I am so bad at speaking in public. My face gets flushed and I stammer. Its terrible.

I just presented for my editions project for my research class. To see how it went, go to the first sentence in this post.

Grrr.

However, today is the one day of this week I'm not going insane. Tomorrow and Friday are crazy. Thursday is not terrible, but more busy than today. How does this happen????

The weather is becoming much warmer these days, although tomorrow will be colder again. But not as cold as it HAS been.

I need a break from life.

My arms are very sore. Too much playing.

The Shostakovich in orchestra is going fairly well, at least for me. The solos are HARD, but I'm making it. Had rehearsal with the principal bass player yesterday for the second solo in the first movement. Went well.

It is becoming very clear that when Mutzi is not pregnant and has pretty much recovered from surgery, she is a very spirited, playful, funny cat. She's also been following me and Liza around - this morning I walked out of my room and saw her sitting outside the bathroom, waiting patiently for Liza to finish her shower. Very cute.

Since my birthday last Thursday, there have been many ups and downs.

1. Thursday was an up AND down. My birthday was absolutely nuts. I was once again suppose to do accompanying auditions, but both of them were canceled because of the huge storm that hit Boston on Wednesday. So I was running around trying to figure out what the hell was going on. That, plus I had a lesson with John (last name ommited here in case he googles himself), the principal oboist of the BSO since I'm doing the Bach Violin/Oboe Concerto with Kari, a student of his. He worked on his oboe the ENTIRE time. And then reeds. Then his magnifying glass thing was sitting in the sun and almost set Symphony Hall on fire. But then I had a great lesson with Peter and life was back to normal.

2. Friday was up. Orchestra went fairly well, we had another great coaching on the Brahms a minor, and then I went to Heidi's for my family bday party. She and Adelaide made angel food cupcakes and stuck candles in them and sang to me. Then Adelaide and I blew out the candles. Then I read Adelaide three bedtime stories, talked to Heidi and Whit about life in general while drinking nice red wine, and promptly feel asleep VERY peacefully.

3. Saturday was another up, a BIG one. Liza and my first BU party was a success. Although the excuse was because of my birthday, it was good to finally plan and have a party, and technically, was my first bday party since I was 10 years old and went bowling with St. Johns girls. All the liquor was consumed, most of the food was eaten, and a general good time was had by all that did not stop till around 2:30. Liza and I cleaned up quickly afterwards (chocolate cake stuck to the floor is somewhat bad, especially with a curious Mutzi around) and I fell asleep again.

4. Sunday was up, because I got many things accomplished, but down because I was in a weird mood. I'm not sure how to explain it. Maybe because it finally sunk in that I was 23.

5. Monday was another down. I slept for most of the day, and then had rehearsals, but practiced and played in general very badly.

6. Today, thus far, has been up. I got up in time for good warm-up before my lesson, had a LONG, good lesson, and just ate my last chicken salad sandwich for the next 6 weeks. Thats right Mary Keener - Ash Wednesday is TOMORROW! After tonight's hamburger trip to McDonalds, I will be an official vegetarian for the next 6 weeks. Take that.

Today in quartet rehearsal, I asked about a first ending in Brahms a minor quartet and if we were taking the first repeat "in life." What I had originally meant was are we taking that repeat always (we're playing it for the violist's DMA chamber recital). But upon further consideration of that comment, I began to think.

Wouldn't it be nice to have "first repeats" in life?

When you reach the halfway point in your life, you are suddenly back to being born again, like returning to the beginning of the exposition.

You can vaguely recall the mistakes you made during the first time round in the exposition/first half of your life, so you can correct them the second time around. This is the best part of having a first repeat.

You can change phrasing, dynamics, anything to add color and make it different the second time around, therefore not boring.

(sigh)

I hate my alarm clock.

I had set it for 8 am. AM. I woke up at 10:57, three minutes before my lesson was suppose to start. I decided I might at well just call my teacher and tell him the truth, which he thought was wildly funny. I love my teacher.

However, now I'm confused, because at first I thought, "I must have accidentally set it for PM instead of AM." But when I finally checked, it IS set for AM.

(sigh) What the hell happened?? Grrrr......

In other news, they are still replacing the windows in my building, or at least I hope they are, because there has been loud noises coming from downstairs and then every once in awhile, the sounds of glass breaking. If thats how they replace windows, its news to me. Now I'm starting to worry that there may be broken glass in my apartment and I don't know it (they replaced ours over winter break). Since i haven't cut up my feet yet, I guess I'm ok, but I'm still a little worried.

As you all probably know by now, David has left me on facebook to return to his first fiancee, Sara Ballance.

May they find a lifetime of happiness.

Thank you.

Last night, I received a phone call from Prof. Sheila Kibbe, the head of the piano accompanying program here at BU. She had two auditionees today that were not told to provide their own violinist for two of the audition requirements, Beethoven D Major and Brahms A Major violin sonatas. Could I possibly play for them tomorrow?

Woah. I've never done either of them, but I agreed to, and, after skipping class this morning and practicing the first movements of both sonatas, I had rehearsal a bit ago with each pianist. I don't sound that great, but at least I'm playing the right notes, rhythms, and dynamics. The first pianist I rehearsed with is from Korea, and speaks barely a word of English. It took five minutes to get across to her that we only had to do the first movement of each sonata. We played through each, but how do you rehearse with someone in only twenty minutes that doesn't speak English? The second pianist is American and a senior here at BU. With him, we could talk about things here and there, and it was much easier. I feel bad - with him it sounds much better after such little time, but with the girl, it just took too much time to translate. Its unfair. (sigh) Oh well.

Tonight is the orchestra concert. Pavane, American in Paris, Mozart piano concerto, and a new piece by Headrick. Everything should go well except for the Gershwin....its a little shaky, as Kimby could attest to from hearing our rehearsal last Friday.

Its cold here. So cold.

I'm procrastinating. I should be doing research for my class for the assignment due Thursday. I am not in the mood. I should be practicing if I'm not going to get motivated at the library right now. Its cold outside. I don't want to go back into the icy wind.

Quite the dillema.

Sad Day

Kimby has left Boston. She left early this morning. I was so sad to see her go - we had such a nice week together!! We even had beers at Cheers - unfortunately, I had to admit to David on the phone while we were there that nobody knew my name. If I went more often, though, I bet they would. Its actually not as expensive as I was expecting. For a place that has been made incredibly famous by a television show, I thought a beer would be about 10 bucks. Turns out - only $5.95. Shocking.

Life must return to normal for me. I don't have any other close friends visiting Boston for auditions, but Liza does have quite a few over the next few weeks. Also, the suspense is building as we still are not 100% sure that Mutzi (her cat) is pregnant. She has gotten quite fatter over the past three weeks, but maybe thats just the fact that once, as an outdoor cat, she got a lot more exercise and a lot less food, and now, as an indoor cat, she gets NO exercise (since she really doesn't seem to get the concept of playing with cat toys) and a lot MORE food? Who knows.

I am doing Brahms a minor quartet this semester with the same people who made up the strings (minus bass, obviously) in my octet last semester. We had a long rehearsal this afternoon, and it went very well. However - I miss CCE. Kimby and I did viola duets last night for a LONG time, and it was hilarious. We did a bunch of Pleyel, to honor CCE's gigging extravaganzas. I love Pleyel, and I know absolutely nothing about the guy. I should do some research.