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.
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