IrishOboe

Last april I performed in a project of Baroque dance and music and some videos from it have been posted.  You can view them here.  For various reasons most of the pieces I danced in are not on the site, but you'll get an idea of what we did at least.

I am currently busy practicing the new harp that the schola ordered based on a Spanish painting from 1390.  It as a double row of 14 strings and is quite a challenge to learn to play.  I was walking around the house practicing my saltarello when I noticed this view and couldn't resist a picture.  I wish a treal photographer had been there, but it's cool despite my lack of camera skills.  Can anyone explain why through the naked eye I could only see the main shadow, but the picture produced another?  I'm baffled.  Click on the photo for a larger image.

I don't know if Mom will figure the title out from Hippo tapes, but BabbleFish will be happy to help those who can't read it.  (And my husband will be happy to correct my German).

I'm a big girl now! Today I only had to employ my alter ego once as I reserved a mobility car, drove it to Germany for piano lessons, then on the highway to Steph in Pfeffingen (only stalling once) and all the way home again (stalling once again, darn it!) signing out 30 seconds before my time was up.  Somehow I assume driving will be much faster than biking and didn't allow enough wiggle room.  Praise be to our gracious God that no incidents happened so I was able to make it just in time for piano and just in time to turn the car in.  A year ago I would have considered driving in Basel an accomplishment, let alone driving it with a stick.  I've had a total of two stick lessons and two Swiss road lessons, so this solo dual country tour was something to be proud of.

Thanks to my lovely husband for filling me with confidence and encouraging me to give it a go.  It also helps a great deal to know that he'd be patient with me if I had totally messed it up. :-* Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie!

There is no post that will be worthy of breaking my blog silence, so having recently learned that I have devoted friends that still check IrishOboe this little blip into life will have to do.  More momentous events will have to wait.

Yesterday in notation class the teacher showed two solutions on the board before handing back our homework.  For the curious, we are currently studying Codex Rossi, an Italian manuscript from the 14th century.  After stating which solution was right and which was not really possible she asked if it was clear.  It appeared clear to everyone, but being my stubborn self I piped up and said "no."  I explained why I had chosen the 'wrong' solution and was not yet convinced of it's invalidity.  The teacher then pointed out that in my transcription I had chosen the 'right' solution, which gave the class a laugh.

True to form, I cannot leave this story as an interesting anecdote.  The incident reveals more than my own inconsistency and even relates to the opening topic of notation class.  We often start down a certain path of thinking and continue to follow it while forgetting the other options we could have chosen to start with.  Our knowledge blinds us to other possibilities.  My transcription was consequent to one way of thinking.  A week later in class I saw a different logic which went so far as to prevent me from seeing what I had seen in the first place.

Still, the better moral to remember when dealing with Yours Truly is:

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

 (and when you don't have spell check it takes twice as long to write a post and I bet my mother and husband will still find mistakes)

Feeling the relief of the immediate pressure of travel/Christmas/wedding, I decided to make some long-overdue blog modifications.  Some were easy, and some...well, let's just say that—as with much system maintenance—it started by breaking more than it fixed.  Specifically, links.  And because this particular change was system-wide, it messed up Janet's links as well as mine.  Not all of them, but some, and finding out which ones is part of the fun.  :)  So please be patient as I continue to work on this, all the while trying not to let it consume too much of the time that should be spent on laundry, etc.

Your Webmaster.

I had five solid hours of time to myself at home today for the first time in a long, long time.  I have a clean room and house, organized papers, finish homework and practice and a moment for a post.  It's amazing how having time to do ones own work is a necessary requirement for getting ones work done!  I'm not sure when the next time I'll have such a 'break' but I look forward to it.  Live has been full of intense work at school during the week.  Though difficult, I am enjoying he challenge of lots more playing and am getting comfortable with fiddle and harp.  Wedding plannins is stressful and hard to manage, but at the same time enjoyable.  I've been putting furnature together at Stephan's in preparations of my move there, and there's nothing like a little solid, visible work to make it sink in that my life is about to change forever.  Love to all, and sorry that blog has not been a priority.  This time I can honestly say there is simply no time - I am not wasting more than a moment here and there!

One must always keep a sense of humor about when dealing with foreign languages.  Some offenses are more egregious than others, and this one was harmless, but I got a good chuckle out of it.  After submiting a question with an online form to my Swiss insurance company that specializes in health insurance for foreigners the next screen pleasantly informed me:

As proof that I'm busy doing all sorts of things and therefore cannot post, I'll take a moment to announce that today the fruit of some of my labor has been plucked.  I am now the proud owner of a Swiss driver's license!  It will be valid as soon as I pay the modest fee of 140 Francs . . .

As expected, my US license was returned to me undamanged but for the sticker "Not Valid in CH."  Basel, have great fear, Janet is now free on the roads.

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I am now fully functional and feeling wonderful.  There’s nothing like being sick to encourage the appreciation of health.  The first few car trips out of the house were a bit tough, but Sunday was fine and I enjoyed the pool party the church hosted - food and all.

Happily I was better just in time for us to loose water again.  Due to iron bacteria they had to shock the well again, so it was back to camping inside.  Plus we lost internet just as I was about to Skype Stephan.  Man, life is tough.  I’m discovering I’m much more demanding than I thought . . .

Mostly we have had all the amenities and I have had many good conversations with Stephan and I’ve managed to squeeze in some work here and there between playing with the Nephews. 

No baby yet, we’re still waiting and praying.

I’m at my sister’s new house for the purpose of helping with before and after baby needs and one of the first things I did was get sick.  The one claim to helpfulness I have is that I haven’t gotten anyone else sick yet.  Other than that I’ve been lying in bed with just enough energy to move about now and then before collapsing back in bed.  Today I have enough energy to sit up for longer than a meager meal and thought I’d use the time to catch up a bit with blogging.  Up until this sickness I’ve been living this glorious live God has given me rather than blogging, so apologies to those who miss hearing from me, but my web-life has nearly disappeared as I’ve lived real-life.

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Just a quick post to say that I am alive and well and enjoying my vacation.  Obviously I've taken a vacation from just about everything, and it's been so long I almost forgot how to create a post.  Unfortunately, I am not sure when I will sit down to catch up, but for now I'll leave you with food for thought.  This Christianity Today article on Living Leviticus is worth a read.  I happen to be in Leviticus now so it was a timely reminder that Leviticus holds important revelations of God's character.  I'll tease you with two quotes from the article.

"[Often w]e take God's grace for granted. Because holiness can be difficult, we default to simply admitting we're miserable sinners, get our grace, and then get on with living our lives the way we were going to live them anyway."

"The Law's purpose was never to save anybody. Rather, its purpose was to show saved people how to live a saved life."

May 1^st is a holiday and it was also Ascension Day, which is a holiday, but since they fell on the same day, we only got one day.  It was a pleasant day, so I’m not complaining.  Stephan organized a hike to the castle Dorneck where we met up with a few more folks from church and enjoyed a barbeque before the rain hit.  It was lovely to go hiking again and we caught a glimpse of Swiss culture to boot.  Traditionally, the men of the town march around the local borders and fire guns to symbolize their readiness to defend their land.  Hopefully the video is small enough to upload so you can enjoy it.

2008-05-01_DorneckHike_firing.mpg

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Puzzle #1: What event does this picture reveal?

Puzzle #2: When did this happen?

[Stephan's pictures added later] 

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Obviously I haven’t had a class canceled in a while as it’s been super long since I’ve gotten a chance to write.  Life has been by no means any less exciting, despite a drop in frequency of performances.  Still, I’ll make you wait for it as I try to catch up chronologically.  [Haha, I didn't wait] The good or bad thing about writing about events much later is that I tend to write much less because all the details aren’t as fresh in my mind.  Here goes . . .

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I won't have time for an update for a while, but to keep yourself entertained you can check out the five star hotel I'll be staying in.  Don't ask me why there's never enough money for poor musicians and then they put us up in a five star hotel, but I bet you're not refusing your refund check either.  Interesting things of note lately have beeing watching elephans fight (or play?) at the zoo.  There's a place where you can peek in from the outside and the Stephetc. club and I caught the action on the way home from Bible study.  I also got to see a helecopter lift cargo to a nearby roof.  It was quite a shock to be sitting in class and then see a construction cone drop from the sky.  Hat's off to the teacher and the students: we all stopped to watch.