IrishOboe

I foolishly tried to make Ais stew starting at night, now it’s nearly 11 and the stew is done but I can’t put it in the fridge cold.  The idea was to prepared for another day, but it means staying up ‘way past my bedtime.  The good news is, I’m too tired to do school work, so you get a fuzzy-brained updated instead. ;)

As mentioned in my last post, Stephan is back from China I suppose he’s another reason why I haven’t found the time to write recently, though it’s only been five days.  We walked to church together I particularly enjoyed the worship that morning, though I totally misunderstood the sermon.  Luckily I was able to clear that up at the hymn sing at Valda’s.  Unluckily, the one time I accepted a rehearsal time on Sunday it had to fall on the day of a hymn sing the day Stephan got back!  I had time to eat with everyone, but missed the singing altogether.  :(  The rehearsal was very good and much needed.  I’m a bit afraid because I agreed to dance a small part in a Baroque dance concert and due to various reasons we are down from 10 to 4 people so instead of having a small part that involved just standing around looking pretty while other people do the hard stuff I now have to dance a more important role.  I’m rather too overwhelmed to be scared, but I have until April to teach my arms to move gracefully with my feet.  Ganbarimasu.

I returned to Valda’s in time to say goodbye as the party broke up.  I wasn’t able to stay too sad about missing the singing because I got to spend the evening with Stephan.  I now have a picture for you all.

Note the beard.  Our dear friend Richard had some fun by shaving his lazy-man’s Christmas beard to look like Stephan’s rather than shaving it all off straight away.  They served tea together after the service.  I found it hilarious.

The beginning of the week was very good with school.  I continued to do my work the day it was assigned and am finding it surprisingly easier to stop now.  The fruits of working this way were wondrously sweet to taste as I was able to enjoy the classes I had (since I was prepared without last minute panic) and still have the energy to tackle the new tasks that came my way.  Rather than ending the day exhausted at 11pm with only more on my to-do list I ended it exhausted at 11pm with the day’s tasks complete.  It was a marvelous feeling.  Unfortunately, today I was too tired to keep up the tremendous pace and both fiddle and harp practice slipped by the wayside, but so it goes and I’ll pick up again tomorrow.  Staying up late to tend my soup does not exactly help, but one inefficient day out of four is nothing to sneeze at.  I’ll take my progress where I can get it.

As to the details, I’ll just mention some highlights that meant something to me.  I was thrilled that working late last Monday on the composition for Satzlehre in order to finish the day it was due really paid off.  I pulled out the composition (a two part conductus) Monday (a week later) and fixed a few things up and went calmly to class (as opposed to frantically spending the hours before class trying to come up with something).  It was my best composition by far and was well received.  Hurray!  Instead of saying “I wish I learned to do this years ago” I’ll say “I sure hope I’ve learned to keep doing this!”  I did manage to get the next weeks work done while I spent the evening at Stephan’s.  It helped that it was a lighter assignment.

My usually stressful Tuesday was actually energizing this time.  I worked hard all day and didn’t collapse into bed until 11, but it went well.  The notation homework that I had a hard time stopping at the minimum was fine and I even got the extra stuff written out during class.  Blah, I won’t bore you with the whole day, you get the picture.  I said I worked hard all day, and it’s not quite true.  Though every down moment I had I worked, I also had some restful activities, such as eating lunch with Kristian Bezuidenhout. http://www.kristianbezuidenhout.com/   I went to an hour of his master classes and asked if he had lunch plans and he didn’t so we went together.  It was lovely to talk of old Eastman days and of where life has taking us now.  It was fascinating to talk to some who knows both Eastman and the Schola.  It really helped give me perspective on some of the things that are strange to me here.  I found it interesting irony that the last time I sat in a coffee house with Kris it was at Java’s, the famed coffee shop next to Eastman, and I was asking his advice on early music schools as part of my research for writing the proposal for the O’Hern scholarship which got me to Switzerland in the first place.  I remember him telling me I should consider graduate school in Europe as it’s the place to be for music and school is much cheaper.  I dismissed the thought for two reasons: I’m not good enough, and it can’t really be that cheap.  Maybe it’s a good thing God doesn’t show us much more than the few steps in front of us.  I probably would have died of shock that day if someone told me in three year’s time I’d be getting paid to go to grad school in Switzerland for medieval harp and vielle.  Something similar might be said about the new relationship in my life, but I don’t want to embarrass.

But I was talking about lunch with Kris.  He told me about some concerts he has coming up and that they’re recording a new Mozart CD.  Wahoo!  He breaths life into Mozart.  I’ve waxed poetic about his playing before, so I won’t here.  Attention to everyone in Europe on March 15^th.  Kris is playing for the “Friends of Early Music” series and even though you have to pay a pretty penny (from 25 CHF) for concerts in the series, you really should go!

Embarrassing funny story #(I can’t keep count): After German Bible study Tuesday I apparently left my keys on the outside of the door.  Veronika nicely informed me of this and then excused the incident saying I’m perhaps just verliebt (in love) . . .

Of note for Wednesday, both lessons (voice, harp, and fiddle on Tuesday for that matter) went so much better because I knew I’d done what I could during the week to prepare and wasn’t feeling guilty and inadequate.  I’m not sure I had anything much more to show for it, but seems hardly to matter.  Now I feel a bit hypocritical saying that since today I didn’t practice and it’s 12:30 and the soup is certainly cool enough now.  I better sleep so I can practice what I preach tomorrow. 

The stew taste good, by the way, despite the lack of allspice availability in Switzerland.

Love ya’!