life

It is very strange for me to think that I have nothing scheduled for the rest of my life. I'm sure that will change soon (at least, I HOPE it will!!), but for now, there is nothing. I'm trying to do stuff like reorganize my very cluttered room (which will involve a new bookshelf and a shoe organizer, still have to get those), find a decent bike for a reasonable price, decide what auditions I should take in September, do some gardening (well, repotting--I wish I had a real garden), get a California driver's license, figure out how to make better reeds, and try to keep motivated to practice. Bigger items: find a job for the coming year, find a new oboe, get more students and gigs.

Sarasota felt sort of like a vacation from all of those issues. Even on a more basic level: I didn't have to cook or clean or grocery shop or drive. I just played oboe and hung out with fun people for three weeks. There were a lot of really wonderful players and people there. The oboes were all really good and, somewhat surprisingly, all very nice. I had good groups and we played great music: the first three movements of the Prokovief Quintet, the Poulenc Trio, the Mozart C minor Serenade, and a chamber arrangement of Ravel's Mother Goose Suite. There were also some amazing faculty members, and it was great not only to hear them play and have them coach and teach us, but to talk to them about music and life. The community in Sarasota is incredibly supportive of the festival. They had volunteers on call to take us places if we wanted to go somewhere, and they organized trips to local attractions and had pool parties for us and gave us dinner. The beach was gorgeous: powder white sand and warm aquamarine water. So generally it was a fabulous place for me to be, though exhausting at times.

Now I'm facing the time I've been dreading for a long time: post-school, pre-job. Hopefully that job part will come. And hopefully before the next century. We'll see. I'm prepared to find other things to do if it doesn't work out, but first I need to give it my absolute best shot.