All posts by hannahviolin

I am a violinist. I also enjoy running, working out, reading, and hanging with my friends and cat.
Norway

Things that are awesome about Norway/Things that are not quite as awesome

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We made it back home two nights ago! We both dropped right into work and such (laundry, house cleaning) but I thought I’d pop in.

If you are an instagram follower of mine you’ve been getting to see all of the wonderful pictures. Norway is gorgeous. It was a wonderful trip, with one major exception.

The major exception is that we both caught COVID on the trip (or likely, before the trip, in my case). So we fuddled through life the best we could, with poor information. And at the end, we had to change our flight to come back a few days later in order to ensure negative tests or a proof of recovery documentation for both of us, only to have the US change the testing requirement to mean we could have stayed with our original plans. Nonetheless the extra days were nice to make up for the sick ones.

So, 6 things things that were awesome about Norway:

  1. In the summer it never gets dark! The sun goes down around 10:30 to 11 pm but it doesn’t go very far, and then it’s back up by 4 am.
  2. Public transportation. In Oslo we used an app that you could buy tickets through as well as plan your route to wherever you were going. It was amazing to just step out on the street, walk a few blocks and hop on the bus or tram you needed.
  3. There was a delicious bakery around the corner from our AirBNB in Oslo that we ate at too many times to count. Good cappuccinos as well as pastries and bread.
  4. The people were wonderful and helpful. Everybody speaks English (they learn from a young age) and even though I felt guilty that I didn’t speak much Norwegian (really, any, more than a phrase or two) nobody seemed to be too bothered by this.
  5. The fjords really are gorgeous, and the mountains. The train from Oslo to Bergen was more beautiful than we expected.
  6. Boat rides: if you go to Norway, you MUST take a boat ride.

3 Things that aren’t quite as awesome about Norway:

  1. Everything, especially food, is incredibly expensive. If you get a sandwich at a restaurant, it’s $25 to $30. Even the grocery store is more expensive that you’d expect.
  2. It’s very far away. We had to take three flights, which on the way back meant going through security three times. There weren’t any reasonably priced options that didn’t have three connections.
  3. We had to leave! They wouldn’t just give us an apartment and jobs and let us stay there. We may have to look into that further.
One of those expensive sandwiches. And it’s not because it’s shrimp, all of them are expensive. Shrimp is common food.
Standing in front of Grieg’s composer hut. We saw a concert at the recital hall there.
On the boat to Balestrand, going up the Sogneford.
The view from our hotel in Balestrand. That is St. Olaf’s Church, and supposedly it inspired parts of Frozen.
Jostadeen Glacier.
Gustav Vigeland’s famous sculpture, Angry Baby.
A Stave Church at the Norwegian Folk Museum, a wonderful open air museum.
I loved all of the grass topped houses and want to live in one.

So that’s the teaser post. I’ll write a bit more about in the next week or two about each location we visited (and of course share more photos): Bergen, Balestrand, and Oslo (where we spent over a week and really started to feel like locals, haha.) If you have an opportunity to visit Norway, I recommend you take it!

Random thoughts

Summer Vacation

My early morning job is done for the school year! It ended after a Monday, which is weird, and some of my colleagues seemed to not notice that us part-timers were done for the year and didn’t even say goodbye, but whatever, I’m on summer vacation! I celebrated by falling asleep before 11 pm and waking up at 6:30 am. Since then I’ve updated my website, paid bills, and enjoyed two cups of coffee.

My summer is really starting to fill up with teaching. I’d be happy to have a few more concerts or gigs, but my teaching schedule is looking great. I’m probably averaging 18-20 hours, which is plenty. I said goodbye to a high school senior last night at her lesson, as well as goodbye to an elementary school age student who is leaving lessons. I got to have lunch with a former college student yesterday, which was wonderful. It was great to hear how she is doing in grad school and in life, and I was touched that she contacted me to meet up during her short visit with friends.

I have been struggling with feeling like I’m missing out—I haven’t been playing as much lately, which is a somewhat conscious choice, but I still get twinges of jealously seeing what concerts others are up to. I remind myself we get one life and we can’t fit everything in! I would love to do it all, but I can’t have a busy teaching schedule, travel with Louie to his conferences, and play all the gigs. I just can’t. And I have played things lately, and it’s been fun, and there is more on the docket ahead, but it’s also okay to not play everything…I mean, you can’t play everything, not even a fraction of it!

I would like to do more high level playing, either a more serious chamber music concert (I miss our quartet playing regularly) or perhaps a solo recital that I can sink my teeth into. I was stressed over my new music concert in March, but it was nice to have something to dig in and really work on. I enjoy sightreading tremendously, but it doesn’t give that musical satisfaction in the same way. I have tossed a program around in my head, and I suppose I should really just get something on the books at Wash U…but then I also really enjoy reading in my spare time. I can’t decide if I’m tired, burnt out, or just need something ahead to inspire me. It may be all 3!

In any case, I’m thrilled to be on “summer break” from my school job (okay, except I still have to get grades in) and my college job (truly done!) and just have my private students and gigs to deal with for a few months. Since our weather finally got hot last week, it does indeed feel like summer.

Teaching

Two in a row!

I slept in this morning. I didn’t set an alarm. I woke up a few times, but didn’t check the time for awhile. Finally I checked the time, and…it was 7:46 am. I suppose that’s sleeping in, but if there is one thing that makes me feel old, it’s my inability to sleep in!

When I was younger people always told me once I had kids I wouldn’t be able to sleep in as much. I first started waking up early more naturally after the election of 2016, the worry and stress woke me up. Then the worry and stress became a constant…it never went away, I never was able to sleep in again. I go to bed earlier as well, rarely seeing past midnight and often asleep before 11 pm. Once I got my morning job, I would find myself in bed before 10 pm, and felt like sleeping past 6 am was a decadent proposition.

So, here’s the thing about aging: you do it, regardless of whether or not you have kids. In my own personal experience, I wake up early, I can’t sleep like I used to, I pee often (another thing I was told would happen once I had kids).

Aging happens regardless, doesn’t it, and it sneaks up on you. The pandemic took so much of our time and energy that everything else fell apart, but as we rebuilt our lives after it (not that it is over, but that is no longer new) I realized that we had been aging, that somehow we felt middle-aged, and responsible, and that our parents were even older and that everything is changing and that life is going on in that inexorable march towards death. And that sounds very dark and all of that, but it’s just the truth, and it’s good to accept that, and to figure out, what are we doing with the time we are given?

This may be why so many people changed what they are doing in their lives, and why people change along the way. I often feel that my fellow musicians judge me for teaching as much as I do. It is a badge of honor to play poorly paid gigs and to struggle, whereas teaching means, yes, dealing with lots of children and working hard, but also making a decent and regular living, but without as much glory. The students, they don’t always listen, they don’t always do what you say, they often play out of tune!

I keep thinking I need to cut back on teaching, that I am doing too much, I don’t know. My Music Staff says I have 46 active students, but that’s not entirely true: 6 of them are starting this summer but 5 of them are quitting at the end of May or over the summer. It is probably too many, but this is the American way, to work too much, isn’t it? The stock market is crashing, we are heading towards fascism, my body is not my own, and somehow working more and more feels like something I can do, to cover unexpected medical bills, to save for a hoped upon one day retirement, to save for a new car and to pay for trip to Norway! And I hope that I make a positive influence on every student I see, that I make their day better, not worse, and that they find music lessons a source of solace.

Kitties sleeping with their feet together.

I played a wedding job yesterday on viola, and really enjoyed the challenge. I hope I can do more of that! I know I am HannahVIOLIN but the viola is a fun part of my musical life now as well…

Does this viola make my head look smaller?

I mentioned our little catio a few posts back: the cats absolutely love sitting out on it. We can open the inside window, or keep it closed with a little cat-door, so the cats can come and go as they please. Miles can be found on it late at night or early in the morning, as well as all day long.

With the inside window open.
The view of the catio from the back of the house.

It’s screened in so they can enjoy the breeze, and get the full view on the sides as well. They sit there and get to yell at birds and squirrels and such also.

One more day of my early morning class and then it’s summer break! I can’t believe we are hear, that we have made it to the last full week of school. Tomorrow I am meeting a former student for lunch as well, which is always fun. I love catching up with former students and hearing how they are doing!

Random thoughts, Travel

What a time to be alive

It’s been a minute since I blogged! I’ve been busy, tired, and burnt out, so I haven’t had much to say. Cats, teaching, worrying, planning for summer travel.

We had our big spring concert at my school last night. It was fun to see everybody all together! It was interesting to see how many people are absolutely okay being in a room, maskless, with hundreds of people…including other teachers. I wear a mask teaching, and have all year long. One of the schools that the kids go to is mask required due to the high number of cases, but those kids don’t have to wear masks other than at their own school, because…that makes sense.

Nonetheless, I have not been that worried about it lately. I have enough other things to worry about, and I just keep my mask on for work related things, because I decided awhile back if I was going to get COVID it would be NOT at work, but from doing something fun, and I’m sticking with that. I also wear masks at concerts and that sort of thing, because we are sitting there for 1-2 hours, side by side.

I digress a bit though. I didn’t plan to go on about COVID in this “post-COVID” world we are in, but it happens. I’ve been working hard collecting information about summer schedules for students, and tomorrow is the day I make the schedule, and I’m thrilled. I’ve been a little worried about it, but worst case not everybody will get a lesson every week they wanted it. I’ve taken on some extra summer students, and some of them have a lot of flexibility and it’ll work well, but others it turned out have less time and wanted two lessons a week during a 4 hour time period, and…we’ll see how that goes. I have decided not to blame people for trying, and I have learned a few more things about this year.

Okay, so I paused there for two days…in the meantime I got my summer schedule figured out and published to the online portal I use, woo hoo! Miraculously it mostly worked out and there were only a few days where I couldn’t fit everyone in, but mostly those students didn’t want a lesson every week anyway. I am coming up on the last regular week of teaching, then a 4 days “makeup week” for lessons missed during the semester (some were mine) and then, OFF TO NORWAY!

I’ve got a lovely trip planned for Norway. We fly into Oslo, spend one night there, then we take the train to Bergen. It’s supposed to be a really scenic train ride. We spend 3 nights in Bergen and then take a ferry to Balestrand as part of the “Sognefjord in a Nutshell” tour. We spend two nights in Balestrand, and will take an afternoon ferry trip to Fjaerland and the Glacier Museum, then finish our Nutshell tour with a ferry to Flam, a scenic train through the mountains to Myrdal, and then a train back to Oslo. We spend over a week in Oslo for Louie’s conference, and have a few activities planned there as well: a bike tour together (just regular bikes, not ebikes), and then I have two solo day trips planned while he is in the conference: a round trip ferry to Drobak and Oscarsburg, south of Oslo, and a bus trip that goes to Hadeland Glassworks and Kistefos Museum in Jevnaker. We are also planning to attend a few concerts in Bergen since we are there during the Bergen International Festival and we have tickets for Swan Lake at the Oslo Ballet. We may need a vacation from our vacation, (tripadvisor seems to think this is a bad thing, but I don’t, if it’s a sightseeing vation rather than a beach vacation) but I am so excited!

COVID gives us some worries of course, and we have to present a negative test to return home, which I think is ludicrous, but nonetheless still currently the policy. Why do I think it’s ludicrous? Because we aren’t required to follow any other COVID guidelines in the US,(such as masking on planes) and it seems completely outrageous that our own country could keep us from entering based on having a virus that…plenty of people here already have. So hopefully we won’t get COVID while we are there, because that would be a huge pain(especially as we are headed to another conference one week later) but I can’t worry about everything all the time! Norway has no entrance testing or requirements so that’s not a concern going there.

So that’s what I’ve been up to: teaching, finishing the semester, trip planning, scheduling, etc. Last weekend I finally got out in the backyard to do some weeding. I’m not sure my gardening plans this year: I keep thinking I’ll plant some things, but it’s looking less likely for this summer. We have enough travel going on that it will make it challenging to stay on top of things, though I still like the idea of fresh beans and maybe zucchini. I suppose I should decide and if so, plant in the next week!

How are you doing?

Teaching

April Showers

I had to make a decision to cancel my studio’s outdoor recital today due to inclement weather. I do NOT like making decisions like this, but I think it was the right decision as it’s raining and supposed to storm later.

I was looking forward to everybody getting together and playing and hearing each other! But April is just too rainy, I guess…I had organized the date with some other teachers, and we had planned to rent a piano, and it just didn’t work. I guess May would be a better outdoor month. And it was under a pavilion, but really, wooden instruments and storms aren’t a good idea.

Anyway, so that means the day suddenly became free, but then due to a fellow musician’s household getting COVID, I have things to do. I was going to attend the Great Artists Series Concert tonight at Wash U…originally I had planned to give away my ticket, but then when I canceled the recital I was planning to go (we hadn’t given it to anyone yet), and now I am not going after all. A silly day, indeed.

We went to the symphony last night. I didn’t want to go beforehand because I was exhausted: it’s been a rough week for me, with having a medical procedure on Wednesday, taking some days off, ending up with a migraine as well (probably from the dehydration?) and then finally feeling a bit better…I am hopeful this week will be back to normal. In any case, the concert was lovely and wonderful and I’m glad we went: I missed going to concerts during the pandemic, and I’m happy to be back, even though I am surprised by how few wear masks in an enclosed space with so many people! Masks are now optional and it was interesting to see which musicians on stage were wearing masks or not, as well.

This week is the last week of classes at Wash U! I can’t believe how fast the semester has flown by. Of course, I say that NOW, in hindsight, there were definitely times it dragged, or at least felt longer. I’ll be teaching an extra week due to our delayed COVID start (the students were remote the first two weeks, and we could choose whether to teach 1 or 2 of those weeks remote: I chose 1). We had juries yesterday and my students who performed played well.

There are still several weeks left of Kirkwood and I teach at home basically until Norway, but I am getting things ready for summer. My summer lesson questionnaire goes out tomorrow and is due mid-May, and I’m trying to get all the travel set up. I have some time off in August that is still a wild card, and it’s okay not to have everything scheduled, but I’m looking forward to our travels, visiting family (perhaps more of that in August?) and having more time to relax and not getting up QUITE so early.

The cats hanging out together. They were fighting over who got to sit on the grey sweatshirt, but found a way to share briefly.

And yes: I’ll take some new catio pictures soon to share. They love it, though get angry if we are outside while they are stuck in it.

How is your weekend going? Did today’s rain spoil anything for you?

Random thoughts, Teaching

Crunch Time

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This is officially known as “crunch time” in our household. Louie got an email from his job about how “crunch time” was a small but natural part of the year and listed all sorts of ideas on how to maximize your time. In any case, we keep yelling “crunch time” at one another here and there…the issue is perhaps that crunch time seems to run from September to May, but particularly from after Spring Break (late March) to May.

My students: got their festival videos submitted. It was a slog this year, I felt. I’m not sure what I could have done to help more, but I felt like I had to remind people too many times. Oh well! And now there’s a recital in one week, which is great timing for those that just finished their recordings because they really know their stuff and should simply have fun, but for others seems fast after Spring Break.

I’m trying a new system for summer lesson signups, where they fill out a questionnaire with their summer availability and then I fill in the schedule afterwards. In theory this is a great idea, because I’m tired of teaching everyday in the summer all day with weird 30 to 60 minute gaps throughout the day, never enough time to actually do something useful, but enough teaching to feel like I worked all day for the equivalent of 3 to 4 hours pay. So I have a new plan, and hopefully it works out decently.

I worked through the weekend: two services on Good Friday, a lovely Passover dinner afterwards at Louie’s Mom’s house, teaching during the day on Saturday, attending a student recital at Wash U, and then a Saturday Night Easter Vigil (which was lovely, but very long), followed by an early morning wakeup call for three Easter services. I got home around 12:30 and spent the rest of the day wiped out. I even took a nap, which is unusual for me.

This week is stressful because I’ve got a thing on Wednesday for a medical procedure…I won’t go into details, but it’s nothing serious, just that you should make sure you get your annual exams so if there is anything wrong it can get fixed before it’s too late. I’m taking off work a bit, all of Wednesday, part of Thursday or all, Friday morning as well. I feel like it’ll somehow be a vacation which perhaps tells you how exhausted I am. It’s poor timing with the recital this weekend, but I don’t get to choose these things. I’m teaching a little extra today and tomorrow to make up for it, but also just missing some lessons. I built a makeup week into the schedule for the semester for reasons such as this.

I will say that changing up my teaching schedule to a monthly set fee has worked out well, but also been exhausting: I think I have ended up teaching more than ever! I do plan to continue, but in the fall I’m making each semester 1 week shorter, for my mental health. I’ve been feeling pretty run down lately: I am really looking forward to summer and taking some time for myself.

I haven’t even been taking any cat pictures lately! They are enjoying the catio (on the back porch, there’s a screened in place to hang out that they can access from inside, and not actually go outside, but be on a little cat porch) when the weather isn’t too cold, and they love when it’s nice enough to open the window entirely (I’ll try to get a picture of that next time it happens, maybe this week?).

The weather has been blah, overcast, chilly, rainy…I’m ready for warmer weather. I think that the weather is contributing to my general malaise, but it’s also just burnout and feeling underappreciated. Anyway! How is your week?