Busyness, Summer jobs, and cell phones

So my schedule has been really packed of late and it looks like there's no sign of any rest any time soon. I recently found out about a summer job here at college that would be a really good thing for future resumes but the application process is fairly rigorous and coming up fast. So I have that to worry about. Plus I've had tests and articles to write and compositions and always practicing and who knows what else.

We finally celebrated my brother's birthday this weekend and it was actually really fun. Kanns, his in-laws, came over along with him and Jenny and we were up pretty late just telling stories. I was afraid I would be left out (as is sometimes the case in family gatherings, my cousin says I'm my own generation) but all those years of sitting around listening to the art of adult conversation are finally paying off. This may explain why I connect with my professors more than I connect with many students... I never had a chance to be normal I guess.

In the meantime my parents also broke down and bought me a cell phone with very little pressure on my part. It could have something to do with when I worried them sick a couple of Fridays ago because I was detained looking for my brother's birthday present. :-) So I am adjusting to having the annoying little thing on my person almost always. I'm just waiting for it to go off on class. I'm new to this and doing it against my will!

Even though this weekend is a three-day weekend things look like they will be busy as ever. My Sunday is absolutely packed with an SMTA music recital I have to attend at 4:00, a "scholarship dinner" at 5:30, and a classical guitar concert at 7:30. Plus I'm going to have to throw together my first Reporting for Mass Media in that time. I'm about to head off to the music building for a long uninterrupted spell of composing/practicing. I HATE composing dang it. I'm too much of a perfectionist to get anywhere with it at my current level of education. And I just genuinely don't enjoy doing it. Improvising is fun and spontaneous. Composing is drawn-out and painful. But I have to do it for class so too bad.

My ever-emotional relationship with music has been rather a rollercoaster of late, but what else is new? I wonder just how much I gripe about music on this blog... Ah well, it's therapeutic. Firstly, piano lessons with my two little students have been going very well. Grace is learning more in a lesson than I used to in weeks and Grant is finally starting to make some of those difficult connections required when you first start to read music. It's the dad that's the problem. I've never met the man and apparently he's never taken piano lessons but I always get to hear his opinion on my teaching. Lately he's been wanting Grant to work on scales. Grant's still learning how to read music! But I suppose it won't hurt anything so I found some 5-finger ones and we'll see if that ameliorates my critic.

I've really been stepping up on practicing. 2 hours a day is my goal, one for jazz and one for classical and one day off for a sabbath. But it takes discipline I don't have. I've been making a lot of progress on jazz though, or I thought I had. After an excellent first lesson I completely foundered during the second. Hm. What surprises me is how well my classical studies have been going. I've finally figured out that I HAVE been learning something important from Bev, and that is to play emotionally on command. I think this is what she's been looking for from the start and now I can begin to do it. I'm learning to overcome my nervousness and anxieties and just play the music. It's very satisfying.

Oh goodness what else... I guess nothing of terrible importance. I won't go into a long rant about cell phones because that would be even more pointless and boring than my rants about music. :-) Anyhow, this was a nice break from my busy day but I'd better get some dinner/lunch at Saga before my long, long, long night. In addition to these monster compositions I have reading for Reporting for Mass Media and it looks like a couple of interviews for my article I need to prepare for. Oh help.