Teaching

Back from break

There are only a handful of full Mondays left on my schedule…I am glad of it.  I’m tired of my schedule this year. 

Luckily today has gone well (so far)!  My students who are playing for festival this Saturday had practiced over break (!) and will be more than ready by Saturday.  My orchestra students are also preparing for an event this Saturday (which I will be attending) and are doing FAIRLY well though I wish they had practiced a bit more outside of class.  Hopefully they still will yet.

I have had the music from Lord of the Rings in my head all day.  I decided to see if I had the soundtrack in my car, to really embrace the music, but I only had the last one—Return of the King.  I turned it up very loud and listened to practically the whole thing during my driving today.  I feel as if I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster!  It should put me in the proper mood for watching/hearing Mahler 2 this weekend.

One of my friends said she envied my schedule, being able to work out for over 3 hours on Saturday.  I replied that I only do it because it makes me feel better about the fact that I no longer play the violin for a living.  (Darn you Howard Shore for making me feel so maudlin!) 

I do teach for a living though.  It’s not that I am unhappy about that, it’s just that I prefer to do both.  I enjoy playing more than teaching, but I think I am more distinguished as a teacher than a performer—at least as far as teaching beginners.  It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it! 

Who are you rooting for tonight?  UConn or Butler?  I’m a Duke fan at heart so technically the tournament has ended for me.  I used to think that UConn was “Yukon”, which in my mind was a team from Canada.  Weird, huh?  Then again, I also used to think that Jesus went to my church and came in late every week (there was a tall, thin man with a long beard and long hair who attended my church).  I assumed he was late because he was BUSY doing important, good things. 

Running

Lord of the Rings

Friday night was AWESOME.  Lord of the Rings:  Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen at Powell Symphony Hall with the SLSO playing the music.  It was like watching the movie but with the music turned up extra loud!  They had subtitles on the movie so that even when the music was a bit too loud you could still easily follow the movie.

There were some “artifacts” from the movie in the lobby.

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I was a little frightened of the ringwraith.

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Hobbit feet!  Where is the hobbit???  Frodo???

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I believe this is Gimli’s ax  “and my axe!”

I sat with my friend Laura for the show.  We LOVED it!  The hall was completely sold out.  The audience really seemed to respond well.  So much fun!

After the movie, we went to Demun Oyster Bar.  Chris and I split an order of grilled oysters—I’m not sure how I feel about them.  They were okay, and they tasted a bit like the ocean…which sounds good in theory until you remember how the ocean tastes after a wave pulls you under ONE too many times and you are very thirsty due to having swallowed too much salt-water—they tasted a bit like that.  Oh well.  The ambience was wonderful though and I would definitely return.

 

Saturday was CRAZY.  I already mentioned the bootcamp and the 9 mile run.  Around mile 6/7 we came across a group of larpers.  You can follow that link to learn more.  I had heard of this sort of thing but never seen it—people in costume fighting with wooden swords.  I thought I was hallucinating! except that Jen saw it too, and Mike did as well (it was one of the first things he said to us when we ran into him—“did you see the larpers?”…well, after “I was hot so I took off my shirt”).

I was planning to go to the Ballet that night, but I was just TOO exhausted to sit through a show.  Instead I went out for some drinks and snacks with my friends Sarah and Melissa.  We hit up Sage (try the key lime pie martini), Yemanja Brasil (caipirinhas and empanadas), and Riley’s ….quite the night!

 

Sunday was for relaxing and buying some compression socks!  I woke up several times during the night Saturday because my calves were hurting me.  I decided to FINALLY use my groupon to Big River Running Company to get compression socks (which I am wearing right now).  They are very tight knee socks, basically, and they feel great.  I also went on two different walks just to try to relax my legs (and cardio).  The temperature got into the 80’s.

Tomorrow:  back to work!  I have a full day of teaching ahead of me.  Tomorrow night is the NCAA Men’s basketball final, and I’ll be glad to watch that after a long day of work.

How was your weekend?

Running

Oh what a day

I wanted to do a long run today in Forest Park with my friend Jen.  She asked if I wanted to attend her boot camp class outside first—so YES we did a boot camp class outside, then 9 miles.  Was it easy?  Um…no.  A really tough workout.  I seriously wouldn’t have made it through without her, but I felt fantastic afterwards.

We ran around Forest Park (6 miles) then we added on a bit more.  On the last mile we ran into my trainer Mike, who was just starting his run for the day (though oddly was already hot enough to have taken off his shirt…hmm…).  When my Garmin hit 9 miles, we walked the rest of the way back to Jen’s gym where we had parked our belongings and my car.

After that we hit up a crepe place and ate what was likely entirely too much whipped cream.  Yum! 

I’m tired…so tired…and would do more blogging but instead will go to bed.  Let me fill you in later on caipirinhas, a wedding, and LARP (live-action-role-play) in the park.  Or not.  I might forget Winking smile. (and for the record, I was an observer of the larping, not a participant.  I may like Lord of the Rings but I don’t want to live it.

Random thoughts

April Showers

Here’s my boring monthly goals post (boring to you, probably, not as much to me as each new month brings new HOPE.)

Monthly Goals:

Books: one classic, one related to teaching violin or children, one non-fiction.  Great Expectations, The Social Animal, and Moonwalking with Einstein

One or more new restaurants:

Weekly activities with friends:  Anybody up for stuff?  You have my number.  Or at least my blog address.

New recipes (three):

Fitness Classes:  Yoga—let’s do it, two classes! And maybe spinning…I guess I got bored with my class…

Race:  April 9 Go! St Louis Half Marathon.  Goal:  2:30 or bust. 

Mileage:  90 miles (run or walk)

Lose a couple of pounds:  under *redacted* by April 30 or bust. (I do have a number in mind, and this month I will meet or beat it).

Career: Schedule Student Recital for Early June.  Plus some other stuff that will happen in April.  You’re on a need to know basis.

Fun: Who wants to go to the South Grand House Tour April 16/17?  Also, I’m open to other social engagements, hit me up!

Financial: Well…I did MY taxes.  But I promised Chris I’d do his, so that’s this month.

Fingernails/finger biting: Must continue trying to stop…gah, so difficult as I usually don’t notice I’m biting until it’s already been going on for a little while. 

Random thoughts

March recapped (to cap or recap, that is the question)

March…

Overall a good month.  Two solid races.  Some great teaching, good times with friends and FIANCEE.  Weather was up and down.  Did lots of great reading…cooking…eating…how did my goals go?

Monthly Goals:

Books: one classic, one related to teaching violin or children, one non-fiction.  Sense and Sensibility, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and The Warmth of Other Suns. CHECK!  Finished all by March 16–

One or more new restaurants: Trattoria Marcella (just had drinks/apps, but definitely want to go back for dinner), California Pizza Kitchen, The King and I (yummy Pad Thai!), The Highlander (there can be only one), Market Pub House CHECK!

Weekly activities with friends:  Too many to list here! CHECK!

New recipes (three): Goat Cheese and Artichoke Stuffed Chicken, Goat Cheese Grits, Shrimp n’ Grits CHECK!

Continue attending Spinning Class, do some Yoga–shoot for at least two classes.  Went to one spinning class, couldn’t go to another…and then was too tired… FAIL.

Two races:  March 12 St. Patrick’s Day 5 miler and March 26 Alton half marathon CHECK!  Plus I ran (some walking) 100 Miles this month—today I realized if I did 4.4 miles I would be at 100 for the month, so I couldn’t resist.

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Get rid of 11 things from one room—I need to tackle the middle room and the book situation. Already did some of each, check!

Lose a couple of pounds (I have a goal weight in mind for the end of March but I’m not putting it here Winking smile ) FAIL! but I already blogged about my failing…

Career: Attend SIUE teacher workshop with Susan Kempter.  Schedule Student Recital for Early June.  HALF/CHECK and plan to deal with recital shortly.  I’ve penciled in a date, just haven’t ‘set’ it.

Fun: Have friends over this month?  CHECK

Financial: TAXES this month CHECK

Fingernails/finger biting: Must continue trying to stop…gah, so difficult as I usually don’t notice I’m biting until it’s already been going on for a little while.  FAIL, but will keep trying..

Hope, Running

Deep thoughts

5 Comments

I ran over 93 miles this month, can you believe it?  (Probably).  Which met my goal, so that’s awesome.  Today was more of a run/walk/sprint type of thing as running for too long was hurting the back of my ankles.  Oh, note to readers:  if you own running tights with a zipper on the back of the leg, it’s possible after running in them for a long time that zipper will have left a painful mark/scab on the back of your ankle.  And then if you forget and wear them again a few days later, it will continue to hurt.

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Now I’m sitting around drinking some coffee before I get a haircut and then teach.  With the coffee comes some speculation…

Every time I meet with Mike (my trainer) he asks me what my plans for weekend are.  Even if it’s Tuesday and the weekend is seemingly a bit far away.  I know it’s because he is simply making conversation, but sometimes I feel like I need to have an interesting answer or else he’ll be disappointed in me.  (Yes, I shouldn’t care.  And it’s not as if he has that many interesting weekend plans either.)  However, this weekend I do have exciting plans.  Chris and the rest of the symphony started rehearsing for the upcoming Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the Ring) movie performance, which I am going to see this weekend.  (If you are a regular reader, you already know this.) 

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Before the movie there is going to be a display of some “artifacts” from the movie in the lobby.  It should be quite the evening! 

I think this is part of the future of orchestras.  As a classical musician I am always concerned with showing other people how great the music I love is.  One of the biggest venues people have to hear orchestral music is through movie soundtracks, and (in my opinion) the best movies have great, orchestral soundtracks.  Some movies use classical music which has already been written(think of Also Sprach Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Barber’s Adagio in just about everything) and other movies (more likely) require new music.  Anybody who wants to poo-poo on this style of music needs to remember that even well known classical composers such as Shostakovich and Phillip Glass wrote for the movies.  And I would think that Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven would have been movie composers as well, if they were asked and if it put food on the table.  Besides which, just like music can be for entertainment, so are the movies, and sometimes movies are even considered art as well.

My point (I guess) is that firstly, movie music can be played in a concert hall, and secondly, that the “common man” can appreciate classical music if he appreciates the movies.  I read today (sadly) that the Syracuse Symphony’s season has been canceled.  My heart goes out to the members of that orchestra. 

My heart goes out further to the negative people who wrote in the comments who, like far too many people in the world today, can’t see a future full of hope and brightness, full of music and laughter, and perhaps, full of love and peace.  Instead they see the world as a place where only a few can, or SHOULD succeed and the rest are left to wither and…what breaks my heart…how can anybody be okay with this?  I saw a billboard last year that said “had enough of hope and change?”  I believe it was encouraging people to vote against the democrats…and I thought…wow.  How can anybody ever have enough of hope?  Hope is part of what makes us different from the animals.  Hope is what keeps us going.  Hope is why we pass on knowledge to the children.  Hope is why we strive to make the world a better place each day.

ANYWAY.  I know I went off on a little bit of a tangent there, but I wanted to get that off my chest.   I have been increasingly frustrated with the news of the world lately, but HOPE keeps me moving forward and continuing to do what I can in my life.  And that means teaching violin, running, attending concerts, playing weddings, enjoying time with friends…and that is what I will continue to do.

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I wanted to end on a lighter note Winking smile  I love despair.com.

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.