Coming back up the rue de Seine from buying a baguette the other day, Diana and I passed by a truly unique old lady that I struggle to find words to describe. She was quite old, in at least her 80s I believe. What made her so striking was that she was absolutely decked out in the most over-done style I have ever seen. Her skirt suit was made out of something that probably should have been curtains, brightly and intricately patterned with little flowers. Chunky ruffles protruded prominently from her shoulders. Her tall hat matched. Make-up had been caked onto her face so heavily that the eyes that looked out from behind her large, red-rimmed glasses hardly looked real. She hobbled along stiffly in her high heels.
Some things are hard not to stare at.
A man in a suit rides his motorbike through the intersection of blvd Saint Germain des Pres and rue de Seine. Coming up behind him is another motorbike driven by a young boy, an older woman (his mother?) straddled on the back of the seat behind him. Then comes another with a woman, dressed her best in a short black skirt and a undefinably fashionable top, her perfect, carefully groomed face shining from beneath her helmet. Then a little, old man hits the gas on his. They weave among the cars, as there are never any lane-lines, fighting through the mess of Paris traffic to see who can get down the street the fastest. The motorbikes always win.
There is an ice cream shop in the market that must be the best because it has the longest lines. Diana and I have been there three times now. They scoop two flavors of ice cream into your cone in such a way that it comes out looking like a flower. The artwork still provides fresh amazement every time. And there are many, many more combination of two flavors we have left to try before we grow bored of that ice cream shop.
People kiss in public in Paris. This is a well-known fact which people generally seem to find is one of the city’s endearing qualities. Sometimes people make out in public too, which is an extra-special treat. Tonight, we were fortunate enough to witness a very obese couple, seized with the sudden urge to make a public display of their affection, perform a magnificent kiss, complete with a large hand-stroke over voluptuous, mammoth-sized butt! It was the hand on the butt that did it. We totally lost whatever train of conversation we had going and laughed pretty much the rest of the way home once we were past them.
If I were making out in public, I don’t think I would give a damn whether people were looking or what they thought.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
silly americans!!
At a very nice and expensive restaurant, the first weekend we were here, Diana asked for the location of the “salle de bain” so she could wash her hands before eating. The waiter gave her the most priceless look, highly amused that one of his customers would specifically request a room with a bath. The proper word for bathroom in French is “toilette.”
The word for peach, pêche, is feminine in French. I didn’t really know this, but I wanted to verify with the man who sells the peaches at the stand in the market that the peaches I was buying were the white kind instead of the yellow kind. The word I used for white was “blancs,” and his correction came as a reflex: “blanches.” Sometimes you can’t bear to hear your language slaughtered and it’s worth correcting the offender.
Deciphering French signs and labels can sometimes be too overwhelming to do with 100% accuracy, as Diana learned tonight when she made pasta with a can of cocktail sauce instead of spaghetti sauce! Sometimes you’re too hungry to care and you eat it anyway.
Young girls as naive as me can be almost purposefully oblivious to the intentions of guys who are flirting with them. Today I was waiting for Diana outside of the supermarché, and I got to talking with a hobo-type of guy who appeared to be waiting too, but probably was sitting there just for the opportunity to hit on me. He asked me right off the bat if I was French, which I had to reply “no” to (somehow it’s still obvious that I’m a foreigner; I’ve been trying!) Dying for a conversation in French, though, I happily explained to him where Illinois is, using Chicago as my reference. Then I found out he was from Normandy, and before I knew it, I was held captive by a very long story about how the Vikings landed at in Normandy in the 10th century and settled there. I found this whole exchange completely, innocently delighting, though it did become difficult to find a breaking point once Diana had emerged (he adamantly ignored all hints that I was trying to leave). According to her recounting of the event later, he was very clearly hitting on me by the end, asking me my name and where I live (which I frankly don’t remember, I was so confused about what he was saying by then). She told me that as things dragged on, she and this other man who also happened to be standing around were watching the two of us. The two of them had an absolute riot exchanging meaningful glances as they burst their sides with barely contained laughter at how completely oblivious I was to what was going on. For me, I feel it was a matter of perspective. I had a cultural experience, thank you. But I’m happy to provide amusement to onlookers. To each their own.
On the bright side, neither of us has been run down by a car yet, thank God.
The word for peach, pêche, is feminine in French. I didn’t really know this, but I wanted to verify with the man who sells the peaches at the stand in the market that the peaches I was buying were the white kind instead of the yellow kind. The word I used for white was “blancs,” and his correction came as a reflex: “blanches.” Sometimes you can’t bear to hear your language slaughtered and it’s worth correcting the offender.
Deciphering French signs and labels can sometimes be too overwhelming to do with 100% accuracy, as Diana learned tonight when she made pasta with a can of cocktail sauce instead of spaghetti sauce! Sometimes you’re too hungry to care and you eat it anyway.
Young girls as naive as me can be almost purposefully oblivious to the intentions of guys who are flirting with them. Today I was waiting for Diana outside of the supermarché, and I got to talking with a hobo-type of guy who appeared to be waiting too, but probably was sitting there just for the opportunity to hit on me. He asked me right off the bat if I was French, which I had to reply “no” to (somehow it’s still obvious that I’m a foreigner; I’ve been trying!) Dying for a conversation in French, though, I happily explained to him where Illinois is, using Chicago as my reference. Then I found out he was from Normandy, and before I knew it, I was held captive by a very long story about how the Vikings landed at in Normandy in the 10th century and settled there. I found this whole exchange completely, innocently delighting, though it did become difficult to find a breaking point once Diana had emerged (he adamantly ignored all hints that I was trying to leave). According to her recounting of the event later, he was very clearly hitting on me by the end, asking me my name and where I live (which I frankly don’t remember, I was so confused about what he was saying by then). She told me that as things dragged on, she and this other man who also happened to be standing around were watching the two of us. The two of them had an absolute riot exchanging meaningful glances as they burst their sides with barely contained laughter at how completely oblivious I was to what was going on. For me, I feel it was a matter of perspective. I had a cultural experience, thank you. But I’m happy to provide amusement to onlookers. To each their own.
On the bright side, neither of us has been run down by a car yet, thank God.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
signs of life
As we revel in our Parisian vacation, there have been signs that life is going to eventually settle into a routine.
Yesterday was Sunday. Immediately upon dragging myself out of bed, I went to meet with the owner of my apartment. It was a short walk up the street to where my apartment is. I entered the building code he had given me and walked up three flights of stairs. A couple seconds after being ushered in through the front door, I did a double-take as I matched up in my head the apartment I saw before me with the pictures I had looked at so many times online. It’s really the same place. It’s really going to be mine soon.
I have to say, the meeting went really smoothly. I had him go over every single clause of the contract to make sure I understood everything. I told him the story of Colleen’s apartment getting pooped on, in order to make sure that if any such disasters happened to me, there would be something I could do to get out of it. We went over the whole inventory together. He’s truly taken the term “furnished apartment” to the extreme. He’s a very nice, genial guy, but I’m a little put-off because he really hasn’t done a great job of clearing out the apartment. He seems to think it’s perfect okay to leave all his stuff in the apartment. Having a bed and furniture is one thing. Having a completely set of kitchen items is a slightly weirder thing, though still pretty cool. But, correct me if I’m wrong, having to babysit six full shelves of his books, a whole rack of his CDs, a ton of hanging artwork and pictures, a third of a closet and a huge drawer of his junk is considerably less cool. Despite the morning’s successes, the experience was off-setting to me. For the first time, I was going out into the world on my own without even Diana. I realized that I really am about to live alone, in a little studio (no Colleen or anything). And on top of that, it seems nearly impossible to personalize that studio enough to make it feel like mine. I mean, listen to this. There is a little table in the corner by the fold-out bed that is covered with not only bottles of alcohol but also a hookah jar!!! I am unclear about whether the hookah thing is staying, but he said that the alcohol is. He’s like, “feel free to drink any of it,” as if he’s doing me some kind of favor! It has bothered me enough in the time since I left that I think I will talk to him about it when I see him next. I’m going to be like, “oh, so you don’t mind if I throw it all out, then, right?”
Sigh... Positive thoughts consist of a plan to put all his stuff away in what I have left of the closet, take down all the pictures and pile them in a corner, just to get it out of sight. Then I can do what I will with the visible space in the apartment. I’m hoping that will help. It will be a good project with which to fill up my time anyway.
The other sign that settled life is approaching is that we met with Isabelle that evening. Isabelle is our harp teacher. She had been insistent that we telephone her once we got to Paris, and then once we did she very kindly invited us to meet at her apartment. The ones of us who are here already are four Americans: me, Marta, Diana, and Tasha. There were going to be eight of us total in Isabelle’s Ecole Normale studio, but Tasha just found out that she is pregnant (over the summer, by her boyfriend of five years) and she’s going to have to go back home to L.A. It’s a shame, because she seems like she would have been cool to get to know, but it’s happy news.
Isabelle wanted to teach us all lessons early next week, because she’s going to be out of town for the first week of school and she needs to make up the lesson we’ll all miss at some point. But I haven’t touched a harp in so long, and neither has Diana, that we opted to have our make-up lesson during our fall break instead. That will give us time to get back into practicing. We won’t even receive our rental harps until October anyway, so we have to travel all the way out on the metro and reserve time at Camac in order to practice until then.
As an amusing side-note. I now have specific information about when our breaks are throughout the year. Marta was reading them off to us as we marked them down in our planners. It is remarkable how many breaks there are; you’re all going to be so jealous! We get two weeks off at a time, the first one at the end of October, barely after we’ve started, one at Christmas, one in February, and another in April, and then exams are at the beginning of June! It’s almost ridiculous, but I think it will be great. Maybe I’ll get to take some little trips to other European countries as vacations. I’ll let you know!
C’est tout!
Yesterday was Sunday. Immediately upon dragging myself out of bed, I went to meet with the owner of my apartment. It was a short walk up the street to where my apartment is. I entered the building code he had given me and walked up three flights of stairs. A couple seconds after being ushered in through the front door, I did a double-take as I matched up in my head the apartment I saw before me with the pictures I had looked at so many times online. It’s really the same place. It’s really going to be mine soon.
I have to say, the meeting went really smoothly. I had him go over every single clause of the contract to make sure I understood everything. I told him the story of Colleen’s apartment getting pooped on, in order to make sure that if any such disasters happened to me, there would be something I could do to get out of it. We went over the whole inventory together. He’s truly taken the term “furnished apartment” to the extreme. He’s a very nice, genial guy, but I’m a little put-off because he really hasn’t done a great job of clearing out the apartment. He seems to think it’s perfect okay to leave all his stuff in the apartment. Having a bed and furniture is one thing. Having a completely set of kitchen items is a slightly weirder thing, though still pretty cool. But, correct me if I’m wrong, having to babysit six full shelves of his books, a whole rack of his CDs, a ton of hanging artwork and pictures, a third of a closet and a huge drawer of his junk is considerably less cool. Despite the morning’s successes, the experience was off-setting to me. For the first time, I was going out into the world on my own without even Diana. I realized that I really am about to live alone, in a little studio (no Colleen or anything). And on top of that, it seems nearly impossible to personalize that studio enough to make it feel like mine. I mean, listen to this. There is a little table in the corner by the fold-out bed that is covered with not only bottles of alcohol but also a hookah jar!!! I am unclear about whether the hookah thing is staying, but he said that the alcohol is. He’s like, “feel free to drink any of it,” as if he’s doing me some kind of favor! It has bothered me enough in the time since I left that I think I will talk to him about it when I see him next. I’m going to be like, “oh, so you don’t mind if I throw it all out, then, right?”
Sigh... Positive thoughts consist of a plan to put all his stuff away in what I have left of the closet, take down all the pictures and pile them in a corner, just to get it out of sight. Then I can do what I will with the visible space in the apartment. I’m hoping that will help. It will be a good project with which to fill up my time anyway.
The other sign that settled life is approaching is that we met with Isabelle that evening. Isabelle is our harp teacher. She had been insistent that we telephone her once we got to Paris, and then once we did she very kindly invited us to meet at her apartment. The ones of us who are here already are four Americans: me, Marta, Diana, and Tasha. There were going to be eight of us total in Isabelle’s Ecole Normale studio, but Tasha just found out that she is pregnant (over the summer, by her boyfriend of five years) and she’s going to have to go back home to L.A. It’s a shame, because she seems like she would have been cool to get to know, but it’s happy news.
Isabelle wanted to teach us all lessons early next week, because she’s going to be out of town for the first week of school and she needs to make up the lesson we’ll all miss at some point. But I haven’t touched a harp in so long, and neither has Diana, that we opted to have our make-up lesson during our fall break instead. That will give us time to get back into practicing. We won’t even receive our rental harps until October anyway, so we have to travel all the way out on the metro and reserve time at Camac in order to practice until then.
As an amusing side-note. I now have specific information about when our breaks are throughout the year. Marta was reading them off to us as we marked them down in our planners. It is remarkable how many breaks there are; you’re all going to be so jealous! We get two weeks off at a time, the first one at the end of October, barely after we’ve started, one at Christmas, one in February, and another in April, and then exams are at the beginning of June! It’s almost ridiculous, but I think it will be great. Maybe I’ll get to take some little trips to other European countries as vacations. I’ll let you know!
C’est tout!
Friday, September 08, 2006
de Paris
Dear world,
I am here, in Paris, actually here, for real. I am typing to you from an adorable little apartment tucked away in the depths of an 1820s building on the Rue de Seine in the Latin quarter. My friend Diana and I are rooming together temporarily until we each get settled in our long-term apartments. Mine should be ready sometime next week.
Everything in Paris, no matter how small or out-of-the-way or insignificant, is made with the care of a sensitive artisan. Every little space is put to use. Everywhere you look is breath-taking, from realizing that our tiny little stall of a bathroom has cloth flowers sprouting from the corners, to turning a corner when we're out on a walk and coming suddenly face-to-face with a thousand-year-old monument. The way Diana puts it, we're living in a postcard.
I feel almost immediately comfortable in Paris. Anybody who has been here knows that it is a really unique city, as compared to other big cities. It's not dominated by skyscrapers, nor sectioned off into commercial versus residential areas. Paris is a city that has been gradually growing and building on itself for centuries longer than any in modern America. You can feel the history and tradition here. Everywhere you go, people are out on the streets, skillfully dodging each other as they walk wherever they can find a clear path, or lounging out at cafes. We hear French spoken around us all the time, but are still on the outside. Big cities are a little hard to break into at first. There can be a million people around, but yet you are not a part of it until you find a way in. It's not realistically an option to randomly meet someone on the street and become friends. For now, we settle with only practicing our French when it comes time to order a delicious meal or to understand how much money I'm supposed to pay for the little pink schedule book that I found at the stationery store. Take it up a notch, though, when it comes time to find a bank account for real today.
This is only my third day here, and we've already walked probably a hundred miles. Walking is the thing to do in Paris. For one, you can walk wherever you need to go--there's really no need for a car--and for two, it's fun and everybody does it. It's such good exercise, that once you get over how much your feet hurt, you realize that you can buy nutella crepes from the random stands along the sidewalk and not worry about gaining weight!
My most impressive walking experiences so far were the first day I got here. Dear Marta met me at the airport and helped me get all my baggage through the metro system, down to Diana's apartment. This took nearly two hours, and I have nearly my body-weight worth of baggage with me. Even split between the two of us, the load was nearly unbearable. Somehow, with mere grit and determination (and with the occasional assistance of strong men who decided to take pity on us) we made it. One would think that that would have earned me a rest, but Marta and Diana then decided it would be best for my jet lag if we then spent the whole evening walking too! So we went out for Chinese (absolutely gourmet) and then visited Marta in her apartment, met her boyfriend Damien, and then circled back around and saw Notre Dame two times on the way back because we couldn't quite figure out how to go the right direction to get home...
I don't know how much that all helped my jet lag, but it was fun. The next day I woke up at 3pm. But then last night I couldn't fall asleep at all and then woke up early this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. The muffled noises of the city filter through our windows. There's a dry-cleaners just below us, which has its own orchestra of unusual sounds, including a periodic bell, a squirting air machine, and the radio. Ahh, the cultural flavor :)
There's so much else to tell, but we have to go start our day now. Items on the list: find breakfast, go to the market, meet Marta in order to hunt down banks, call my apartment owner to schedule a rendez-vous, and call Isabelle, our teacher, to let her know we're actually here. Oh, and anything else that comes up along the way.
I'll be back!
I am here, in Paris, actually here, for real. I am typing to you from an adorable little apartment tucked away in the depths of an 1820s building on the Rue de Seine in the Latin quarter. My friend Diana and I are rooming together temporarily until we each get settled in our long-term apartments. Mine should be ready sometime next week.
Everything in Paris, no matter how small or out-of-the-way or insignificant, is made with the care of a sensitive artisan. Every little space is put to use. Everywhere you look is breath-taking, from realizing that our tiny little stall of a bathroom has cloth flowers sprouting from the corners, to turning a corner when we're out on a walk and coming suddenly face-to-face with a thousand-year-old monument. The way Diana puts it, we're living in a postcard.
I feel almost immediately comfortable in Paris. Anybody who has been here knows that it is a really unique city, as compared to other big cities. It's not dominated by skyscrapers, nor sectioned off into commercial versus residential areas. Paris is a city that has been gradually growing and building on itself for centuries longer than any in modern America. You can feel the history and tradition here. Everywhere you go, people are out on the streets, skillfully dodging each other as they walk wherever they can find a clear path, or lounging out at cafes. We hear French spoken around us all the time, but are still on the outside. Big cities are a little hard to break into at first. There can be a million people around, but yet you are not a part of it until you find a way in. It's not realistically an option to randomly meet someone on the street and become friends. For now, we settle with only practicing our French when it comes time to order a delicious meal or to understand how much money I'm supposed to pay for the little pink schedule book that I found at the stationery store. Take it up a notch, though, when it comes time to find a bank account for real today.
This is only my third day here, and we've already walked probably a hundred miles. Walking is the thing to do in Paris. For one, you can walk wherever you need to go--there's really no need for a car--and for two, it's fun and everybody does it. It's such good exercise, that once you get over how much your feet hurt, you realize that you can buy nutella crepes from the random stands along the sidewalk and not worry about gaining weight!
My most impressive walking experiences so far were the first day I got here. Dear Marta met me at the airport and helped me get all my baggage through the metro system, down to Diana's apartment. This took nearly two hours, and I have nearly my body-weight worth of baggage with me. Even split between the two of us, the load was nearly unbearable. Somehow, with mere grit and determination (and with the occasional assistance of strong men who decided to take pity on us) we made it. One would think that that would have earned me a rest, but Marta and Diana then decided it would be best for my jet lag if we then spent the whole evening walking too! So we went out for Chinese (absolutely gourmet) and then visited Marta in her apartment, met her boyfriend Damien, and then circled back around and saw Notre Dame two times on the way back because we couldn't quite figure out how to go the right direction to get home...
I don't know how much that all helped my jet lag, but it was fun. The next day I woke up at 3pm. But then last night I couldn't fall asleep at all and then woke up early this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. The muffled noises of the city filter through our windows. There's a dry-cleaners just below us, which has its own orchestra of unusual sounds, including a periodic bell, a squirting air machine, and the radio. Ahh, the cultural flavor :)
There's so much else to tell, but we have to go start our day now. Items on the list: find breakfast, go to the market, meet Marta in order to hunt down banks, call my apartment owner to schedule a rendez-vous, and call Isabelle, our teacher, to let her know we're actually here. Oh, and anything else that comes up along the way.
I'll be back!
Sunday, August 27, 2006
finding peace
"I have confidence in sunshine
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
and besides that you see
I have confidence in me!"
--Maria, Sound of Music
I was commenting on Courtney's blog when I got to thinking about some general concepts acting in my own life. As I have alluded to, I am leaving for France very soon. The countdown actually reads 10 days now! Over the past couple weeks, I have experienced bouts of anxiety at various levels. The anxiety can be rooted in whole conglomeration of things, ranging from not yet having an apartment or a bank account or insurance, etc. to fearing what will become of my relationships with people in the States once I have started my new life over there.
And really, I don't want to give the impression that I'm so worried that my worrying is a problem in and of itself. I'm not stuck in the grips of fear or depression or anything. It's really just a healthy level of worry that keeps me on my feet, because I truly believe that everything is going to be okay. Though I recognize what there is to be afriad of, I am confident. But I find myself intrigued by the issue of where confidence comes from.
Confidence is a word that has too many meanings to be helpful if you really want to understand how to achieve a state of confidence. The few that pertain to the meaning I'm discussing are:
1 a : a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances "had perfect confidence in her ability to succeed" "met the risk with brash confidence" b : faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way "have confidence in a leader"
2 : the quality or state of being certain : Certitude"they have every confidence of success"
The definition of confidence is all tied up with knowing things and then knowing that you know things. There are lots of things out there that you know (I know how to get from my house to my brother's dorm in Champaign. I know that I can't do a pull-up) and lots of things you don't (I don't know if there will be anyone who can speak English at the banks near my new apartment. I don't know how to get certified that I am in good health once I get to France so that I can get my carte de sejour). There are things you think you know but don't (I am pretty sure that if I sign that contract and pay all the money they're asking for there will be an apartment waiting for me where and when I expect it and that it will look the same as it does in the pictures) and even things you think you don't know but do (second-guessing your intuition). When you are operating in an area of things that you know that you know, you probably have lots of confidence. But there is confidence to be found in knowing that you don't have to know everything.
To find that, you have to think about your definitions of "to know" and "right" and "wrong." So much of what we know about the world is based on educated inferences based on what information we have. Even though I haven't seen the apartment that I'm going to with my own eyes and touched it with my own hands, I have enough evidence to lead me to believe that it exists. In terms of the type of knowing that predicts the future (knowing that a certain cause will lead to a certain effect) we really only have data points of experience to go off of. I know that when I smile at someone and ask them how their day was, they will feel happy and special. But especially when it comes to something as complicated as people, things could just as well come out differently than you expect, and you really never know. Knowing seems to be a degree of belief based on evidence and critical thinking. In this case, confidence is an assessment of how certain you are about something, and there will be a variety of factors that will determine how much of a margin of error you allow. How much evidence are you capable of collecting yourself? (I can really only find out information about what to expect in France from websites and e-mails and word-of-mouth at this point.) Is there more that you can research, more thought you can put in, or more experience that you can gain? How much does it matter that you are exactly right? (Do I really need to know exactly how it's going to work to open a bank account once I get there, or can I just play it by ear once I get there? If something unexpected happens, I know lots of ways of dealing with it. If the worst happens and everything crashes down around me and all falls through, I know I have a loving family, a college education, and a set of skills to fall back on.) I can still have confidence that things will work out and life will go on. To an extent, you have to be comfortable with the idea that knowing anything takes a certain amount of faith.
Furthermore, we only "know" things in terms of the categories we assign them to. (I know that's a chair and that that's the moon.) Categories are what human thought is made of--it's how our brain works--but it's not a completely accurate description of reality. When you get down to it, there are grey areas of almost every definition out there. It's hillarious to see how hotly people debate what is a "planet" while the chunks of rock and gas and other crap wandering around out there in the universe comprise a huge variety of descriptions without regard to what we happen to label them as. More seriously, we see in the abortion debate one of the grey areas of what can be put under the definition of "human life." Right and wrong, good and bad, are also just words. I don't mean to belittle the power and usefulness of words, but we must recognize at some point that they are human constructions. The world doesn't come with an inherent judgement on things, but just flows in an intensely complex and unpredictable set of millions of interactions among its millions of elements. It just is, whatever we say about it.
Thus, confidence, for me, is knowing and trusting that. What's so amazing is that even though the world doesn't have inherent judgement, it is so unfathomly complex that we within it
can experience it with judgement and emotion. What a vivid way to live!
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
and besides that you see
I have confidence in me!"
--Maria, Sound of Music
I was commenting on Courtney's blog when I got to thinking about some general concepts acting in my own life. As I have alluded to, I am leaving for France very soon. The countdown actually reads 10 days now! Over the past couple weeks, I have experienced bouts of anxiety at various levels. The anxiety can be rooted in whole conglomeration of things, ranging from not yet having an apartment or a bank account or insurance, etc. to fearing what will become of my relationships with people in the States once I have started my new life over there.
And really, I don't want to give the impression that I'm so worried that my worrying is a problem in and of itself. I'm not stuck in the grips of fear or depression or anything. It's really just a healthy level of worry that keeps me on my feet, because I truly believe that everything is going to be okay. Though I recognize what there is to be afriad of, I am confident. But I find myself intrigued by the issue of where confidence comes from.
Confidence is a word that has too many meanings to be helpful if you really want to understand how to achieve a state of confidence. The few that pertain to the meaning I'm discussing are:
1 a : a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances "had perfect confidence in her ability to succeed" "met the risk with brash confidence" b : faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way "have confidence in a leader"
2 : the quality or state of being certain : Certitude
The definition of confidence is all tied up with knowing things and then knowing that you know things. There are lots of things out there that you know (I know how to get from my house to my brother's dorm in Champaign. I know that I can't do a pull-up) and lots of things you don't (I don't know if there will be anyone who can speak English at the banks near my new apartment. I don't know how to get certified that I am in good health once I get to France so that I can get my carte de sejour). There are things you think you know but don't (I am pretty sure that if I sign that contract and pay all the money they're asking for there will be an apartment waiting for me where and when I expect it and that it will look the same as it does in the pictures) and even things you think you don't know but do (second-guessing your intuition). When you are operating in an area of things that you know that you know, you probably have lots of confidence. But there is confidence to be found in knowing that you don't have to know everything.
To find that, you have to think about your definitions of "to know" and "right" and "wrong." So much of what we know about the world is based on educated inferences based on what information we have. Even though I haven't seen the apartment that I'm going to with my own eyes and touched it with my own hands, I have enough evidence to lead me to believe that it exists. In terms of the type of knowing that predicts the future (knowing that a certain cause will lead to a certain effect) we really only have data points of experience to go off of. I know that when I smile at someone and ask them how their day was, they will feel happy and special. But especially when it comes to something as complicated as people, things could just as well come out differently than you expect, and you really never know. Knowing seems to be a degree of belief based on evidence and critical thinking. In this case, confidence is an assessment of how certain you are about something, and there will be a variety of factors that will determine how much of a margin of error you allow. How much evidence are you capable of collecting yourself? (I can really only find out information about what to expect in France from websites and e-mails and word-of-mouth at this point.) Is there more that you can research, more thought you can put in, or more experience that you can gain? How much does it matter that you are exactly right? (Do I really need to know exactly how it's going to work to open a bank account once I get there, or can I just play it by ear once I get there? If something unexpected happens, I know lots of ways of dealing with it. If the worst happens and everything crashes down around me and all falls through, I know I have a loving family, a college education, and a set of skills to fall back on.) I can still have confidence that things will work out and life will go on. To an extent, you have to be comfortable with the idea that knowing anything takes a certain amount of faith.
Furthermore, we only "know" things in terms of the categories we assign them to. (I know that's a chair and that that's the moon.) Categories are what human thought is made of--it's how our brain works--but it's not a completely accurate description of reality. When you get down to it, there are grey areas of almost every definition out there. It's hillarious to see how hotly people debate what is a "planet" while the chunks of rock and gas and other crap wandering around out there in the universe comprise a huge variety of descriptions without regard to what we happen to label them as. More seriously, we see in the abortion debate one of the grey areas of what can be put under the definition of "human life." Right and wrong, good and bad, are also just words. I don't mean to belittle the power and usefulness of words, but we must recognize at some point that they are human constructions. The world doesn't come with an inherent judgement on things, but just flows in an intensely complex and unpredictable set of millions of interactions among its millions of elements. It just is, whatever we say about it.
Thus, confidence, for me, is knowing and trusting that. What's so amazing is that even though the world doesn't have inherent judgement, it is so unfathomly complex that we within it
can experience it with judgement and emotion. What a vivid way to live!
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
off with the boy
This weekend we took Noah to college.
We drove him and all his stuff down to Champaign and dropped him off at ISR. I remember when I was starting out at the U of I, I had been carefully organizing and packing boxes for weeks. It wasn't just because I'm obsessive like that, but also because I couldn't wait to move out. Packing boxes made me feel like it was coming sooner than it actually was. Noah was much more laid-back about the whole process. The day before he left, he threw all his stuff into laundry baskets that Mom had given him. The morning of, we shoved it all in the suburban and left.
It took about 30 minutes to get him moved in and unpacked.
I guess he actually didn't have that much stuff. Also, they were super-duper organized about handling traffic on campus that day. Lincoln avenue was an absolute assembly-line machine! Then, when we pulled up to ISR, they had friendly sophomores in orange shirts ready with wheeled carts. They dragged all of Noah's stuff, in two loads, to his room.
His roommate is supposedly from Korea, but he didn't arrive all weekend, as far as I've heard. Thus, Noah got first dibs on the top bunk and the desk on the opposite wall. I climbed up to make the bed and jumped up and down trying to get the fitted sheet around the mattress while I was kneeling on it. I guess I also unpacked books onto a shelf. Mom folded clothes. There really wasn't much to do. Before long, Noah was like, "Okay guys, you can leave me alone now."
It just seemed like such an insignificant beginning to a very significant life transition. Noah's a freshman in college now! My little brother!! But you know what? He's ready. Even as of what I've seen of him this summer, he has matured so much. I give him my vote of confidence that he is ready to live on his own, go out and have his own experiences, act intelligently, think critically, and have fun.
We drove him and all his stuff down to Champaign and dropped him off at ISR. I remember when I was starting out at the U of I, I had been carefully organizing and packing boxes for weeks. It wasn't just because I'm obsessive like that, but also because I couldn't wait to move out. Packing boxes made me feel like it was coming sooner than it actually was. Noah was much more laid-back about the whole process. The day before he left, he threw all his stuff into laundry baskets that Mom had given him. The morning of, we shoved it all in the suburban and left.
It took about 30 minutes to get him moved in and unpacked.
I guess he actually didn't have that much stuff. Also, they were super-duper organized about handling traffic on campus that day. Lincoln avenue was an absolute assembly-line machine! Then, when we pulled up to ISR, they had friendly sophomores in orange shirts ready with wheeled carts. They dragged all of Noah's stuff, in two loads, to his room.
His roommate is supposedly from Korea, but he didn't arrive all weekend, as far as I've heard. Thus, Noah got first dibs on the top bunk and the desk on the opposite wall. I climbed up to make the bed and jumped up and down trying to get the fitted sheet around the mattress while I was kneeling on it. I guess I also unpacked books onto a shelf. Mom folded clothes. There really wasn't much to do. Before long, Noah was like, "Okay guys, you can leave me alone now."
It just seemed like such an insignificant beginning to a very significant life transition. Noah's a freshman in college now! My little brother!! But you know what? He's ready. Even as of what I've seen of him this summer, he has matured so much. I give him my vote of confidence that he is ready to live on his own, go out and have his own experiences, act intelligently, think critically, and have fun.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
progress
This post is at Courtney's request. She likes seeing pretty apartment pictures. All my previous lodging options have fallen through, so I am back to looking for new apartments. Here is the latest. This one is through an agency in New York City, and so far they have been miraculously prompt about communicating with me. I pray that this is the final one, but I honestly can't say yet:
Saint Germain des Pres
Saint Germain des Pres
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
insomnia
listening to: Moulin Rouge!!!
I've never fallen asleep well. Long past the witching hour, I am restlessly awake still, either working on something with unshakeable concentration or lying awake in bed with millions of thoughts rushing uncontrollably through my mind. I probably don't have to tell you about how completely different the world is at this hour. Most people have been up this late enough times to have experienced what it's like; you know what I mean when I say that in the middle of the night your mind works in a fundamentally different way than it does when the sun is up. I leave the description up to your imagination, largely because I just don't have the attention span right now to write coherent soliloquies about the ways in which your mind becomes focused and free, relaxed, creative, and reaches conclusions from a whole different perspective.
Sometimes I'm up late because I'm doing something that I don't want to stop. But I've also racked up so, so, so many hours of my life lying awake in bed wishing I could fall asleep. On these long nights I lie there, desperately tired, my body begging for rest, and my mind rebelling despite all the good sense in the world. It's uncomfortable. It can be boring. And it hurts the next morning.
But these past few days have been even weirder. Not only am I unable to fall asleep, but I'm not even remotely tired. Not physically tired, certainly not mentally tired. No, I'm actually energized like never before this whole summer. I'm completely hyperactive. In fact, I would ideally prefer, instead of sitting here quietly in my bedroom in my pajamas, to be dancing. I imagine myself at the Moulin Rouge, wrapped up in that magical world of ideal love, passionately ripping out my heart in a heated Spanish tango. I want to move with every fiber of my body, flying in spirals, releasing emotion carelessly as if it was escaping from my soul as bolts of electricity build up to too high a voltage, crying! screaming! ranting! singing!!! all in celebration of the intensity of the drama! Only when I'm totally spent and unable to breath anymore do I finally collapse.
It's 5am.
These magical hours won't linger much longer. In just two hours I have to be waking up to get ready for work, but this just doesn't matter to the forces keeping me awake right now. I'll wake up, and I'll be tired, but I can't escape tonight's buildup of life's intensities, nor would I really want to. After a summer of relative lethargy, my departure for Paris quickly approaches and my fingers begin to twitch at the computer keys and the phone dial, fighting to bring all the necessary details together. My excitement is charging, filling me with life. Earlier, at 3am, I could be found sitting on the edge of my chair, back rigid, bouncing slightly. I'm calling my apartment agency over and over again thinking that maybe this time I'll get something other than their answering machine (it's 10am over there! they should be in the office!!). I already left them a whole message in French last Friday, and I can't very well improvise a new one. I go devour a piece of bread. Dad is up too, and he tries to explain 9/11 conspiracy theories to me. What? My mind can't focus. It feels like he's talking at a snail's pace. Can't he see that I don't want to stand there listening right now?
This is not the first time I've been up this late within the past few days. The other day I couldn't fall asleep until 7am. It's coming. France is really, really coming, and I can feel the shock waves from here.
I've never fallen asleep well. Long past the witching hour, I am restlessly awake still, either working on something with unshakeable concentration or lying awake in bed with millions of thoughts rushing uncontrollably through my mind. I probably don't have to tell you about how completely different the world is at this hour. Most people have been up this late enough times to have experienced what it's like; you know what I mean when I say that in the middle of the night your mind works in a fundamentally different way than it does when the sun is up. I leave the description up to your imagination, largely because I just don't have the attention span right now to write coherent soliloquies about the ways in which your mind becomes focused and free, relaxed, creative, and reaches conclusions from a whole different perspective.
Sometimes I'm up late because I'm doing something that I don't want to stop. But I've also racked up so, so, so many hours of my life lying awake in bed wishing I could fall asleep. On these long nights I lie there, desperately tired, my body begging for rest, and my mind rebelling despite all the good sense in the world. It's uncomfortable. It can be boring. And it hurts the next morning.
But these past few days have been even weirder. Not only am I unable to fall asleep, but I'm not even remotely tired. Not physically tired, certainly not mentally tired. No, I'm actually energized like never before this whole summer. I'm completely hyperactive. In fact, I would ideally prefer, instead of sitting here quietly in my bedroom in my pajamas, to be dancing. I imagine myself at the Moulin Rouge, wrapped up in that magical world of ideal love, passionately ripping out my heart in a heated Spanish tango. I want to move with every fiber of my body, flying in spirals, releasing emotion carelessly as if it was escaping from my soul as bolts of electricity build up to too high a voltage, crying! screaming! ranting! singing!!! all in celebration of the intensity of the drama! Only when I'm totally spent and unable to breath anymore do I finally collapse.
It's 5am.
These magical hours won't linger much longer. In just two hours I have to be waking up to get ready for work, but this just doesn't matter to the forces keeping me awake right now. I'll wake up, and I'll be tired, but I can't escape tonight's buildup of life's intensities, nor would I really want to. After a summer of relative lethargy, my departure for Paris quickly approaches and my fingers begin to twitch at the computer keys and the phone dial, fighting to bring all the necessary details together. My excitement is charging, filling me with life. Earlier, at 3am, I could be found sitting on the edge of my chair, back rigid, bouncing slightly. I'm calling my apartment agency over and over again thinking that maybe this time I'll get something other than their answering machine (it's 10am over there! they should be in the office!!). I already left them a whole message in French last Friday, and I can't very well improvise a new one. I go devour a piece of bread. Dad is up too, and he tries to explain 9/11 conspiracy theories to me. What? My mind can't focus. It feels like he's talking at a snail's pace. Can't he see that I don't want to stand there listening right now?
This is not the first time I've been up this late within the past few days. The other day I couldn't fall asleep until 7am. It's coming. France is really, really coming, and I can feel the shock waves from here.
Monday, August 07, 2006
less than a month and counting
Oh, ouch. This is the painful part of the summer. This is the part where I realize that I'm perfectly happy right here where I am, and that leaving is going to take me away from everyone and everything that I know. Yeah, I knew that before, and I knew it would be hard, but I didn't really know. I hadn't been feeling then what I'm stuck feeling now.
So here's the problem.
My life in Illinois now is completely settled at this point. I'm living with my family, whom I love, and I'm surrounded by even more extended family, which is a wonderful environment to be in. We have a beautiful new house. Mom is making new family friends by the minute. Lots of my friends live near Chicago too, so there's usually an opportunity to see them somehow, which often can include bumming around in the city. I have a fun job working in my Grandpa's office as an office assistant for his medical practice. And life is slow-paced and relaxed.
When I go to France, I will be leading a completely different life. I will be immersed in a foreign culture, struggling to finish learning the language just so I can communicate with people. I will be studying with a brilliant, amazing, world-famous harpist whom I love as a teacher, and thus will be practicing and working as hard as I can for her. I will be living on my own, taking care of a studio apartment in the middle of a big city, constantly taking care of business and errands. And I will make a totally new set of friends.
And somehow, I have to continue to live and to love both these lives. But inevitably, I'm going to adjust to living in France and always be busy with whatever harp thing I'm doing, and breaks to come home will add up to only a few weeks a year. Inevitably, just for my own emotional sanity, I'm going to grow away from my life in Illinois. And every time I switch back and forth, it's going to be painful, just like it is now.
But here's why the benefits outweigh the losses: When in France, I'm actually going to be forging a life for myself, instead of complacently waiting around here. I'm going to learn so much that I can't even fathom it. I'm going to become fluent in French, fiercely independent and capable, amazing at harp, and cultured and worldly to boot. And when I put it like that, two lives sounds like a privilege. I recognize how lucky I am, and I am so thankful for that that I don't even know what to do with myself, but that doesn't completely dispell my instinctive, human fear of separation and of the unknown.
Time continues ticking on. I am now working on signing a contract for the apartment in the 5th arrondissement, rue Buffon.
So here's the problem.
My life in Illinois now is completely settled at this point. I'm living with my family, whom I love, and I'm surrounded by even more extended family, which is a wonderful environment to be in. We have a beautiful new house. Mom is making new family friends by the minute. Lots of my friends live near Chicago too, so there's usually an opportunity to see them somehow, which often can include bumming around in the city. I have a fun job working in my Grandpa's office as an office assistant for his medical practice. And life is slow-paced and relaxed.
When I go to France, I will be leading a completely different life. I will be immersed in a foreign culture, struggling to finish learning the language just so I can communicate with people. I will be studying with a brilliant, amazing, world-famous harpist whom I love as a teacher, and thus will be practicing and working as hard as I can for her. I will be living on my own, taking care of a studio apartment in the middle of a big city, constantly taking care of business and errands. And I will make a totally new set of friends.
And somehow, I have to continue to live and to love both these lives. But inevitably, I'm going to adjust to living in France and always be busy with whatever harp thing I'm doing, and breaks to come home will add up to only a few weeks a year. Inevitably, just for my own emotional sanity, I'm going to grow away from my life in Illinois. And every time I switch back and forth, it's going to be painful, just like it is now.
But here's why the benefits outweigh the losses: When in France, I'm actually going to be forging a life for myself, instead of complacently waiting around here. I'm going to learn so much that I can't even fathom it. I'm going to become fluent in French, fiercely independent and capable, amazing at harp, and cultured and worldly to boot. And when I put it like that, two lives sounds like a privilege. I recognize how lucky I am, and I am so thankful for that that I don't even know what to do with myself, but that doesn't completely dispell my instinctive, human fear of separation and of the unknown.
Time continues ticking on. I am now working on signing a contract for the apartment in the 5th arrondissement, rue Buffon.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
two new places
Here are the two new apartments that I'm considering. They are both further away from my school, but I have been advised by wonderful Ann Marie and Marta that living far away isn't so bad, that traveling between places is half of the experience, and that there are some nice neighborhoods to be found in areas more toward the center.
The first one that caught my attention was one right on the river in the Latin Quarter (5th):
Rue Buffon
Map of the area
Marta says that this one is a 10-min walk away from where her apartment is and that it's a nice area where normal people live, not overly full of tourists. She was pretty excited about this one. However, the inside of the apartment, though it has character, does not impress me in terms of its layout. Plus, it's too hard to get an idea of the floor-plan from the pictures.
This is the one I just found which is currently my favorite one so far, in the 10th:
Rue du Faubourg du Temple
Map of the area
Talk about character!! Plus, I really like how much storage space this one has! Yeah, there would be one flight of stairs for the harp--that's a down-side--but I've done that before, right Colleen? I don't know much about the area, though it seems to be pretty non-descript, seeing as no one has said anything about it in the course of all my Paris research.
Now if they would just response to my request forms!
The first one that caught my attention was one right on the river in the Latin Quarter (5th):
Rue Buffon
Map of the area
Marta says that this one is a 10-min walk away from where her apartment is and that it's a nice area where normal people live, not overly full of tourists. She was pretty excited about this one. However, the inside of the apartment, though it has character, does not impress me in terms of its layout. Plus, it's too hard to get an idea of the floor-plan from the pictures.
This is the one I just found which is currently my favorite one so far, in the 10th:
Rue du Faubourg du Temple
Map of the area
Talk about character!! Plus, I really like how much storage space this one has! Yeah, there would be one flight of stairs for the harp--that's a down-side--but I've done that before, right Colleen? I don't know much about the area, though it seems to be pretty non-descript, seeing as no one has said anything about it in the course of all my Paris research.
Now if they would just response to my request forms!
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
17th, Malesherbes, 6th, 1st, M3, Place de Clichy, M12, Pont Cardinet??, 5th floor no elevator, rue Paul Feval, 14th, etc....
After the excitement of the family reunion this weekend, after recovering from the muscle-soreness of my water-skiing attempt, after saying goodbye to all my dear cousins for another year at least, it's time to get back to work. This week is apartment week.
I didn't get the apartment I wanted, the apartment right next to Diana that would have been so easy because it was right across from our school. Thus, I am now left dangling in the abyss of uncertainty as I frantically comb through the world-wide-web trying to find an alternative option. It's a balancing act, weighing the scales of price against size and location. The harp is another complicating issue, because I have to make sure that if I'm not on the ground floor there is an elevator and that it's big enough to fit a harp (most of the time its impossible to tell). The apartment I like the best is not in the best location, and the best apartment I can find for a reasonable price near the school is really, really small! How important is location? How much am I going to care about the size of the apartment? Can it be so small that I get depressed about living there or would I get used to it?
For your viewing pleasures and my personal organization of thoughts, I will compile a list of places that I am considering as of this particular hour.
Here's the one I like the best on the inside:
Paul Feval
Here's the one that would be really close, but almost suffocating (check out the bathroom!):
Deodat de Severac
Here's a medium-sized one a medium-annoying distance away with medium-appeal:
Boetie
And yes, I'm looking at other websites, but nothing has topped any of these yet.
Help!
I didn't get the apartment I wanted, the apartment right next to Diana that would have been so easy because it was right across from our school. Thus, I am now left dangling in the abyss of uncertainty as I frantically comb through the world-wide-web trying to find an alternative option. It's a balancing act, weighing the scales of price against size and location. The harp is another complicating issue, because I have to make sure that if I'm not on the ground floor there is an elevator and that it's big enough to fit a harp (most of the time its impossible to tell). The apartment I like the best is not in the best location, and the best apartment I can find for a reasonable price near the school is really, really small! How important is location? How much am I going to care about the size of the apartment? Can it be so small that I get depressed about living there or would I get used to it?
For your viewing pleasures and my personal organization of thoughts, I will compile a list of places that I am considering as of this particular hour.
Here's the one I like the best on the inside:
Paul Feval
Here's the one that would be really close, but almost suffocating (check out the bathroom!):
Deodat de Severac
Here's a medium-sized one a medium-annoying distance away with medium-appeal:
Boetie
And yes, I'm looking at other websites, but nothing has topped any of these yet.
Help!
Friday, July 28, 2006
antioch, il
They managed to drag me away from my harp for long enough to go to the family reunion for my Dad's side of the family. (You start worrying about your psychology when you freak out with excitement upon receiving your order of strings and new *exercise books* in the mail.) So, this weekend we're all up in Antioch, IL, which is a small town on the Wisconsin border. Antioch has that Great-Lakes-area no-worries feel to it. Relaxed. A little run-down. Nice to be out-doors.
This morning we made our way out of the house leisurely. Mom had me and Noah bring in the new rug that she brought home to try out in the living room. That is one really heavy roll of carpet! We moved all the furniture out of the way and then moved it back on top of the rug. It's a nice piece: black and gold, with geometric maze patterns in a grid. I bet we'll end up buying it. Little cousin Xander passed his approval by bouncing all over it and following the maze patterns with his finger.
My grandma, Aunt Audrey, and 5-year-old cousin Xander have been visiting us this week. They have been good house guests. I gave up my room so it could be a guest room, and I've been sleeping on the living-room floor, but that's been okay actually. Xander is really cute, and the most precocious small child I've visited this summer. He talks a mile a minute, but always with fully-formed, well-pronounced sentences, and he's been brought up to be very well-behaved. We took him for a hike on the bike trail and then into the woods the other night. I thought we would wear him out quickly, because he's so small, but he ended up all-out running full speed for an hour and half until it was dark and we were all muddy.
Anyway, after the rug, we all piled into two cars to drive to the family reunion. Noah drove the Saab, I rode with him in the front, and Aunt Audrey and Xander rode in the back so she could give him cereal and picture books if he got restless. He was amazingly quiet on the ride there. The rest of us got into a lively discussion about economics and ended up on the topic of Medieval-period power structures and the heirarchy of lords and vassals and kings, which was great because Aunt Audrey happens to be something of an expert on Medieval and Renaissance history. I learned a lot in just that hour that we had to talk in the car.
In the other car, Dad drove, April listened to music, Mom slept, and Grandma talked about various gossip items and bits of news. Our car was undoubtedly cooler.
Now we're here, and we had a high-energy evening with favorite cousins Brad and Scott, playing games of corn-hole, jumping on the trampoline, eating at Culvers, and being eaten by mosquitos. Favorite cousin Julie, we miss you!!!!
In other news, I bought a one-way ticket to Paris yesterday. My departure date is September 5th. :)
This morning we made our way out of the house leisurely. Mom had me and Noah bring in the new rug that she brought home to try out in the living room. That is one really heavy roll of carpet! We moved all the furniture out of the way and then moved it back on top of the rug. It's a nice piece: black and gold, with geometric maze patterns in a grid. I bet we'll end up buying it. Little cousin Xander passed his approval by bouncing all over it and following the maze patterns with his finger.
My grandma, Aunt Audrey, and 5-year-old cousin Xander have been visiting us this week. They have been good house guests. I gave up my room so it could be a guest room, and I've been sleeping on the living-room floor, but that's been okay actually. Xander is really cute, and the most precocious small child I've visited this summer. He talks a mile a minute, but always with fully-formed, well-pronounced sentences, and he's been brought up to be very well-behaved. We took him for a hike on the bike trail and then into the woods the other night. I thought we would wear him out quickly, because he's so small, but he ended up all-out running full speed for an hour and half until it was dark and we were all muddy.
Anyway, after the rug, we all piled into two cars to drive to the family reunion. Noah drove the Saab, I rode with him in the front, and Aunt Audrey and Xander rode in the back so she could give him cereal and picture books if he got restless. He was amazingly quiet on the ride there. The rest of us got into a lively discussion about economics and ended up on the topic of Medieval-period power structures and the heirarchy of lords and vassals and kings, which was great because Aunt Audrey happens to be something of an expert on Medieval and Renaissance history. I learned a lot in just that hour that we had to talk in the car.
In the other car, Dad drove, April listened to music, Mom slept, and Grandma talked about various gossip items and bits of news. Our car was undoubtedly cooler.
Now we're here, and we had a high-energy evening with favorite cousins Brad and Scott, playing games of corn-hole, jumping on the trampoline, eating at Culvers, and being eaten by mosquitos. Favorite cousin Julie, we miss you!!!!
In other news, I bought a one-way ticket to Paris yesterday. My departure date is September 5th. :)
Saturday, July 22, 2006
j'ai oublié tout
If I do 11 pages, or about one chapter, of exercises a day from this book we have of French grammar review and practice, then I will get through the book in about a month, which is about how much time I have before I leave. Maybe then I will at least gain back whatever I had before and not make a fool of myself when I get there and try to start functioning in French, or at least not bomb the placement test at the Sorbonne. Keturah said I should watch French movies, and maybe I'll stop trying to drag myself through the translated version of Peter Pan and work on Le petit nicolas instead. Does anybody have any movie recommendations?? I'm serious about this now.
Friday, July 21, 2006
practice coach
Having my little 13-year-old cousin Linda here visiting this week has been a wonderful thing. She's such a charming little girl, so full of love and vitality that you wouldn't even think it possible. She talks a mile and minute, constantly wanting to know everything. And she's very generous, always willing to share, to spend quality time with you, to be interested in what matters to you. My aunt and uncle adopted her from Guatemala when she was four years old. Since then, she's had to overcome setbacks in her development, but she has such well-organized and realistic plans for how to achieve her dreams for the future that I am sure she will perservere and succeed on whatever she sets her mind to.
I've learned some surprising things from her during her time here.
The first day, having just gotten back from Michigan, I really wanted to spend time practicing my harp, especially to work on the new technique exercises I had been assigned. Linda so desperately wished to spend time with me, though, that when she proposed that she sit by me and listen I could hardly say no. The idea was for her to knit quietly while I practiced, but the poor thing could hardly contain all the words that come flowing through her mind, and there was much talking. Patiently, I decided I would direct her attentions more productively by having her "help" me practice. I told her, "For this exercise, I'm supposed to think about closing my thumbs without rolling my wrist over, but I also have to keep my elbow up, and I'm having trouble remembering to do both at once, so it would help if you would sit there and remind me to keep my elbow up."
To my surprise, she took to this task with all the concentration and dedication she had. She watched my elbow like a hawk, not letting it drop for a second. I decided that I might as well give her a couple other things to look out for about my technique, and on top of those, she thought of other things off the top of her head that I hadn't even told her. Before long, she was standing in front of me conducting along with the metronome, reminding me about my elbow, reminding me to relax, even coaxing me to smile (which I hadn't told her to do). Smiling is something that Ann has mentioned before, but not something that musicians generally think about a whole lot, but Linda was insistent that I look like I was enjoying every second of my playing or else people wouldn't want to watch me and I would just end up depressing them instead. This may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but I think she has a very valid point, and smiling helps you relax anyway! She would routinely make me put down the harp and come over and give me a massage or make me stand up and stretch--all of which is very good for you, none of which I told her to do, and all of which is stuff that I forget to think about when I'm focused on drilling something. Best of all, this correcting and coaching she did with nothing but love. It was not a gleeful exercise of the power I had given her to instruct me, but instead only positive reinforcement, and it made such a difference to my mind-set. I was really having fun.
It got so much better from there. When I moved on to practicing my piece--Danse des lutins--she hit the ground running, already on top of exactly how to go about practicing a piece. First, she reminded me to keep the big picture in mind. I was all set to focus in on drilling my left hand, but she had already figured out that music has character to it. Before I started, she had me play once through the section I was going to work on so that she would know what the character of it was. Then, as I practiced it, she would act out the parts of various little creatures running around and responding to the piece. Watching her act this out helped me to envision what my fingers themselves were acting out through the mischievous sixteenth notes of the piece. If I had to play a sF, she would jump in surprise. If I wasn't smiling enough for her, the creatures would get sad. Every so often, she would peek over my stand, her eyes twinkling, and remind me to relax. Instantly, my shoulders would let go. Then she would be right back to improvising, spinning tales, making up names for the creatures. In fact, she even named my metronome ("Mimi")! She dubbed me the "matriarch" (a word she recently learned in a book that we had been reading together) of all these creatures. They all looked up to me with love and admiration, and I had a great deal of power over their happiness and well-being. Sometimes they would creep right up to my ear and wisper how much I meant to them. My fingers danced lightly over the strings, and my imagination followed her right into the magical world she was creating. I used to have vivid imaginations like that all the time, and for a moment, some of that came back to me. What a gift!
It amazes me that a child with little musical experience, watching me practice in my living room, can automatically know so much about music. These are all things that I know, theoretically, are important--breathing, relaxing, smiling, taking breaks, taking time, telling a story with your music--but that are so easy to lose track of when concentrating on other things. Even if it felt like it was slowing me down to have to stop and do whatever breathing exercise she devised on the spot or if it felt like it was distracting me to have her acting out stories in front of me, it really wasn't at all. It may have actually been better for me than anything I could have done alone!
Thank you, Linda, for your fresh perspective, for your loving support, and your childlike creativity.
I've learned some surprising things from her during her time here.
The first day, having just gotten back from Michigan, I really wanted to spend time practicing my harp, especially to work on the new technique exercises I had been assigned. Linda so desperately wished to spend time with me, though, that when she proposed that she sit by me and listen I could hardly say no. The idea was for her to knit quietly while I practiced, but the poor thing could hardly contain all the words that come flowing through her mind, and there was much talking. Patiently, I decided I would direct her attentions more productively by having her "help" me practice. I told her, "For this exercise, I'm supposed to think about closing my thumbs without rolling my wrist over, but I also have to keep my elbow up, and I'm having trouble remembering to do both at once, so it would help if you would sit there and remind me to keep my elbow up."
To my surprise, she took to this task with all the concentration and dedication she had. She watched my elbow like a hawk, not letting it drop for a second. I decided that I might as well give her a couple other things to look out for about my technique, and on top of those, she thought of other things off the top of her head that I hadn't even told her. Before long, she was standing in front of me conducting along with the metronome, reminding me about my elbow, reminding me to relax, even coaxing me to smile (which I hadn't told her to do). Smiling is something that Ann has mentioned before, but not something that musicians generally think about a whole lot, but Linda was insistent that I look like I was enjoying every second of my playing or else people wouldn't want to watch me and I would just end up depressing them instead. This may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but I think she has a very valid point, and smiling helps you relax anyway! She would routinely make me put down the harp and come over and give me a massage or make me stand up and stretch--all of which is very good for you, none of which I told her to do, and all of which is stuff that I forget to think about when I'm focused on drilling something. Best of all, this correcting and coaching she did with nothing but love. It was not a gleeful exercise of the power I had given her to instruct me, but instead only positive reinforcement, and it made such a difference to my mind-set. I was really having fun.
It got so much better from there. When I moved on to practicing my piece--Danse des lutins--she hit the ground running, already on top of exactly how to go about practicing a piece. First, she reminded me to keep the big picture in mind. I was all set to focus in on drilling my left hand, but she had already figured out that music has character to it. Before I started, she had me play once through the section I was going to work on so that she would know what the character of it was. Then, as I practiced it, she would act out the parts of various little creatures running around and responding to the piece. Watching her act this out helped me to envision what my fingers themselves were acting out through the mischievous sixteenth notes of the piece. If I had to play a sF, she would jump in surprise. If I wasn't smiling enough for her, the creatures would get sad. Every so often, she would peek over my stand, her eyes twinkling, and remind me to relax. Instantly, my shoulders would let go. Then she would be right back to improvising, spinning tales, making up names for the creatures. In fact, she even named my metronome ("Mimi")! She dubbed me the "matriarch" (a word she recently learned in a book that we had been reading together) of all these creatures. They all looked up to me with love and admiration, and I had a great deal of power over their happiness and well-being. Sometimes they would creep right up to my ear and wisper how much I meant to them. My fingers danced lightly over the strings, and my imagination followed her right into the magical world she was creating. I used to have vivid imaginations like that all the time, and for a moment, some of that came back to me. What a gift!
It amazes me that a child with little musical experience, watching me practice in my living room, can automatically know so much about music. These are all things that I know, theoretically, are important--breathing, relaxing, smiling, taking breaks, taking time, telling a story with your music--but that are so easy to lose track of when concentrating on other things. Even if it felt like it was slowing me down to have to stop and do whatever breathing exercise she devised on the spot or if it felt like it was distracting me to have her acting out stories in front of me, it really wasn't at all. It may have actually been better for me than anything I could have done alone!
Thank you, Linda, for your fresh perspective, for your loving support, and your childlike creativity.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
traverse city and back
I'm sitting at work in my Grandpa's office at Delnor hospital in Geneva right now. If Karen were here, she could tell me how to do the mass of filing that's sitting all around me, but she's gone until 1:30, which is why I'm sitting here, babysitting the desk for her until she comes back. The phone's not ringing. All the payments are in order. The last patient is through. Nothing much is happening... but there's chocolate :)
This is pretty much the first thing I've done since driving back in late last night. When I drove into St. Charles, there was vicious lightening brightening the sky every half-second and by the time I pulled into my driveway it was raining hard. I sat in the car as my brother and my dad and then the rest of my family came out to greet me and try to get me out of the car. The thought of unloading the harp in the rain was depressing, and I didn't feel ready to be home yet. I'm high on the excitement of moving to France this fall. I rolled down my window a crack and told my brother, I don't want to come home!
But really, I do. It's nice here, and Linda is visiting. She's so charming. She's my little cousin, adopted from Guatemala some 10 years ago. She's about 13 now. This morning she woke up and had breakfast with me before I went to work. Last night she hung out in my room while I unpacked, exclaiming about how much she loves my room and how she would like to live there. She even has my stuffed animals named already.
Anyway, the main point is that I was just in Traverse City, Michigan for the last week. It is so beautiful up there. For anyone who hasn't been there before, find an excuse to go sometime. It is gorgeous. (I don't have photos because I'm a loser.)
Isabelle was teaching a harp workshop for the week, which was a great chance to get to start out studying with her before I go over to Paris in a couple months. I had four lessons while I was there and got to observe everybody else's lessons if I wanted to, which was almost just as valuable. I could go on and on about how much I love her teaching style and how nice she is as a person. Isabelle completely loses herself in her teaching, sitting right up next to you, singing solfege along with your playing, or acting or dancing along, beating on your leg for rhythm or grabbing your hand suddenly to make you dampen in a place you hadn't even realized the strings were still ringing. If you're doing something wrong, she'll demand to know why you thought it should be that way, correct you, and if you don't get it right when you try again, she'll stop you with a blunt "no" and wait patiently until you correct it. On the other hand, she puts no lid on her expressions of joy if you do get something right. In this way, making music becomes exciting and motivating.
In general, it feels good to be out of the unstable transition period between teachers. I'm finally under somebody's wing again. It was also really good to be around her to get to ask questions and hear advice about my move to France. In fact, I now know where I want to live. This is the apartment that the father of one of her students tracked down and recommended that I get:
http://www.paristay.com/paris-apartment-rental/55/Parc%20Monceau/75017/studio-rentals-in-paris-france.html
Isn't it pretty? Isn't it tiny? It's within a block of both the conservatory and the Sorbonne, where I am going to take a French class.
All the students in the class too were wonderfully nice people. We couldn't have had a more welcoming and pleasant group. One might laugh and say it was girly to the max, but sometimes I feel most comfortable with that. Everybody talked with sensitivity to other people's feelings, using please and thank you whenever they could, commenting on each other's oufits, always being positive and supportive about each other's playing. I guess I was more sensitive to that after having spent the weekend with Joe and Dan, where things often degrade into dirty, shocking kinds of humor. I can do that too, but the harp girls made everything feel clean and civilized by contrast. It was so fun! We worked hard--practicing hours and hours and then taking notes during our masterclasses--and goofed off hard too--driving around the bay, roasting hot dogs on the cook-out fire that we watched Marie burn all her homework on--and bonded so quickly--staying up till late talking to Syliva about her harp gigs all around the world, Ann Marie about her miraculous recovery from the car accident, Kathrine about all the advice I can think of for going in as a freshman to U of I...
I want to go back next year!!
This is pretty much the first thing I've done since driving back in late last night. When I drove into St. Charles, there was vicious lightening brightening the sky every half-second and by the time I pulled into my driveway it was raining hard. I sat in the car as my brother and my dad and then the rest of my family came out to greet me and try to get me out of the car. The thought of unloading the harp in the rain was depressing, and I didn't feel ready to be home yet. I'm high on the excitement of moving to France this fall. I rolled down my window a crack and told my brother, I don't want to come home!
But really, I do. It's nice here, and Linda is visiting. She's so charming. She's my little cousin, adopted from Guatemala some 10 years ago. She's about 13 now. This morning she woke up and had breakfast with me before I went to work. Last night she hung out in my room while I unpacked, exclaiming about how much she loves my room and how she would like to live there. She even has my stuffed animals named already.
Anyway, the main point is that I was just in Traverse City, Michigan for the last week. It is so beautiful up there. For anyone who hasn't been there before, find an excuse to go sometime. It is gorgeous. (I don't have photos because I'm a loser.)
Isabelle was teaching a harp workshop for the week, which was a great chance to get to start out studying with her before I go over to Paris in a couple months. I had four lessons while I was there and got to observe everybody else's lessons if I wanted to, which was almost just as valuable. I could go on and on about how much I love her teaching style and how nice she is as a person. Isabelle completely loses herself in her teaching, sitting right up next to you, singing solfege along with your playing, or acting or dancing along, beating on your leg for rhythm or grabbing your hand suddenly to make you dampen in a place you hadn't even realized the strings were still ringing. If you're doing something wrong, she'll demand to know why you thought it should be that way, correct you, and if you don't get it right when you try again, she'll stop you with a blunt "no" and wait patiently until you correct it. On the other hand, she puts no lid on her expressions of joy if you do get something right. In this way, making music becomes exciting and motivating.
In general, it feels good to be out of the unstable transition period between teachers. I'm finally under somebody's wing again. It was also really good to be around her to get to ask questions and hear advice about my move to France. In fact, I now know where I want to live. This is the apartment that the father of one of her students tracked down and recommended that I get:
http://www.paristay.com/paris-apartment-rental/55/Parc%20Monceau/75017/studio-rentals-in-paris-france.html
Isn't it pretty? Isn't it tiny? It's within a block of both the conservatory and the Sorbonne, where I am going to take a French class.
All the students in the class too were wonderfully nice people. We couldn't have had a more welcoming and pleasant group. One might laugh and say it was girly to the max, but sometimes I feel most comfortable with that. Everybody talked with sensitivity to other people's feelings, using please and thank you whenever they could, commenting on each other's oufits, always being positive and supportive about each other's playing. I guess I was more sensitive to that after having spent the weekend with Joe and Dan, where things often degrade into dirty, shocking kinds of humor.
I want to go back next year!!
Thursday, June 29, 2006
the jaxon 5
The boys have joined us!
Dad and Noah drove in from California this week. They left Sunday afternoon and got in at 3am Wednesday night.
Having them here in St. Charles makes the house noisier, as we all have to adjust our lifestyle slightly to accomodate the new dynamic and figure out how to move forward in harmony. Already, there have been bumpy spots but also bonding time. Noah and I talked for hours yesterday and set up our laptops with an impromptu wireless network and then bummed around on the internet together in my room until late.
I like having guys around. Life feels more balanced this way.
Dad and Noah drove in from California this week. They left Sunday afternoon and got in at 3am Wednesday night.
Having them here in St. Charles makes the house noisier, as we all have to adjust our lifestyle slightly to accomodate the new dynamic and figure out how to move forward in harmony. Already, there have been bumpy spots but also bonding time. Noah and I talked for hours yesterday and set up our laptops with an impromptu wireless network and then bummed around on the internet together in my room until late.
I like having guys around. Life feels more balanced this way.
Friday, June 23, 2006
stories
When you see a car driving down the road all alone in the pitch dark at 1:00am, you know it has a story. Normal people are normally safe in bed at that lonely hour, so anyone who is still out is probably there for an interesting reason. As I was driving down the road all alone in the pitch dark at 1:00am last night, I wasn't thinking in terms of stories until I realized how it must seem from the perspective of someone else. Yes, I had my own story.
After I got out of work that day, Anne and I had met up with Vince and Tim in Aurora and then taken the Metra into Chicago. We had an exciting day walking up and down through the city, getting passport photos taken on a whim when we saw a FedEx/Kinkos, shopping at Banana Republic, eating at Giordanos, and hailing cabs from the side of the street. We had no particular reason to be there except to just be there, and it was fun.
We got back to Aurora late and then spent our last few hours together hanging out in Tim's room. The three of them would soon be setting out for Chautauqua, NY, where they are spending the rest of the summer at a string music camp. But we tried to prolong our goodbyes by putting on a Family Guy episode and then falling asleep together in a pile on the couch. Thus, this was why I was stuck driving home in the middle of the night, but it was a very peaceful drive after a very satisfying day.
Goodbye! I will miss you!
After I got out of work that day, Anne and I had met up with Vince and Tim in Aurora and then taken the Metra into Chicago. We had an exciting day walking up and down through the city, getting passport photos taken on a whim when we saw a FedEx/Kinkos, shopping at Banana Republic, eating at Giordanos, and hailing cabs from the side of the street. We had no particular reason to be there except to just be there, and it was fun.
We got back to Aurora late and then spent our last few hours together hanging out in Tim's room. The three of them would soon be setting out for Chautauqua, NY, where they are spending the rest of the summer at a string music camp. But we tried to prolong our goodbyes by putting on a Family Guy episode and then falling asleep together in a pile on the couch. Thus, this was why I was stuck driving home in the middle of the night, but it was a very peaceful drive after a very satisfying day.
Goodbye! I will miss you!
Sunday, June 18, 2006
fitting in
I'm here in St. Charles. I moved here for the summer to stay with my family in their new house. There's something about knowing that you're going to be somewhere for an extended period of time that helps you settle in. When I know I'm going to be home only for three weeks, it's long enough that it's not just a break, but short enough that I can't really get settled. This summer has been good so far. I like it here. It's actually so beautiful up here that I get distracted while I'm driving. I wear sunglasses to keep from being blinded by the stunning sights of the open, rolling fields lined with trees, even if the sky is thick with clouds. Most of the time, though, it's sunny and in the 80s. I'm glad to be here. A lot of things are better, not just scenery. It's less stressful and more real. Less stressful, in terms of not having to always rush from class to rehearsal to class like a maniac. More real because now I get to think for myself and make my own decisions.
rain
This morning it is dark and cloudy--it hardly feels like morning.
Rain is pouring down. It's a drenching sort of rain. It's like the humidity decided to just go all out and let everything go at once. As I sit here by the window, I find myself holding back the urge to go out into it. I want to sit in the middle of the street, hugging my knees, and let the rain consume me. Little, inconsequential details hold me back: my clothes would get wet, my mom would look at me funny. Why do those things stop me?
Rain is pouring down. It's a drenching sort of rain. It's like the humidity decided to just go all out and let everything go at once. As I sit here by the window, I find myself holding back the urge to go out into it. I want to sit in the middle of the street, hugging my knees, and let the rain consume me. Little, inconsequential details hold me back: my clothes would get wet, my mom would look at me funny. Why do those things stop me?
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
last day of school
I just finished my last day of school, last day of senior year, last day of undergrad ever. It's such a monumental concept, and yet it was such an ordinary day. Either way, that was it.
The truth is that it doesn't really feel like an end. These things are not distinctly black and white. It's not like one day I'm in college and the next day I'm not. I've been gearing up for this all semester, and I still have a final to study for and all these commencement ceremonies and then moving out of the apartment. It'll be several weeks more before I leave Champaign-Urbana, and even so, I'll be back. In reality, life is more accurately respresented as a continual process of change. Where school really ends and summer really begins is pretty much a blur.
Still, they make a big ceremonial deal out of this time of life. What do they call these sorts of landmarks? "Coming-of-age" or something. I guess everybody needs their symbolism to feel like they are making some kind of progress through life.
I recently attended an awards reception for people who will be graduating with honors. They are going to engrave all of our names on a bronze tablet that hangs in the hallway of the main library. It means that our GPAs were in the top 3% of our graduating class, which I gather is determined by college. While standing there trying to balance glasses of lemonade and plates of appetizers, I couldn't help wondering what it is that all of us have in common to have gotten such consistently high grades, because I can guarantee you that it's not hard work and dedication or even intelligence. I mean, that's not to say that we aren't smart or don't work hard, because we do, but I'm sure we're not the hardest working or the smartest. The hardest working are the ones who get B's, because they care but they're not smart enough to get high grades without trying, so they develop a great work ethic. The smartest ones realize the truth that grades don't matter, so they refuse to let the grades run their lives. The bronze tablet winners are more likely just the most perfectionist, obedient, and obsessed. The speech the Chancelor made did not pick up on this, and was mainly trying to impress upon us, by evidence from past statistics, that we would be the ones to go out and change the world. It was meant to be inspirational, I guess, but it felt empty to me. I wonder what I would come up with to say at a graduation speech... Could I do a better job? I wonder if that Chancelor got good grades when he was in college. What do chancelors of universities do anyway?
Ahh, :), I'm so glad to be out.
The truth is that it doesn't really feel like an end. These things are not distinctly black and white. It's not like one day I'm in college and the next day I'm not. I've been gearing up for this all semester, and I still have a final to study for and all these commencement ceremonies and then moving out of the apartment. It'll be several weeks more before I leave Champaign-Urbana, and even so, I'll be back. In reality, life is more accurately respresented as a continual process of change. Where school really ends and summer really begins is pretty much a blur.
Still, they make a big ceremonial deal out of this time of life. What do they call these sorts of landmarks? "Coming-of-age" or something. I guess everybody needs their symbolism to feel like they are making some kind of progress through life.
I recently attended an awards reception for people who will be graduating with honors. They are going to engrave all of our names on a bronze tablet that hangs in the hallway of the main library. It means that our GPAs were in the top 3% of our graduating class, which I gather is determined by college. While standing there trying to balance glasses of lemonade and plates of appetizers, I couldn't help wondering what it is that all of us have in common to have gotten such consistently high grades, because I can guarantee you that it's not hard work and dedication or even intelligence. I mean, that's not to say that we aren't smart or don't work hard, because we do, but I'm sure we're not the hardest working or the smartest. The hardest working are the ones who get B's, because they care but they're not smart enough to get high grades without trying, so they develop a great work ethic. The smartest ones realize the truth that grades don't matter, so they refuse to let the grades run their lives. The bronze tablet winners are more likely just the most perfectionist, obedient, and obsessed. The speech the Chancelor made did not pick up on this, and was mainly trying to impress upon us, by evidence from past statistics, that we would be the ones to go out and change the world. It was meant to be inspirational, I guess, but it felt empty to me. I wonder what I would come up with to say at a graduation speech... Could I do a better job? I wonder if that Chancelor got good grades when he was in college. What do chancelors of universities do anyway?
Ahh,
Friday, April 28, 2006
biographies
I've had a surprising amount of fun writing these last two jazz history papers. The assignment is to write a 5-7 page biography about some important jazz musician. It's one of those things that I detest the thought of, but once I get started and actually sit down and do the work, I get really wrapped up in it. It turns out that there is a wealth of inspiration to be found in learning about the lives of past musicians. Because they are musicians, I find I can relate to them more than I had been expecting, since I am myself an up-and-coming musician, dealing with issues that musicians all have to face: how to balance your life; how to get jobs; how to have rewarding performing experiences without getting too stressed out; and ultimately, how to be a creator of music instead of just a copier.
Sonny Rollins was a jazz saxophonist from New York. What was cool about him was that he had to be in this particular zone whenever he performed, where he would let everything go and let the music speak through him. (To some extent, this is what every performer has to do.) If he didn't happen to have the right inspiration that day, the performace would be a dud, because he refused to play pre-prepared cliches. Always seeking new sources of inspiration and always striving to improve his already astounding technique, he took several sabbaticals from the jazz scene. The first time he withdrew for two years in order to practice and experiment without the pressures of performing every night. The second time he went to India and studied I guess Hinduism or Buddhism. He was a very neat guy. I loved reading the biography written about him by Eric Nisenson.
Arturo Sandoval is inspirational because of his bravery and devotion to what he believed was right. Not only was he an excellent trumpter player, but he was from Cuba, born in 1949, and lived under Castro and communist rule until 1990 when he finally managed to escape with his family while on a tour around Europe performing with Dizzy Gillespie. It's such an exciting story that they made a whole movie about it: For Love or Country. That's who I wrote about last night.
Both these guys are still alive and kicking.
It makes me curious as to what other wealth of biographical material there is out there. Maybe it would be worth exploring more this summer. It's sort of like getting to know a huge variety of people without necessarily meeting them, and it gives you ideas for what to do with your own life.
I admit there is something to be said for being forced to do things you didn't think you wanted to do. Still, freedom will be better.
Countdown to the end of institutionalized schooling... 1 week.
Sonny Rollins was a jazz saxophonist from New York. What was cool about him was that he had to be in this particular zone whenever he performed, where he would let everything go and let the music speak through him. (To some extent, this is what every performer has to do.) If he didn't happen to have the right inspiration that day, the performace would be a dud, because he refused to play pre-prepared cliches. Always seeking new sources of inspiration and always striving to improve his already astounding technique, he took several sabbaticals from the jazz scene. The first time he withdrew for two years in order to practice and experiment without the pressures of performing every night. The second time he went to India and studied I guess Hinduism or Buddhism. He was a very neat guy. I loved reading the biography written about him by Eric Nisenson.
Arturo Sandoval is inspirational because of his bravery and devotion to what he believed was right. Not only was he an excellent trumpter player, but he was from Cuba, born in 1949, and lived under Castro and communist rule until 1990 when he finally managed to escape with his family while on a tour around Europe performing with Dizzy Gillespie. It's such an exciting story that they made a whole movie about it: For Love or Country. That's who I wrote about last night.
Both these guys are still alive and kicking.
It makes me curious as to what other wealth of biographical material there is out there. Maybe it would be worth exploring more this summer. It's sort of like getting to know a huge variety of people without necessarily meeting them, and it gives you ideas for what to do with your own life.
I admit there is something to be said for being forced to do things you didn't think you wanted to do. Still, freedom will be better.
Countdown to the end of institutionalized schooling... 1 week.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
...hello ...again
It's hard to come back after being gone for so long. I don't really know how to start. What do you say to someone you've abandoned for two months and now want to get back together with? I did quite a bit of abandoning this semester, in the heat of the busyness. I abandoned the blogspot. I abandoned tae kwon do. I abandoned friends. In fact, the older I get, the more people and activities I abandon along the way, just because I can't do everything and keep up with everyone.
That sounds pessimistic, but really I was doing an amazing amount of stuff in the interrim. I suddenly buckled down and got more serious about music than ever. In short, I did a whole lot of practicing, recording, performing, traveling, and auditioning, driven by a record amount of consistent motivation and inspiration. Now that my senior recital is over, things are significantly calmer. I mean, I still am doing a concert with Kanye West on Monday, playing in Catherine Stark's recital, accompanying Anne for the entire Tzigane violin concerto (all on harp), playing Salome as a duet with Colleen, and learning the entire Bernstein Chichester Psalms for orch rep. I'm not sure why that necessarily feels calmer, but I guess it says something about how the rest of my semester has been.
In a matter of weeks, classes will be over and I will graduate from college. I'm starting to think about what moving out of this apartment and saying goodbye to everybody is going to entail. I've already been thinking about the future. My family is moving back to Illinois. This time they'll be living up north, in St. Charles. I'm going to live with them for the summer, help them move in, and decorate my new bedroom (finally I get to paint my walls!). After a good, long, break then I'm going to move to France. Yes, seriously, I'm going to be living in Paris, attending a conservatory where I'll be studying harp with Isabelle Perrin. I have all these plans for not only improving as a harpist, but learning French, learning how to better communicate in general, finally having some time to pursue my own education in history and reading and writing, practicing photography around Paris, and otherwise escaping the American school system.
However, it's not all about the future, because I've learned and changed so much this semester. I'm a completely different person, with a completely different outlook, than I was when I first started writing this blog over winter break. I guess that's actually part of the reason why I didn't write so much. Because I was trying out new ways of thinking about things, I needed to let things simmer in my mind without being forced to take on a form as concrete as a sentence or a paragraph. One of my goals for this summer is to learn how to communicate some of these things I've been thinking about. I need to capture them before their vividness fades.
Today, after waking up for an AHS chapter meeting, I cleaned my room, balanced my checkbook, tallied up everybody's grocery receipts, took care of all the forms for commencement, and then got completely engrossed in a huge project entirely unrelated to school which involved sorting through a lot of pictures. Speaking of things that aren't school-related, I've also recently been reading this great book called "A Short History of the World" by J. M. Roberts. It's an excellent overview of world history, done with intelligence and sensitivity. I'm going to do it right this time: beginning to end, filling in all the gaps in my knowledge. I'm supplementing by printing out maps of the areas that I'm reading about and looking up unfamiliar terms on wikipedia. Yeah, the jazz history paper will get done, but it'll have to be another cram job, just like the previous two, because it's not something I care enough about to want to spend more time on than I have to.
To conclude my day of freedom, I now go to bed at 3am, happily thwarting the necessity of going to bed at a reasonable time.
That sounds pessimistic, but really I was doing an amazing amount of stuff in the interrim. I suddenly buckled down and got more serious about music than ever. In short, I did a whole lot of practicing, recording, performing, traveling, and auditioning, driven by a record amount of consistent motivation and inspiration. Now that my senior recital is over, things are significantly calmer. I mean, I still am doing a concert with Kanye West on Monday, playing in Catherine Stark's recital, accompanying Anne for the entire Tzigane violin concerto (all on harp), playing Salome as a duet with Colleen, and learning the entire Bernstein Chichester Psalms for orch rep. I'm not sure why that necessarily feels calmer, but I guess it says something about how the rest of my semester has been.
In a matter of weeks, classes will be over and I will graduate from college. I'm starting to think about what moving out of this apartment and saying goodbye to everybody is going to entail. I've already been thinking about the future. My family is moving back to Illinois. This time they'll be living up north, in St. Charles. I'm going to live with them for the summer, help them move in, and decorate my new bedroom (finally I get to paint my walls!). After a good, long, break then I'm going to move to France. Yes, seriously, I'm going to be living in Paris, attending a conservatory where I'll be studying harp with Isabelle Perrin. I have all these plans for not only improving as a harpist, but learning French, learning how to better communicate in general, finally having some time to pursue my own education in history and reading and writing, practicing photography around Paris, and otherwise escaping the American school system.
However, it's not all about the future, because I've learned and changed so much this semester. I'm a completely different person, with a completely different outlook, than I was when I first started writing this blog over winter break. I guess that's actually part of the reason why I didn't write so much. Because I was trying out new ways of thinking about things, I needed to let things simmer in my mind without being forced to take on a form as concrete as a sentence or a paragraph. One of my goals for this summer is to learn how to communicate some of these things I've been thinking about. I need to capture them before their vividness fades.
Today, after waking up for an AHS chapter meeting, I cleaned my room, balanced my checkbook, tallied up everybody's grocery receipts, took care of all the forms for commencement, and then got completely engrossed in a huge project entirely unrelated to school which involved sorting through a lot of pictures. Speaking of things that aren't school-related, I've also recently been reading this great book called "A Short History of the World" by J. M. Roberts. It's an excellent overview of world history, done with intelligence and sensitivity. I'm going to do it right this time: beginning to end, filling in all the gaps in my knowledge. I'm supplementing by printing out maps of the areas that I'm reading about and looking up unfamiliar terms on wikipedia. Yeah, the jazz history paper will get done, but it'll have to be another cram job, just like the previous two, because it's not something I care enough about to want to spend more time on than I have to.
To conclude my day of freedom, I now go to bed at 3am, happily thwarting the necessity of going to bed at a reasonable time.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
one down...
I had my first grad school audition yesterday. This one was at Indiana University, in Bloomington. If that sounds random to you, it might help to be told that Indiana actually has one of the best harp programs in the country. This audition was an encouraging experience to kick the process off with, because it went really well.
The last time I was in Bloomington was the summer of 2004. I was there to play in a overwhelmingly huge international harp competition. The thing lasted two weeks, because there were four elimination rounds, with different repertoire played for each one. There were very high stakes; the winner was given a gold harp, lots of money, a recording contract, and a concert tour. I didn't even make it to the second round, but that was hands-down the most stressful harp experience I've ever had, in addition to being intensely long.
As a result,
1. I was very familiar with the area already and had almost no trouble at all finding my way around. I even was able to give other auditionees directions to where they needed to go--the music building, various restaurants, the drinking fountain, anything!
2. The audition couldn't even begin to scare me by comparison.
I warmed up on a nice L&H 23 in the practice room that my teacher had told me she used to practice in all the time when she went to school there. Then I sat outside the studio waiting for a while, because even though I was the second auditionee, they were already running late. I chatted with Adriana while I sat there. She warned me that I would have to sightread for the audition, and, worried that hearing that would throw me off, warned me not to get nervous about it. On the contrary, I flipped out with excitement! I was positively delighted that I'd get to sightread something. It was like finding out that I was going to get cherry pie for dessert after dinner!
When Ms. McDonald came out to get me, I was treated like an honored guest, with "Hello Elizabeth! Welcome back to Bloomington. It's wonderful to see you again!" Chatting about how Ann (my teacher) is doing followed that, along with promises to say hi to her from them. It was a really friendly atmosphere to be auditioning in. Ms. McDonald has such a kind and nurturing personality. She's heard me play plenty of times before and has always said nice things and been really supportive. The other person who was there was Elzbieta Szmyt, who I've also met before, and who even let me taste her beer when we were at a pub in Dublin last summer.
I wasn't "nervous" playing for them. I was on the spot, and my stomach was doing its whole churning thing that I don't really have control over, but I was not shaking or randomly freaking out or anything irrational like that. No, I wasn't nervous, but I was "on." I played like it mattered. Actually, I did have one memory slip in the deFalla Spanish Dance. I wish it hadn't happened, but it did, and I'm not letting it bother me too much. Oh well, now they've seen me recover from a memory slip and know that I can do it with some amount of poise. That's worthwhile to know, as an auditioner, isn't it?
We didn't have time to play through everything I had prepared, so Ms. McDonald kept stopping me in the middle of movements to have me go on and start the next one, but everytime she did she would make sure to say "good job" and make comments about how impressive my pieces were. I didn't really need all that, but it was nice I guess. The sightreading was a pretty little piece from a collection by Skaila Kanga (whom I've also met and worked with). I had fun with that. As anticipated, it was my favorite part of the audition.
I answered some interview questions about what my goals with harp are and why I chose to audition at Indiana. I want to get better at playing harp, of course. I want to go as far as I can go with it. I think, no, I KNOW Indiana would do that for me. Indiana would set me up doing international competitions all over the world. That's the place where skills are honed. I've seen it happen. So many great harpists go through that school and work with Ms. McDonald. But yet, I have my heart set on France right now. I felt bad about the idea of turning Indiana down at all, especially while sitting there in the studio, especially as Ms. McDonald was saying "I think you would fit in very well here, and I hope it works out," and asking me about scholarships. According to Kristie (my friend who is a student there now), this means that I got in.
The first time I was in Bloomington, I stayed with Kristie in a house with a bunch of extra rooms. We found our way around town to the Krogers and stocked up on groceries. We bought ice cream and rented movies together. I stayed with Kristie again this time, except now Bloomington is her home. I am so grateful for her hospitality and hope that I can show her the same when she comes to Illinois for the midwest composers' symposium at the end of the month.
Colleen was driving back from her audition in Cincinati at the same time I was driving back from Bloomington. We called each other on the phone at least four separate times to keep each other awake. Exhaustion characterized the rest of the day. One down, the rest of the semester to go.
The last time I was in Bloomington was the summer of 2004. I was there to play in a overwhelmingly huge international harp competition. The thing lasted two weeks, because there were four elimination rounds, with different repertoire played for each one. There were very high stakes; the winner was given a gold harp, lots of money, a recording contract, and a concert tour. I didn't even make it to the second round, but that was hands-down the most stressful harp experience I've ever had, in addition to being intensely long.
As a result,
1. I was very familiar with the area already and had almost no trouble at all finding my way around. I even was able to give other auditionees directions to where they needed to go--the music building, various restaurants, the drinking fountain, anything!
2. The audition couldn't even begin to scare me by comparison.
I warmed up on a nice L&H 23 in the practice room that my teacher had told me she used to practice in all the time when she went to school there. Then I sat outside the studio waiting for a while, because even though I was the second auditionee, they were already running late. I chatted with Adriana while I sat there. She warned me that I would have to sightread for the audition, and, worried that hearing that would throw me off, warned me not to get nervous about it. On the contrary, I flipped out with excitement! I was positively delighted that I'd get to sightread something. It was like finding out that I was going to get cherry pie for dessert after dinner!
When Ms. McDonald came out to get me, I was treated like an honored guest, with "Hello Elizabeth! Welcome back to Bloomington. It's wonderful to see you again!" Chatting about how Ann (my teacher) is doing followed that, along with promises to say hi to her from them. It was a really friendly atmosphere to be auditioning in. Ms. McDonald has such a kind and nurturing personality. She's heard me play plenty of times before and has always said nice things and been really supportive. The other person who was there was Elzbieta Szmyt, who I've also met before, and who even let me taste her beer when we were at a pub in Dublin last summer.
I wasn't "nervous" playing for them. I was on the spot, and my stomach was doing its whole churning thing that I don't really have control over, but I was not shaking or randomly freaking out or anything irrational like that. No, I wasn't nervous, but I was "on." I played like it mattered. Actually, I did have one memory slip in the deFalla Spanish Dance. I wish it hadn't happened, but it did, and I'm not letting it bother me too much. Oh well, now they've seen me recover from a memory slip and know that I can do it with some amount of poise. That's worthwhile to know, as an auditioner, isn't it?
We didn't have time to play through everything I had prepared, so Ms. McDonald kept stopping me in the middle of movements to have me go on and start the next one, but everytime she did she would make sure to say "good job" and make comments about how impressive my pieces were. I didn't really need all that, but it was nice I guess. The sightreading was a pretty little piece from a collection by Skaila Kanga (whom I've also met and worked with). I had fun with that. As anticipated, it was my favorite part of the audition.
I answered some interview questions about what my goals with harp are and why I chose to audition at Indiana. I want to get better at playing harp, of course. I want to go as far as I can go with it. I think, no, I KNOW Indiana would do that for me. Indiana would set me up doing international competitions all over the world. That's the place where skills are honed. I've seen it happen. So many great harpists go through that school and work with Ms. McDonald. But yet, I have my heart set on France right now. I felt bad about the idea of turning Indiana down at all, especially while sitting there in the studio, especially as Ms. McDonald was saying "I think you would fit in very well here, and I hope it works out," and asking me about scholarships. According to Kristie (my friend who is a student there now), this means that I got in.
The first time I was in Bloomington, I stayed with Kristie in a house with a bunch of extra rooms. We found our way around town to the Krogers and stocked up on groceries. We bought ice cream and rented movies together. I stayed with Kristie again this time, except now Bloomington is her home. I am so grateful for her hospitality and hope that I can show her the same when she comes to Illinois for the midwest composers' symposium at the end of the month.
Colleen was driving back from her audition in Cincinati at the same time I was driving back from Bloomington. We called each other on the phone at least four separate times to keep each other awake. Exhaustion characterized the rest of the day. One down, the rest of the semester to go.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
today i slowed down and took time to appreciate life
I woke up at 10:30. Practicing doesn't always need to be about how much time you put in or how thoroughly you nitpick the details. In fact, being too tied to that can leave you vulnerable to anxiety. Thus, I didn't set aside any time to practice before class. I slept. I let my body recover.
Shower and packing flew by more quickly than planned due to extra energy. I found myself with extra time, which I decided to use by replacing the regular bus ride to school with a walk and a photography session. The sun shone so brightly that it brought tears to my eyes, even protected behind sunglasses. It turned out that the coat and scarf made me too warm, and I undid the buttons.
I love how photography makes you more aware of your surroundings, not even just visually. I heard a swallow singing from a tree. I wouldn't have known that's what it was if I hadn't transcribed all those birds for Wes. I'm not sure I even would have heard it. Today I heard all its pitches and rhythms clearly, relieved that I didn't have to figure out how to notate them. I told Wes about that later.
Taking a picture of an apartment building on Lincoln, I bothered a man.
He asked, "Why are you taking pictures?"
I said, "Just for fun, because I like it." He was coming off so suspiciously that I added, "Do you have a problem with that?"
He said, "Well, I own this building, and so I want to know why you're taking pictures of it."
I walked away and left him alone.
I only made it to French five minutes late.
At my harp lesson today, Ann told me, as she had told Colleen, that we should both feel very good about our upcoming grad-school auditions. We need exactly that kind of encouragement right now, I believe. She even approved of my Peabody recording. I feel more on top of things now, having been given that vote of confidence from someone whose opinion I care about so much. Bring it on, world!
I set here now, at and study carrel, buried away on the second level of the music library,
watching the world grow dark outside the window to my left.
It's 6:00. I plan to be at school till late tonight to get homework done (this isn't really homework), practice, participate in a practice audition that Colleen is setting up, and hopefully then record.
I think I will need to eat the dinner I brought soon, because hunger is beginning to set in.
.
.
.
Hours later, I'm up too late writing. I didn't record, but I did go to an inspiring cello recital. I didn't go to Tae-Kwon Do practice, but I think I'll run at the rec center with Colleen tomorrow afternoon. I didn't go to bed at a reasonable time, but I did do my creative writing homework, write all over everyone' s blogs, and edit a few pictures from today.
It was a good day.
Shower and packing flew by more quickly than planned due to extra energy. I found myself with extra time, which I decided to use by replacing the regular bus ride to school with a walk and a photography session. The sun shone so brightly that it brought tears to my eyes, even protected behind sunglasses. It turned out that the coat and scarf made me too warm, and I undid the buttons.
I love how photography makes you more aware of your surroundings, not even just visually. I heard a swallow singing from a tree. I wouldn't have known that's what it was if I hadn't transcribed all those birds for Wes. I'm not sure I even would have heard it. Today I heard all its pitches and rhythms clearly, relieved that I didn't have to figure out how to notate them. I told Wes about that later.
Taking a picture of an apartment building on Lincoln, I bothered a man.
He asked, "Why are you taking pictures?"I said, "Just for fun, because I like it." He was coming off so suspiciously that I added, "Do you have a problem with that?"
He said, "Well, I own this building, and so I want to know why you're taking pictures of it."
I walked away and left him alone.
I only made it to French five minutes late.
At my harp lesson today, Ann told me, as she had told Colleen, that we should both feel very good about our upcoming grad-school auditions. We need exactly that kind of encouragement right now, I believe. She even approved of my Peabody recording. I feel more on top of things now, having been given that vote of confidence from someone whose opinion I care about so much. Bring it on, world!
I set here now, at and study carrel, buried away on the second level of the music library,
watching the world grow dark outside the window to my left.
It's 6:00. I plan to be at school till late tonight to get homework done (this isn't really homework), practice, participate in a practice audition that Colleen is setting up, and hopefully then record.I think I will need to eat the dinner I brought soon, because hunger is beginning to set in.
.
.
.
Hours later, I'm up too late writing. I didn't record, but I did go to an inspiring cello recital. I didn't go to Tae-Kwon Do practice, but I think I'll run at the rec center with Colleen tomorrow afternoon. I didn't go to bed at a reasonable time, but I did do my creative writing homework, write all over everyone' s blogs, and edit a few pictures from today.
It was a good day.
Monday, January 30, 2006
flight of the bumble bee
There was no beginning to this semester. We were just thrown right into the middle, from the very first day. From that day on, there has been so much to do that's it's just not physically possible to do it all. It's ridiculous. You almost have to laugh. Why do we have so much to do? Do we do it to ourselves on purpose? Is it a musician thing? Is it the fault of the teachers at the music school? Is it the only way to beat off the competition? Never mind. It doesn't matter why. That's not the point.
What's interesting to me right now is in how we deal with it.
I rush, rush, from thing to thing. Music building, quad, music building, smith, home, IMPE, back home, music bldg. Working. Practicing. Trying to keep things clean in my room and around the apartment. Trying to make sure I pack lunches and have food for dinner. But still receipts and bank-statements pile up on my desk and chamber assignments loom over my shoulder. Books I was meaning to read go unread. People I've been meaning to talk to go uncontacted. It's just not possible, but yet, I struggle constantly in the effort to keep up. It's silly exciting!
There's this tendency to think that staying out at the music building late at night will help get things done. The actual result is nothing like this. It is still impossible to get everything done, because that's just the way life is right now, but now on top of that you're losing sleep. Colleen suggested that we need to face the fact that we won't feel done at the end of the day and force ourselves to go to sleep anyway. This would be in the best interest of our health.
You see, there's this body to keep in mind too. Because it really isn't all just work, work, work. It's actually more like work, work, work, CRASHHH!!, work, work, work, worKCRASHHH!!, work... And by "crash" I mean things like 1) losing consciouness for three hours in the middle of the afternoon, which we call "taking a nap," but is really more of a overt rebellion of the body against the mind, or 2) having a temporary depressive episode, such as breaking down crying for no particular reason and needing some good friend to come along and pull you back up into the stream of productivity. Crashing is an interruption from working, and completely throws off your groove, but it's pretty much part of the cycle.
I realize that the amount of drive and planning that has to go into maintaining this level of business may make us seem up-tight from the outside. It is exhillerating, though, and this is what breeds opportunity, my friends.
Considering I didn't even have time to write this entry, I now must run off to the music building (of all places!) and try to get in some quality recording time for my Peabody audition CD. If I succeed, it will be the first day in over a week that I've been trying. Wish me luck!
What's interesting to me right now is in how we deal with it.
I rush, rush, from thing to thing. Music building, quad, music building, smith, home, IMPE, back home, music bldg. Working. Practicing. Trying to keep things clean in my room and around the apartment. Trying to make sure I pack lunches and have food for dinner. But still receipts and bank-statements pile up on my desk and chamber assignments loom over my shoulder. Books I was meaning to read go unread. People I've been meaning to talk to go uncontacted. It's just not possible, but yet, I struggle constantly in the effort to keep up. It's silly exciting!
There's this tendency to think that staying out at the music building late at night will help get things done. The actual result is nothing like this. It is still impossible to get everything done, because that's just the way life is right now, but now on top of that you're losing sleep. Colleen suggested that we need to face the fact that we won't feel done at the end of the day and force ourselves to go to sleep anyway. This would be in the best interest of our health.
You see, there's this body to keep in mind too. Because it really isn't all just work, work, work. It's actually more like work, work, work, CRASHHH!!, work, work, work, worKCRASHHH!!, work... And by "crash" I mean things like 1) losing consciouness for three hours in the middle of the afternoon, which we call "taking a nap," but is really more of a overt rebellion of the body against the mind, or 2) having a temporary depressive episode, such as breaking down crying for no particular reason and needing some good friend to come along and pull you back up into the stream of productivity. Crashing is an interruption from working, and completely throws off your groove, but it's pretty much part of the cycle.
I realize that the amount of drive and planning that has to go into maintaining this level of business may make us seem up-tight from the outside. It is exhillerating, though, and this is what breeds opportunity, my friends.
Considering I didn't even have time to write this entry, I now must run off to the music building (of all places!) and try to get in some quality recording time for my Peabody audition CD. If I succeed, it will be the first day in over a week that I've been trying. Wish me luck!
Thursday, January 26, 2006
my morning
In my creative writing class today, we did this in-class writing activity for which we were instructed to describe in detail what we had done that morning. It was to be a blow-by-blow account covering the period of the time from when we had woken up until we had made it to class (it was 9:30am). Fun assignment. Easy. Telling, too. It’s one thing to write what you did. It’s another thing to hear other people read what they wrote and to hear what they have to say about what you wrote. People have different perspectives.
The exercise was meant to show that the reader can come to know the character through observing details about what he/she does rather than needing explanations of the character’s psyche. It’s how we come to know people in our daily lives anyway. The weird part was that, after hearing my morning story, the other people in the class were able to make conclusions about my personality that I hadn’t even been directly meaning to convey.
“I set two alarms, one by my bed so I can snooze a few times in preparation for the idea of waking up, and one across the room that’s for real. Today I was up at 8:15.
I don’t like to take a shower first thing, or even change, because I’m always cold. First thing this morning I threw on a sweatshirt and ambled out to the kitchen to have cereal—müslix with yogurt.
My roommate was already up, heading out to the door. I talked with her a bit as I packed tuna fish for today’s lunch. She woke up this morning already so stressed out by school that she was breaking down. She wanted to know if I’d be back to the apartment during the day today so I could pick up mail from the office. She hadn’t been home during the day at all this week, poor thing. Today I won’t either.
That meant packing my backpack for the whole day: food, books for creative writing, notebook, French books to study at the café if I find time. Music books are already at school. And still I forgot to bring harp strings.
After getting dressed and bundling up in coat and scarf, I waited for the bus from inside the apartment. From there, because we’re so close to the street, you can see it coming and have time to get out there to catch it. I take the 13 Silver from Atrium apartments up on Lincoln to the transit plaza on Wright st. I have to leave 30 minutes early for class.”
It was a pretty true account of what sorts of things generally occupy my attention in the morning before leaving for class.
I got pegged as a “planner.” Hmm.
Hearing it put that way made me feel categorized. “Control freak.” “Obsessive compulsive.” Categories are generally useful ways to manage information in your mind, but you don’t usually categorize yourself. I’ve always just seen it as: planning things out in the morning helps me make better use of the limited amount of time that I have to work with in the day and to juggle all the things I have to accomplish. I am a planner, it’s true. Now I’m wondering if this need to have so much control over my life is a handicap. Maybe this creates undue stress when things slip out of my control. But isn’t that the case for everybody? Am I too rigid? Colleen once observed about me “You seem to want the image that comes with being someone who is wild and reckless without actually having to risk any of the consequences.” I’m a planner and I’m also very careful. Hmm…
The exercise was meant to show that the reader can come to know the character through observing details about what he/she does rather than needing explanations of the character’s psyche. It’s how we come to know people in our daily lives anyway. The weird part was that, after hearing my morning story, the other people in the class were able to make conclusions about my personality that I hadn’t even been directly meaning to convey.
“I set two alarms, one by my bed so I can snooze a few times in preparation for the idea of waking up, and one across the room that’s for real. Today I was up at 8:15.
I don’t like to take a shower first thing, or even change, because I’m always cold. First thing this morning I threw on a sweatshirt and ambled out to the kitchen to have cereal—müslix with yogurt.
My roommate was already up, heading out to the door. I talked with her a bit as I packed tuna fish for today’s lunch. She woke up this morning already so stressed out by school that she was breaking down. She wanted to know if I’d be back to the apartment during the day today so I could pick up mail from the office. She hadn’t been home during the day at all this week, poor thing. Today I won’t either.
That meant packing my backpack for the whole day: food, books for creative writing, notebook, French books to study at the café if I find time. Music books are already at school. And still I forgot to bring harp strings.
After getting dressed and bundling up in coat and scarf, I waited for the bus from inside the apartment. From there, because we’re so close to the street, you can see it coming and have time to get out there to catch it. I take the 13 Silver from Atrium apartments up on Lincoln to the transit plaza on Wright st. I have to leave 30 minutes early for class.”
It was a pretty true account of what sorts of things generally occupy my attention in the morning before leaving for class.
I got pegged as a “planner.” Hmm.
Hearing it put that way made me feel categorized. “Control freak.” “Obsessive compulsive.” Categories are generally useful ways to manage information in your mind, but you don’t usually categorize yourself. I’ve always just seen it as: planning things out in the morning helps me make better use of the limited amount of time that I have to work with in the day and to juggle all the things I have to accomplish. I am a planner, it’s true. Now I’m wondering if this need to have so much control over my life is a handicap. Maybe this creates undue stress when things slip out of my control. But isn’t that the case for everybody? Am I too rigid? Colleen once observed about me “You seem to want the image that comes with being someone who is wild and reckless without actually having to risk any of the consequences.” I’m a planner and I’m also very careful. Hmm…
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
good teachers
I have some thoughts about what makes a good teacher. I feel I have enough experience to have an opinion on this subject, now that I've had so many different teachers for so many different classes, all of them somewhere on the spectrum between astoundingly inspirational and just plain terrible. I've also done a bit of teaching myself.
To be a good teacher, it's nice to have thorough knowledge of the subject you are teaching and also a genuine love of that subject. It's best if you can be comfortable enough to let that love and excitement that you have show through, because it really helps. I had a conducting teacher once who taught our class three times a week at 8:00am. That's always a brutal hour for a class, but she was consistently very high-energy and enthousiastic, clearly very passionate about the subject. By the end of the semester, her energy had brought us to the point where we were conducting Faure's Requiem--one of the most rewarding musical experiences I've had. Admittedly, though, sometimes enthousiasm is not enough to cut it and can actually be annoying. And sometimes you can be a perfectly effective teacher with hardly any enthousiasm at all. I had this great French teacher once who seemed so blas
é about teaching our class that it was actually funny. Every so often, she would just roll her eyes and threaten, under her breath, to jump out the window so she wouldn't have to deal with us anymore. But she was from France, and French was in her blood and in her every word. That was intriguing, maybe enough to take the place of the need for overt enthousiasm.
All that is almost beside the point, though, when it comes to attitude. I think the most important thing for a good teacher to have is the right attitude toward the students. You have to believe that your students want to learn. Even if they actually don't want to learn, there is no other way to go about it. I hate those teachers that present this attitude of "Hey guys, I know none of you wants to be here. You're just in it for the grade. I'm on your side: I don't want to be here either." I don't find that endearing. I find it stupid. The other attitude I hate is "I know none of you wants to be here, so in order to get anything out of you, I have to threaten you, because if left to your own devices you will certainly slack off." You need to respect your students as people, good people, curious people.
College students are busy people. The life style we lead is one of having to balance all the different demands on our time coming from all our different classes and other obligations. There is always more to do than can realistically be done, assuming you want to do it all to the best of your ability. Thus, things have to be prioritized. In order for an assignment to reach the status of high priority, it should be challenging and inspiring. Somebody has to convince me that it is worthwhile, that it will be a benefit to my education. They have to convince me that they care that I do the assignment. When things don't get done, it's not necessarily because I'm slacking! I appreciate it when teachers set up an environment that inspires me to care about my assignments. Last semester, the homework for my French class was the same all the time: workbook pages that always followed the same format. Long lists of vocab that we couldn't hope to memorize. We never were tested on the vocab. I once got full-credit for a workbook assignment that I didn't even finish. I also got full credit for a composition that wasn't even on the right subject. Clearly nobody cared about those assignments or about really learning the material. I don't think I actually learned anything that semester. On the other hand, in my theory class last semester, I came to school one day, toward the very end of things, scared to death about a paper I had just started writing way too late. Sympathizing with me, my teacher offered to hold a class discussion about my paper topic and answer any questions I had until I had been assured that I was heading in the right direction and could continue confidently. For that and many, many other reasons, he was one of the best teachers I've ever had.
Challenge us. Make us answer questions in class at random. Make us speak up so often that it's no longer scary. Make us really think about the material. Encourage independent thinking and not just regurgitation of facts. Care about us. Respect us. Don't be threatening, just positive and encouraging, but demand a high level of achievement. Those are the good teachers.
To be a good teacher, it's nice to have thorough knowledge of the subject you are teaching and also a genuine love of that subject. It's best if you can be comfortable enough to let that love and excitement that you have show through, because it really helps. I had a conducting teacher once who taught our class three times a week at 8:00am. That's always a brutal hour for a class, but she was consistently very high-energy and enthousiastic, clearly very passionate about the subject. By the end of the semester, her energy had brought us to the point where we were conducting Faure's Requiem--one of the most rewarding musical experiences I've had. Admittedly, though, sometimes enthousiasm is not enough to cut it and can actually be annoying. And sometimes you can be a perfectly effective teacher with hardly any enthousiasm at all. I had this great French teacher once who seemed so blas
é about teaching our class that it was actually funny. Every so often, she would just roll her eyes and threaten, under her breath, to jump out the window so she wouldn't have to deal with us anymore. But she was from France, and French was in her blood and in her every word. That was intriguing, maybe enough to take the place of the need for overt enthousiasm.All that is almost beside the point, though, when it comes to attitude. I think the most important thing for a good teacher to have is the right attitude toward the students. You have to believe that your students want to learn. Even if they actually don't want to learn, there is no other way to go about it. I hate those teachers that present this attitude of "Hey guys, I know none of you wants to be here. You're just in it for the grade. I'm on your side: I don't want to be here either." I don't find that endearing. I find it stupid. The other attitude I hate is "I know none of you wants to be here, so in order to get anything out of you, I have to threaten you, because if left to your own devices you will certainly slack off." You need to respect your students as people, good people, curious people.
College students are busy people. The life style we lead is one of having to balance all the different demands on our time coming from all our different classes and other obligations. There is always more to do than can realistically be done, assuming you want to do it all to the best of your ability. Thus, things have to be prioritized. In order for an assignment to reach the status of high priority, it should be challenging and inspiring. Somebody has to convince me that it is worthwhile, that it will be a benefit to my education. They have to convince me that they care that I do the assignment. When things don't get done, it's not necessarily because I'm slacking! I appreciate it when teachers set up an environment that inspires me to care about my assignments. Last semester, the homework for my French class was the same all the time: workbook pages that always followed the same format. Long lists of vocab that we couldn't hope to memorize. We never were tested on the vocab. I once got full-credit for a workbook assignment that I didn't even finish. I also got full credit for a composition that wasn't even on the right subject. Clearly nobody cared about those assignments or about really learning the material. I don't think I actually learned anything that semester. On the other hand, in my theory class last semester, I came to school one day, toward the very end of things, scared to death about a paper I had just started writing way too late. Sympathizing with me, my teacher offered to hold a class discussion about my paper topic and answer any questions I had until I had been assured that I was heading in the right direction and could continue confidently. For that and many, many other reasons, he was one of the best teachers I've ever had.
Challenge us. Make us answer questions in class at random. Make us speak up so often that it's no longer scary. Make us really think about the material. Encourage independent thinking and not just regurgitation of facts. Care about us. Respect us. Don't be threatening, just positive and encouraging, but demand a high level of achievement. Those are the good teachers.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
comfort zone
Here is a lens to look through for a moment: life is a game of tug-of-war between stability and change.
On one side of the rope, there is your comfort zone, where things are familiar and predictable. It’s the realm where you have good friends and family whom you understand and who understand you. It’s where all your things are. It’s your daily schedule. It’s the food and the culture and the language you grew up with. It’s activities that you’ve done a million times before. It’s warm and cozy--a place to come home to. It’s where you can feel safe enough to let down your defenses and fall asleep at night.
Pulling on the other side is change--everything new and unfamiliar. It can be anything unexpected or anything you have no experience dealing with. A place you haven’t been to before. A way of thinking that’s foreign from your own. People you don’t know. New issues between old friends. Having to do something you have never done before. The loss of something you had come to take for granted. A new situation. This is the source of all stress and at the same time the stuff of life.
We tend to think of stress and change as a bad thing. Much of the time, at least on a short-term scale while it’s happening, it does feel bad. It’s not pleasant to be unsure, which is what facing change necessarily entails. You’re not sure if you’ll handle it right or if you’ll make a fool of yourself and screw things up. Or maybe it feels completely out of your control and you just brace yourself and wonder what kind of damage you will suffer by it. You want to just run back and hide in your comfort zone because it’s so safe there. But in the long-term, we learn and grow from the change. This is how we gain experience: by having experiences we haven’t had yet. This is how we develop skills: by facing tasks we haven’t mastered. This is how we learn: by contemplating things that are strange and different.
I guess there are different degrees of stress, because a certain level of it is usually welcomed. As living, breathing humans, we have an inate desire to seek out challenges. Why else do we move away from home and go to college? We want to explore and grow. Many times we literally invite the uncertainty into our lives, because it’s simply more exciting and interesting that way. People have varying preferences for how much they want to stress themselves out. Some are addicted to it... And though you do have some amount of control over how much change there is in your life, there will always be times when change and stress will sneak up on you whether you wanted it or not.
The mindset I want to impart here, to readers but also to myself, is that this is an integral part of life. Change rears its head and makes things all unstable temporarily, but it’s not like getting past it will solve everything, because there will routinely be some sort of newness or change popping up like that. You can’t escape it. You wouldn’t want to escape it. The second part of the mindset is that this change is ultimately good. Reason 1 why it’s good: you learn from it. Reason 2, and arguably the more satisfying reason: when you are jostled out of your comfort zone, you are suddenly handed the chance to look back and see in a whole new way how beautiful and sweet that comfort zone is to you. Suddenly everything is sizzling and alive. Taking things for granted is boring.
In that vein, I would like to offer up a heartfelt appreciation for everything and everyone that I realize has come to mean stability in my life. As a whole: the music school. To all my musician friends, colleagues, and especially roommates--I love you all! What a life we lead. Every moment of free time during the day is a moment that could/should be spent practicing. There’s always something to do. Always a glamorous and lofty goal in mind--a performance, an audition, a summer program touring around Europe. Always we strive to make our time more efficient, whether we always succeed at that or not. I love my harp. I love that after uncountable hours spent cradling it on my shoulder, practicing has passed out of that realm of a drudging sense of duty to a soothing sense of familiarity. It feels good. It’s something I’m in control of. I don’t mind being alone to practice--I thrive off of it. So, there’s that fiercesome sense of independence that we all have to have, and then the equally fierce sense of community. We toil away in our isolated practice rooms, then emerge to chat in the halls (more often than not, the person you pass on your way down the stairs is someone you at least recognize), and eventually come together for orchestra rehearsals to create music on a larger scale than any of us could hope to do alone. David, thanks for kick-starting the semester with a great conducting recital!
I also love my roommates for their kindness and thoughtfulness. I love their undying devotion to morals and their sensitivity. I love the work ethic that hangs thick in the air, always pushing to accomplish more and soak up more knowledge. I love their cooking and especially their baking. I love the sense of family in our apartment, which I think may be something relatively rare. I don’t want to take any of it for granted.
On one side of the rope, there is your comfort zone, where things are familiar and predictable. It’s the realm where you have good friends and family whom you understand and who understand you. It’s where all your things are. It’s your daily schedule. It’s the food and the culture and the language you grew up with. It’s activities that you’ve done a million times before. It’s warm and cozy--a place to come home to. It’s where you can feel safe enough to let down your defenses and fall asleep at night.
Pulling on the other side is change--everything new and unfamiliar. It can be anything unexpected or anything you have no experience dealing with. A place you haven’t been to before. A way of thinking that’s foreign from your own. People you don’t know. New issues between old friends. Having to do something you have never done before. The loss of something you had come to take for granted. A new situation. This is the source of all stress and at the same time the stuff of life.
We tend to think of stress and change as a bad thing. Much of the time, at least on a short-term scale while it’s happening, it does feel bad. It’s not pleasant to be unsure, which is what facing change necessarily entails. You’re not sure if you’ll handle it right or if you’ll make a fool of yourself and screw things up. Or maybe it feels completely out of your control and you just brace yourself and wonder what kind of damage you will suffer by it. You want to just run back and hide in your comfort zone because it’s so safe there. But in the long-term, we learn and grow from the change. This is how we gain experience: by having experiences we haven’t had yet. This is how we develop skills: by facing tasks we haven’t mastered. This is how we learn: by contemplating things that are strange and different.
I guess there are different degrees of stress, because a certain level of it is usually welcomed. As living, breathing humans, we have an inate desire to seek out challenges. Why else do we move away from home and go to college? We want to explore and grow. Many times we literally invite the uncertainty into our lives, because it’s simply more exciting and interesting that way. People have varying preferences for how much they want to stress themselves out. Some are addicted to it... And though you do have some amount of control over how much change there is in your life, there will always be times when change and stress will sneak up on you whether you wanted it or not.
The mindset I want to impart here, to readers but also to myself, is that this is an integral part of life. Change rears its head and makes things all unstable temporarily, but it’s not like getting past it will solve everything, because there will routinely be some sort of newness or change popping up like that. You can’t escape it. You wouldn’t want to escape it. The second part of the mindset is that this change is ultimately good. Reason 1 why it’s good: you learn from it. Reason 2, and arguably the more satisfying reason: when you are jostled out of your comfort zone, you are suddenly handed the chance to look back and see in a whole new way how beautiful and sweet that comfort zone is to you. Suddenly everything is sizzling and alive. Taking things for granted is boring.
In that vein, I would like to offer up a heartfelt appreciation for everything and everyone that I realize has come to mean stability in my life. As a whole: the music school. To all my musician friends, colleagues, and especially roommates--I love you all! What a life we lead. Every moment of free time during the day is a moment that could/should be spent practicing. There’s always something to do. Always a glamorous and lofty goal in mind--a performance, an audition, a summer program touring around Europe. Always we strive to make our time more efficient, whether we always succeed at that or not. I love my harp. I love that after uncountable hours spent cradling it on my shoulder, practicing has passed out of that realm of a drudging sense of duty to a soothing sense of familiarity. It feels good. It’s something I’m in control of. I don’t mind being alone to practice--I thrive off of it. So, there’s that fiercesome sense of independence that we all have to have, and then the equally fierce sense of community. We toil away in our isolated practice rooms, then emerge to chat in the halls (more often than not, the person you pass on your way down the stairs is someone you at least recognize), and eventually come together for orchestra rehearsals to create music on a larger scale than any of us could hope to do alone. David, thanks for kick-starting the semester with a great conducting recital!
I also love my roommates for their kindness and thoughtfulness. I love their undying devotion to morals and their sensitivity. I love the work ethic that hangs thick in the air, always pushing to accomplish more and soak up more knowledge. I love their cooking and especially their baking. I love the sense of family in our apartment, which I think may be something relatively rare. I don’t want to take any of it for granted.
Monday, January 16, 2006
quote of the day
"There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it."
- Dale Carnegie, author and educator (1888-1955)
- Dale Carnegie, author and educator (1888-1955)
Friday, January 13, 2006
over the rainbow
I'm back in Chambana!
Classes will start on Tuesday, after MLK day. I am content to let that day come when it does. I am neither frightened by it nor do I await it impatiently. I am perfectly happy where I am right now.
Life seems to be more a collection of stories now, like a collage, rather than an overarching idea.
First, there's my driver's licence. My precious driver's licence. My symbol of freedom. It has been with me through good times and bad, since that beautiful moment five years ago when they first printed it up and gave me free roam of the streets. Now it is expired, according to the date printed in tiny red letters at the top of the card. I would probably never have noticed if the airport ticket attendant in San Francisco had not drawn my attention to it. This is good, because now I know I need to go renew it. This is also bad, due largely to the fact that it was the airport attendant who discovered it. I suddenly was labeled as "not holding a valid ID," and was sent to the special line of security. This is such a high level of security that I had to go through a whole machine that puffed air at me. THEN they looked through my stuff and swabbed it all with little pieces of cloth. Now that's safety.
Then there are roommates, who both were there to pick me up at the airport! And what is the first thing I do upon returning? Go midnight-grocery-shopping at Meijer with my dear Colleen and Anne. We're all together, AND we have food for at least a week. What more could you ask for? I think it actually scared Colleen that I had my semester meal plans all written down in a list. I don't think she realized the extent of the planning I have done until she saw it. I actually know what dinners I'm going to make, every week, for the rest of the semester. My first one was a great success: Moroccan stuffed peppers and Baba Yaga Ganouj. (I'm not joking, even though I realize it sounds ridiculous. Everything I write is the truth.)
Next there's the hottub... ahhhhh.
Practicing too. Practicing in the music building. Taking the bus to get there. Leisurely waking up before taking the bus. Practicing feels really good right now. I had some technical break-throughs last semester, and now that they have had time to sink in over break I feel like I can conquer the world. Bring it on.
Friends. Reunited with Colleen, Anne, Joe, Dan, Keturah, Kyra, Vince, Jing-I... more to come. Elimidate is a terribly stupid show, but admittedly fun to laugh at. Arrested Development is just plain good. Lying around like slugs on the couches doing nothing but goofing off until 4am is something I missed. Talking about music, classes, musician gossip, summer festivals, sudoku, and who can make the longest list of "special friends," all hours of the day. Joe and his camera and his photo-editing software and pictures he took over break are all here in the same place! Anne viciously bakes sweets as if we had to go through some sort of quota of flour, butter, and sugar usage each day. As a result, we all get to eat homemade chocolate croissants and walnut brownies.
Nothing's very serious right now. I feel like I'm riding on a wave, easing back into my last semester of college. My last semester. Here we go....
Classes will start on Tuesday, after MLK day. I am content to let that day come when it does. I am neither frightened by it nor do I await it impatiently. I am perfectly happy where I am right now.
Life seems to be more a collection of stories now, like a collage, rather than an overarching idea.
First, there's my driver's licence. My precious driver's licence. My symbol of freedom. It has been with me through good times and bad, since that beautiful moment five years ago when they first printed it up and gave me free roam of the streets. Now it is expired, according to the date printed in tiny red letters at the top of the card. I would probably never have noticed if the airport ticket attendant in San Francisco had not drawn my attention to it. This is good, because now I know I need to go renew it. This is also bad, due largely to the fact that it was the airport attendant who discovered it. I suddenly was labeled as "not holding a valid ID," and was sent to the special line of security. This is such a high level of security that I had to go through a whole machine that puffed air at me. THEN they looked through my stuff and swabbed it all with little pieces of cloth. Now that's safety.
Then there are roommates, who both were there to pick me up at the airport! And what is the first thing I do upon returning? Go midnight-grocery-shopping at Meijer with my dear Colleen and Anne. We're all together, AND we have food for at least a week. What more could you ask for? I think it actually scared Colleen that I had my semester meal plans all written down in a list. I don't think she realized the extent of the planning I have done until she saw it. I actually know what dinners I'm going to make, every week, for the rest of the semester. My first one was a great success: Moroccan stuffed peppers and Baba Yaga Ganouj. (I'm not joking, even though I realize it sounds ridiculous. Everything I write is the truth.)
Next there's the hottub... ahhhhh.
Practicing too. Practicing in the music building. Taking the bus to get there. Leisurely waking up before taking the bus. Practicing feels really good right now. I had some technical break-throughs last semester, and now that they have had time to sink in over break I feel like I can conquer the world. Bring it on.
Friends. Reunited with Colleen, Anne, Joe, Dan, Keturah, Kyra, Vince, Jing-I... more to come. Elimidate is a terribly stupid show, but admittedly fun to laugh at. Arrested Development is just plain good. Lying around like slugs on the couches doing nothing but goofing off until 4am is something I missed. Talking about music, classes, musician gossip, summer festivals, sudoku, and who can make the longest list of "special friends," all hours of the day. Joe and his camera and his photo-editing software and pictures he took over break are all here in the same place! Anne viciously bakes sweets as if we had to go through some sort of quota of flour, butter, and sugar usage each day. As a result, we all get to eat homemade chocolate croissants and walnut brownies.
Nothing's very serious right now. I feel like I'm riding on a wave, easing back into my last semester of college. My last semester. Here we go....
Thursday, January 05, 2006
contented
Something clicked finally last night.
And finally, beginning at that point in time and not one moment earlier, I feel like I'm psychologically ready to do this last semester of school.
Things are right in the world again. The balance is back.
I can love openly, without feeling threatened or scornful. I guess I got scared that love may be a scarce commodity. I felt like I was groping in thin air, until I wasn't even sure what love was anymore.
I'm feeling more at peace with having two lives: one at school and one with my family. I can love both. Even though they are very different, they don't have to be in conflict. They are simply two dimensions of myself.
I am feeling more accepting of others, maybe because I'm finding new ways to understand them. I feel like I have a chance at handling future situations with a little more maturity.
I feel more at peace with the idea of taking classes. I remembered why it is I like to learn things and why I love the feeling of being productive. I'm really excited about this creative writing class I'm going to be taking, in particular. I've already started ordering my books and collecting notebooks and post-it notes and thinking about how I'm going to try to do my homework ahead of time--now that's the Beth we know.
But I don't think it's just a return to a previous state of being, though it does feel more familiar. It's one that's been wisened by experience.
Any chance that this healed and restored state will last?
I don't know. Things always seem to fall apart by the end of the semester. Maybe it's natural. I know there will always be more to grow. Muscles don't get stronger until you break them down so they can rebuild. Maybe hearts and minds don't either unless you shake them up.
And finally, beginning at that point in time and not one moment earlier, I feel like I'm psychologically ready to do this last semester of school.
Things are right in the world again. The balance is back.
I can love openly, without feeling threatened or scornful. I guess I got scared that love may be a scarce commodity. I felt like I was groping in thin air, until I wasn't even sure what love was anymore.
I'm feeling more at peace with having two lives: one at school and one with my family. I can love both. Even though they are very different, they don't have to be in conflict. They are simply two dimensions of myself.
I am feeling more accepting of others, maybe because I'm finding new ways to understand them. I feel like I have a chance at handling future situations with a little more maturity.
I feel more at peace with the idea of taking classes. I remembered why it is I like to learn things and why I love the feeling of being productive. I'm really excited about this creative writing class I'm going to be taking, in particular. I've already started ordering my books and collecting notebooks and post-it notes and thinking about how I'm going to try to do my homework ahead of time--now that's the Beth we know.
But I don't think it's just a return to a previous state of being, though it does feel more familiar. It's one that's been wisened by experience.
Any chance that this healed and restored state will last?
I don't know. Things always seem to fall apart by the end of the semester. Maybe it's natural. I know there will always be more to grow. Muscles don't get stronger until you break them down so they can rebuild. Maybe hearts and minds don't either unless you shake them up.
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