h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi!

I've seen you on some forum or another (don't remember where, I lurk a lot) and had to drop in and say hi.

I'm an electrical engineering major, musical lover, and all around band geek so I had to say hi to someone else who appreciated those things.

What's your favorite show? Lately I've been into Chicago but that's probably because I have the soundtrack and sing along to it at the top of my lungs when I'm cleaning up. I'd love to see it in person instead of as a movie but haven't had that opportunity yet. I'd also love to see more Broadway shows but that doesn't work since I'm a poor student.

Us poor college students have to stick together (especially engineering nerds and musical geeks)! Fortunately for me, there is a wonderful theater about 15 minutes away from campus that gets all sorts of tours, and between student tickets and the fact that the college likes to encourage us to get culture, I've gotten to see a few really good shows pretty cheaply.

My favorite show? Ooh, do I have to decide only one? Well, just about any musical that's well done you can bet I'll love, but some of my favorites are Phantom, Oklahoma!, West Side Story, Fiddler, Guys and Dolls, The Music Man, Cats, A Chorus Line, 1776, and Sunday in the Park with George. Of course naturally, I have lots more musicals on my list of ones that I want to see. What are your favorites?

I am a huge Rodgers and Hammerstein fan (ask me anything, no matter how obscure about either of them, and I'll either know it or know exactly how to find it ), and I also love Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Sondheim (it's taken me a while to really appreciate his work, though), Jerry Herman, Cole Porter, Frank Losser, Meredith Willson, and the list goes on. I don't know anywhere near as much about the more recent writers as I'd like to, but I'm working on that.

I loved the movie Chicago, but I haven't seen it onstage either. Actually, the one I've been into lately has been Rent, partly because when my roommate puts some of her disgusting music on loudly (she refuses to use headphones, despite the fact that I am usually courteous enough not to submit her to my showtunes) Rent is the only musical I can play loud enough to drown hers out. Fortunately we don't get into music wars TOO often.

I'm really liking engineering so far, though as a freshman I've only had an intro class. Next term I'll be taking Computer Science, at which point I can decide whether it will be computer engineering or something else (probably electrical or mechanical). But I'm getting worried, though, because I love the math courses I've taken so far and there's so many difficult, abstract, and obscure math courses I want to take, so I'm afraid my engineering major may be in danger of turning into a math major when I'm not looking.

Oh, by the way, I was almost a band geek, too. In my freshman year of high school, I took a beginning band class and learned to play the trumpet pretty well, but I had some tough classes, and anyway, the band didn't give me a high enough offer for my soul. And then a year or so later I sold my soul to the theater anyway, so that was that.

I saw on your personal space that you like light fantasy and science fiction. So do I! I only just recently got into Terry Pratchett, and I've been steadily eating my way through his books, but I also love Douglas Adams (who doesn't, on H2G2?), Mercedes Lackey, Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, and Ray Bradbury. I think science fiction/fantasy doesn't get near as much respect as it deserves from those stuffy literary types. My English professor clearly considers my pleasure reading books to be below his level, and yet I don't think he's tried even Bradbury. Okay, now before I start griping about the state of a humanity that looks down upon fantasy…

Speaking of having sold my soul to the theater, that's my excuse for the fact that it's midnight and I haven't finished my Logic & Set Theory homework. (See, if we hadn't had rehearsal until ten tonight, I would have spent my two hours on H2G2 earlier and would have had more time to finish. ) So I'd better stop typing right now. I mean immediately. I'm really going to stop now, I mean it. This is the last sentence. Or not. Okay, Susan, stop thinking new friends on H2G2 and start thinking proofs…

Oh, no, I did it again. I wrote you a novel. Curse you, little itty bitty scrolly window that fools me into thinking I'm writing a paragraph!!! Once you've recovered from my long-windedness, feel free to write as long or short a response as you like…
-Susan

*Take's deep breath*
Whew, survived your longwindedness. It's ok, I never mind reading, especially when I'm supposed to be doing other things. Like homework.

I think I never quite sold my soul utterly to musical theater because I did both band and dance, so if I was onstage I wantes to be playing in the pit and if I was in pit band I also wanted to be onstage dancing. Unfortunately, my school has a truly pathetic musical theater program as does the town it's in. Apparently the music and theater departments don't get along so we basically don't put on musicals . And the town it's in doesn't do much either (dinky little town in PA). But for some reason my hometown, a dinky little town in upstate NY had tons of theater, so I got spoiled by it and the abundance of cheap shows.

I'm a big Cole Porter fan, as well as the Gershwins. I also love Rodgers and Hammerstein. Never quite got into Andrew Lloyd Webber but he does some cool stuff. Sondheim is cool too. I know some of the music from Rent but haven't seen the show. Oh, anything choreographed by Fosse. I almost saw that show at a theater not that far from where I lived that got first run tours but I think I had something else going on then again.

Luckily I have a roommate who doesn't mind my blasting showtunes, and goes to see shows with me to boot! And even better, she's am ath major, So even though I haven't taken any upper level math myself I get plenty exposed to it. Proofs aren't really my thing, I like things a bit more hands-on, thus the engineering. I like electrical because you get to play with circuits in the lab all the time.

And as for stupid English professors- bah! They forget that most things that are classics now were popular 200 years ago, and they're just missing out on the fun by scorning our fantasy and sci fi.

Sheesh, I just looked back at what I wrote and it looks like I wrote a book of my own in response, so I think we're even.

bah!

replace the first "take's" with "takes"

I hate apostrophe abuse

Little town in upstate NY? Where? I'm going to Union College in Schenectady, which is definitey a dinky little town, but it has some great (in my opinion) theater opportunities. Our theater department at school is pretty small, so while we're doing some fun shows, they almost never do musicals. (But I did hear Lloyd, the professor who's directing Tartuffe, say that he was trying to convince the department to do Sweeny Todd next year. )

And what school are you going to? (One of the schools I applied to was Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania.)

Schenectady's hardly dinky at all. Especially as it has Albany right next to it. I used to take music lessons up there and we'd go shopping in Albany so I know that area moderately well. Proctor's Theatre is awesome. I'm from Oneonta, about an hour and a half south in the middle of nowhere. I go to Bucknell University, a few hours from Lehigh but I think they're major football rivals of ours.

And you should definitely work on Sweeny Todd for next year!