Beginning.

On Saturday I received an email from a woman whose daughter I used to teach. It's been five-six years since I last heard from her. I taught her daughter for two or three years (to the end of Book 1), and they ended their time with me by 'trying out' another teacher, asking for a Sunday morning lesson time and generally being the kind of nightmare student you dream of losing.

Her email mentions her now four-year-old twins and requests a lesson time, tells me that the older child still plays and attends a private school on a scholarship. I don't think this family is a good fit for Suzuki, and I can't in good conscience take on another student - I won't be able to continue their lessons when they begin school and there is no way in hell that I will teach Sunday morning, given that the other six days of the week are all working ones.

My dilemma is this: Do I refer her to a colleague beginning her Suzuki studio or simply give a polite refusal? Do I brief my colleague or stay quiet and let her deal with the parent on her own terms? I realise a lot can change in five years, and Mum may be seeking a Suzuki teacher because her older child has progressed so slowly through the traditional system (she's up to AMEB Grade three). Dilemma.

wowee!

Something very exciting has happened.
I have fingernails.
Well, I hear you say, don't we all?
Hopefully. The world would be a much more disgusting place if we all walked about with raw fleshbeds on the tops of our fingers.

It might also be a happier place, as we'd bid an exuberant farewell to all those nail bars so toxic their employees wear gas masks. Mind you, a whole section of society would need to find a new hobby (aka black cash-sucking hole of finite depth and darkness).

As a long-term nailbiter, I've tucked my hands out of sight for years. Of course, violin dictates I must have short nails, but short doesn't describe the malaise I've inflicted on myself at various points in time.

Let's just say I've rarely had recourse to nail clippers and would frequently take myself off to have fake nails applied... before sinking my teeth back in and ripping them back to nothing.

You may or may not understand my excitement at finally having something to file. They're horribly wide, (my mother keeps pointing out my inability to paint them beauty-school style, which would mean painting the centre half of my nail and leaving wide naked stripes either side... it's supposed to slim nails and give the illusion of length, but I think it just makes my fingers look fat(ter)) BUT they're real. And long enough to paint red.

And really, that's all that's important.

Of course, we'll see how long this lasts.