had an impact on my life, and that she's eagerly awaiting my next visit to Walton. Just having the sense that I made her day better by simply writing a quick email made my day immensely better as well.

I guess the point of the story is this: One of the most powerful things you can say to anyone is also one of the simplest. It's "thank you." As simple as it may seem, even to the point that some may see this as cliché, that phone call or letter may have a huge impact-- from brightening their day to changing their life. So if there's someone you've been putting off telling "thank you," whatever the reason, do it, and both your rewards and those for the person you thank will be manifold.

So, Like, I’m in College Now. For Real.

It was just after 7:00 AM yesterday when my alarm went off and NPR woke me up. Morning Edition signaled the start of a new era—that of the college student. My first class that day was in Seney Hall, the large brick building with the clock tower that is my most-used reference point orienting myself on campus. Most people probably don’t want to be doing math—much less calculus—at 8:00 AM when they’ve barely had time for breakfast and a coffee, but I had math first my freshman year of high school, and the day at Walton started at 8:20, so I was used to classes at that time. There was only one problem: I wasn’t exactly in the class, and now, on Day 2, I’m still technically on the waitlist, but my professor and I are both confident a spot will open up soon and I’ll officially join the roster. After a nice microcentury of calculus in which our main focus was to define increasing functions, I had a nice, long break (long enough to comfortably listen to even a long recording of Beethoven 9 to relax) before my 10:00 American History class, that, unlike APUSH, Honors World, or On-Level World in high school, doesn’t cover colonial times to the present. This class only covers until 1877, stopping at the end of the Grant Administration when that year’s famous Compromise was made. In what felt like the blink of an eye, when the clock hit 10:50, I had done it. I had finished my first day of classes as a college student at one of the Southeast’s premiere institutions. At that point, I definitively realized three things.

1.    So, like, I’m in college now. For real.

2.    Hard work will be required, but you will succeed.

3.    The next four years will be amazing!

After that 10:50 end of my first day, I spent the rest of the day exploring the campus, untangling the mess that was my schedule, and trying to process the fact that, yes, I am indeed a college student. The day was long, but I still felt great by the time it was over, more energized and ready to move on to the next day than ever before.

Day 2 was today. Today’s schedule, though it began later than yesterday’s, was longer. The day began with the first day of Fundamentals of Geology, a lab course during which we just went over the usual procedural stuff, but also took a few notes regarding how expansive the field of geology actually is, and why it is critical for our success as a species that we be keen to study and appreciate it. I had a nice long break in between Geology and my next class—long enough for a few laps around the Quad during which I prayed both the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet and a casual lunch at the Dining Hall.

After lunch, I went to my Discovery Seminar, a new interdisciplinary course taught by your academic advisor now a part of the curriculum here at Emory Oxford. That course, in graph theory, is a great introduction because, even though graph theory can be “really complicated and unwieldy” in the words of a fellow student in class today, our professor is going to, without sacrificing anything technical, give us a great understanding of the fundamentals of the discipline on the assumption that the vast majority of us know next to nothing about it. I picked this class in order to maybe gain the insight to (try to) solve one of the most pressing mathematical questions, and maybe the critical thinking and mathematical reasoning skills gained from the course will be the ones that set off the spark that lead to a conclusive proof on this open problem, one way or another.

But when I left that class, I was really reminded of my four years “way down in The Valley.”  Five, six, or seven minutes almost never felt like enough time to crisscross the campus like I almost always had to do each time the three Ds sounded, letting classes out. I wanted all that to happen before the B and the G announced to the campus there was one minute before classes resumed. Here at Emory Oxford, there are no bells pitched in second inversion G major chords to choreograph the “dance” that is the transition from one class to the next. There is simply organized chaos. And in the midst of nearly a thousand others trying to do the same thing, I have to go down a flight of stairs, zigzag a third of a mile across the campus, and go up one more flight before finally arriving at my next building. And let’s not forget that the professor might run a little over time, or that I might need to stay behind for a minute or two. Even with all of this, I still need to be clear across the campus in fifteen minutes, a task that, even after completing it successfully today, I will still find incredibly daunting the next time I have to repeat it on Wednesday. Oh, and by the way, I missed a critical turn, so the pressure to be on time was even greater. Once I finally arrived, it was time to get my world blown apart—everything I knew about economics was probably wrong, and I would need to make myself vulnerable to change and let the professor rebuild my understanding of the science of how people make choices from the ground up. I’d heard that kind of thing a few times in high school, and I remember those were the classes in which I gained the most knowledge, deepened my understanding the most, so I was really optimistic about this class.

I didn’t get exactly the schedule I wanted, but I think I got the schedule I needed. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I do know that the fact that all of this worked out is due to the providence of the Holy Spirit, and it is through the protection of the same Spirit that this year, though it has only just begun, will be the best academic year I have ever had.

Emory Oxford Orientation Takeaways (in no particular order)

Orientation is almost over, registration starts tomorrow (and will be a mess), and classes start Wednesday, so here are 22 things I’ve already figured out based on my 80 hours of experience on campus.

1. If you were to look at my Google Fit data, you’d think I was a tourist somewhere with bad public transportation—not a new college student—because my step count is so high. Even though this campus is really small, I still pretty much get lost every time I have to go somewhere. I’ve taken 57,085 steps since Friday morning as of this post, so this is physically demanding (and I have no sense of direction whatsoever)!
2. Remember you’ll probably have two authentication steps to get to your dorm room: one to get into your building, and another to get into your dorm itself. Don’t lock yourself out by leaving one authentication factor in your room by mistake. (from experience, by the way)
3. We have groups led by Peer Assistance Leaders (PALs), and it just so happened that my PAL is the incoming student president of the Emory Oxford Catholic Center, so by the working of the Holy Spirit, the “random process” of assigning PALs to groups or vice versa put me exactly where I need to be in order to get as much information as possible about Mass and other activities. Finding out what time Mass would be (and getting that info thanks to him) as soon as I got on campus has been the best decision I’ve made so far.
4.   I’m local, so I should know better than to stay outside in the Metro Atlanta sun for hours. Some second years (including the PAL mentioned above) have said that oftentimes, they have to go into buildings with A/C every few minutes just to escape the heat. Somehow, my brain blocked out the signal that Covington’s climate is a little cooler that home, 90 minutes away and still in Metro Atlanta. 
5. Building a schedule is really hard because you have to work through conflicting times and locations for classes you either want to take or need in order to graduate.
6. Expect to be pranked by your upperclassmen. I cannot exclude the possibility that on the morning of your second day of campus, you will wake up to stale bagels hung on every door handle in your dorm for no apparent reason.
7.  Having one friend from high school on campus is statistically super rare at a campus of this size, but it happened, and that’s really helpful in making the transition easier. 
8. Starting the year with Mass on Saturday (and then every normal week with Sunday Mass followed by lunch) is going to make a chaotic schedule and a difficult transition much more manageable.
9. Try to learn the layout of your campus as quickly as possible—preferably by the end of orientation.
10. If you, like me, are “directionally challenged,” Google Maps will become your greatest asset. One of our themes this year is “You can do many things but not all things.” Evidently, I can’t go anywhere on campus after 8:30 if I don’t have my phone because I need Google Maps, and even so, in the dark, I’ll inevitably end up on the opposite side of campus.
11. Don’t be afraid to use posted signs and/or directories when Google Maps unfortunately fails, or, even with it, you’re seemingly irreparably lost.
12. Emory Oxford’s Fleming Hall is amazing.
13. So is our PAL group 27, and our PAL. These groups are great gateways to strong and lasting friendships!
14. I know nothing about our history, so if there’s ever a “Hey, you’re an Emory student and you should know our history/trivia, so we’ll be quizzing you” kind of thing, I’m going to fail—spectacularly. I thought the “Few” in “Few Circle,” one of the main roads here on campus, referred to William Few, who signed the Constitution for Georgia. This guy signed a document in 1787, while the actual “Few” was Ignatius Alphonso Few, a lawyer born the year the Constitution went into effect, in 1789, when the guy I thought the road was named after was 41 and in the Senate representing Georgia.
15. I already had a reputation before I got to campus: among Catholics (who would know who this is) as the guy who has met Archbishop Gregory many times based on my GroupMe profile picture, and, among non-Catholics, as the campus’ equestrian Instagram influencer.
16. As of Sunday morning, it still hasn’t actually sunk in that, yes, I am actually a college student.
17.  Now that I’m settling well into Oxford, the Atlanta campus feels so much bigger than it felt when I toured it before applying. I’m already having trouble learning the Oxford layout; what’s going to happen when I need to learn the Atlanta layout?
18. The longest straight path on the Oxford Quad (either of the diagonals) is exactly long enough to walk once one way while praying a decade of the Rosary.  
19. For those of you who aren’t local, be advised: metro Atlanta weather is extraordinarily unpredictable.
20. You will have an incredible support system.
21. Work will be required, but you will succeed.
22. The next four years will be amazing!

Musical Transcription and Self-Discovery: A Journey

For a few weeks now (though not while I was abroad on vacation), I’ve been working on transcribing what I had written of a major composition before my instance of Musescore 1.3 running on a Windows XP virtual machine (all “dinosaurs,” so I’m really glad I now have a latest-version laptop equipped with latest-version software) decided to crash in the most spectacularly bad way I’ve ever seen an app behave after a crash. Essentially, after the crash, everything that could have gone wrong with the software went wrong. The score looked terribly wrong (the time and key signatures were in weird places, the staff suddenly only had 3 lines and then would magically expand to 6 and contract again, and all kinds of other problems), so at least the file I was really interested in, was gone, for all intents and purposes. Now, keep in mind, this happened right after my seconds semester of senior year started in January. Just a few weeks earlier, as I was unwinding either from studying for my finals or taking them and I had finished writing for the night, in an incredibly lucky episode of prescience that to this day I attribute entirely to the guidance of the Holy Spirit by the intercession of St. Cecelia,  I decided to make a PDF backup of what I had written to that point—about 35 minutes and 900 bars’ worth, actually. Now that I have my brand new computer with the brand new software (and I won’t even see the old VM very regularly anymore because I’ll be an hour and a half away trying to sort out my life in my first semester of college and I have no idea how often I’ll be home in the beginning), I have taken upon myself the very laborious task of reconverting the PDF into a native Musescore file.

I just graduated from high school, and during my senior year, I took my favorite class in high school: AP Music Theory. One of the components of the course was melodic and harmonic dictation. Basically, we would be played either about nine chords in 20 seconds, or a melody as long as singing just “Twinkle, Twinkle little star! How I wonder what you are!” (but not the second half of the song) at about half the normal speed. The goal was to get as many of the notes in the important (highest and lowest, or soprano and bass) voices of chords written correctly, or to write down as many pitches and rhythms of the one-voice melody correctly, just by hearing the relationship of the notes or chords, given the first note or chord. Even with such a short exercise, this was pretty hard.

What I’m currently doing, which can be better described as transcription (writing down something that’s already written) rather than dictation, seems like it would be easier, but it’s not. Other than actually playing, this transcription is the hardest thing I’ve ever done as a musician. But that’s really weird. Here’s why: no one else has seen this piece before, and it tells a story, my story over one year from April 2017 to April 2018 (more on this when I actually finish). Edward Elgar said of the theme of his Cello Concerto’s first movement that, if anyone heard someone whistling that tune in the Scottish Hills, it was his spirit, and that that theme was what he believed the essence of his personality was, expressed in musical form. There’s one theme that I’ve written that means something similar: whenever something very important happened in the story of my life that year that made me who I am today, “my theme” shows up. On the other days when nothing remarkable happened, I’ve written some filler episodes unrelated to the theme, but that link its occurrences. Luckily for me, the theme appears at least 14 times by my count, and it’s pretty simple. In other words, good thing I have copy-and-paste capabilities and I only have to worry about copying the fillers I’ve already written and finding ideas for the ones still yet to be written.

This process that started with a voice memo that turned into a note on Google Keep, both of which were created in February 2018 while wandering the streets of Salzburg after a spontaneous idea in Mozart’s city of birth, has led me on what has so far been an 18-month-long journey of self-discovery and of exploration of what makes a true friend a true friend. Because of the crash, I know the piece and myself better than I ever would have, if the piece had been finished when I had originally planned, and because of this, paradoxically, the crash was the greatest blessing I have so far received while writing this piece, and I wouldn’t have had these events transpire any other way.

21 Tips to Consider When Playing Bach

1. Listen to as many professional recordings as you can find to teach yourself what Bach normally sounds like, but don’t feel like you ever have to copy any one recording’s style. 
2. Know at least the basics of how chords work to understand the framework of what is written.
3. Know what ornaments are, how they work, and when/where to play them. 
4. Ornaments almost always aren’t written in Bach’s music; his contemporaries just knew when to add them, and in what style.
5. Always study a piece simply by listening and reading along for a week before beginning to actually play it. 
6. Experiment with phrasing, and don’t be afraid to go against what the printed edition says. 
7. All of Bach’s music is either meant to be sung (even the compositions that don’t feature choruses) or danced to. 
8. If you play something more than once, vary its character slightly each time. 
9. Be expressive, but don’t use vibrato. 
10. He didn’t write many dynamic markings, but varying volume is essential in every performance 
11. Every musical idea either originated from a preceding idea or leads to a following one.
12.  Repeated runs of the same note should always either crescendo progressively or decrescendo progressively depending on context. 
13. Articulate clearly because you should either imagine yourself as a good singer who enunciates or as a skilled dancer whose movements are clearly linked but distinct 
14. Bach didn’t mark much in his music, but nothing original to the manuscripts is superfluous
15. Always compare multiple contemporary sources against your printed copy. You may find some interesting differences, however minute they may be. 
16. When playing Bach in a concert, warm up for at least half an hour before you start your performance. 
17. Remember that Bach’s instruments weren’t as powerful as ours, and that his halls had much more natural reverb when considering fingering or bowing choices. 
18. Be free and slightly alter the tempo when appropriate, but maintain control, taking the utmost care not to rush or drag to an irrecoverable degree. 
19. Because you don’t have vibrato as an expressive tool, move freely with the music, but don’t force any unnatural movements. 
20. It’s perfectly fine, and, in fact, guaranteed, that no two performances of some Bach repertoire, even by the same person on the same day, will ever be exactly the same. 
21. Playing Bach should never be a chore; Bach should always be fun!

Welcome (back)!

          Hey everyone, welcome back! I originally started this blog in May 2009 because having a blog is a typical thing for an eight-year-old who just started exploring the internet and received an email for the first time. At the time, I was in my last month of third grade, and my biggest blog fans were my parents, my first grade teacher, and my fourth grade teacher-to-be. Now, I’m about to become a freshman at Oxford College of Emory University, ultimately looking to transfer to the Atlanta campus to finish the last two years of a 4-year BS in computer science (after a 2-year Associate of Arts degree from Oxford). The transition to Oxford is actually one of the things I might cover a lot in this blog: what it’s going to be like downsizing from high school to college. I live in the metro Atlanta area, and I just graduated from a large suburban high school along with about 650 other seniors in the class of 2019. In total, we have about 2700 students. In less than three weeks, I’ll move an hour and a half east of here to attend a college about a third the size of my high school for two years, then move again to another college about 15 times the size (15,500 students) of the first college I’ll be attending (only 950 students).
          A new chapter in my life starts August 23, and as that date approaches, I’m simultaneously more excited and more scared than I’ve ever been. Let me illustrate. If you can, open Google Hangouts. Then, look for the stickers section once you’re in a chat. Now, find and scroll through my personal favorites, the penguins. The “I’m-in-college-but-classes-haven’t-started-yet” phase of my life has been quite the roller coaster, so I’ve almost certainly reacted to something about college with every single emotion you’re seeing from those penguins. In its first generation, this blog covered pretty much everything my eight-year-old self was interested in: music, books, food, horses, travel, you name it. Well, people tell me I’m still quite the polymath, so the new version of this blog will be just as diverse. I’ll try to post daily, but I still have about three weeks before classes start as of the day I’m writing this, so I’m going to have to update you guys on whether that schedule is plausible once the workload becomes more intense and I actually realize that, yes, indeed, I am in college.
          I’m going to make a commitment to, outside of college assignments, write five thousand words a week because, throughout high school, during which I wrote the nonfiction book I am now editing, I discovered I really do love to write. I’m at the very beginning of the writing process with a fiction book, hopefully toward the end with a nonfiction book, and now I have this blog again, so meeting that goal shouldn’t be terribly difficult. As I said in the intro, I haven’t blogged since I was eight, so we'll just have to see if I have the time and discipline to come back into the blogosphere after so long away from this place. Well, that’s all for now, so I’ll be back here tomorrow! -Qwerty