Sunday, September 09, 2018

Week 17/66: Making Progress

I made some progress on various fronts this week, all of which are good.  And yesterday I had a fabulous day.  It started at the farmers' market, where I found Zestar apples, the best eating apples around, even a bit better than Honeycrisp.  Then I went for a morning kayak with some friends, where we saw some Bald Eagles and had a lovely time.  I went home, did laundry and mowed, then showered, practiced violin, and went out for pizza with several friends/colleagues, some of whom are fairly new, and so they got a chance to know different people around campus who are nice and friendly, and vice versa.  There was ice cream!  All in all, a pretty great day.

Progress on the article front for revision, but nowhere near done yet.

Finished reading a good book that a friend lent me and returned it.

Worked my way back up to near the end of Book 3 in Suzuki, started doing technique exercises again, and had a really helpful lesson.  I'd been frustrated by my tone, and my teacher helped me see that it was a bow position issue, and gave me some exercises to work on to help me.  She's SO good at seeing things and then giving me ways to work on them.  And also kind and encouraging.

In more exciting news, there's an orchestra in town of intermediate adult string players!  I emailed, and it looks like my skills are about there, so I'm going to go.  It starts near the end of September.  I'm excited to get to play with a group.  We'll probably sound like a so-so middle school orchestra, but it should be fun anyway, and I probably won't be so far the worst that it's plainly embarrassing.

I also used my new paddle board for the second time, for about 20 minutes.  My legs shake the whole time, so it's really tiring.  But I'm getting a tiny bit more stable each time.  If you figure the cost of something, and then divide by the times you've used it, you begin to get an idea of if you should have just rented something or not.  It's sort of a mind game: with all the accoutrements, including an electric air pump, I'm now at $400 a ride, about.  So I've got a ways to go...

This coming week:  I MAY try to go north for a day or two to see the Aurora Borealis.

The big push is to make progress on the revision.

I also want to catch myself back up on Suzuki, and work on my priorities:  bowing/tone, shifting, double stops, Suzuki, and vibrato.  In that order.  It's not like any of those is really totally independent, because in order to make progress in Suzuki, I'll need to have shifting and double stops working pretty well.  And in order to do anything, bowing/tone has to be solid at my level.  Vibrato just needs a little work every day, I think, and it will come.

I'll try to get out on the paddle board at least once, and get some exercise every day.

1 comment:

  1. This is exactly the way that I wanted to spend my sabbatical and didn't! Well, not exactly, of course -- I'm not taking up the violin, for example -- but I had this idea of days filled with bits of everything -- some exercise, some reading, some writing, some socializing. Instead, it turns out that I'm more of a binger -- nothing but podcasts one day, and then nothing but reading another day, etc. That's not bad, but it feels rather unbalanced. Anyway, I'm enjoying hearing about your sabbatical!

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