Random thoughts

End of the Semester

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This has been a rough school year: I have been incredibly busy, with entirely too many students. This is a problem of my own making, because I always think, well, what if this new student ends up being my most favorite student, and I also think, if I don’t teach them, who will, what if they can’t find a teacher. I have to let go of these thoughts for a bit though, because my goal for the next school year is to NOT accept any new students and pare my schedule down a little bit by attrition. I don’t actually think this will cause me to make less money, but it will help me be a little less stressed out. TIME WILL TELL.

Truthfully, being too busy doesn’t really stress me out. It’s if the “busy” stuff is stressful, i.e. difficult performances or things like that. Otherwise, it’s easy to go from thing to thing, but it’s annoying to realize you ate all of your meals in the car or that you haven’t had a night off to relax or a morning to sleep in (not that I can sleep in anyways, but you know, to relax) in weeks. I’m beyond needing a day off, what would I do with a whole day off work anyway, but what about an evening off?

The good news is: summer is near! Unbelievably yesterday was the last day of classes at Wash U, so I just have a few more makeup lessons to teach as well as some juries to listen to, and I’ll be done until late August. That’s about 12 hours of my life that will be free again, which is going to be huge. You might even get the last installments of my Morocco trip on the blog in the next week, if you are lucky.

I love teaching at Wash U–it’s fun, the students are great–but it’ll be great to have some time off. The semester really flies by though: it’s just 14 weeks of lessons, and boom, done. So for the whole year that’s 28 lessons out of 52 weeks. Seems very part time, doesn’t it?

As far as my private students: we had Music Club Festival last weekend and next weekend is the recital, with about 20 students performing. We have another week of lessons after that, a makeup week (I do one makeup lesson for the whole year, though they can rearrange into empty spaces through the year if they want), and then it’s vacation for a bit before summer lessons.

Socially I haven’t been doing much, but Louie and I have gone to a few cultural performances: in the past two weeks we went to two plays (The End of the World Cabaret with Upstream Theater and The Half Life of Marie Curie with the St Louis Actors Studio), and a concert at the Sheldon with Edgar Meyer and Christian McBride. I did manage to get breakfast yesterday morning with a friend and have some lunch dates on the calendar for the next week. I also plan to get my first pedicure of the spring. Things really are tapering off and summer will be here, and then I’ll say to myself, how did I manage that schedule in the spring?

Louie and I are planning to get out for a hike today. We did a short bike ride last weekend on the Riverfront Trail: it was my first time out on the bike in several months, since late summer or early fall I think, and I felt it the next two days every time I sat down! I don’t know if I mentioned but I had hurt my foot somehow in March and have been letting it heal. It’s finally feeling a bit better–I’ve been always wearing supportive shoes and that has helped a bunch–so now I’m trying to get back into building up my walking so that we are ready for our Japan trip.

I know many people have jobs that don’t change seasonally. To me that must be so weird, because my job is SO seasonal and the ebb and flow of the year is such an integral part of it. How does your job work?

Random thoughts

Swan Lake

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I’d been dreading/looking forward to yesterday for some time. I played concertmaster in a small orchestra for a performance of Swan Lake with a visiting ballet company, two rehearsals and a performance all in one day. Dreading: long day, big solos (stress!). Looking forward to: amazing music, big solos (fun!). Yes, I know I put big solos on there twice.

Anyway, today is weird, because it’s like, that’s over, it went really well, I was pleased with my performance and the level of preparation I was able to do with the time I have, and it was really fun. And then, now today is a normal day, and it’s kind of weird. My fingertips hurt though.

On other notes, I can’t believe next week is the last week of classes at my college job. WHAT. And then just over a month until we go to Japan. We have a terrific itinerary planned, and I am just really so excited about it. I am also excited that some of the busy gig time is finally winding down, yesterday pretty much capped off the insanity. And this weekend is the NFMC Festival for my students–only 5 are performing this year, 2 backed out due to not being or not feeling prepared. It’s been a tough year for my students, everybody is so busy and stressed out and I’m not sure I’m doing the best job helping them through it.

But summer is almost here, and with it, always, some regrouping. The summer is pretty low-key work wise, hardly anything outside of teaching right now, though I know more will pop up. We are always traveling more than in the past, and I’m THRILLED about it (obsessively researching as well) but it leaves less time for work. As I near my “late 40s” I am really thinking about what do I want to do the time I have left in my career, as well as simply, the time I have left, whatever that is. I’ve been wanting to travel more, so that’s one thing I’m doing, and I’m thrilled about it, beyond excited about our summer trips, and other plans. I’m also terrified, that fuel shortages will derail it, it wouldn’t be the first time the orange menace ruined our summer plans (COVID), and who knows what will happen.

How is April going for you? Did you survive Tax Day?

Cat, Performing

Keep Swimming

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I haven’t been writing here in awhile, but thought I’d take a little time to catch you up. There’s a bit of guilt as I still need to finish telling you about my trip to Morocco, so I feel like, oh, if I’m going to blog I should be doing that, but you know what they say about shoulds.

Life! It’s so stressful, especially with all of the horrible things being perpetrated by the government. And I’m partway through my taxes (most of the way) and will have to send money, and for what, to bomb schools of children in other countries and to buy warehouses for concentration camps. It’s nauseating. And worrying about gas shortages and what will happen next. I know there’s no point in worrying, but knowing and doing…

In my own life, my schedule for the next few weeks is a little too much. This is my fault, for overscheduling myself…I took on a few too many gigs, and I know exactly which ones I should have said no to, but it’s too late now. Hopefully I can remember this for the future. I’ve also been thinking about NOT taking any new students this summer or fall and letting my schedule get a little more open, so that when I need to reschedule for a rehearsal there is somewhere to move people without giving away my entire weekend and working for 6 weeks straight.

I did have a nice few weeks of “spring break”–one easier week when Wash U was off but I was still teaching at home, and then an even easier week not teaching most of my home students. It was lovely to have some evenings free early, though I had taken on a fair number of gigs.

Things I’ve played recently or am playing soon: an anime concert with screens, an all baroque concert, an all Bach Concert, two concerts with a group that plays a lot of baroque music, Swan Lake, a quartet pop concert, a short quartet concert, a candlelight concert, and coming up soon: a full week of Holy week services. That’s about a months work of stuff I’m talking about.

Oh, and recently I had the worst thing happen, a musician’s nightmare. I was getting ready for a 10 am rehearsal and at 9 am I got a phone call asking, was I coming to rehearsal? I was like, yes, isn’t it at 10 am? No! The rehearsal started at 9 and I had failed to update my calendar. I ran out the door and arrived 20 minutes late. The conductor was very understanding and it was okay, but I was so embarrassed!

Louie and I have managed to get out for a couple of hikes though, and then weather has been…decent. Up and down like crazy, but not too rainy. We have a 5 day Inn to Inn type of walk in Japan coming up in May, and we want to be ready. I’ve also been walking and exercising regularly, so hopefully this will be a fun thing and not a slog! We’ve got a few concerts we are attending this weekend as well, so it’s not all work. There are 5 weeks left (counting this week) at the college and then it’s SUMMER there…

We had an evening of snacks and wine on the front porch and opened up the window so the cats could visit.

How’s your spring going? Are you worried this is like the pre-pandemic times and everything is about to get completely destroyed? Are you busier than ever or are you managing to keep things under control?

Random thoughts

In like a lion

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It was SLEETING when I left my gig last night! Truly March comes in like a lion, and hopefully out like a lamb. Let this apply to world events as well, please.

I know you are eagerly awaiting the remainder of the story of my Morocco trip, and I plan to finish another post this week, if not two. It’s been a crazy two weeks: I was playing Phantom of the Opera at the Fox Theater, which adds 8 shows a week to my schedule (in addition to the rehearsals at the start), so my life has been, shall we say, a bit full. But we finished last night, and it was a fun experience, and I’d like to say that this week is all full of free time to relax and catch up on everything, but no, I have two concerts this week also. But I have more evenings free, so life will return as normal.

The weather has been typically insane here: one day was like late spring, highs over 70. And then sleeting last night, as I mentioned. It is so important to check the weather before leaving the house, and pack a jacket just in case, probably.

I feel like we all spent a lot of time distracting ourselves from the horrors that the current president is inflicting on the world. It’s hard.

Morocco Uncovered, Travel

Day 10 of Morocco Uncovered: Watch your step!

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Let’s continue the recap of my trip: Morocco Uncovered (with Intrepid). It’s been a minute!

I took this trip in December/January. For previous posts (I recommend you at least skim them!) look at the following.

Day 10: I was still in Bou Tharer in the M’Goun Valley. Today we would head off to the next stop, Ait Benhadou.

Breakfast was in the dining room instead of the cave room. But! Barb from the trip read that I hadn’t gotten any pictures of the cave room and shared some with me. Can you tell why it was called the cave room?

I didn’t make a note of what breakfast was, but my memory says bread and jams with juice, as well as hard boiled eggs and yogurt. Then back to the room to finish any last minute packing and get ready to Get in the Van!

We started down the road and after driving a few miles, one of the people suddenly realized she had forgotten to return her room key! Since these were real keys, it was important that the hotel get it back. Aman and the driver flagged down a cab driver going the other way from us and asked him to take it to the hotel. We were all tickled by this, but it made sense: it was a road that only went back and forth so the driver would be going right by it. I believe then Aman called the hotel to tell them to expect the key delivery.

We did a cafe and bathroom stop after an hour or so. I really needed that break, too much coffee or something. They had a lot of rose products for sale as it was a local specialty.

Our next stop was Kabash Amerdil to visit an Amazigh nomad museum. We had a guided tour and it was a really interesting place.

This cat didn’t move while we were there–it must have been used to sleeping through a lot of commotion.

There were beautiful gardens with roses and grapes and other plants.

I enjoyed seeing the old phonograph as well as many other artifacts. Isn’t it funny that a phonograph is an artifact? Is it?

There were a lot of tiny doors and staircases as well. They told us that was to keep out invaders: if they had to duck going through a door it was harder to attack right away.

It was a lovely sunny day as you can see, and we were surrounded by beautiful mountains. It was a bit windy though.

Our next stop was a restaurant in Ouarzazate, called the city of movies, because so many movies are made there. If you have seen a movie with a desert, it was likely made in Ouarzazate. I would have loved to have spent more time there, but we just went to the restaurant. It was in a square, but no time for exploring or shopping.

The food was good: I had a goat cheese appetizer (fried) and an Argentinian meat wrap. After lunch we drove by Atlas Studios and other places where films were made. We also saw the world’s largest solar city, a shiny thing in the distance.

Solar power city/station in the background
Movie Studio

We made it to Ait ben hadou in the afternoon. There it was very cold and windy! We visited the rug collective first and learned how rugs were made. It was quite funny as the guide (a woman!) told us that three of the women working there were named Fatima, so we met Fatima 1, Fatima 2, and Fatima 3. The guide also kept referring to the place as a queendom. Of course they wanted us to buy rugs, but that wasn’t in my budget/suitcase space.

The old city was across the river from the rug collective and that’s where we headed next. We walked through the village and headed up towards the top.

We saw the special art they make there, which is like invisible ink in a way, as it is heated by a flame to bring out the colors. I did buy one print.

The artist!
What a view!
Selfie from the top!

On the way back down, I must have been looking around too much and I messed up my foot down a stair and fell and rolled my left ankle…it hurt like the dickens and I had to sit for awhile and let the nausea pass. Everybody was really nice about it and helped me out. I was a little worried it would be too swollen to enjoy the rest of the tour, but after waiting a few minutes it didn’t seem too awful, so I was able to slowly make my way down to the bottom of the village.

We all had tea and cookies at another women’s collective. While we had a decent amount of mint tea on the trip, I have to say that I actually thought we would have even more than we did, and also that it wasn’t as sweet as I was led to believe. This is probably because I grew up in the south (in the US) where sweet tea is a way of life and am accustomed to tea so sweet it hurts your teeth to drink it. But I enjoyed sitting and drinking some tea and letting my ankle rest.

Our last stop for the night was our hotel, which was nearby, but not walking distance really. In fact, Aman warned us to be careful if we went out walking as there were sometimes packs of wild dogs. NICE.

The hotel was a very nice, old building, and my room was large. I had a balcony but the pigeons seemed to have taken it over. It was cold outside anyway. The room had good heating however.

My room
Part of the lobby

I took a few pictures before dinner as I had some time to explore the hotel. There was a nice looking pool but of course it was too cold to swim.

We had the coldest dinner ever! The heaters in the dining room weren’t working properly so they brought over a few space heaters, which helped a bit. We all shared food: soup, meatballs, chicken and vegetable tagine. There were also little noodles that looked good but then seemed to have rose water flavoring, which I really don’t care for though I know others love it. Dessert was fruit, bananas, and apples. Interesting fact: the bananas in Morocco are a smaller breed than those in the US.

I went to bed early, after dinner, and enjoyed reading before falling asleep.

Random thoughts, Teaching

Admin Work

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One thing that’s sporadically time consuming as a freelancer/teacher, is admin work. This week has had a lot as I’m in the process of signing students up for the Music Club Federation Festival, as well as working out some rescheduling for February, updating invoices due to snow days/festival registration, and more. It varies from week to week: some weeks there is hardly any and other weeks it can be a few hours (Gah!).

I try to keep organized by keeping a running “to do list” on my phone, as well as having a calendar of monthly tasks for the home studio. I have two to do lists in the reminders app on my phone, labeled “work” and “personal”, which works well enough. If something comes up in a lesson or pops into my head at a time I can’t deal with it right away, I add it to that to-do list. And then when I have more time I try to do the task. Some weeks I get everything done, other weeks I get nothing done. I can also add deadlines through the reminders app, and that is good when a task is particularly time sensitive.

This week I’ve been clearing out a bunch of lingering tasks. The rest of the month is going to be BUSY so I don’t want to have too many things hanging over my head. There are usually a limited number of times that I want to do admin: a few mornings a week I like to spend 30 to 60 minutes, or less, and that counts personal admin as well as business admin. This doesn’t count short emails and texts, that I will respond to as soon as I can, or doing basic things like attendance.

This probably seems very boring to read about, but in case you are another teacher, maybe it’s not. I probably spend an average of 1-2 hours a week doing admin tasks, so it’s not very much but also not nothing. Using an automated lesson system (My Music Staff) helps tremendously, and using an automated system for keeping track of taxes and tax deductions does as well. Email is so much easier than phone calls used to be, and texting too. I think back to when I was younger and email wasn’t as popular for contacting parents, and when I needed to reschedule lessons I literally had to call them, one by one. So thankfully it’s a bit easier now…but still annoying.

I am excited to continue writing about my Morocco Trip, but I just haven’t had enough time to sit down and do the next post. I have selected the photos, so I’m making progress–don’t worry: it’s coming!

We have a weekend getaway this weekend (part of the busy-ness, not the main part) which I am looking forward to. We are going to visit Phoenix and my family there, and I can’t wait to see them and perhaps equally, have some nicer, warmer weather. They don’t even have snow on the ground! (We are so tired of the snow here).

I can’t believe it’s February already, but I was also thinking how less than a month ago I was still in Morocco, and that seems like a dream. How times flies as we get older!

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.