New Years Resolutions

So it's been 2010 for a little while now. But my resolutions for the new year are really for the new semester, and that hasn't quite begun yet. On new years, thinking about school and such felt really distant and unimportant, but as I'm preparing to go back the things I'd thought about for resolutions pre-Acorn visit are coming back to me. So I'm going to write them down. Here. So that anyone who reads this can hold me to them. ;) (You can do that, right Jacob?)

1) Phone home!
I'll admit it, I've been atrocious with this. And I can do better! I will figure out, early, a regular time to call home. (Doesn't seem that hard... so as soon as I know when quintet is meeting...) Also, I realized over break that there's no reason I couldn't call other friends from home in an effort to keep in touch. Therefore, I intend to do so. Also, I'm going to say, for the sake of saying it, that I'll post in this blog no less than biweekly. That's right, every other week, for the rest of the year, Miriam will update Obuabamos. It's one more way to communicate with those who aren't right here with me. In return, everyone's always welcome to comment! :)

2) Journal
In the vein of writing regularly, I'm going to go back to keeping a journal much like I did during Walkabout. I won't be sending it to anyone, and I won't have anything to prompt me to write about certain things, but I still want it to have the sort of feeling of a Walkabout journal. What that means is, I want to take time to reflect on the learning experience that is life, and make sure I'm actually accomplishing what I mean to accomplish. It means setting goals and actively gauging how well I'm reaching them. It means facing my short-comings and learning from them instead of letting them slip away forgotten. And, keeping a journal is a pleasant, relaxing activity that I think just makes me a happier person. Theoretically, one writes in a Walkabout journal everyday. In reality, no one quite does this. So, I figure that I'll treat myself about the same way as I did during Walkabout, and I'll reap about the same benefit.

3) Make friends
I was supposed to do this first semester. Well, that's not to say I didn't make any friends. I even started a successful relationship! But in general I feel dissatisfied with my social life and I think that in some cases all I really need to do is be more assertive by doing simple things like asking if people want to hang out with me sometime. (gasp) Being social is generally pretty hard for me, and yet when I made it a specific goal for my Acorn Walkabout I more than succeeded, connecting with some people to the point that I feel like part of a family. Part of that was the openness and awesomeness of people in community, but I suspect a lot of the difference was me.
3a) Spend more time in the Loft...
...or other common space. The point is, I need to get out of my room. It's really quite silly.
3b) Tell people how cool they are
Hey, wanna be friends? Cause you're pretty awesome and I need a life. I don't know why this makes me feel so vulnerable. Again, silly.

4) Make Veg. Club awesome.
I'm president of veg. club now, bitches. What now?

5) Prioritize the gardens...
...above everything else. I mean, I won't skip quintet rehearsal, friends' recitals, or classes with strict attendance policies/that I'm worried about my grade in, but that's it. I'm going to try to affiliate Veg club with the community gardens, so that won't cause conflicts. Homework and practicing can be done anytime, so garden events take precedence. This is one thing I know makes me truly happy, that I truly care about. I'm not letting other things get in the way.

6) Come back to Acorn.
I mean, that's given. But I think it nevertheless belongs on the list. I will be seen at Acorn again in 2010. Count on it.

Home!

Last week was exam week, a week of madness. I really only had three things to worry about, but it was still kind of intense. I had a jury on Monday, my first jury. I had to play a solo for the woodwind faculty and take up 10 minutes. Except, they were running behind so I wasn't even in there for that long. I came in, nodded to my accompanist, played through the second movement of the Saint-Saens, (which, happily, I've played many times in my past) and was excused. I think it went well.

My only other exams were biology and environmental studies. I did awesome on these. The results are already on Blackboard. I also got to meet with the adviser for if I change my major to environmental science or environmental policy. I really think I might do policy. It looks exciting. A friend said to me, so you're going to major in hippie? Some people would be offended by that. However, it pleases me.

I got home on Thursday, just in time to go to WK's choir concert and come up to sing Come to the Water. It's a tradition for the top choir, Kilbourne Singers, to come from the back of the auditorium to the stage singing "Come to the Water" at every concert. At the winter concert, the alumni get to come up to the stage and sing with them. I've been really looking forward to that. It was odd though, for all that I've sung it many times, I almost forgot the words. I hadn't actually thought about the song at all until suddenly I was on stage and supposed to be singing. Oops.

I also got to sing with the choir at Beth Tikvah, my synogogue, Friday night for the Chanukah service. I learned Sargon's "Blessed is the Match" in the car on my way there. It was kind of intense and there were a couple things that were kind of weird at first sight, although when I heard the accompaniment it all fell together in my head and I could sing it. See? When I've studied more music theory I'll be able to predict what all that will sound like too and ge able to learn choir music that much more quickly. Singing felt really good on both occaisions. I wasn't in choir this semester and I've missed it.

Now I'm scrambling to see my friends before I take off... for Acorn!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot express how excited I am to go back! Happy winter solstice y'all! (that's tomorrow right?)

The Lorax

Today, we watched “The Lorax” by Dr. Seus in Environmental Studies 1010. How adorable; much like the rest of the curriculum. Not that I dislike the picture book, and I remember sitting down and watching the animated video all the way through some months ago when I should have been doing homework. In certain contexts, the video would be strikingly appropriate, but I did not feel that way this morning.

Perhaps I am frustrated because I feel that my class is at least half-full of little once-lers, paying no real heed to the message of the class, a message quite like that of the lorax. Unfortunately, I fear it is being communicated just as ineffectively here as in the picture book and that my classmates are no less determined to chop down every last trufula tree than they were when the semester began. Stocks are up! Let’s keep biggering!

I write this as a final tantrum, finally admitting to my true feelings about how I have been spending my time lately. I woke up today to complete the assignment in our cute little lab manual. The entire thing asked us to jump from webpage to webpage, writing down some specific piece of information. Some of the pages didn’t actually exist anymore, although really the whole thing would likely have moved more quickly if I had Googled each question individually.

But you’re supposed to read the articles and learn from them!

That’s not what I was asked to do. If you want me to read about ozone in the troposphere, why don’t you just assign me articles to read about it? Why, you could even put the information you want me to know in the textbook itself! Why have me jump from place to place, regurgitating information like I did in middle school from articles written at a third grade reading level? The real reason, Professor, that students complain when you assign us readings from scientific journals and ask us to synthesize information in an academic essay is that you, not the rest of the system, have lulled us into expecting assignments like what I completed this morning. Why are you surprised, or even disappointed?

As for class today, “The Lorax,” is a well-written story. We’re all familiar with it, a small fuzzy man speaking out against the greedy onceler and his thneed business. We have all heard the refrain, “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!”

And the class just sits there as our professor explains that we should take notes because it has to do with class.

Yes! Yes, “The Lorax” is a call to action! And that’s exactly what this class is missing. By this point in the semester, this moment when we have covered every topic in the manual and theoretically have a sound information base in all sorts of environmental issues, the story of the Lorax might just be exactly what ought to tie it all together. Now that you know, now that you see how all of this is connected, take care of that last trufula seed! What? The Lorax is a fictional character? Then it is YOUR job to speak for the trees.

But it has instead become just one more exam item, as if there were any point in testing anyone on “The Lorax.” And when the class was over we all began asking straightforward questions about when assignments are due and how we might weasel out of them. And the tiny little Lorax, he and his message are forgotten.

What Has Obuabamos Become?

For two months now, I have chosen not to speak to the wide world of the internet for a while, not really knowing what I ought to say. That uncertainty stems from a deeper uncertainty of who I ought to be and what I ought to become. My second Walkabout left my inner compass spinning wildly out of control, and the purpose of any blog I might write became helplessly murky.

Literally translated from the context from which the word was derived, "obuabamos" means, "we used to oboe." This may turn out to be a very telling name for this blog. Certainly, we (me, myself, and I) used to oboe every day without fail. We haven't lately. I haven't abandoned the oboe entirely, and I haven't even decided to change majors--I'll go with Plan A for a minimum of one semester. But more than that?

The reason I made this blog was to chronical the adventures and misadventures of Walkabout for all who wished to hear what was becoming of me while occaisionally getting on a soapbox for the fun of it and pretending the internet was listening. I've recently realized that I can still do all this--only now I'll be documenting the adventures and misadventures of college.

And really, whether I become musician or... or... whatever it is I might be heading towards, I think it will be really cool to share how I get there. So, I'm just going to write about stuff that sounds cool to write about for a while, and slowly try to get connected to the larger community of the internet. Hello Blogospere! I'm back!

More Thoughts on Sleep, Inspired by Justin Locke

I've neglected to write any more about sleep since my initial post on the subject, but I was reading Justin Locke's blog just now and was reminded that I really ought to. The problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the human body and mind works.

Justin Locke wrote about the mistake which is the eight-hour workday. He used the model of a symphony orchestra to demonstrate that in a creative, thought intensive, work environment, more than 25 hours a week just doesn't work. You cannot be creative without rest. You cannot give the same intensity into anything without rest. You cannot accomplish as much without rest. The long hours, the extra time, the deliriousness and the agony, it's all for nothing. It is harmful, not only to you, but to the work that you are doing.

That point cannot be driven in hard enough. It's so counter to the philosophy from which we craft every single day, that really believing and living by the lesson is near impossible. I say this from the perspective, once again, of a student. High school students are taught that on top of school, they must participate in extracurricular activities, give back to the community with community service, complete their homework, and sometimes even work a job on top of that. Then the teachers wonder why we're falling asleep at our desks. But there's nothing we can do about it. Worse, I am speaking for an affluent school district that performs beautifully on standardized tests, a model for the nation. So if someone from elsewhere in the nation, or someone nearby at a less privileged school district, is saying "that's not how things are at all," the heads and tails of it is that this is how the powers that be feel things are supposed to be. The students getting into the top tier universities are the ones who work themselves to death and scorn rest most harshly. I wonder, how long until they burn out?

But I go to two schools; that's how I'm interning at ProMusica Chamber Orchestra today. And I have recently come to appreciate the one aspect that used to make me doubt the program: a lacking of rigor. I never minded that the classes were innovative and unique, but I felt that students at the main campuses were pressed harder to do more homework. I felt they had to stress more over tests. I thought more material was covered. But now I wonder. I wonder, even if they covered more material, who will remember more of it years from now? I wonder, what good does it do to pass a test? I remember when another Walkabout student mentioned some time ago that she felt that we learn more outside of work than we do working. She marveled at how much time people put throwing themselves into work when most of life happens outside of that. I wonder, do our straight A Harvard bound students ever learn from anything outside of school? They dutifully fulfill the extracurricular activity requirement, but they're still surrounded by students and led by a coach or a teacher. And it's a duty, so it's still work. Along with sleep, our culture could stand to learn to play. But I digress.

One of the methods used by cults on new recruits to reel them in is sleep deprivation. People are herded into a summer camp like setting and kept active for long hours for little break. People don't question as much without sleep. Indoctrination is much easier in this setting. Just what are our schools anyway? We don't need to crank out cookie cutter factory workers anymore. What we need are independent, individual, creative minds. That's exactly what we lose when we deprive our children of sleep. It would be oh so easy to claim some malicious scheme of our education system of indoctrination and brainwashing, but I know too many teachers too intimately to believe any such thing. Nevertheless, that is the problem on its face: if you listen to anyone talk about the future of education, you will hear a call for high powered minds that think creatively. If we want that, we can't just stuff kids full of knowledge. That doesn't do the job. We need to let them think. And to do that, we have to let them sleep.

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.

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.

Weekend in Indianapolis, Part III

Despite all the good I've been spouting about my audition/visit at Butler, the best part of my weekend came on Saturday when I went buy an oboe from Carlos Cuelho http://www.carlosoboe.com . I had not realized until that day that my parents were willing to go all the way to $8k for me. I should qualify that; I've been saving money for this oboe for several years, but I still don't think I could have contributed much more than $3k. I'm not quite sure though, I don't know how much used to be in my bank account.

Anyway, that meant that I was able to buy a brand new Loree Royale. I tried six different oboes, and that's what I came home with. I'm still incredibly excited about this, I can't even say. The hard part is that I still need to break it in, so I can only play on it fifteen to twenty minutes at a time. When I switch back to the Fox (I've been playing a Renard 330 for about six years now) it feels almost like a toy. My band director just told me to bring the Fox back to school to give to another oboist, which worries me. We have some talking to do, because I really need to have an oboe I can play on for an extended period of time! But I hate to leave someone without an oboe. Anyway, I'll be keeping my hands on the Fox at least until I audition at Duquesne this Friday no matter what. Then we can maybe work something out. Oh well, I'll worry about that later. The point is, I have an amazing oboe now and I'm pretty much in love with it. His name is Bellamy, which is a French name (fitting, right?) that means "beautiful friend."

Weekend in Indianapolis, Part II

After the audition, I briefly met the other oboist auditioning and mostly relaxed for a couple hours. I met her again at the wind ensemble rehearsal that must have started around two, and we talked some. I wonder if we'll play together next year? That could be really cool.

At 4:00 or so, round two of the day began: I met Laura, a freshman oboist at Butler majoring in music education with whom I was to spend the night. She was really nice and friendly, and I felt really welcomed. I think it should be clear by now that I'm feeling quite positive about Butler in general. I don't know whether I'll go there yet, but it was nice to know that I could definitely be happy there. And Butler has already sent me a nice bundle of money in academic scholarships, so I could very easily end up there. Even so, I most certainly have not decided where I will be going to school yet. I have to complete the rest of my auditions, give all the schools a final one-over, and see what kind of aid I'll be getting. Until then, anything might happen. Still, Butler's in a good place after these past couple of days.

When I went up to Laura's dorm to drop off my sleeping bag, clothes, etc, I was introduced to her friend Yael and Yael's "hostee" (whose name now escapes me). I immediately noticed that Yael was wearing a magen david. When she realized that I'm Jewish, she immediately hugged me and exclaimed over me, because I guess Butler doesn't have much of a Jewish population. The girl she was hosting chimed in that she was Jewish as well, which was really cool. This reminded Yael that the Hillel organization (or whatever it is) was having a Shabbat dinner that night, so it was decided the three of us would go there for food. In the mean time, we picked up another Jewish girl, a bass player, being hosted by another friend of Laura and Yael. So we went together to a short service and some food. I enjoyed myself. I guess I wish I could go somewhere with more Jews on campus, but I at least they're there and have these dinners and stuff, so I won't lose my Jewish identity either. That's really what matters as far as that goes.

After dinner, we went to a faculty recital. It was super amazing and good. I had a great time, really and truly. Anyway, I could ramble on for a while, but the point is, the visit part of my Butler excursion was absolutely successful and I know I'll be happy there. I've said that already? Well I think that's the main point of this particular blog post. Tomorrow I'll talk about… OBOE SHOPPING!!!!! (stay tuned!)

Weekend in Indianapolis, Part I

This Thursday, I went up to Indianapolis and Butler University to have my first audition. Because I want to major in oboe performance, not only do I need to send applications to all the colleges I want to go to, but I have to go to each of the schools and perform an audition, which is pretty much the scariest thing ever. Basically, you're put in a room with a few people listening (at Butler the oboe professor and bassoon professor listened to me) and have to play scales, a prepared solo or etude (generally, you prepare something lyrical and something technical), and sight-read. This does not have to be horribly difficult, but the pressure is high. These twenty minutes decide whether or not I'm accepted into a school's music program.

Friday was an audition day at Butler, which meant that there were seventy other people there and planned activities for us to do besides audition. First we were given an audition schedule and herded into what was clearly a band room (I think the orchestras rehearse there too. But I call it a band room because it felt like home.) to be greeted by the head of music admissions and the president of the Jordan College of Fine Arts. Before they began speaking I was able to ascertain that mine was the first woodwind audition and would be held at 1:00. The only other oboist to audition that day would follow me at 1:20. In the mean time, I was to take a theory placement test at either 10:00 or 4:00 and otherwise could attend more or less any activity I wished.

So, after the greeting I proceeded across the hall to where the theory test was administered. The test was not very difficult, although I have a very solid grounding theory. Hopefully, if I chose to go to Butler, I'll be asked to take the next level of theory test. That one will be a bit more work.

After the theory test, I went to a freshman theory class. They were talking about cadences and phrases and how to analyze where the cadence points are that determine the ends of phrases and then breaking up phrases into smaller segments according to motive. I had almost entirely forgotten about this chapter of theory—when I took AP theory last year we used the same book—so I took a couple minutes to feel I really understood what was going on. But, I did understand what was going on which was really exciting.

I then ate lunch, which my mother brought me from the bowels of Aferton. (I should really check to see how that's actually spelled, right? Oh well) I then went to a practice room for my warm-up. I played some scales and long tones and then got out my music to look over the sections that still sort of worried me. Everything came out just fine. That's when I knew I was going to have a great audition. And that's how it has to be before a good performance. You have to just know you're going to play well. When you feel that, in the core and not just the surface, that it's going to go well, you know you're right about it. At least, you know you'll play your best. I guess I could have played my best and still not have been received well. But not this time.

So I went in and just played. Nothing went really wrong, there were a couple scrapes, and when I played a two-octave F scale the top note didn't come out very well. Even so, they were very positive about the audition, legitimately happy about how I'd played. I think I can tell these things pretty well. Generally people don't tell you, "ouch, that was horrid," in an audition, but you can still tell when they're pleased and when you've left them less than awed. I suppose I'm a good enough player that no one would (hopefully) have reason to tell me my playing is horrid—just not good enough. I've had less than perfect auditions before and letters sent to me with essentially those words. Now I'm auditioning for college and the pressure's somewhat higher. I really, really, want to be seen as good enough.

I Send My Blessing

Things have been complicated here. I have a lot to think about, and therefore to write about I guess. Mostly though, I'm just waiting for things to happen, like I have my first college audition this Friday and Walkabout starts a week from today. But my life as I've had it for three and a half years is ending, my last exam finished, my last essay turned in. And something significant happened yesterday, something painful and shocking.

Yesterday my last exam was choir, and my director decided to just have a two hour rehearsal. I approached the class with focused nostalgia and ceremonial dedication: this is my last choir class, I told myself. I may never sing with these people again. And then, as I set myself through these careful, ritualized mental paces, my friend received a text message. She leaned over and made me read it:

"Larry had a seizure during the U.S. History exam."

Before I go on, I should explain a bit the nature of the school I go to. It's called the Linworth Alternative Program, and it's a small school of less than 200 students. We take some classes at Linworth and some classes—like band and choir—at the main high schools where the rest of the district goes. Linworth is unique in many, many subtle ways. The walls are covered in artwork, decisions are made at Town Meeting with the whole school instead of a student government—and everyone, even teachers, vote equally. Teachers are called by their first names. And senior year, we leave second semester on internships and independent studies, all over the world.

Larry has been teaching at Linworth longer than any other teacher, and even though he has threatened retirement, his not teaching seems almost impossible. He seems almost like a part of the school itself, so integral to the experience, a legend to incoming freshman. And he's a truly amazing teacher. This so the shock of that message seemed to make everything stop and turn unreal.

Yet the world doesn't stop turning for that. I have to be ready for my audition this Friday, and the next on Monday. I had to finish exam week even with that news, and Walkabout will go on as planned. Things go on just like always, except from time to time you remember that there's something really wrong.

What is “Obuábamos?”

Last year, I took a class conducted entirely on Blogger, and ever since I've rather wanted to go back to blogging. Unfortunately, I really haven't had the time to do so, nor any particularly interesting subject matter. But now, as I'm about to embark on Walkabout, I feel I may have something interesting or unique to say now and again. So I'm going to make an endeavor to keep a blog, updating it hopefully twice over the week and at least once over weekends. I will probably be recycling Walkabout journals—why not? And I plan to actually respond to other blogs that I read and increase my blog-reading. It'll be fun! But Miriam, you ask, that's all well and good but I wanted to know what you mean by "obuábamos."

Well I'll tell you. Long, long ago, my freshman year of high school, I a really great Spanish class. I don't mean that my teacher was any good or that I learned much about Spanish—I hardly did at all—but that the class itself, the people in it, was great. Freshman Spanish was made up of one of the most entertaining groups of people I've worked with to date. The story of the word "obuábamos" comes from that class.

It's really not all that remarkable a story. We were learning, that fateful day, how to conjugate the past imperfect tense that indicates past actions that took place over an unknown amount of time. For verbs ending in "ar," the conjugation is, "___aba, ___abas, ___aban, ___ábamos, ___aban." This makes for some truly fun to say words, especially in the nosotros form. The class meanwhile disintegrated into an excited clamor of, "hablábamos! bailábamos! trabajábamos!"

Meanwhile, I had discovered a French dictionary. For some reason this caused me to contemplate the French spelling of the word "oboe." You see, oboe is something of an obsession of mine, and such ponderings were hardly unusual on my part. My teacher had once told me both the French pronunciation of the "oboe" (O-bwah) and its spelling, but I had regretfully forgotten the latter. The presence of a French dictionary seemed a perfect opportunity to remedy the situation. And so I looked. The proper spelling of "oboe" in French, by the way, is "hautbois."

Well I wanted to share this new knowledge, but my class was somewhat preoccupied with theirs. And so, among the excited conjugating of verbs into the imperfect nosotros form, an entirely new word joined the ranks: obuábamos. "We used to oboe." Now why would I name my blog such a statement? Who is "we?" Why not anymore? Is "obuar" really a verb? No, no, no, you have it all wrong. I named my blog "obuábamos" because no one else is using the word. There are (were) no Google hits for it. In this way, "obuábamos" is the perfect name for my blog.