And sometimes the days don’t even feel that long!

I thought I’d just pop in really quick to say hello. I worked through the weekend, but only because I took a really great online teaching seminar. I have a small addiction to online seminars, but hey, it’s not like there are any concerts to spend my money on. Well, actually the symphony here is putting on some small scale concerts, but I haven’t considered this because 1) they are only selling 100 tickets or something and 2) I don’t want to be inside with 100 people for an hour. Besides which, I’ve learned a ton, and my lessons are full of even more stuff for kids to learn.

Every time I think I get some great ideas figured out on how to teach and help my students get better, wrenches get thrown in. It’s not a straight line from, accept new student, make them commit to practicing 5 to 7 days a week, move on. Life happens, and even families with the best of intentions have issues with practicing regularly. So there is always a lot of troubleshooting! I also probably have a few students who I should encourage to move elsewhere, but it’s most for attendance issues. I do bug my students about their practicing, I ask them how much they practice and how often, and they sometimes get defensive, but it’s not a privacy thing…practicing between lessons is the only way to make any progress. A weekly music lesson won’t do a damn thing without practice in between.

Anyway, the weather has been really lovely lately. I’m still waiting on two butternut squash from the garden, but nothing else seems to be growing anymore.

I’m working on an interesting project this month with a local college, doing music for a play. It’s not going to be a live performance, due to COVID, but a sort of radio-style performance in which I will play some violin music in between scenes and acts and such. Rehearsals will be on the weekends (see, I get to work weekends again, haha!) and I’m looking forward to starting this weekend. It’ll mean I won’t have my free weekends almost all month, but it isn’t a huge time commitment. The director is the woman who wrote the Runaway Cupcake which I played in a few years ago, and she was great to work with, so I’m both nervous and looking forward to it.

Well, I’d better get moving on my day. I had off this morning and yesterday from my early morning class, and the same next week. The school is transitioning into in-person class…I’m not yet sure how that will affect us yet, but at some point we will be back in person. I guess that’s okay if we are all wearing masks and the classes aren’t too long—it looks like things are working out well for that sort of thing.

Sometimes I can’t believe we live the way we are, can you?