by Mackenzie Patel Listening to the overwhelming beauty of Debussy’s Pagodes is like leaping into a timeless Impressionism canvas, the splotches of greens and natural blues and vivid yellows constructing themselves into a perfect meadow with beautiful Black Eyed Susans and tranquility. Hearing Scheherazade for the millionth time is no less gut-wrenching or spine-chilling than the… Read More


by Mackenzie Patel Hello my adventurous world travelers. Another thirty one days, another 44,640 minutes, and yet another 2,678,400 seconds have elapsed, dragging out the stories of our lives with more nouns, adjectives, verbs, and punctuation along the way. My particular novel was bursting with chapters this month because so many different events changed in… Read More


by Mackenzie Patel Hello World Travelers! Over the past month, I have absorbed and drunk in and worshipped and fell in love with several symphonies thanks to my musically savvy academic team buddies. I was bewitched by Scheherazade, blown away by the Jupiter movement of The Planets, and stunned to death by Petrushka. There’s nothing… Read More


by Mackenzie Patel Hello World Travelers! Another month has casually slipped by, the hours and days and weeks melting together to create a truly spectacular and action packed month. These last three months have been such a tumultuous but amazing whirlwind of accolades, events, friends, and surprises; they’ve also been way more momentous than my… Read More


by Mackenzie Patel   Hello world travelers! A few nights ago, I was lucky enough to attend the Russian Extravaganza, an event in which a series of pieces by Russian composers was performed by the Florida Orchestra at the Mahaffey Theater. I had never been to a proper symphony before; YouTube was pretty much the… Read More


by Mackenzie Patel Hello world travelers! It’s time for another “Favorites” post in which I write about artists, books, music, and words that I have been enamored with the past month. Read my previous Favorites post here. Personally, February 2015 was one of the best months of my life thus far (which is saying quite… Read More