A Simmering Stasis

If I am shortly arrested and thrown into prison, the reason will be: I STILL haven't filed my taxes. This unpleasant job has been simmering on the backburner for nearly three weeks. By now, the overcooked unpleasantness of those irksome federal fees is beginning to exude quite the repulsive aroma. My sixth sense tells me that the concoction is going to implode at any moment, and FBI agents will suddenly burst into the music library, or violate the sacred silence of the deserted HFAC in search of me. My life will turn into a tale of hobbit vs. Black Rider--even my bedroom won't be safe, although to reenact the bed-stabbing, mattress-demolishing, feather-flying scene, my apartment would have to be a lot bigger. My room is so tiny that two FBI agents of smallish stature would barely be able to stand over my bed if they squeezed.

In other news, I had a fabulous, long weekend: I went--thanks to Mati's generosity, and her sinuses--and saw a certain mutant movie at midnight with some excellent cousin companions, (I totally didn't even plan that alliteration); Friday night I went to the best Thai restaurant EVER ("Simply Thai" in Sandy) and ate some amazingly delicious food (not to mention the fact that I had enough leftovers for TWO additional meals, which = YAY in college student's life), after which I watched the edited version of The Pianist (oh my goodness, I am infinitely glad it was not my lot in life to live through the Holocaust) with my dear piano friends. Saturday night after work, I watched a rather weird documentary about Glenn Gould with another of my piano friends--seriously, I wish I could remember some of the quotes from that movie--even non-musicians would be amused. I know you're probably thinking that I must be crazy if I think watching a documentary on a Saturday night makes a weekend great, but, well...sometimes it does! Sunday, this same piano friend came with me to church, and then brought me home to her house for an authentic Mexican meal (her entire family immigrated to the US from Mexico when she was 11ish.) Then we went to Elder Bednar's CES Fireside, which was excellent, though I will admit that I got a lot more out of the second half, as I spent the first half in a rather soporific state. And Elder Bednar's comments now bring me to my third and seemingly unrelated topic for the day: practicing.

Elder Bednar talked about how much time we spend/waste out in cyberspace, and how, if we're not careful, it can take over our lives. He told us to ask ourselves some questions about what we do out here, including something along the lines of, "Is something good coming from what I'm doing?" Interestingly enough, just a few days ago, I read a link that someone (I think it was you, Spencer, if you ever happen to read this) had posted regarding how much time we waste watching TV, and how much it is hurting us in the long run. Aha, I think this is it. Anyway, I've decided to turn my blog into a good tool for motivating me to practice, even when I'm tired and just want to go home, or when I'm at home, and don't want to come back to campus to practice. I seem to be having a little trouble with the balancing of work vs. practicing: I've been going to town on the go-to-work-make-money-so-I-can-go-to-Prague thing, but not so much on the whole learn-my-new-repertoire-so-I-have-something-to-actually-perform-in-Prague. So from this day forward, I must practice at least five productive hours per day before I can go to bed each night. And you shall be my witness that this feat is accomplished. So far today, I've done about 2 1/2, so I'm halfway there. Yay.