I'm a little bit excited...

I am trying to recruit another violin teacher to work at the primary school with me. She's Suzuki-trained, but no teaching experience yet... the possibilities look good but I'm a little nervous.

I'm trying to extend the olive branch of "Of course, you're welcome to teach from my studio space" but I really only want her to do that if she's going to teach Suzuki philosophy, and her students would be welcome to join onto my concerts and group lessons...but that really only works if they're learning Suzuki repertoire.. and I only want them doing that if there's Suzuki philosophy behind it!
Oh, fraught, dangerous and dipping toes in the lion's lair, I know.
But it could be so good!

I guess I'll just hold my breath and wait for an email reply.

In other news: I am not a swan, I'm an ugly duckling. Or an ugly swanling, since I guess I'm technically too old to be a cygnet anymore. Last night if asked I would have made a sworn testimony that BOTH my feet were not only left, but attached to my hips by planks of wood upholstered with jelly. Isn't that a delightful image? I know, I'm so brilliant with words.
My brain was clearly a lump of aforementioned jelly sloshing about in jug of my skull, because I left home without
:Jazz sneakers (aka keep the skin on the sole of my foot where it belongs)
:Pointe shoes (aka flay the skin from the tops of my toes; who needs skin there anyhow?)
:Pointe shoes no.2 (aka who needs to break pointes shoes in? That's SO for wusses)

I hope you've all enjoyed that belly laugh at my expense and that your computer monitors are still coffee/tea/hot beverage of your choice free. Now go back to work. After you tell me the best thing you've ever forgotten.

(Mind you, wasn't as bad as the time I caught a bus, a train, a tram and WALKED to Melbourne Uni to discover that after two hours of travelling I'd left my #*!&^@#)(*!&^@)*!@&#^ assignment at home. This time I just rang my husband and explained how having shoes at class would make my world an infinitely happier place.  Nearly as happier as if someone put the swan I'm meant to be out of it's misery with a garotte. Oh, wait, garotte's just another name for the WHITE lycra leotard I have to shimmy myself into come Sunday. Universe, this is not funny any more.)

I've been thinking...

[insert obligatory joke here]

But really, I have. Been stomping around the blogosphere and wondering why do we all do this crazy thing?

For some, it looks like venturing into their creative side. Writing should, coulda, woulda been their career. I am guilty of this, sure. For four years I wrote religiously. I wrote about the girl sitting opposite me on the train, the boy frothing milk for my latte, every imagined slight and glance and songline and outfit.

I have notebooks FULL of ridiculous minutiae that I cannot bring myself to throw away. Or burn. Or lose. I think I've decided that if I destroy the evidence, it never happened. Dangerous and a little strange, because that's not the way I live at all.


I enjoy the discipline that choosing to write every day imposes on me. As one who's practiced an instrument most days of my life, this structure appeals. I can run away from it, I can embrace it. Sometimes I can hide within it.

Today has been one of those days. Teaching and reading and teaching and practicing. I'm working on Bohm's Moto Perpetuo; a quick little piece in double semiquavers. The difficulty is not the piece per se, it's the variation of the same piece that I learned to play when I was eight. Relearning it now... but not exactly the same... is killing me. Were it an entirely different piece of music, fine. It's the nearly-but-not-quite that sets my teeth on edge and, maddeningly, has me making the same bunch of hardwired, careless errors.

It's the same with everything, really. Those situations that are nearly the same but they're not. Advice on how to break out?

Oh, and I'm still sick. Advice on THAT welcome too. 

bye bye hubs...

After days of packing (he's a very *thorough* person) hubs has boarded a plane to America and gone to talk to people about the many interesting things he does with code. (He's probably going to read this tomorrow, so I have to be nice!)

I was going to reply to suzukisinger and Linda in the comments section before I realised I'd probab;y go over the character maximum. Or maybe not. 

I get so frustrated seeing people trying to balance it all (family, work, keeping up with the Joneses) because they've bought into the deluded myth that we can have it all. You know what? We really can't. And that's fine as long as we accept that we don't have to. The happiest people I know are the ones who have made their choice. They've cut back on work & spending so they can have family time. They've decided not to have a family because they're workaholics who like being able to purchase what they want when they want. You get the picture. I'm DAMN human and feel my limitations keenly. 

Sisterhood. Yah. Definitely a few choice words I could spew. Having been to an all girls' school, a lot of things don't change. (To all those femmes out there who find themselves sharing the camraderie of guys happily, HI! You are not alone....and Linda, that made me laugh with great joy on Sunday!)

More honesty would be a nice thing. I think I've found a lot of it online, but it seems to be leaking out here BECAUSE we're largely too afraid to say it out loud. Actually, THIS isn't fair. Actually, my brain has liquified due to lack of sleep. Actually, YOU clean up this and pick up that and hang up this and prepare that... and THEN tell me what a sexbomb you are. Yeah. (Just to clarify: no targeted 'you's or 'we's... I'm just generalising and ranting.)

I have a habit of sitting a little outside myself and then summing up what's going on inside my head. Often this goes very wrong, as I return to earth a bit too quickly (AS I'm saying something quite ill-considered, mostly) or everyone thinks "Erk, look at the ice queen bitch....What did I do to HER?!"

I think that my brain should be labelled "Dangerous, do not open!" I'm sure I could get a very finely written tattoo right up close to my hairline...

The pug wants to sit on my lap. As long as she doesn't try typing, we should all be fine. She's starting quite intently at the cursor at the moment, so if I keep typing steadily, she might fall asleep. Or something.

Sleeping in? Dammit, you are PERFECTLY justified to rant about the absence of sleep-ins. 

I understand perfectly why I stayed every Saturday night at my grandparents' place; if I hadn't I may not have survived my infancy. I do remember that my mother very rarely got up before eight (I'm SURE that'll be hotly disputed!) and I'm pretty sure I was homeschooled so she didn't have to make a school run (ha!).  

Pffft. I wore a fairy dress to my 16th birthday party. Actually, that's not true. I campaigned enthusiastically for a costumed party SO I could wear this particular dress. I still have it. 

I think. 

I probably still have it. 

Ok. 

Hubs will tell you (no, I will!) that I have been known to change clothes four or five times before leaving the house. I have ballet clothes, dance clothes (very important distinction), boring teacher clothes, slightly eccentric teacher clothes, COMPLETELY eccentric teacher clothes and clothes I should never wear teaching. The only reason I can always wear (and that's CAN, not DO) vaguely relevant/complementary outfits is by having vast amounts of clothing at my disposal. Savers and I have happy, happy times. 

 I completely understand wearing a skirt that feels like heaven with a tee that's not only new and a birthday present, but ineffably COOL. I wish I'd brought you fairy wings. 

Oh, You're talking to someone who wears legwarmers with ballroom shoes and a full skirt (and gets told... can you hear it? "Hey, hey, wait! (thinking: No-one's ever said THIS before): "Oh, that is SO out of Fame.") and then laughs. And stamps on people's feet. 

Am I allowed to snigger at someone who says "Hey, you're heavier than you look"? I feel that's a LITTLE rude. I'm going to wear fat pants dancing tonight. MC Hammer-style pants. Bite me!