IrishOboe

This week I’ve had a hard time keeping an eternal perspective.  Everything rests on my audition Friday and there on the work I do up to that point, right?  What a way to kill motivation to practice.  Every time I pick up an instrument that evil voice said “It must be impressive!”  Darn it, I’ve only been playing fiddle for two months and two weeks won’t change my playing significantly enough to hide that.  That’s the way it is.  Still, it’s hard to shake everything I absorbed at music conservatory, and I made myself rather miserable.  Thanks to our good Lord for Sabbaths and yesterday really helped me come away from my myopia and rest again in the palm of God’s hand.  I’ve had some enjoyable practice sessions as well.  Unfortunately, Randy could tell in my lesson Friday that I was uptight and said so, but I guess it’s good for me to know that being uptight does not help my playing!  So I’ll try harder not to be so uptight . . . right.

Stephan’s mom told me at church yesterday that when I play in church it looks like I’m really worshiping God with my music and maybe I could try to do that in my audition.  It was very perceptive and good advice.  You’ll be sure to hear how it goes.

As to the events of the week the second half proved almost as interesting as the first half.  Thursday evening six random people with one thing in common got together for an evening of fun.  Allison (of my German class) lived in Japan for 8 years and suggested getting a group together for Japanese conversation and food.  We made it happen, so Allison, Kim (Korean from BCF who lived in Japan for a time and speaks very good Japanese), Mindy (Chinese from BCF who recently moved to Switzerland from Japan), Mindy’s friend (Swiss, never been to Japan but has studied Japanese for five years), and Eriko (Japanese cembalo student at the Schola), and I gathered at Mindy’s for a taste of Japan.  It was a humbling time.  I could follow a fair amount of the conversation but I couldn’t hardly get more than a word out of my mouth.  I had been so fascinated by how I thought in Japanese toward the end of my time in terms of sentence structure.  As I tried to learn German I would use German words with Japanese grammar, but now that intuitive understanding of sentence structure is gone and I can’t get my mind back to it.  One year of immersion and one year of forgetting leaves one rather out in the dark.  At least I was able to follow some of the conversation, but I was bar far the least able one of the bunch, but what am I complaining about?   I’m the famous girl who loves to learning to swim by drowning.  I just don’t like realizing that I’ve lost skills. :(  To comfort myself a little, I remember Naito sensei saying that Yamanashi has a bit of a dialect and I think I sensed that in listening to the others.  There were certain things that just weren’t familiar even though they were used all the time.  I wonder if I went back to Yamanashi if I’d be able to follow more.  Who knows.

I tried to make tamagoyaki, and though I got quite good enough at it in Japan I really botched it up.  However, everyone was nice and said it was delicious.  It was, but it didn’t look pretty, which is half the point with Japanese food.  Mindy had bought a done of veggies and meat for tsukiyaki, and we had a little trouble with conflicting ideas of what tsukiyaki is, but we all ended up full and happy at the end of the day, and it was lovely to have a number of Japanese vegetables again.  I miss how easy it was to eat healthy, deliciously, and easily in Japan.

At one point the conversation turned to me, so not knowing what “kawatteru” meant was a bit of a bother because that’s what they were calling me.  They all agreed it fit me and the example Allison gave to explain why was that I run barefoot.  Sure enough, it means something like ‘weird’ but I was assured that it was not meant in a bad sense.  Still, after a time of half following the conversation I decided to do something I knew I was good at and started cleaning up.  I could follow the conversation and avoid being directly addressed.  This worked for a good while until it was dessert time and they noticed that I’d pretty much done all the dishes.  When I tried to do the same thing after dessert my behavior was it used as more evidence for the fact that I’m ‘kawatteru.’  To add insult to injury I was forced out of the job.  Baptiste wouldn’t let me clean up my dishes after he fed me lunch that day either.  Do people dislike the job so much that they can’t stand to see their guests doing it?  UM has his basement, I have the dishes (loading the dishwasher is not the same).  Hm, I can guess what job I’ll have at the Maggie P. this year. :)

So, it was a lovely, if humbling evening.  I wonder if I’ll find the motivation in the states to study Japanese and/or German.  It’s so hard when everyone only speaks one language!  Speaking of humbling experiences, I tried to ride my bike with my fiddle and it was rather hilarious.  I never actually fell, but it must have been an amusing experience for those around me.  I thank my guardian angles for getting me home safely.

Friday evening I had a concert to go to but decided I’d miss half of it in order to go to singing/fellowship/prayer night at church.  It was N&M and four ladies from Africa studying at the Swiss Tropical Institute.  I’m not sure exactly how it works, but many people from Africa come to study in Basel to get their masters or doctorate for using to help out back home.  These ladies are an encouragement to me because they have a different relationship with the Lord.  Singing praises to God is important to them and they believe in the Holy Spirit working in the details of our daily lives.  They share stories of God working powerfully in their churches back home and have a solid faith that shames but inspires me.  They love the Lord, and so they love me.  It is so important to sing praises to God together and care for one another.  Mostly we sing praise songs (I know about half of them) but I requested on hymn and so got roped into accompanying.  It’s been a long time since I’ve played piano and hymns are hard.  It was bad, but nice to play again.  Oh!  What fun it will be to play on Heather’s piano at home!

I stayed to the end of prayer time choosing to be even later to the concert.  I’d biked to church in beautiful weather and when we finished it was raining in a manner worthy of the name.  It was a moderate Florida rain, but a genuine storm by Swiss standards (as far as I know it)!  I abandoned my bike and used my umbrella to walk to school.  I quickly abandoned the idea of staying dry and just enjoyed God’s washing of the earth.  My soul was light from the worship and the words of the evening it soon spread to my feet and I found myself running and laughing with arms outstretched and barefoot feet splashing in puddles on the way to school.  I’d have sung Singin’ in the Rain, but I don’t know the words and he was just singing about love and my heart was full for the Lord.  I can’t remember the last time I romped in the rain.  I’m sure my sister has me beat having two small boys to remind her of the simple pleasures of life!

The umbrella kept most of my hair and shoulders dry, but the rest of me was soaked by the time I got to the concert.  Luckily it was warm enough that I could enjoy the lovely Baroque dancing of Nadia in relative comfort.  The rain lighted up after the concert and it was lovely to walk through the shining little streets lit by old lamps to the tram stop.  Looking rather disheveled to say the least, I attracted attention even in the crowd of people enjoying a roaring rock concert.  Some German (I believe) tourists now have a picture of them crowded around one wet “Swiss” and her umbrella.  Why me?  It must be that dashing ‘drowned rat’ look.   Random memory heads up:  My junior year of high school I enrolled at the University of Central Florida to take some math classes.  I had to go and get a student ID before the first day of class, and I guess Mom felt I was old enough to do it on my own.  I was rather intimidated walking alone, a lowly high schooler, in a big college campus.  I had put my hair in a French braid to hide that I hadn’t washed it in a while and then got caught in the rain.  I made it to the ID making room looking rather disheveled since a French braid frays at the temples anyway and with the rain, well, as my dad said later looking at the photo ID “You look like a drowned rat.”  Thanks dad, but at the moment I didn’t give much thought to how my picture would look.  As I sat for my photo the guy taking the picture leaned down to me and said “what perfume do you use?  It smells great.”  I looked at him in utter shock.  I was used to high school nerds giving me bad pick up lines, but a big, mature college student?  (I had much to learn, I know)  I was grateful to the girl sitting for the photo next to me who gave a look of scorn and told me to ignore him.

I hope you don’t mind any random memories I thrown in.  They’re not written down, and I personally find them too amusing to forget.

The next day was sunny so I tried to fetch my bike but got caught in the rain again.  In the mean time I’d see the parade of circus elephants marching down the street.  By the time I made it home again it was sunny once more and remained so for the rest of the day.  I did finally get to fetch my bike.

Yesterday I took the day off from playing in part so I wouldn’t be burdened with an instrument during the church picnic in Kilchzimmer. 

It’s a gorgeous place and we walked by it on our hike from Belchenflue.  I got a rode there with Stephan’s parents and when they stopped by their house to pick up food I took this shot of the apartments opposite them.  I find them beautiful.  I could live in a city with lots of people and concrete if it looked like this.

It was interesting to talk to another ‘mixed’ couple.  I learned a bit more why they decided to make four days a week English days and three German days, and they sound like true unschoolers.  Stephan’s dad explained that they sometimes saw problems in other mixed families where the children got the languages mixed up, using whichever word came first to mind.  They wanted their kids to function equally comfortably and well in both languages and to learn there was a difference.  What interested me most were his observations.  He said the children liked the structure they’d been given.  If he’d come home from work and say “good evening” on a German day he’d get a scolding and a command to say “gute awbe” (however you spell it).  Even more impressive was his comment that at the point the children started resisting the structure they had the wisdom to realize it was time to do away with it.  This happened when the oldest was about age nine.  They figured they’d learned both languages and could now freely use what they saw fit and from them on mostly used German with their father and English with their mother.  Maybe Stephan can add his perspective on the matter, but I was impressed and find it to be a perfect example of what homeschooling is about.

Back to the picnic.  I’d brought dessert for the meal, but no meat (the American potluck is still imbedded in my mind) so Stephan’s Mom offered me some of the most delicious lamb I’ve ever had.  Everyone grilled his own meat then shared salad potluck style.  Between the meal and dessert the children who’d stayed the weekend for church camp gave some presentations, which were amusing to say the least.  It is a good thing to laugh and be silly at times.

Nigel took me home and on the way we decided to check out the medieval festival in Weil am Rhein.  It was a bit commercial for me and the wooden swards looked awful compared to UM’s, but it was amusing none the less.  I suppose it should excite me more considering the fact I’m looking to get a degree in medieval music, but there wasn’t much music and like I said it was a bit commercial.  There was a booth selling fresh bread, which I indulged in gladly.  Yum!  I suppose I can see myself manning a booth playing music to sell my CD’s, but not too often.

We then went to a café and I indulged in one more cheep Italian ice cream from Germany, and that pretty much ends my story for now.  Thanks for your prayers, I’m feeling at peace today but it will be easy to fall back into worry if my faithful prayer warriors relax too much! 

Love,

Janet

P.S.  Here's a video of a bee that got caught in a web.  Sadly, or happily, he escaped at that was the end of my documentary on how spiders eat bees.

2007-06-11 bee in web.mpg