Almond Brain

The night before last as I was leaving the school after a long day of classes and practicing, I began chatting with a man who works the night shift for security at the front desk of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music - He is very nice (his name is Jim), and he was asking me about my goals in music.  I don't know what nationality he is but I think he might be from India...  He asked me what I think of my musical abilities and I kind of laughed and said, "I dunno."  
"No!" he responded. "You must say: 'I am the best!' You must always say this."
I sort of chuckled again, "Okay."  He continued,
"Why not? Why shouldn't you be the best?  Why should anybody else be better than you? We are all made the same way, right?  Does somebody else have golden fingers? Or golden eyes? What makes anybody better?"
"Well sometimes they are smarter," I said.
"But it is still the same mind!" he said. "Other people's brains are no bigger than yours. Perhaps they are even smaller. We can use them the same. You can be the best.  What matters is time - you have to work hard. You can choose to go hang out at clubs, or you can say, 'No, I have a goal, and I need to work toward it'"  He proceeded to tell me that he believes that in ten years my name will be everywhere (and then he asked my name) - I laughed again and said, "How do you know?"  He said, "Because I see you work very hard. You are always here working. You will make it, but you have to have the goal, and you have to believe it."
"Alright, I do," I said.
Then he asked me,
"What do you think your strengths and weaknesses are as a musician? Are you a good performer?"
"Yes, I think I am a very good performer," I said.
"This is very important," he said, "And a very difficult thing. Many people cannot even speak to an audience, they are so frightened."
"Yes," I said. "But I feel my weakness is in my ability to learn music quickly enough, and to memorize it solidly...It seems like I always have some little slips in performances, and it causes me trouble in competitions."

"Ah!!" he said, "Then I tell you what you must do.  Go to Trader Joe's, and buy yourself a big bag of almonds.  Every night, put fifteen of them in water, and soak them overnight.  In the morning, take the skins off the almonds with your fingers, and eat them. Do this before you eat anything else. And if they taste too bitter, you can dip them in sugar."
"Why take the skins off?" I said.
"Because the skins have a different effect. In one month you will see the results, I promise you.  You will see your memory will become very fast, and you will have a lot of energy and feel very good. Try it for one month. You will see."
"Okay" I said. "I will."
He continued, "Back home we put the almonds outside overnight to get the dew on them, and that has a different effect... But you can also just do it in the kitchen."

So yesterday I went to Trader Joe's, got a big bag of raw almonds for 4.95 (I can't believe how cheap almonds are in California! :-) and followed his directions.  This morning I ate my first dose.  The soaked almonds actually tasted a lot better to me than regular almonds, they get a little softer and taste sweeter and fresher.  I was a little worried about the process of 'skinning' them, but the skins actually come off really easily when you just squeeze them. I think I could see that the ends of the almonds were actually just beginning to sprout... I could grow an almond tree!

Anyway, I am going to continue with the almond experiment (along with as much practicing as I can bear...) and I will let you know how it goes.  :-)