It’s hard, isn’t it, feeling like the world is terrible and that you can’t do much to change it? Babies being locked up for 85 days without being bathed…and I don’t want to look up more news stories to link to. We all live here, we all hear about it. Things are not good in the world, and it seems like those in power are fine with it as long as they keep getting their money!

So, this probably weighs on me. Honestly, I’ve been stressed out since Election Night. It ebbs and flows, but it’s always there. And then that stress carries into other aspects of my life. I start freaking out because I haven’t had a proper gig in weeks—what if I never get hired again? (Never mind that I have a wonderful fall schedule already lined up, with some stuff I’m super excited about…) My inner critic starts telling me that people don’t like me because I post too much about politics on facebook. Or that they aren’t hiring me because they think I’m on vacation too often, or because I write this blog about myself and they are laughing at me or judging me for telling the world my insecurities, or because there are new, younger people in town that they’d rather work with and who are more available than I am. And honestly, some of those things might be true, and I need to allow that to be okay.  It’s okay for other people to work. It’s okay for me to have a little breathing room. I just start worrying that I’m not going to be working again…I feel like my work here is so precarious and took so long to get to a point where I could support myself (that literally took nearly 5 years to get to that point, even though I was mostly supporting myself anyway, even though that wasn’t actually part of the deal with moving here for somebody else’s job!) that I spend too much time worrying. My financial situation is fine now, but I’m constantly worried everything will go away! I know it’s not entirely rational and I also know a big part of my worry is general worry about the state of life in this country and what will happen next…I’m just a worrier, and it comes and goes, but never entirely leaves me.

This was an easy week, as all of them have been since I got back from vacation. I only taught 22 students, which seemed like basically nothing. And I’ve done quite a lot of working out, some cleaning up around the house, very little practice (I’m taking it easy on that too, it seems), lots of reading, and of course, there was the 4th of July holiday in there. And oh my gosh it’s been hot outside, so I’ve been avoiding it when possible. Tomorrow is our annual 4th of July party on the Saturday after the 4th, and next week I have a gig and a recording session with Third Millenium World’s Fair to look forward to, along with another 22 or so students—July is the lightest teaching month as so many people are traveling or at camps or whatever, and it really is okay. I am currently at capacity for my teaching studio, which means that probably sometime next year I will start to panic that I don’t have enough students. I suppose it’s possible I will simply keep doing this over and over again until I retire, but it’s also possible that in another 5 years I’ll feel more settled as by then I’ll have a good decade of being successful in this town under my belt…watch this space! (Unless we all get sent away, or we flee to another country, or the internet gets ruined by the end of net neutrality and I can’t access my blog anymore, or we all die in a nuclear war.)

So I mentioned the cats. I got Miles neutered last week and they were devastated to be apart for a few days, but since then things are getting back to normal: sleep all day and fight all night, it seems! They are truly the highlight right now—so much fun, so cute, so precious.

Miles finally learned about sleeping on a bed and naturally found it to be pretty amazing.

These two like sharing a chair! This is my chair I sit in while teaching and they really dislike having to move.

I know that what I mostly need to do is relax and focus on the positive, at least when it comes to work and everyday life. But it’s so hard! This is the other most difficult thing about freelancing: feeling like you are at the mercy of everybody else (other being the constant feeling of rejection and not being good enough.) Honestly, if I just taught I’d probably be a lot more even-keeled and steady, but the trouble is that I absolutely love playing the violin and performing. That’s why I do it. If I didn’t love it, if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely missing from my life when I wasn’t playing (and maybe that’s the truth of why my month has felt empty, I’m not practicing enough?), I couldn’t do what I do.

In any case, it’s Friday. And I made a pudding dessert and a pasta salad for the party tomorrow, and I have a short rehearsal soon and then I suppose we might go out to dinner. So I think I’ll choose to be happy for a bit, and choose to reflect on my blessings, and you can comment below what you do when you have self doubt, stress, and feel like you struggle more than many others do?

I had to take my cat, Muriel, back to the vet to get her stitches out from getting spayed. She happily walked into her carrier, but then when I passed her to the vet tech, she hissed, and a few minutes later the vet tech came back to ask if she was always this “feisty.” Evidently she was hissing and growling at them and they couldn’t do anything! I left her there after speaking with the vet—they are going to give her a little laughing gas and then they can take a look at everything. She is such a pleasant kitty normally—true, perhaps a little rambunctious, but very sweet! The other thing that I find a little unsettling is that while I’m her owner and I’m taking her to the vet and all these things, I don’t know how well she really likes me or considers me a source of comfort or even terribly familiar. Having a new pet is different for sure!

It’s Friday already, but I again work through the weekend, so I’m really looking forward to NEXT weekend! I don’t have much work at all, I get to see my friend April who is visiting (actually that’s before the weekend), I have a couple of fun things with friends planned…all in all it’ll be a nice time. I am still too busy at home, but you can see I have time to blog and take animals to the vet, so things are more under control.

Have I mentioned that I’m looking forward to the summer? It’s basically here, since college is done, but it’s not exactly quite here. People are vague on when summer starts, understandably. Is it when school ends? After Memorial Day? June 21 (or 22, is it?). For me, I think it really has to do with the school schedule, because that’s when the students start taking less lessons, traveling more, going to camps, and my schedule totally changes.

I felt like last summer I tried to do a bunch of fun things but ended up just feeling like I was working too much. I don’t mind working, but sometimes it feels like I work a ton in the summer but hardly make any money because the work is spread out and there are hours of nothing but I can’t do anything better because I have work later. If that even makes one iota of sense! This summer I’m trying hard to consolidate things. I’m getting rid of Friday teaching, so everybody will be Monday through Thursday. I have some gigs and whatnot scheduled, but I have less weddings that in the past—I do assume I’ll pick up a few things, but I’m going to try to maintain some downtime and some free weekends to be a normal person. We just bought tickets for two operas at Opera Theatre—I love modern opera, so we got one for An American Soldier, and Louie picked Orfeo and Euridice. I was thinking back to previous summers and what stood out in my memories and going to the opera was oddly one of those things.

I’m also hoping to get to the Shakespeare Festival this year. I have a few tentative dates in mind for that—well, one in particular, and I hope that the weather holds up! Outdoor festivals are certainly a fun activity and a memorable one. We have so many cool things to do in the summer here, and hopefully I can take advantage of more of them.

You can’t always plan what activities will be the most fun (I do suffer from the issue of trying to over-plan life) but I think you can make an effort to do fun things and not just sit around watching Netflix. Though I’d love to do a bit of that too…I look forward to having enough down time to just sit around and watch tv too  

In all honesty though, it is very telling to me how much more relaxed I’ve been once the colleges were done. I love teaching college students, and frankly I enjoy the feeling of prestige I get from being a “college violin teacher” but it really adds a lot to my already busy schedule. This isn’t a readily solvable problem (without quitting things I don’t want to quit, and the money is useful), so for now, I’m just going to appreciate waking up and not feeling super stressed out and feeling like I’m actually on top of a few things in my life instead of being behind on everything!

I often read career advice blog posts and facebook posts. Here’s my career advice for any readers: keep a good calendar. Show up early to gigs. Practice and be prepared for whatever comes up. Be friendly to your colleagues.

Maybe I’ll expand upon that in a longer post. While I haven’t found much in the way of the popular “work-life balance”, I’ve found a lot of work!

In any case, I’m off to get Muriel, lunch with a friend, teach a few students, practice, and play another show. Tomorrow morning we are planning a bike ride, then it’s two shows. Sunday is a student and two more shows and then the Phantom run is over! I’m really loving playing it—it’s one of my favorite musicals that I’ve played, and I guess all the haters can hate

I have this morning off! Mostly I’m responding to emails, but I figured I’d put up another post after last night so you know I’m not totally off the deep end Freelancing IS hard though!

The new cat, Muriel, is doing well. We got her spayed last week so she still has her stitches, but she’s starting to act more and more like herself. Yesterday she kept trying to sneak out while I was teaching, and one parent actually let her out—she was so insistent that he assumed she was an indoor/outdoor cat. Luckily she had only gone a few feet…I don’t know. I don’t WANT her to be an indoor/outdoor cat but she is really pushy at the doors. I think we can get through this period though, right? Any advice?

In the above photo she looks like she was mid-crawl, but she was actually just sitting like that. Below she is stalking the front door.

I still can’t believe I have several months off from college teaching. The college year is strange! It is nice having the extra time, because while this week is pretty darned busy due to playing a show (Phantom!) at the Fox (this is the big venue for traveling musicals in St Louis) at least I only have my private students to worry about.

I never mentioned a really fun workshop I attended last weekend. I went to the Max Aronoff Viola Institute Workshop on Saturday. One of my colleagues helped to put the event on here in St Louis and I spent the day learning about viola technique, teaching, and repertoire. I had a private session with one of the teachers, Joyce Ramée, which was informative and helpful. I’ve been a little uncomfortable asking for help with my viola journey from local people…(not sure why, variety of reasons) so I’m really glad I attended the workshop. Of course many things are similar between viola and violin, which meant that during the day I kept being reminded of important points to help my students with regarding bowing and vibrato in particular. I love attended educational seminars and workshops and always come away with valuable information that I mean to go back over and really study…and then often run out of time! Joyce also gave me some ideas on exactly what to practice on the viola in order to improve my skills, and gave me the confidence that I was already doing many things well, which as a professional I needed.

I then spent the week being incredibly picky with my students on their intonation and posture. Which I think is good: I didn’t make anybody cry, at least not IN the lesson. And sometimes I have weeks where I’m more particular, and other weeks I’m not, because it’s hard to pull teeth every week.

Another nice thing I was able to do was get my hair done last week!

Next week I hope to get a pedicure. It’s sandal weather already and I LOVE starting the summer with nicer feet. I am okay with paying somebody else for that.

Okay, I’d better get off the computer and get to a workout. Then it’s a matinee show, a few lessons, and another show…did I mention it’s a busy week? The show is so much fun though, and low pressure because I’m sitting with their traveling concertmaster. I just have to do exactly what she does, unless it’s a solo in which case I have to be certain to NOT play. It’s much easier than being the concertmaster (this is why concertmaster pays more!). And tomorrow morning we are planning on a bike ride, if the weather isn’t bad. I’m afraid to look, but assuming it’ll be warm with a small chance of storms.

I did a lot of driving last week, as I was playing with the Illinois Symphony, which rehearses in Springfield but also does a concert in Bloomington, Illinois. Those places are not super close to St Louis.  We had a great concert though, and it was super fun to play with an orchestra…playing in an orchestra full time used to be my dream job, and I still absolutely love a big orchestra.

On my drive home, south on I-55, traffic came to a standstill, for nearly an hour. I could see trucks and sirens up ahead, and, ultimately, a lifeflight helicopter landed, and then took off a bit later. It’s always a bit sobering to see these things, and to think how in an instance, everything could be totally different. Once traffic got moving we drove by the scene, and there were at least four cars, all kinds of smashed up and crushed and wrecked, and it was a hard thing to drive by and think about. It really makes you drive more alertly for awhile, and it makes you realize how freaking dangerous driving is. It is seriously the most dangerous thing we do every day!

Then today, after teaching a few students at Wash U, I get out to my car, and nope, it won’t start. I was glad this didn’t happen while I was at rehearsal in Illinois or something, but it’s always a bit frustrating. Louie came to help and tried to jump it, but that didn’t take, so I called AAA. They sent a tow truck, but luckily the driver was able to jump it (he said he had a more powerful starter than just jumping from one car to another) and I was able to drive to the mechanic instead of being towed. It ended up being a small issue, thankfully, but I did end up missing one student and having to postpone taking my violin and bow into the shop for repairs. Louie is bugging me to get a new car, but I’m cheap and stubborn…and I like my car!

I wonder how much productivity gets lost due to various car troubles?

In any case, thoughts from my last post…I had a commenter tell me to stop worrying about what people think so much. On the one hand, that means I should ignore her comment. On the other hand, this is an excellent point. I had a great time in Illinois not worrying about what people thought and just doing my thing, and I think it definitely is something that I should focus on. I have spent a long part of my life trying to please other people, and the sad truth is that nobody cares. The people that don’t like me or don’t like my playing aren’t going to, and the rest of the people will no matter what. I don’t have to care about that first group.

Then again, I’m not going to stop striving for perfection in my playing. But I’m going to do that for me. And well, for my audience so that they feel like they got their money’s worth

One more day left of college teaching! I finished up at Lindenwood, and it doesn’t exactly feel real yet. But today is my last Wash U day, with juries and all that, and then I’ll really have more time. My fun focuses are practicing and working out (I promise those are fun things!) and I also have plans to organize and de clutter the house. As one does, right?

From a year ago…finished up then too! I think I was less overwhelmed that semester than I was this semester, but I’m nonetheless relieved it’s done!

Definitely still enjoy coffee and light hearted mystery novels! And playing, and teaching, and all of that. I just maybe need to cut back a little on teaching…I’ve got a couple quitting, and while it’s not that I’m GLAD they are quitting, because I’m not, I’m not eager to replace them. I think I end up having to reschedule so many that losing a few won’t even affect my income!

Planning for May lessons and the summer schedule…I do my best thinking by hand, even though I use an electronic calendar.

This blog post has actually taken more than one day, so I think it’s time to publish. I’m off on another errand, then teaching, juries, teaching, and perhaps avocado toast for dinner.