Life seems to be going pretty well these days.  The summer is already slipping by and surprise, surprise, I've done nothing.

I'm working, that's it.  The people at work are great and we're having lots of fun both in and out of the office.  The downside to that is that I'm spending a lot - too much money.

Part of me wants to be doing lots of great, worthwhile things this summer - reading books, listening to loads and loads of music and writing piece after piece so that I am really prepared to start a doctoral program next year.  The other, more powerful part of me, senses that after spending the last 7 of 8 years in university, I am about to embark on another 4 years - I need a little break.  I liken it to those weeks of summers growing up where there were no activities planned, your parents were working and you just had to amuse yourself - it was like recess all day long!

That's not to say that I'm completely wasting my time.  I'm still playing some piano, though the practicing has lessened.  I'm still learning the Scriabin piece as well as a Shostakovich Prelude and Fugue in B-Minor.  There are actually a lot of pianists at my office job, so it's fun to talk about piano rep and that kind of piano-nerd stuff.  

 

Diabetes control is pretty damn good.

I've been extra good about writing all the details of my infusion sets in my calendar book so that I keep a good record and can track patterns.  I've actually found more spots on my arm than I would ever have thought - half of them have had some trouble with pooling the insulin before absorption, but I am fine with using my insulin pen to avoid the BG jump.  I will use one more arm site and then I'll move to my lower back.

I think I must have a less than ideal infusion site right now.  It's amazing how the amount of insulin I use daily can change so dramatically.  The other possibility is that I'm not keeping track of my stress eating...  The cookies I bought recently do seem to be disappearing faster than they should.

Ok, I've decided that tomorrow I'm going to try to keep a tally of how many glasses of water I drink and then calculate how many liters that amounts to.  I figure you can't drink too much water, but my bladder and water bill (which we don't actually have to pay) probably wouldn't agree.

Today at work, I had to be far more alert than I normally do to accompany ballet classes.  The reason was that I actually had to TEACH ballet class!  My boss was swamped with paperwork today, so she asked if I would be willing to do some music classes for the last few hours of the work day.  I accepted and the children were stuck with me!

To be honest, I was kind of blind sided; having no prior notice, I had to figure out what to do on the spot.  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.....

Think back to when you were 6-10 years old and you had a substitute teacher at school - remember how the entire class was on its 'best behavior'?  I pulled out some of my best disciplinarian tactics, but they were still little devils!

On the plus side - I came up with a really great creative movement exercise:

We talked about High and Low, as well as Fast and Slow pairings and how they existed in both music and dance.  [If you ever want to hear the most delightful noise in the world... simply ask a class of fifteen eight-year-old girls to make a really loud high sound, ie shrieking!]  They really enjoyed this exercise and responded really well to what I was playing for them.  I also added another layer of volume, but there was a little confusion and at that point they were just excited to flail about the room, vaguely listening to the piano....

Anyway, the teaching was fun and I hope to do it again, particularly with some of the older groups - the relationship of dance and music has been my expertise for the last few years and I see that they are missing a few of the key connections with their musicality - something I really want to address.

As much as I know never to say never, according to current obligations and plans, I think I'm officially done with musical theatre in Winnipeg. (for now, at least)
This summer was all about the musical theatre. I did a kid's theatre camp for three weeks and I did the fringe run of Hair. Both are now wrapped up.
We had our last performance of Hair today - it was a great show. After the show and cleanup, we had a barbecue at the director's house - so much food and fun. Then we had limos take us to the river boat for party and dancing.
Scotty came with me on the boat. Scotty is not lame. If he had wussed out on account of having to wake up for work tomorrow morning at the Leg, I would call him LAME right now, but he didn't. Scotty is not lame.
Overall, today was a pretty kick ass day!

The other kick-ass awesome news from today is that I have a place to live in London. This time it's more certain than last! It's a 2 bedroom apartment right in downtown London - close to everything I'll need and only 10 minute bus ride to the university. I'm so excited to not have to bus for an hour and a half to get to school!! This is the situation I had originally wanted, but I got sidetracked with other options that I thought might be more beneficial, but this is what I really want and I'm going to be happy with it!
As I learn more details about my living situation, I will post more, but for now I'm reasonably confident that I have a place as of Sept 1'st....
But that means that I have to reevaluate how I'm getting out there... That part is a little up in the air.

It's amazing how the day goes by fast when there's a variety of things to do.
I started my day with 3 hours of musical theater camp, then I had a few hours for lunch, I finally went to Mitzi's for chicken fingers... they a great reputation, but odd business hours, so I went today. The chicken fingers were damned good, but caesar salad was not up to par. Nevertheless, I see why they are known for wonderful chicken fingers.
After lunch, I went to the library downtown and read some poetry about autumn.
Then was Hair rehearsal. We did a bit of cleaning and then a run through of the second act - what a wake up call to those two pieces that I had never played with the cast before... I was not comfortable. I need to spiff those up a lot before the next time. It's odd thought that I have no time really to work on them. I took some time tonight to work on the pieces that we will run through tomorrow, but there's only so many waking hours in the day (appropriate for playing piano).
Oh ya, the mus th. camp this morning was so cute. not my group, but there's a group of 15 5/6 year olds doing a Clown workshop!! I get to play for their performance - cutest thing ever.
Anyway, where was I... after the Hair run, I had something to eat and then dance classes. The stretching / turn-out exercise didn't even hurt as much as it did the other times. I'm actually experiencing the benefits of dance training.... ish.
I had grabbed a vial of test strips last night in the dark to replace the ones in my backpack.. but it turned out to be a vial I had used for old strips which had already been used. My sugars were not in their happy place when I got home... after 11 hours of not testing.... I'd prefer not to think about how long they were resting at that bad place.

Also, I'm excited about the creative prospects increasing lately. The dance film is getting underway. I have the form and a lot of concepts and I'm going to a rehearsal on friday to see what the motion style is going to look like. On thursday, I'm meeting with a singer friend for whom I am writing a songcycle. She has chosen poems and she'll present them to me with her inspirations and then I have free reigns to make them into beautiful music. She will be learning them for her recital, so most of the work will be done at the beginning of next year AKA-during my masters. That's going to be somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes of music! Moral of this story is that I'm very excited to have something concrete to work on and have some direction. And as of this weekend, I will have two such projects! Perhaps this summer isn't all for shit afterall...