busy but not

I've had the great chance to do some reading in the past month. Books I actually wanted to, rather than say, text books.
I finally got round to reading 'Mao's Last Dancer', and also bought 'Predictably Irrational' (Dan Airely), finished off 'The Reason for God' (Timothy Keller), was lent 'Outliers' (Malcolm Gladwell) and am now reading through Daniel Levitin's 'This is your Brain on Music'.
They've all be fantastic reads (well, still working through the Levitin book). I just hope it's not like Oliver Sack's 'Musicophilia'. While the concept was interesting, it was too boring for me - instead of only revealing the various interesting quirks on how the brain responds to music, and theorising on how so, it was just a collection of 'Here is a quirky story that I've come across!' and 'I have a little bit of this, I've experience synethesia, and I have suffered from this condition before'. With little detail into why this was the case, how it affected the being of the person - their musical experience, and their otherwise everyday existence. It was a bit too showy-off-y 'look-at-me', 'been-there-done-that' for me. Boring!

I start at The Opera School this coming Monday. I am quite excited, and a lot scared! I'm not afraid of hard work per se, but I am a bit nervous about how it is all going to work. I haven't actually been given any music to prepare yet, so I anticipate there will be a lot of fast learning. Also next week, I begin my tutorials at College, so there will be much to balance out. My new trio is starting rehearsals next week as well - it will be very busy! I started making a weekly timetable for regular commitments and it so far looks quite busy:
Monday-Thursday 10am-5pm Opera School
Monday evening: dinner, Monday Evening Programme, tutorial - end at 9.30pm
Tuesday evening: at the moment, there is a trio rehearsal in there, 6-8pm, before a tutorial 8.30-9.30pm.
Wednesday evening: 7.45pm Jude's small group study
Friday afternoon: 4-6pm trio rehearsal
The reherasal on Tuesday is going to have to change in a little bit because our violinist is going to be busy at that time - also not fantastic for me, but we'll see how I go. That's not including any freelance work (how that fits in is completely beyond me!), nor my original trio (yes, we're still together!). I think that will run as a project-based....thing. When we get some dates, we'll put it together.
Things that will still require frequent attention over the normal course of the week:
Mentees
Director of Music job - still working on Concert Series stuff
other stuff......
So, please don't be offended if I keep saying that I'll catch up and never get around to it..... :S

Chiasma Trio did a 'Live at the Convent' broadcast on 3MBS just this Tuesday gone. I didn't realise it would take the majority of the day - we had to get there at 10.30am for a soundcheck, the programme was at 1.30pm so we had a few hours to chill out in-between. Then after we did the broadcast, we had some food to satisfy our sugar cravings and then headed home. I went to the supermarket and bookshop after, so it was a pretty full day. I was a little nervous about it - there's something about radio, compared to a live performance on a stage, and the fact that I knew there were people listening in from various parts of the world over the internet! I know I kinda freaked out in the third movement, and stopped concentrating. Therefore fluffing my supposedly-sparkling passagework! Boo. Oh well. I was admittedly a little bit disappointed with my playing itself, but M said overall it was quite good. The feedback from people who listened in was good, so perhaps I am being too critical of myself? Or that playing in the fairly 'dead' studio, compared to the sound going out over the radio (with some additions to make it sound like we were in a large empty hall) was so different, I didn't even know. I also had to do a short interview - I hadn't really practiced any sort of 'radio voice' (much as I had thought about it!) and I felt a bit silly about it all....in all the times that I've been to 3MBS to play in the programme, I've never had to do an interview! I felt a bit silly about it all, but again, people have been saying that it was good..

There was another one of those crazy floods in Melbourne. It started off as a somewhat cloudy morning, but by midday had fined up to what looked like a beautiful Melbourne day. But at about 2.30pm, the sky started turning grey, and even darker. By 3pm it was pretty much so dark that it looked like about 8pm at night! And then it started pouring.....with large hailstones! They were about the size of golf balls (which is fairly significant) and it pelted and pelted. Good thing I wasn't outside this time. I had thought about going on a Saturday evening adventure, but thought better and stayed inside that night. Watching the rain radar on the BoM website was quite exciting, if ominous!

It would appear that the last four or so weeks have had days that have been ridiculously busy, and some that have been so empty that I've been bored. I don't know why they couldn't even themselves up??

So, I also booked flights to KL for July - a 11 day holiday. I'm heading soon after P&S's wedding (not missing that for anything!) although I am missing my grandfather's 80th birthday celebration that night. But one can't be in two countries so soon after each other. Well, not in this case anyway. But my family aren't too worried, as those grandparents are coming to Melbourne in May for a holiday so I'll get to see them then. And I'll visit more family when I'm there anyway. I'm quite excited about it - it'll be about seven and a half years since I've been. It'll be the first time I fly internationally by myself - it's a little daunting!
So, I had to also decline doing the MRSA with a couple of singers this year. I feel a little bad about them, but there is no way I'm not attending the wedding and reception. See? I said No..!!! Scary, hard, but perhaps for the better.

Last night I went to the ANAM concert - we had planned to go as the Kurtag was being played. We wanted to see how they did it - as eager students, or critical snobs. Both, perhaps! In short, we thought they missed most of the point of the entire piece. The entire concert I think could be summed up in the word 'surprising'. Neither good nor bad, just is. Feel free to take from that what you will.
But it was good to hang out with friends again - finally! We caught up over a drink or two, doing what we used to do to while hours away...

One of the things I re-realised about myself today as I tried to find recipes to bake yummy things for this weekend is that I really really suck at planning for baking and cooking. Really suck.
I knew I wanted something chocolate, and something else - the idea of a flourless orange cake sounded appealing. But then that was a bit hard. So I instead googled orange butter cake. And found a few recipes. But the only ingredients I have in my house is plain flour and milk. No kidding. So I was trying to find two recipes that have as much ingredient cross over as possible. That is, sugar (castor, or brown), flour (plain or self-raising), number of eggs (preferably six of under), butter (minimise, as it's Butter...! However tasty...). And I got so frustrated and kept chanigng my mind. I think I came across a workable combination, although there is also much to buy. I'm not sure if I can actually handle it! And then I thought that the worst-case scenario would see me buy packet cake mix....I know, it's cheating, but they work quite well...and my brain really hurts!!

Add to that the fact that I have to do some more grocery shopping (as if I haven't done enough of it this month...eeek!!) to stock up on lunches for next week - the start of School!

Can't think - all too complex, not sure how I'm going to manage it all.
And to think I used to do this to myself almost every day for the past few years. I thought about it - perhaps one performance of a sort in any given week. At times, far greater than that. The waking up early after having gone to bed late. Not sure if my body can keep up anymore...