I'm halfway through my second term of lessons, and I am making pretty good progress. My teacher always says I'm doing well. I'm ahead of the average! I'm pretty impatient though, I want cello to be easy like piano is. So I've had varying levels of satisfaction in my progress. The first couple of lessons were magic, because I WAS PLAYING THE CELLO! And then I realised how hard it was, my hand gets tired of holding the bow, my fingers hurt from the strings, I was playing pretty boring songs. So I just tried to keep practicing consistently, and fortunately because I practiced I got to progress through the boring pieces quickly. During the christmas holidays I mostly had a break. The good thing about that was, I was able to break the habit I had of putting my thumb on the sharpest part of the bow, which hurt. I couldn't change my habit while practicing, but taking a break for a few weeks made me stop it, and then I started again with a better thumb position.
My second term has been exciting. I've been working on bending my elbow, and finally I feel like I'm bowing properly and gracefully. My left hand fingers are stronger so I can play in tune more easily. I am now playing on all four strings and with all four fingers, and this means I'm playing a few pieces of REAL music, a Bach minuet and a Purcell thing. I also like the Suzuki exercises. So I actually enjoy what I'm playing and feel like I'm playing reasonably proficiently. I like that I get a new song and I'm completely awkward at first, but by the end of the week I'm smooth.
Some dumplings in Newcastle.
Some roses I saw last night.
Housemate.
No downsides to this. It's nice. It's easy. She's busy and quiet. She bought us a new fridge.
Work.
I am out of limbo land and a proper permanent employee! I am very grateful for that. This week I've been able to upload a pile of books to various stores, so that's satisfying. My next goal is to work on promoting. Some kind of promotion pack to send to authors to help them get the word out.
We had a social excursion to the chicken farm, which is being turned into free-range eggs. This is a big empty shed with foundations.
This is a shed being set up with grating and nest boxes.
This is the free range area being fenced.
Snow peas.
I decided I need to eat more veg, so I now buy a bag of snow peas every week. They are nice enough to eat without dip, and they don't need to be cut. I just wash them and eat them out of the bag and give all the stalks to Percy. I think I prefer them to banana actually. A lot more expensive though. Per kilo. But maybe you pay for a lot of heavy skin with banana that you don't eat.
Singleness.
I feel like I'm doing good stuff encouraging single women. The ones who say that they feel a bit weird to be going against culture and not hating singleness, I endorse their position, and the ones who are trying to be married and doing online dating, I've tried an online dating website once so I can identify with that. I don't want to change people to all be like me, I know some people just want marriage and that is a good desire and a good thing to pursue if you can. But I do want to see less stigma and pity and self-pity. And just be realistic and open about it, and keep it in perspective.
Mac.
I have achieved a personal goal, bought a Mac! In anticipation of getting the Internet. Means I haven't saved anything towards my mortgage since I moved in; I first repaid my parents then bought a table then this laptop. I'm going to plug away and save for a while now, then make my next purchase which could be a keyboard.
If you have a 9am appointment at the apple store, you see them through the glass having a pow wow. Then at 8.58 they spread around the store and stare at the customers waiting outside staring in. Then at exactly 9am, the doors slide open and they give a round of applause to us as we walk awkwardly in.
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