busy again...

It seems like forever since I've written but I guess really it's only been about ten days...

But I am home now in Montana.   And life is good.   I have a little bit of exciting news and that is that I am going to be teaching voice and music theory this coming year at the local college - Montana State University Billings.  That will be a very interesting new experience for me.

I also just accepted my first-ever improv student... a lady called MSUB looking for a teacher that could help her learn to improvise and understand chord progressions at the piano, and guess who they recommended?? That's right, me.  I'm a little intimidated since I feel like I'm still learning how to improvise myself, but I am sure I can help her.  There aren't many people in Billings, MT who do this sort of thing.   And we will continue learning together, right?

I tried to get a new video posted the other day, but my software is not sophisticated enough to do the things I want with the video editing.  I have a couple songs from my recital I am going to post but first I have to get the new software that will allow me to have more than one video track at once.   I have some different camera angles I want to use in a single video, but with only one video track --every time I try to make an edit all the synchronization gets messed up between all the other video cuts and the audio.

Guess what I've decided to do now?? Yoga!  I met this girl in San Francisco that was an AMAZING yogi...and she totally inspired me.  I'm going to start taking ballet too (I took ballet for a few years before I left for my master's degree), but I really want to start dancing again, and doing things artistically and expressively with my body.  I think it helps my playing to dance, as well, and of course it's just healthy in general.  Plus the flexibility and strength required to do yoga poses will really help me with my dancing, as well... I'm so excited!

Before I start yoga or dance classes though, I have to start teaching a few lessons again so that I can have the money to pay for them!!!  So much to do, always.   It's exciting though.  

I am about to go work on cleaning out the spare room of my house because we have company coming in a couple of days.   I will post more soon!!

Cable Car Ride!

One of the last days before I left San Francisco my friend Kelsey and I went for a ride on a cable car down to the warf.  




We stood on the back of the cable car in the open air and watched as the road fell behind us.














A man stood on the back with us who was the brake operator. He cranked the lever by hand every time the car had to come to a stop.










One of the stops of the cable car is the famous "Lombard Street", which is a very very curvy street down a hill, with a beautiful view of San Francisco.   Kelsey and I didn't get off here though.




We got of here: at the last stop on Hyde street, next to the water.

Alcatraz Island

One thing I felt I simply had to see before I left San Francisco was Alcatraz Island. (I don't know why, exactly, except that it is so famous and I was curious). My friends Hannah and Dhivya went with me.

Here is a picture of San Francisco from the boat we took to the Island:

The seagulls flew alongside the boat and picked food out of the children's hands who were feeding them.

The wind was blowing (as usual).

The Alcatraz cell-house.

                                             A stairway going up the hillside of the island.

We took an audio tour of the cell-house. This was the first thing we walked into - the showers.

A typical cell:

                                          Through the bars:

                                       A game many of the inmates liked to play - a one-man bridge game.

                                      
                                         The view from inside a cell.

                             
                                         This was the library.

         

 This is a view from inside "the hole", where they would lock prisoners who caused trouble in solitary confinement. One of the tour guides closed the door on me while I was inside so I could experience what it was like, and it was pitch-black.  On my audio tour, I heard an ex-inmate of Alcatraz say that when he got locked in there, he would tear a button off of his jacket, and throw it on the floor of the cell.  Then he would make a game of trying to find it.   As soon as he found it he would throw it down again, and try to find it again - to keep his mind busy and from going crazy.   Another inmate said he would focus really hard on the darkness, until he could see a point of light, and then the light would grow, and it was as if he could see a TV screen, and he would travel different places in the darkness with his mind's eye this way.

                                    
           
    If the prisoners behaved well they could have some hobby items in their cell. This one had a checker board.

                                  
                   Four prisoners were able to escape alcatraz by making fake heads out of wax and scratching away at the air vent in their cells with metal spoons. They were never found, but they think they probably drowned trying to swim to San Francisco (because the water is so cold and the swim is quite long and wavy).

                             The Alcatraz cafateria menu board.  They say the prisoners were fed well.

Flowers growing on the hillside of Alcatraz.  Many women and children lived on Alcatraz island (whose husbands/fathers worked at the prison). The children took a boat to school in San Francisco every day. They say they really liked living on the island.

                                           Dhivya snapping photos.

                                  
                                        Hannah and Dhivya.



A view of San Francisco from the island - we're about to catch the boat back.

back home

Here I am again, back home in Montana.  It is very nice to be home, and it feels so weird!!!  I just lived in San Francisco for a year, and now all of the sudden I'm back here again, and it feels like I've been in some sort of time warp - because my life in San Francisco was so completely different from my life in Montana, and now I return to Montana, and my life is almost exactly the same as it was when I left.

Now I am figuring out what to do with myself again...  I am thinking now that I really really want to try to go to Italy to live for at least a little while sometime within the next two years. I studied Italian so intensely this year at the conservatory, and I was able to go through the beginning, intermediate, and advanced Italian classes, but I am still not fluent. My Italian teacher told me though, that he thinks that if I went to Italy, even for just a few months, that my Italian would get to be amazing.   I also know several wonderful piano teachers in Italy that I have worked with before at different piano festivals.   Wouldn't that be exciting?  I think I might apply for a Fulbright scholarship for next year so that I can get some money to go... We will see what happens.

I am really excited because my parents said they are going to buy me some basic recording equipment and let me set up a small recording studio in one of the rooms of their house.  I am so excited about that - It will make it a lot easier for me to make and edit recordings, and get them posted online!  If I can get some professional-quality stuff maybe I could even start making them downloadable... and maybe even make a little money at it!! That would make me sooo happy.

I find myself missing my teachers in San Francisco this week... but next week I will have some lessons with my teacher here, Dorothea, so that will make me feel better.  I always like having another person's input on my playing.

I feel so excited one second... and then so discouraged the next... and then so hopeful... and then so afraid...  Life is so strange!!!

I lay awake at night for the past three nights until 4, 5, or 6 am every morning.  My mind has just been whirring and I can't get myself to fall asleep.  But today I had to get up early for church so maybe I am tired enough to fall to sleep more easily tonight.  Here's hoping!!!  

I have some pictures from some of my adventures in San Francisco and the trip home that I will be posting soon.

ta-ta for now!