Stupid Brain… ARGH!

Did not sleep well last night. Brain is in overdrive and I can’t turn it off. I’m worrying about all the stuff I don’t know and know I should know but haven’t learned yet or am too stupid to figure out. Score study is not going well in other words. I woke up, like bolted upright type of woke up, last night with this piece of music playing over and over in my brain and I couldn’t get it out. The problem: it’s not one I was even studying! Then, I figured “Okay, if is what the brain is going to do, at least I’ll focus on getting a song stuck in there that I’m actually trying to focus on” and then I couldn’t remember the opening measures and started to panic! My score was elsewhere so I couldn’t go and get it but I seriously contemplated getting in my car and driving to get it because I was that worried! And even now, as I’m writing this… that same stupid movement is stuck in my brain!

k… turning on iTunes… saved – for now…

Why is my head doing this? The only other time I’ve had something like this happen was during the M.Ed. summer when I read for 2 days straight in order to come up with a thesis statement and write a literature review. After that reading mania, I crashed and woke up with a literature review totally organized in my head and a thesis statement finalized. Unfortunately, I can’t practice waving my arms around in my sleep :S Ideas don’t work the same way as practice and analysis unfortunately. Stupid brain…

After tossing and turning and just plain being a total wreck all night, all I can say is thank goodness for Starbucks.

What should be running through my head:
Scenes from the Louvre 3 &4 (Dello Joio); Chorale and Alleluia (Hanson); Trauermusik (Wagner)
What was running though my head:
Scenes from the Louvre 5 (maybe I should just add this to list of ’shoulds’ and study the stupid thing?)

Wanted: One Shiny Nose Due to Grindstone

As of today.. I’m going to really kick things into high gear. I am – and I know this to be totally true – thee biggest slacker in the world. I’ve met some people who were procrastinators but me? I’m the queen. It’s confession time: I have a week left until Chicago and I’m just scratching the surface of my scores. I’ve been listening and listening and listening and listening and listening but the actual arm waving (you know.. the important ‘must practice’ bit) that’s only been happening a fraction of the time. Today – that all changes. I now have a borrowed mirror in my office and the mental alertness/drive to work.

This is so typical of me, I hate it. I’ve had oodles of time but that’s the problem. Deadlines are my friend when it comes to getting something done. I ‘need’ pressure and I don’t care what people say about that being an excuse – I’ve been through enough schooling now to know how and do and do not work. I also know that my motivation for going to the symposium has changed. I thought I wanted to go on and study more but the more I think about it, listen to people, look at my life, the more I think that I’m a)totally not smart enough, b) don’t like the overwhelmingly negative attitudes of the ivory tower mentality, and c) not sure that’s the lifestyle I’m looking for at the moment.

So what have I done just now? What I’ve been doing this past month – making excuses for procrastinating. But I’d like to (as weak as it sounds) think of it more of a realization as to why I’m doing or not doing things. It’s slipped so far down my priority list that it’s not funny (though I was totally excited this a.m. to find I’m going to be thee bari sax player for the week! booYA!). This not having a real teaching job thing.. kind sucks away my ambition to work at conducting because I’m not putting it into practice. A more applicable symposium for my line of work at the moment would be “how to sit at a desk all day without loosing your mind” or “BB101: busy bodies and how to avoid their antics while maintaining an air of productivity.”

We’ll see… I should get working on conducting stuff though, but since I started writing this post I was distracted with real work of putting captions on pictures from a conference I helped organize to get to the publisher by the deadline of a couple of weeks from now. (don’t get thinking I didn’t procrastinate on that.. it’s only b/c I had someone hounding me with emails saying they wanted it earlier than I’d arranged with the editor that I did it sooner rather than later… it was a move to retain sanity). Then there was the facilities guy who wanted to paint staff lines on the chalk boards, and then the stream of ESL students taking their final guitar tests the insist on smoking but leave the door open so it wafts right into my office from down the hall. *hack!*

Here’s hoping I get something done…

How not to give help over the phone

Her: Student Housing – how may I help you?
Me: Hi, I’m trying to fill in the on-line summer housing registration form but it’s not allowing me to complete the Zip Code/Postal Code section properly. I’m in Canada and need to use letters but it won’t allow that.
Her: It should work.
Me: Yes, but I’m using letters and it won’t.
Her: Hang on…. *click*

Her: Just use our zip code _________ instead.
Me: That then that should be okay? How will I get the information sent to me then?
Her: We email it to you.
Me: But there isn’t a place on the form for an email address to be entered.
Her: Hang on… *click* (k… so the first ‘hang on’ I thought was a little odd.. the second time she said it, I thought it was really weird!)

Her: There should be a place to enter it.
Me: Well, I don’t see one anywhere. There is name, address, zip code, student number but I don’t have a student number b/c I’m only there for a week for a symposium.
Her: There is a place. The person I just spoke to said there was one… *click*
Me: Oh! It could show up as my registration b/c when I created a new account in the beginning to fill in the form, I had to use my email as my user name. I think that’s how it will work – do you think that’s right? …. Hello?…. (at this point I realize that she’s been putting me on hold all those time the phone went dead on her end and then I figured I’d been talking to myself.. nice…

Her: It’s there. It works. She’s been telling me that it will be there and she’s entered a bunch with email addresses so there should be a place on the form.
Me: I think I figured it out… but I think you weren’t able to hear me for a bit there… *relay revelation about registration again – this time with her ‘listening’* Does that sound like it will work?
Her: It’s there. Email addresses are part of the registration.
Me: Okay – let’s hope this works. Thank you!
Her: *click*

O M G

I just sooooooooo can’t wait to go to this conference now! grrrrrrrrrr…

Disappointment in Domestic Land :(

I was bitten by the domestic bug yesterday. I cleaned the entire apartment (but not the tub… I’m a slacker, I know) then spent the day in the kitchen. I loved it! I made guacamole, hummus, lime chicken skewers, made a big veggie platter and then… disappointment… big time.

This was for a ‘games night’ down the hall at G’s where we were having people over to play Cranium – always a good time! Then the cancellations started coming in: first the roommate who rescheduled his band rehearsal for that night after we’d planned to have the games night on Monday so he could have his usual rehearsal on Sunday. He really wanted to be there because it was also a chance for he and G to meet my boyfriend. Then we called our friends who are moving away soon and invited them over because we needed the numbers and it would be good to see them as much as possible before they move… then, 30 minutes after they were suppose to arrive, the phone rang. They’re son was sick and they couldn’t make it. So the three of us are sitting there with a tonne of food and no one to eat it except us.

Then only G and I ate…. this is worrisome. I told the bf that I’d never cook for him after I’d heard about his years as a cook… and now wish I’d kept that promise. He didn’t eat. He had a piece of chicken, piece of cheese and cracker, some guac and chips, and a couple of mushrooms from the veggie plate… that’s it. I know my food is good but is it just totally not up to par? Everyone else who’s had my guacamole loves it and the chicken was just chicken with some spices on it. The hummus, well – that was poo pooed instantly – apparently he doesn’t eat that period. I know it was good because you can’t screw it up and G and the roommate (when he got home) at a lot of it. G made smoked salmon and cream cheese rolls which he didn’t touch either – doesn’t do smoked salmon or anything. So I struck out on all food accounts!

*clap……clap……clap……*

Worry for nothing but this is kinda not a good thing… at all! I was proud of my food dang it…

Huff and Grr!

Annoyances – they happen all the time, but when they are crammed into a two hour time slot during an activity that is meant to be enjoyable they are no longer annoyances but giant thorns in my side.

We have a concert on Sunday – fine. But don’t make us rehearse a piece that we clearly are not ready to perform. I’m still very ‘grrr’ about the comments that are made about the composers and arrangers of pieces we play. They have always been completely unfounded and sometimes blatantly incorrect and downright rude proving a complete lack of musicianship/professionalism. *huff*

Then! Don’t tell me that I should ‘try the private sector’ if I’m annoyed about what I’ve been given as teaching contract. Don’t try to tell me that moving from one area of finance to another is exactly on par with my situation. Bull! I have so much more I could rant about that one it isn’t even funny.

I’m so not impressed right now.. not at all!

*huff and grr!*