A Post for Chris

So, around Christmas break, I bought a new calendar.
This was a huge event for me. For the last about 6 years, my dad has gotten these little free fake-leather pocket calendars to which I had become addicted. My dad is now retired, so he no longer gets these calendars and thus, I had to buy my own.
Chris and I went to a few places looking for our respective perfect pocket planners.
I'm assuming everyone who reads this knows how bad I am with decisions and changing my mind repeatedly.
Partially through the convincing of Chris (motivated by the 'damnit Michael, pick one already' feeling) I picked a rather large hard cover calendar, which was beautifully leather covered. I spent this whole year carrying it with me in my bag, but it has been problematic:
1)I don't use it as often for a few reasons:
a)due to size, I've opted to either remember (ie forget) things rather than taking the book out of my bag.
b)My schedule is nowhere near as busy as it was in previous years, so my calendar is pretty bare anyway.

In the end, I've grown resentful of this calendar.

Today I was on a mission to get a new calendar. I was even willing to just go to hallmark and buy one of those floppy plastic covered crappy ones, but they were sold out.
I went back to Chapters - and as fate would have it, I fell in love.
I bought a small moleskin calendar which has the same format as my old one, though shaped slightly differently.
Bottom line - I am immediately happier with how I organize my life, and therefore, my life!

Nevertheless, I still mourn the loss of my planner from years gone by...
My best memory was that there was a section at the beginning labelled "To Do", on which I always enjoyed writing the names and phone numbers of people I was supposed 'to do'.

So, I'm done with trying to shorten my blog posts - it's just not me! I've found that I've been writing unnecessarily longer emails/correspondence and generally being more anxious. I will continue to try and streamline what I have to say, but I shan't limit myself on my blog!

In other news, I've been listening to podcasts from www.german-podcast.de and I think it's helping to improve my german vocabulary and comprehension!

I'm playing my own piano piece this Thursday - my Alzheimer Variations. I need to re-thank Diane, who premiered the piece at U of M, because there is one particular movement which is much more difficult to perform convincingly than I had thought. She played a very convincing and respectful performance, and I hope that mine is also.
In my practising, I have focused on the technical difficulties and now they are secure, now it's about my interpretation and personal involvement. I'd like to say that I will go all out, but the piece is highly personal, and I'm not sure to what extent I should open myself up while performing this in public. It might be good to have a hardcore emotional experience, quasi-music-therapy while playing this piece in a practise room, but that might not communicate most effectively to an audience. I'll play around with that and then make my decisions in the next few days.

I handed in my marking today, now I'm officially finished teaching for the year. All that remains is this performance - though not related to school directly- and my essay, which I hope to finish in about a week.