I seem to have led a charmed life today. Not only did the flute lesson go decently well - with Woodward fixing the first movement cadenza so it really sounds good, and promising to bring the two rampal cadenzas tonight - I also managed to come up with something good for my paper notes for the presentation today. I was originally going to focus on trying to find diagnosis, immediate and ultimate causes in incantations from Mesopotamia and India, but my information's much stronger on the Indian side... and I tended to stray a little too much into literatary analysis of the chants. But hey! No problem, as Kate Eaton did her Master's thesis in how the Egyptians viewed the chants as being medicinal... so she suggested that I concentrate on Indian incantations and aim for understading what the methods of religious treatment they used, and how they expected it to help. Yaay! I've also got Egyptian chants to read over, since they used a similar approach - often the sound of the chant was more important than the meaning, so with foreign chants, they'd just copy it over phonetically without copying down the meaning. Amusing. :) But the Indians were fond of onomatopoeia - there's an incantation for constipation and urine retention (I kid you not), and there's a repeated line that ends with the word 'bal', which supposedly sounds like rushing water... the general thought is that the repetition, sound and rhythm relaxed the patient enough to allow nature to run its course. But one question asked by another person in my presentation group interested me. This guy chose to focus on acupuncture - he ended with the note that the procedure hasn't been explained scientifically, though it makes philosophical sense... and it seems to work. He wondered whether the incantations actually served some purpose other than the modern view of 'placebo' medicine (ie convince the patient it'll work, though it does nothing). Curious... and once again, I wonder if everything can truly be explained by science. Maybe. I guess we'll see someday in the future. I personally think life's more interesting with a bit of mystery. I still haven't figured out whether or not there's a God or supreme being around, though I'd planned on giving it some thought while I was here. Perhaps I'm closer to believing in the existence of something supernatural. -shrugs- Guess that's yet another 'we'll see...'.

Aight, I've got to sleep, as the concerto competition's tomorrow morning. I'm playing at 10:25,and it'll all be over by 11-ish. Only three (?!?!) of us are competing this year - two violinists (Rebecca Maret, Tyson Mao) and me. Here's to hoping I perform up to my and mozart's expectations... wish me luck.