Caution: Patience testing in progress.

Commencement is in two weeks. That means very little to me as a commencing grad student. As a musician, however, it means $$$$$. Wind Symphony members get $150 to sit on their butts for 2 straight days, playing the fight song on command.

Commencement band is not without its downside. We deserve every penny, if only for behaving ourselves. Six services in two days, in that freezing arena, playing crap music for people who don't give a shit about the music school or the music. They "raise the roof" when we play Holst, and they can't even do it in tempo.

We've begun rehearsals on the music, working the bugs out of the processionals and all that. My section is still out of tune. I'm becoming less and less patient with them. Of course, they don't know this. I am such a model of repression. I should be responsible for my section and help them, guide them, mold them, but all I do is button my lips and think how nice it will be when I go away, away! And I play louder. Doesn't solve the problem at all, but hell, it's fun.

Today Wes offered to loan me his master's gown and hood for the show, so I only had to buy the cap and the tassel. I'm planning DMA work within a year or two anyway, so it's pointless for me to buy the master's robes. It cracks me up that the tassels for music students are pink. Pink! Everyone knows we're a bunch of screwed up, sentimental sissies, but who decided to call us on that? The only thing better is that some really boring discipline has the color "drab". They're so boring that I can't even remember what department it is.

Sitting through a half-dozen ceremonies gives me time to reflect on exactly what it is these people do. What does one do with a degree in packaging? Did that guy go into business for the money? What is it that people find interesting about engineering?

I know they harbor similar thoughts about me. Why the hell would a person go into a jobless field? Many, many people don't understand music. I respect that. Those people make up my audiences; music lovers are the most important people in the world, to me. I love people who love music, and I need them.

But sometimes they ask me why. Why do I do this? How do I know I'm doing the right thing? How can money not matter to me?

Well, okay, first of all, money does matter to me. I have ways. I make more money doing what I do than I would by working in fast food, and plenty of people subsist on McDonald's paychecks. That's all I have to say about money. They want to know what it is that drives me to be a musician. What do I say? I don't communicate my feelings verbally, that's why I hide behind a large silver instrument. I hate it when people ask me that.

The truth is, I can't imagine doing anything else. It's not a love of music that compells me, though I do love music, don't get me wrong. Many musicians--my boyfriend included--speak of this unearthly love. This transcendent need to make music. I'm not that way. To me, it was never really a choice. It's like sleeping, or speaking English. It's the thing that I do. Maybe I don't make money doing it, maybe I'll teach or manage an orchestra or a music library. Everything I see is slanted toward music. I can't conceive of anything else.

You can't tell me that people feel that way about packaging.