Beginning of the End of Break

1-6-12

Well, it was a record 10.5 hour trip down here to Tennessee on Wednesday (after a few days of weather delays). No, I didn't speed. The traffic was really light--I made it through Indiana in only five hours, but that may be because of the route I took--and the weather stayed nice and clear. So, I arrived in town at like 7:30 PM or so, EST (I left at 8:00 AM CST), and decided to check my P.O. Box (yay! mail!) and get dinner at the Village Market (just because I COULD because it was still OPEN--it was an exciting feeling).

On Thursday, I got an oil change for Grune and also chose to replace one of my high-mount brake lights (apparently it was out). I went grocery-shopping and practiced on my bass clarinet. Today, I slept in longer than I had expected (one, I'd stayed up late talking about writing with a friend who's teaching in China, and two, I was warm and comfortable in bed and kept re-setting my alarm). Still, I made it to the credit union, the campus shop (I picked up my last textbook, the one that hadn't been available before break), the post office (no mail), and the VM (an onion--better than Wal-Mart's produce) before they all closed up shop, seeing as it was Friday afternoon. I even chatted with the cashier at the VM about today being a busy day, and she said, "Not as busy as when the kids come back." (She thought I lived around here. Weird! But good!)

I practiced some more on the bass clarinet; I really suck at practicing before we sight-read together as a group (which I'm sure we'll do on Wednesday). I can learn the notes and kinda learn the rhythms but it won't come together until I get a feel for how fast we'll be playing the pieces. Yes, I own the tracks for the one piece (different pieces from the original Star Wars trilogy), but listening to them does not usually translate into me playing awesomely. Especially in this case, seeing as I'm not a brass player, a percussionist, or some high-pitched instrument that usually gets melody. You can't always distinctly hear my parts on the tracks because they're foundational--heard but not seen, if that makes any sense. (It does to me, anyway.) So listening to the tracks doesn't completely help. We'll see on Wednesday. At least I know I've done some practicing. Not as much as I would have liked (see: weather delayed my return), but at least some.

Yes, I've got some resolutions, but I don't know if I'd call them resolutions or something else. I don't know if I'm up for posting them either, seeing as they're only partially formed in my mind as yet. :D

More later.