C'est la vie

Music has currently taken over my life. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I find myself looking at my blog and thinking to myself that I haven't thought of anything other then how my practice session went or what I should write in my paper, or how behind I am in reading in my baroque counterpoint class. I have not time to contemplate the meaning of life. Which is actually kind of nice. I am living life, rather then just thinking about it. This blog was intended to not be about the music in my life, but I am finding that the music in my life is all there is currently to blog about. So, I guess I will write about what is going on in my life.

Tonight is the finals for the concerto competition. It is for the entire school, so you have all instruments represented. Winds, brass, percussion, strings, piano, voice. How absurd. I thought judging winds against different types of winds was bad. I don't envy the jobs of the judges. I will be playing the Francaix Divertissement. I really enjoy working on this piece, which is good because after tonight I have to continue to work on it to record for a competition tape. However, between now and then, I have a lot of homework to do. So, first a cup of tea, then work.

Eddie Izzard

Pure genius.

"For years I have been plagued with a problem: I have several good friends who used to be lovers. But when referring to them, it always felt wrong to call them “ex-girlfriends”. The implication of the term is that this is a person with whom you have little contact. What I needed was a word that could be defined as “former lover, present friend.” And so “flex” was born."

(this quote is from http://www.sexartandpolitics.com)

I might have to use this term, because I am already starting to run into the problem of "ex." Ex implies in our culture something evil, something to be avoided. There isn't much room in our society for the amiable breakup. We must be all tears and drama. I don't get it.

Is it fate?

As I am procrastinating on my studying and doing laundry for the evening...I think about the concept of fate. How much in our lives is fate and how much do we decide? As I go though this thing called we generally call life, I have started to believe that we choose much less then we believe we do. However, when we as individuals become more enlightened, I believe that you can start to choose your own life more and more. As someone becomes aware of their own patterns in life, they can learn to break cycles. Cycles that could be as long as several lifetimes. We can learn to "choose" fate or reject it, depending on if the "fate" in our lives is healthy or not. And sometimes "fate" needs a helping hand.

Swimming

Today I went swimming. Doesn't sound too exciting, except in the fact that it is not practicing or making reeds. Except for me it was a small triumph. You see, I have this weird reaction whenever I have my face face-down in water, my brain panics for some reason. I am not sure why, and I can't remember the first time that this happened to me, but my heart starts racing and my breath gets really shallow. I kind of decided that in one of my past lives I drowned by having my head shoved face down in water....well, not really.

When I was small, I remember looking forward to swimming lessons. I had many of them as a child, the most annoying thing about it was that the water was sometimes very cold. This was Southern California, and the pools are all outside, and sometimes the heaters didn't kick in during our early morning lessons. I remember not really listening to what the instructor was saying, since whatever they were saying was not usually as exciting as seeing if I could dive down to the bottom of the pool. Typical.

Weird, isn't it, now I have this fear. And I really like swimming. It is something that I personally enjoy, but that little irrational part of my brain wants to have no part of.

So today I decided. I enjoy swimming. Its a good exercise for me, I am going to try and do it. Even though I am afraid. So, I pulled out my swimming suit and went over to the pool, after not getting into a pool for a very long time.

Today was great, because I did only backstroke. At first I was still a little panicky, but I managed to calm myself down the majority of the time. I will have to work up to strokes that require me to have my head in water. I think I will do backstroke for a couple of weeks. I really do enjoy being in the water. Focusing on the form of the strokes that you are doing is great fun, counting how many times you kick v.s. your arm strokes. I only hit my head on the pool once, and that was because I was focusing on what I was doing so much that I lost track of where I was in the pool.

So, day 1 of being in the pool. Day 2, maybe I will try a few crawl strokes. Just a couple.

I love Rumi

Look at Love...
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love

look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life

why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad
pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all
the known and the unknown
see how unknown merges into the known

why think separately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together

look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don't get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows
right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be

The establishment for the concern of clean dentition

Today I had a dentist appointment. You know, its funny, it really should be called a hygienist appointment. The reason being is that we spend about 2 minutes with the actual dentist, but the majority of the time with the hygienist. Just a thought. I guess people will say they are getting a cleaning, which is more accurate then saying we went to the dentist. Even more accurate, I went for a cleaning, and saw fly by me something that if placed in a slower dimension, might resemble a dentist.

I have never been to such a large dental facility before. I have always gone to the offices that have one, possibly two dentist. The places where you tend to be the only person waiting in the reception area, and so you feel like your every move is being watched by the bored receptionist. And who are we kidding, of course every move is being judged by the bored receptionist. This place had what seemed to be a highly efficient front office, with several receptionists, but it still had that reassuring smell of fluoride and sterilization, along with one of those stupid little kid toys that have the wires connected to a board with little primary colored blocks circling the primary colored wires. Entertaining for all of two minutes. Believe me, I tried.

There were many people willing to hand me the paperwork that I had to fill out. The paperwork was actually a little complicated for me. Not because anything was inherently complicated, but the questions that they asked did not have solid answers. The first question was, how would you like to be addressed. Well, this one is obvious, I would like to be addressed as "The most glorious bassoonist who has ever graced the surface of the planet." Not that this is true, but they didn't ask if it was true. I thought they might frown upon this title, so I just put "Theresa." Then the next question was relationship status. What does a dentist office need to know my relationship status for? I left it blank.

The next question was my place of work. Well, I technically don't work. UW-Madison pays me, yes, but I don't work for it. I go to school and they pay me. It's a great setup, but a little confusing on paper. So, I put "uw fellowship" and hoped this appeased the dental paperwork goddesses.

I then was led back through the labyrinth of offices (remember this was a big place, I too would be skeptical that the possibility of a labyrinth inside a dental office was possible, but I saw it with my own eyes) into the surprisingly comfortable chair.

The cleaning was done extraordinarily well by a women who was very slow, but amazingly detailed in her work. Two things I manage never to be, slow or detailed...I'm working on it. Well, at least the detailed part. One of the amenities at this very large dentist office was a choice of toothbrushes, floss, tooth paste, and tongue cleaner. (kids don't leave home without one!) I was overwhelmed by the amount of choices. Amazing. Overall, an interesting experience, one that I will repeat around six months from now...