Getting Away (Thursday’s Journal)

All the work I did at ProMusica today was very tedious. I compiled five or so spreadsheets of contacts and finished Ashley's restaurant list. There were a little over 200 people on the final master spreadsheet. Yesterday, I had pasted all but one of the original spreadsheets into a new, complete one, so I got to find and delete duplicates today. Early on, I looked at the number at the bottom where the last name was. I think it was close to 280. I was kind of overwhelmed for a moment. It was going to be a lot to sort through. It was a lot to sort through.

Julia is taking next week off, so I will probably end up exploring what other people around here do some. Either that, or I'll waste a lot of time. Still, my evil plan—it's been approved actually—is to come to school on Wednesday to promote both ProMusica's next concert and the open SAB meeting on the 3^rd. I'm choosing Wednesday because it's town meeting, but I have some other reasons too. Perhaps most significant, because I won't be able to drive to school regardless and will have to get up early enough to catch a bus, I may as well do this the day I had to get up early anyway. Wednesday is also the only day I wouldn't go to band… and now I can. Plus, the choir accompanist-type-person (not sure exactly how to explain this) comes in M-W-F and his being there pretty much guarantees a real rehearsal.

As I ponder this I realize that even though, or rather because, my plan for Wednesday is a diabolical plot to further my own purposes—not that I won't further ProMusica's either—I find the whole thing kind of uncomfortable. There's a bittersweet feeling to walking into Linworth anymore, because I feel as if I should really be somewhere else. It's strange—I don't feel this way at Kilbourne so much. I guess it's because at Linworth, the people around me think I should be somewhere else. Not that I ever hear "what are you doing here?!" except when someone is pleased to see me, but in band, most people don't even realize I have any reason to be elsewhere. Well, I guess they do since I'm missing so often. I hear that the directors fairly regularly have "oh no, we can't rehearse this without the oboe part" moments. Still, that maintains the expectation that I should be around most of the time.

Then again, my attitude toward band has also changed. I don't think this was an abrupt occurrence that began at walkabout, but something that has been haunting me for a while. There's just a growing cynicism that is getting harder and harder to fight off. I guess what it comes down to is that I don't actually feel comfortable at WK either, but the pressure to be elsewhere is more subtle, and manifests itself obliquely. This is why I need to leave: I don't really belong here anymore. I can blend in just fine, but I don't quite fit. It's tempting, oh so tempting, to find ways to appear in familiar places, but the experience only seems positive on the surface. There's something not quite right just below.

Blogger Comment Problems

I've been having some problems with comments on blogger lately and today I even had issues on my own blog. :( If you can comment, please do. (I'd also love to know who is reading this. =D) If you've had problems in the past say so too, although I don't know what to do about it. Umm, so if you have suggestions for me, assuming you can comment at all, that'd be cool too.

As I Surrender Unto Sleep

Before I post up my Thursday journal or even start to contemplate writing about the two auditions I just finished today and yesterday, I would like to talk about sleep. Utne Reader did an article about sleep loss recently that I read in the hotel last night, and I realized that I have a fair bit to say on this topic. In fact, I've started to plan a whole cycle of blogs on the issue. So let's talk about sleep.

"The evening hangs beneath the moon/a silver thread on darkened dune…"/with crossing eyes and nodding head/I fear that sleep will take me soon.

What is it that makes modern American culture so badly disposed to rest? As a teen, I must speak specifically to and of teens, but Utne's article made me realize the problem is more widespread. We live in a mechanized world where everything can go and go and go nonstop, so guilt seizes us when we take a break or slip into daydream. We cheat ourselves of sleep, trying to get still more work done when our bodies scream at us to stop. Instead of listening, we fill ourselved with caffeine, take shots of ginseng, and eventually catch Z's at completely inappropriate times because at last we cannot stay awake any longer.

It's sad, I know people who boast of their sleep deprivation—I have been among them. Indeed, I find that one of the easiest ways to find common sympathy with someone I've never met is to comment on how tired I am. We can complain together for a considerable length of time and in fact may be able to think of little else. But students take on all kinds of activities, work jobs, and then try to do homework on top of it. Then there's that pesky part where we actually have to get to school. Generally accepted among high-caliber students is the simple fact that sleep is simply secondary to everything else we must do. Somewhere along the line, priorities have been misplaced and confused and this rather terrifying phenomenon is enforced by THE SYSTEM. Anyone who regularly goes to bed before 11:00 is probably a filthy slacker. Sure enough, no one maintains that kind of sleep schedule and succeeds in the full course load of AP and enriched classes that make up the religion of a certain brand of student, a religion to which I have never fully been able to give up myself.

This attitude does not mean that we have not been told many a time how much sleep we "should" get, but we only smirk disdainfully at these numbers. How do you expect, Mrs. Useless Health Teacher, us to find the time to do that? What a notion! And truly, to point your finger and say, "you aren't getting enough sleep!" is utterly pointless: we know! You may as well tell the woman who has had a tracheotomy that it's not healthy to smoke through the hole in her neck. Oh sure, identifying the problem is the first step to solving it, but much more telling than any scientific studies are the very real symptoms we fight off every day.

Then again, I don't think students really appreciate the harm we're doing to ourselves. I'd like to point out a couple tidbits, one from the Utne article and another from a psychiatrist who spoke to my health class about drugs. The psychiatrist explained at one point that sleep is when information is moved from short-term to long-term memory. For me, that was a powerful piece of news. Who would have thought that sleeping might actually do just as much good, if not more, than studying? Think about it—a friend of mine notorious for working herself past human limits continually trumpets her inability to memorize information. Your short-term memory can only hold so much information. If you want something to stay learned, you're going to have to sleep.

The second point didn't actually particularly surprise me—I've long wondered if that weren't partially true—although I should say as a disclaimer that it's still in the "scientists think" stage as opposed to "scientists have found" or "scientists now know." But it turns out that depression may be a symptom of sleep deprivation instead of depression causing sleep loss. The implications of this are striking. After all, depression is a huge problem in teens right now, without guarantee of successful treatment and a deadly streak. As a society, we can't take that information too seriously. It is a sign that the entire attitude of our culture towards sleep and rest needs a giant shift.

Call Me a Liar

Justin Locke's post yesterday about music education yesterday had me doing some thinking, because in some ways, I strongly agree, but on the other hand I disagree. So torn am I, that I am writing a blog and not a comment. What's more, I've been meaning to maybe interact with the larger internet more on this blog but haven't really until now. So are you ready? Let's go!

The Inherent Value of the Arts

Let me start at the end, for this is where I am in agreement. When all is said and done, I know that the real reason to support the arts, whether I'm referring to education or to organizations, or anything at all, the real reason I am doing so is for that art for its own sake. This point is all the more important because I also feel that this kind of defense of the arts, particularly in education, gets neglected. It's as if we think either that no one else sees the value of beauty, or that we assume that it doesn't need to be pointed out. Maybe the problem is simply trying to articulate this power of art without just demonstrating it. I don't know, but I think this is something that cannot be under-emphasized. I also suspect that this is the real reason why arts education advocates do what they do. And this is where I disagree with Justin Locke, for all that the arguments used may sometimes be hollow, I really don't think it's all about making a buck. Yes, it's a business, but that doesn't mean advocacy for arts education is driven by money. I could be naïve, but I don't think so. (Well, I wouldn't, would I?) The problem, I feel, is much more likely to relate to ignorance than sleeziness in the majority of cases.

Connection to Academics

If I really wanted to make a valid point here, I would actually visit the link to the OSU study Justin referenced. Instead, I will argue with my own private experience, which is of course very subjective and easily dismissed as meaningless. I would like to say, however, that researching with identical twins is not the only way to find the kinds of trends like "arts education increases academic achievement." You just need a large sampling of diverse people. Also, the phrase is "arts education," not "arts exposure." One might put the word "formal" in brackets, because we can easily infer that anyone making this argument is saying that sitting down with a teacher and being instructed about arts in this way or that, either in creation or appreciation, is what apparently increases academic achievement. That sounds like a very stiff and snobby way of looking at how one should approach the arts, but I'm not trying to say what "arts education" should or shouldn't be. All I'm saying is that completely cutting off a child from anything artistic or creative would be much more extreme than any case study on this subject would call for.

I also dislike the example face-off of American-Idol finalists and super-geeks. I could go back to my definition of "arts education" and question the choice challengers on the "arts" side, but more important and to the point, I would double-check how likely it is that the super-geeks wouldn't belong on that side also. My best geek friend happens to play violin. Coincidence? Could be. I also observed last year that all the seniors in my music theory class made either commended scholar or semi-finalist on the PSAT/NMSQT competition. That's still a pretty small pool, but I tend to trust the implications.

Blurring the Lines and Bending the Rules

I mentioned music theory. Is that art or academic? Is English an art class? Clearly literature is art, but no one needs to debate whether or not reading is an "academic" subject. One of my classes got into a discussion this year in what exactly the difference is between art and science. Art, which we think of as synthesis, require analysis. Science, which we think of as analysis, requires and leads to synthesis. Science turns into art, art leads to science. They are intertwined.

Of course, I am now stretching the boundaries of both art and science in the field of academia. Perhaps that's a good thing though. Education could stand to open de-compartmentalize a bit. In the end, everything is connected to everything else. And that is the inherent value of art: it is a piece of the greater whole of culture and technology.

Froggies Rock, Just So's You Know

I started the day cursing Wednesdays; the day I have to leave extra early and don’t even get to go to band. Because I go downtown with my dad, I get to the office a good fifteen minutes before I officially say I will, and Julia doesn’t arrive until later than that. Today when I went up to the office no one was there yet so I decided to go downstairs to the little café on the first floor and wait.

My day turned around when I bought myself hot chocolate. I’m going to stop complaining about Wednesdays. Simple things make all the difference I guess. When Arianne got there and opened the office I still didn’t really have much to do yet, but I worked some on Ashley’s restaurant list.
Most of my day was spent on the SAB silent auction, but on research. Fun research. When Katie and I originally compiled the list, it was kind of uncertain whether we were talking about a raffle or silent auction or door prizes, or what. Linworth’s rubber ducks at the international dinner came to mind (aren’t these some kind of tradition? I’d love to know how that came along.) and I suggested we come up with something “silly/cute/random/creative/cheap.” (I believe that’s how it got listed on the bottom of the spreadsheet under “vague, unspecific ideas) So I got to try to come up with something. I spent most of this time browsing orientaltrader.com, which has a fun selection but some eighty-seven things per page and, once again, I was shored up by slow computers. Yvette came in today, so I couldn’t steal the “good” computer either. I eventually came up with a few things, and Julia was really enthusiastic about these light-up squishy frogs. Apparently, there’s a history of frog-related… stuff… at ProMusica because of some musician, so the frogs were fitting as well as being cute and kind of cool. (I mean, they light up!) Julia thought that we should get three dozen, (Oriental Traders sells pretty much everything in dozens and for cheaps) have all the musicians sign one, and raffle them off. Problem was, Oriental Traders has ratings and reviews of their products on their website, and the “quality” rating for the light-up frogs was really low. I read some customer reviews and they said that only about half the frogs actually lit up. So I browsed the website again, this time on Julia’s laptop, searching for frogs. We decided to get these squirt frogs. They aren’t as cute as the light-up frogs, but they were cheaper—Julia’s just going to buy them—and had good customer ratings.

The only other thing I put much time into was “pencil research.” A few SAB members, Julia, and Ashley had a meeting last night about marketing the student gala. One of the suggestions made in regards to marketing at the SAB meeting two weeks ago was that we have pencils printed for the gala to advertise it. Apparently this came up last night and Ashley said it was a waste of time to look into. Julia disagreed, and I’m thinking it could actually be a really cool idea now. Music students have this way of showing up to class without a pencil, and music directors, in turn, tend to become very frustrated by this tendency. You see, if a change in the music, or a correction of style, is going to stay fixed, students really need to mark this in the music. WK’s wind ensemble has been blown up at a few times over this issue. So imagine, we give orchestra directors 100 pencils that they can give to their students to use in class to make the music better. The pencils advertise our student gala and bored cellists read them while the director is rehearsing a section with the violins. I think it’s a good idea. So, I explored the internet to see how much this would be likely to actually cost, going over Ashley’s head. I think that little amusing detail made the internet explorations all the more fun.

As far as “sit in front of a computer all day” days go, today was probably my favorite. Obviously, I’m happy not to have to make phone calls, although I did make a couple, but I was also happier than when I was compiling spreadsheets or whatever else I’ve done. It was just kind of amusing looking at all the toys and things I could buy online, and different from what I had been doing before. Tomorrow there will be more spreadsheets. The last thing I did was start compiling several lists of contacts into one for a mailing list for the student gala. I have a feeling that’s going to take a while.

Computers are SLOW

Monday nothing all too exciting happened, so I hereby reserve the right to skip on to Tuesday. (Yeah, Monday is what the "this is the purpose of journaling" bs was about. I'll write about what exactly I reflected on later maybes, but I want to sort some things out first. (: I'm holding you in suspense!)

Anyway, I've done some thinking about what I said about computers and internet before, and it hasn't remotely been a problem since then. I still sit in front of a computer the whole day, but I haven't tried to use them for things other than work. I haven't even really thought about it. Yes, at home I still can't get anything done until I've gone through a certain routine, but that's home and it's different I guess. I imagine that I have free time at home. Is that true? Well, I could stand to go to bed earlier.

I think just writing all that out helped straighten things out in my mind or something. The problem was not that I had nothing to do (I'm good at finding things to do) but that I didn't want to do what I was doing combined with the fact that I felt like what I was doing shouldn't have taken nearly so much time. Surely, somehow, time was being wasted.

Today Ashley (marketing) needed help researching contacts for a list of restaurants and she told me to go find and watch a video by Artzine at WOSU on ProMusica's work with Peter Shickelie and CCAD on this performance of a piece based off James Thurber's dogs and CCAD's animation of the drawings to fit the music. The point was to have me take a break because she realized that I'd been spending so much time doing that kind of work and felt bad. But I realized something. I have not yet thoroughly appreciated the true slowness of ProMusica's computers. This was a four minute video. I opened it and could at first only view 5 seconds and had to wait for the rest to load. So I worked on the restaurant contacts. I accidentally closed the window with the video and decided to let it load and use a different computer because to that point everything had been crawling.

Thirty minutes later, I came back and the video still had twenty, maybe thirty seconds left to load. I decided it would probably be done by the time I got to that part of the video if I started to play it. I got through everything but the last ten seconds. The computer still wasn't done.

So I am blessed with patience in that I don't mind waiting for computers to crawl along. But that is what was taking so much time when I was finding contacts and making calls. I found that it took me about the same amount of time to get through the contacts without calling as it had when I was making calls. It's just that before when that seemed outrageous I blamed it on myself somehow procrastinating and avoiding the task. Not to say I didn't at all—many of these restaurants had irritatingly flashy websites and probably took longer to load than many others I've been to lately. But in general, the problem was that I was on edge and was finding things to scare myself with.

A new problem I've observed is that there are snacky things lying around the office that I have been invited to help myself to if I wish. Well, this is another great way to avoid doing something for at least a couple seconds… except not really. The reasons why that could get problematic should be fairly obvious. Then there's just the part where if you walk by a box of cookies, and they're there and you can take one… it's very inviting. I'm pretty sure I have enough will-power to deal with this one though.

This is Fo' Realz!

On Friday, Katie and I basically finished up with finding and making contacts for the student gala silent auction. That was really refreshing. Cassie (Julia’s former intern and SAB chair) came in and she was really relieved to see all the work that we had done. (Mostly me!) Technically, other SAB-ers are supposed to have been contacting businesses to sponsor the gala or make silent auction donations. Thing is, there’s no guarantee that this will actually happen. It could yet, and I won’t speak ill of anyone. But so far as we know, no one else has yet. I think this was the first time I truly felt good about what I had been doing. It put new determination in me to actually finish making calls.

Saturday, I went around picking up a few items for the silent auction from businesses. That was an adventure because I did actually manage to get lost. This was the weekend of learning to drive independently. For all that I’ve had my license for over a year, I haven’t really used it for more than minor things like going to music lessons. I really don’t know my way around once you leave a… very small radius of my house. Not sure what that would be exactly. So on Friday I drove home by myself and learned that even though Worthington is North of downtown (I was so pleased with myself for not getting on 71 south even though it looked like where I thought I should get on the highway), 70 is South of where I was, so if I wanted to take 71 to 70 to 315, I wanted to get on 71 South. Figured, I always thought my weakness was landmarks even though I have a good instinct for orientation, but in this case I would have been golden had I trusted my landmark recognition and ignored the knowledge that I was “going the wrong way.”

Then, on Saturday, when I wanted to go to Polaris (among other places) my dad told my to take High St to Powel Road (my mom later couldn’t understand why he hadn’t told me to take the highway). Powel Road wasn’t really marked so I drove past it, tried to turn around and ended up on Powel Road going West (wrong direction) with nowhere (nowhere!) to turn around. So I never got to Polaris. I’m not sure when I will. I felt pretty proud of myself picking up the silent auction items though. It made the phone calls feel real and purposeful, and it was just cool to see plans that actually affect real life carry themselves out. Overall, I was rather pleased.

OSU and Nostalgia

I feel guilty about not blogging too often. You would think that with writing journals everyday, this would be super easy, but I have to think about what I want freely displayed on the internet. There are stories about people at ProMusica (not necessarily bad stories but still I don’t want to invade people’s privacy or anything) that are better off left at ProMusica, and there are thoughts too raw to publish for the world just yet. By that I mean, at this point I have rediscovered the true art of journal writing which I haven’t really made use of since middle school. In all academic writing the purpose is to make a point. But the purpose of writing a journal is to find one. If you were to read the journals that I used to keep semi-regularly when I was younger, which you won’t, you would see that my thoughts jump around but then combine together in the process of writing. In an academic paper, you’re supposed to have finished making these connections and what have you by the time you start writing. You begin with a goal in mind. With walkabout journals, the goal is to just write until the page fills up. This can yield interesting results, and my inner perfectionist isn’t ready to just copy+paste them into a blog. What do you mean I do the same thing when I write a blog? Lies!

So I may as well start with Thursday. I didn’t write a journal on Thursday because I didn’t go to Walkabout; I played with the band at OSU and went home. Well, that was the plan. I actually played with the band at OSU, went to choir (well, hung out with Jesse in a practice room) and went to Prospice and then went home. It’s a good thing the OSU concert was informal, because we weren’t really ready for a real performance. I think overall we played decently though. What’s more, I really enjoyed the experience. I realized that if I could just go to band everyday and that were it, I would be perfectly happy. I guess that makes my intended major in performance sound like a good choice. One would expect that to lift my spirits more than it does. I guess I wish I would suddenly come to some other conclusion, something that I could be more confident about. I need to find more confidence somewhere if I’m to go through with this performance thing. Things can still change though: either my goals or my disposition to them, or both.

I was disappointed that the choir didn’t actually do any work. Mr. Griffin hadn’t managed to sleep much the night before and realized early in the day that he was in no disposition to teach. I still got to say hello and everything. Plus, I was happy to spend time with Jesse. I did some thinking when we were in the practice room. Jesse was playing songs she had written on the piano. I’ve barely done any “composing” (hahaha, I’ve done no composing—I’ve done musical doodling) ever, but through formal piano training I was able to show off my awesome arsenal of piano repertoire. Jesse has taken a few piano lessons here and there, but she’s done a lot more musical doodling. The songs mostly aren’t overly complicated, although she’s tried using more interesting progressions lately. The problem is, she hasn’t finished these songs. But even though I can say “oh! Tritone substitution!” Even though I can recognize patterns, I really don’t feel confident trying to make stuff up myself. I think that’s kind of too bad. I’d like to mess around with that some when “free time” happens.

My Name is Miriam, and I am an Internet Addict

Today, I essentially spent the entire day making calls for the SAB gala. There wasn't really anything else I needed to do, and there were plenty of calls to make. I still find it hard to explain, comprehend, or admit how very much I detest having to do this and how very slowly it goes. I can't believe I spent the whole day doing this, I think I counted maybe twelve calls from my spreadsheet at the end. I don't understand how I managed to break that up over so many hours essentially not doing anything else. I think I'm also really self-conscious about the time I spend in general because I don't want it to seem like I'm ever sitting around doing nothing or wasting time or in fact doing something I'm not supposed to be doing.

The last is a fear that derives from another fear: that I will start to abuse the presence of a computer right in front of me for hours at a time with no one watching over my shoulder. You would think, being the good responsible person that I am that this wouldn't be an issue. And, I certainly intend for it not to become one. But especially through college comp, I have developed a habit of compulsively checking blogs and Facebook and webcomics in an effort to "break up a task" or more honestly, to avoid it. After that, it became something I just expected to do as soon as I'd gotten on the computer. For example, tonight I was on the computer for a full hour before I started to write this journal. I complain about not getting enough sleep, and then I get home from CYSB to not just write my journal and move on, but to dawdle about on Facebook, to check blogs, to look at visitor stats on my own [lame excuse for a] blog. The point is, all wisdom says that I should have just written this journal and gone to bed. Even better, I could have practiced piano first, which I haven't done nearly enough in general the past two weeks. This concerns me. I have never accessed Facebook from ProMusica, but I can because the SAB often works through it. I am worried that it will too quickly become a habit and I'll get myself into some problems.

Seriously though, can one be addicted to the internet? I remember when this guy from AA came to talk to my summer health class and I believe he said that an alcoholic "drinks to get drunk." I remember because he commented that he hadn't understood that definition to begin with because he didn't understand that this wasn't the case for everyone—that getting drunk was not the only purpose to which alcohol could be consumed. So what is the parallel for the internet? I think there really is a numbing effect, a calming effect to staring at a screen. There is something then addictive to constantly checking for updates. Do I make excuses for myself? No, I haven't done anything wrong yet. But I think the fact that I even think that I would—that I think just going to Facebook once would lead to a downward spiral—is kind of telling. Could be that I worry too much too. That one shouldn't be discounted either.

But I did make use of ProMusica's slow internet connection to prolong the time between phone calls. I would decide that there was something I should check first and have to load several internet pages at a crawling pace. Then I would think, I wonder if Julia has sent me an email asking me to do something else? (Doubly wishful thinking and procrastination!) This never managed to be the case. Katie apparently came in for five minutes or so but I didn't even see her. I think we're finishing up these phone calls on Thursday except for the one person who told me to call on Monday. Except that's not really true, because there were a few places I made excuses not to call and then there's a list of ideas of things to acquire that don't necessarily have a specific company or store attached to them and those will eventually become more phone calls too. I really, really, really just want to be done with this. I'm not going to my placement tomorrow and I'm surprised to realize what a relief that is for me. I really hate to get too negative, and I expect that anything that rubs me the wrong way is all the better of an experience, but I'm still just as glad to get a day off. Now, if only I could sleep in too…

Monday Blues

Do you want to hear about my weekend? Sorry, I don't want to write about it right now. It's a bit late. I don't even really want to write about today. Suffice it to say that the concerts went beautifully and there really isn't much more to be said about rehearsals anyway. Sorry, I'm not feeling like exerting much energy.

Something has been catching up with me today. Maybe it's just Monday, maybe it's that I didn't get a weekend, maybe it's because everyone around me is sick and I'm fighting something off (even if there aren't other symptoms) but I'm just tired, slow, and having trouble summoning up enthusiasm. I did various random, unconnected tasks today. Five thirty seemed really slow in coming. Even though I start somewhat later than I did during school, I'm using my mornings so I'm not really sleeping in. Part of my brain still thinks everything should be over by three o'clock. The other thing about school is that there's a change of scenery at least every eighty minutes or so. Things change, focus changes, and the day gets broken up. But I spent my whole day in the same room working from the same computer and my patience started getting thin. The computer was moving really slowly too.

Perhaps the most "exciting" thing that happened today was actually after I left the office. My dad drove me home and we were maybe five minutes away when I realized I had Julia's keys in my coat pocket from when I'd fetched some things from her car. So we got to go back downtown. I felt bad because when I called Julia she was getting ready to leave. One of the things I really want to do over Walkabout is actually stay organized with everything (I thrive on mess) but I've come to realize over the past couple of days that I just don't pay much attention to where I put things. You would think I'd have figured this out by now, but normally I just don't try very hard. Lately I've been intending to keep things together and in its proper place, but when I scamper off to do something, I'm bound to just set down a water bottle or, apparently, keep someone else's keys in my pocket. I've always like mess anyway, though. I'm not saying that entirely bitterly, even. Mess feels familiar and welcoming, kind of like I like old beat up books because there's evidence that they have been "loved." I'm probably just crazy, or at least I like to think I am. OK, I'm going to wrap this up because this will just get even sillier and more pointless the farther I go. I may as well just stop.

Chillaxin’ at the Southern

Yesterday was a pretty slow day for me. Most of it was spent at the Southern theatre for the rehearsals. We don't need to do a whole lot there, and I really can't help with most of that anyway. What's more, the little niche backstage where I spent my downtime had a TV and I have a tendency to be completely stupefied by those things. I think it's actually because I almost never watch TV, so when I do, I have a lot of trouble pulling my eyes away even though I really don't care about what's on. I have a feeling, therefore, that I may have missed some opportunities to at least ask to help because I just wasn't paying attention. The other thing is that when Julia left and I didn't know where, I really didn't have any way of knowing I wouldn't get lost wandering around the Southern, so I decided to stay put. I think I heard the weather forecast six times yesterday.

The first rehearsal at the Southern was open to senior citizens, and we handed out cookies and juice at break. That is, Katie and I handed out cookies and Juice to guests while Julia hunted down Vadim and Gary to confirm some things. There's not much to say about the open rehearsal. We were supposed to take pictures too, but I have a feeling they all came out blurry. People kept moving before the picture had actually taken.

After that, I really didn't have much to do. There were more rehearsing, but that didn't require anything from me. The niche backstage I mentioned earlier with the TV felt sort of like a cross between how I envision a dorm room and the back hallway. It was about the size of the back hallway, with chairs lining the edges in a similar arrangement. Where your office would be, there was in fact a non-functional elevator. There were two narrow tables covered in a mess of things and a bulletin board covered in things I mostly didn't read. There was a printout of a cyanide and happiness comic and a picture of the stage manager with the caption "who's your daddy?" The stage manager and a couple other people who worked at the theatre (I'm not sure exactly of their jobs) spent their time back there, as well as Julia some and Tim and a few musicians would come out at break.

When the rehearsal s ended, we had to bring everything over to the Josephinum. The harpsichord and some stands and chairs were shoved in a van and Julia drove us over to the Josephinum taking a stop first at Chipotle. Setting up went really quickly because there were a couple seminarian students helping, along with Katie and a friend of hers. We had to put stage lights on all the stands because the light isn't great there. Julia had just finished saying how she used to have to tape down all the chords but hasn't the last couple of times and no one said anything when I almost tripped over chords. I guess I'm just talented or something.

More, Better, Meetings

I don't want to just copy and paste my Wednesday Journal because I don't want to get gossipy. You see, on Wednesday there was an operations meeting between Tim Russel who is ProMusica's music director, Tom who plays trumpet in ProMusica and the CSO and I think does the contracting for ProMusica as well as maybe other things, Janet who is ProMusica's executive director, Julia who is my mentor and head of operations, and me. I don't think I necessarily said anything negative, but the most interesting thing for me was the social dynamics of the meeting. Negative things were said about some people, interesting decisions and comments about musicians were made, and the atmosphere of the meeting itself had me intrigued. I suddenly was extremely excited to have this Walkabout.

I think I accidentally saved yesterday's journal over Thursday's, which is rather unfortunate. I could probably retrieve it if I wanted. But anyway, I mostly talked about my visit to Reynoldsburg High School of Musicians in the Schools. I was mistaken for the musician instead of an observing intern. (I went by myself and Julia went somewhere else.) That was… interesting. I think it was overall a good experience though and turned out pretty entertaining when Hannah, the violinist who was supposed to actually work with the students got there. The kids made me laugh. It was a quartet that's performing today at solo and ensemble. Speaking of which, good luck to everyone today with that! J

More Calls and the SAB

February 3, 2009

When I arrived today I was in somewhat a better temperament than yesterday. I think the strangeness of this last weekend hadn't worn off completely yesterday and I was already somewhat overwhelmed to begin with. (Friday I had an audition at Duquesne and I spent the whole weekend in Pittsburg. Sunday night I went to a Columbus Symphony Youth orchestra concert and spent half the concert driving around looking for parking. Literally. I arrived at intermission.) The venting I did last night, both through my journal and at my oboe lesson, seemingly eased most of that tension so that from the beginning today could go better.

Even so, I did eventually have to go back to the list of potential contacts for donations for the student gala to make phone calls. I think I did better today, or at least I contacted more people and didn't spend as much time fighting with myself. After getting a blunt "no" a few times in a row I had to stop and regroup though. And I know that when I stopped my patience was somewhat thinner. I had to put together some directions for school visits and I was not in the mood to encouragingly urge to computers on but rather to curse at them, which I resisted the urge to do. As the day closed, I also became increasingly aware that I was not really done and that before I really had time to eat dinner I would have to come back for the Student Advisory Board meeting at seven o'clock.

I got home a little after six and my wonderful mother had put my share of the meal that she and my brother had already eaten in the microwave when she heard the garage door. I still was eating and running and this really ground on my nerves, I think because I felt like it was past time to be done for the day. School ends at 3:00 (…ish. Before at Linworth, after at Kilbourne) but my day at ProMusica ends at 5:30. And when school is over it's over, but I had to drive back before I'd really even been at home. I had that same tense, distressed feeling of dread that I experienced before all my late nights writing paper and such this year. Much worse than the day after was always the day before when I spent the day wondering if I'd really finish and if I could really make it through the night. And even with all my resolve and determination, there was always a fatalistic feeling that it would just never end and I'd never get to sleep. Now, instead of a never ending night I feared a never ending day. The knowledge that even my two all-nighters turned out not to be all that bad after the fact could not erase despairing cynicism.

Incidentally, I actually somewhat enjoyed the Student Advisory Board meeting. It felt kind of like a Prospice (Kilbourne's literary mag) meeting, only with more people who were, generally, more on top of things. Plus there's the part where at Prospice I was somewhat the leader people were looking to whereas this was my first SAB meeting and even though I'd had things explained to me beforehand I was still getting feel for how things worked and what we were doing. But I felt like we were discussing similar ideas for how to promote the student gala (as opposed to how to get submissions for the literary magazine) and that the social structure was following the same sorts of patterns. I also guess I hadn't really thought that much about how much time I'm spending working completely on my own, or just with Julia. I think interacting with peers was kind of refreshing, even though I have been going to band class. Maybe I also rejoiced secretly in the fact that many really weren't all that more on top of things than I was and that already. In any case, my day ended well enough so I must get some sleep before tomorrow's madness.

WALKABOUT UPDATES!!

This week has been absolutely mad and I just haven't gotten to update the blog. Honestly, I've barely done anything but go where I'm needed and conk out as soon as I get home. ProMusica has two concerts this weekend and that makes for long days. I'm just going to put some (probably edited) excerpts of journals up and the full journal about yesterday I think. Ready? Ready?

February 2, 2009

Today I felt almost as if I had just started school during exam week. There's a similar kind of pressure in the air and I really barely understand what needs to be done and what is going on. Not that I'm not being taken care of or anything like that, but I'm certainly in danger of being overwhelmed.

That said, the only thing that I did today regarding these concerts, besides review my schedule for the week, was attend the weekly staff meeting. The meeting, at 2:00 is the main source of my confusion and all the aforementioned emotions and sensations. As another analogy, part of the Passover seder is the tradition of four children, one wise, one wicked, one I forget completely , and one simple who "doesn't know how to ask." I have never really identified with that explanation of the simple child until today at that meeting. There were more things I didn't know or understand than I knew where to begin asking questions and too much information to hold onto and process. I felt my attention slipping even as I tried to put pieces together, I think because I wasn't really getting anywhere. It was kind of like what might happen if I were put in an advanced calculus class. Since I've taken a semester of calc with Char, I'd have some sense of the general ideas and concepts, but many would be entirely unfamiliar besides some obscure reference that might have once been made, and overall I wouldn't have a clue what was happening. When asked at the end, "do you have any questions?" I wanted to give a heartfelt yes, but I just didn't know what to say.

Mostly, however, I was doing work for ProMusica's Student Advisory Board with Julia's other intern, Katie. Katie won't be around as often as me, but she is actually on the Student Advisory Board (as opposed to my only having heard of it when Jen lined up this Walkabout) and I think she's also been working with Julia for a while. I think this put me kind of on edge because I had just one more impetus not to do dumb things—which will ultimately be unavoidable because in reality I just don't know about this kind of stuff not to do or at least say something stupid. We were working on the student Gala at the beginning of April, first coming up with ideas for things that might be used in a raffle or silent auction (or something) and eventually contacting businesses asking for donations.

I have always hated fundraising, always neglected to do it whenever possible, and generally dislike both asking for things and talking on the phone. This also accounts for why my interims were generally unspectacular. So, after drawing up the list and finding contact information for the first business on it (Chipotle) I stared at the phone. I rechecked the phone number and went over what I had to say. I stared at the phone. I picked it up and started to dial but it asked me for a password. I think the phone thought I intended to listen to its voicemail message. I learned I needed to press "line 1"(or "line 2," line 3," etc) if I wanted to actually dial out. I stared at the phone. I made the call.

I expected to do this a few times and stop hesitating. Not so. Every time, I had to stop, pull myself together and rally myself as if I were doing something truly difficult or even dangerous. It's amazing, I'll walk out in front of people and play oboe any day, even walk up and sing a song I barely know, but making phone calls asking for donations was nerve-grindingly hard beyond anything remotely rational. And I don't know how I might go about explaining that to Julia because it's kind of important to be able to do it. Not that I can't do it, I just… dislike it heartily.

Senior Moment

By "senior moment," I mean that creepy feeling of, "oh God, I'm leaving" and actually comprehending what that means. Obviously, I've known for some time that I would be leaving school as I know it second semester, and that whatever shelter Linworth, Kilbourne, and my home still offer will be gone when I leave for college next fall. But that intellectual knowledge hardly ever reaches my core. I can say, "I only have two days left," or "I never have to write another college comp paper," but my inner self still prepares for the world it knows best, and expects to find it even when I know I have left. Even having left, the true implications do not reach me immediately until they burst before me in sudden insight. That—for the purposes of this blog—is a "senior moment."

I just got home from an oboe lesson. I left a full 40 minutes after I was supposed to, and my lesson should have only been a half hour. I think that's the longest time I stretched things, but to be fair, we probably did not even spend a full 30 minutes playing. Driving home, the thought suddenly hit me that I do not need therapy only because of my amazing music teachers. So I must take this moment to send my love. This does not mean I do not have love or thanks for my other teachers, but I want to honor my music teachers for the moment, especially my private piano teacher and oboe teacher because I do not think I've ever really thought about how much they really do for me or mean to me. There is the music, and that alone is a treasure, but they have helped me through so much else just by listening and always being there. I realized that tonight.

The beginning of that impact came almost a month ago (or over a month ago?) at my last choir concert. I found that instead of counting down days till walkabout or days left of school, I was counting choir rehearsals. I was trying to imagine going to Kilbourne, as I would for band class, and never going to choir and rarely seeing Grif. I had not really thought I would mind at all for a long time because I've never been particularly impressed with my choir class. But I found I was going to miss Griffin tremendously and the weight of leaving choir became heavier and heavier as time passed. Somehow though, I never really looked farther than that. I felt a pang of regret passing the choir room today, but I didn't think twice about the dwindling time left in band, or the shortening time between now and when I must bid goodbye to my private teachers. But that won't last either, will it? I realized that tonight.

I think, in giving so much over to music, I have given a great deal up to my music teachers. I have turned to you for help so many times, sometimes in music sometimes in life and even when I haven't, you have taught me so much. So even though it's time to move on, and I'm more than ready, I don't know what I'm going to do without you. I know there will be other people to help me and guide me, that I will certainly have a fair share of music teachers next year, but I still can't imagine not having you around. I realized that tonight. Fully. Thank you so much, Steve Rosenberg, Cynthia Adams, Larry Griffin, Phil Day, Don Nathan. I love you.

First Day of Walkabout

I have been out of town for the past couple of days, so I haven't been able to update. Now it's time to share the experiences of Thursday with you! My first day of Walkabout should have been Wednesday, but Julia called me and told me not to come in. So I made the trek downtown Thursday by myself in the snow.

Snow actually didn't concern me all that much. Instead, I tried to remember when I had last driven on a highway by myself. I had no idea. Normally, I just avoid highways and take other roads to wherever I need to go. I don't drive that often anyway, and much of the time there would be no reason to use a highway anyway. Suddenly, with Walkabout, this has changed. I need to drive downtown everyday, and that means taking 315 to 670. So I left at 10:20 and started driving. (My schedule at Promusica is 11:00-5:30 M,T,Th, F and 9:00-5:30 W. I'm going to band class M,T, Th, F, but did not on Thursday with school cancelled.) Then I turned around and went back to get my cell phone. At 10:26, I was really off, starting to wonder what the highways would be like with the familiar roads this snowy and icey. Generally, I'm a pretty confident snow driver. I think it's because I vowed when I was quite young never to complain about snow. This requires convincing myself that driving in snow isn't too bad.

The highways were more or less clean and normal and because it was so late traffic was relatively light. I arrived on time safely at ProMusica and was able to get to work. I was kind of proud of myself for finding my way and for not having problems on the highways, although I suppose in a week or two I won't think twice about either.

The first task I was given to do was address and stuff envelopes which is as it is. For what it's worth, Julia had asked me complete a spreadsheet with contacts yesterday and I used that to address the envelopes. I actually did not mind the task as I was able to think about whatever I pleased or just clear my mind. I went into a similar state as when I play simple computer games or the like, which is kind of relaxing and hopefully positive. As I was finishing that up, Julia asked me to copy some CD's from the archives. Whenever ProMusica plays a concert, it gets recorded and all the recordings are saved on the mainframe. Musicians recieve recordings of their performances so they can listen and find things to improve. In December, ProMusica played some concerts with the Lancaster Chorale. Apparantly, the CD's sent back to Lancaster did not play all the tracks, so I got to copy these recordings onto new CD's for the Lancaster Chorale and for a soloist who also needed a recording. It was funny, I've always thought that I'm equally adept at using Macs and PCs because for years I had to use Macs as school and at home I've always had a PC. However, I've never burned a CD at school, so I got to feel kind of dumb for a few minutes as Julia explained how to do it. (So clearly this should be a perfectly acceptable task at school so that in the real world when we need to do it on any kind of computer we don't need help. Anyone going to buy that you think?)

When burning CD's, I started working on this journal because I discovered that I really did not want to just sit and wait for the data to transfer. I'm not always like that though, I've spent long periods of time when I should be working on College Comp at home reading blogs and checking Facebook in the middle of the night. Then again, in those cases I'm still doing something, whereas at ProMusica I would never just surf the internet for no reason and just staring at a screen waiting for the little bar move to the other side is not exactly my idea of fun. So instead of the feeling that I out to be working, I was compelled to this task by the need to just do something.

The last thing I had to do was book rental cars for those musicians who fly in from out of town. I was kind of nervous at first because it felt more important—or at least easier to mess up significantly—than my other tasks. But after two computers fought me so hard I had to switch to a third that feeling had been completely replaced by familiar computer frustration. One of the computers I used was in Julia's office and she laughed at me when I was talking to it encouragingly. I like to try to encourage computers when they're loading slowly, as if they could hear me or something. It makes me feel better.