1. dork-estra - man the orchestra is a super dorky thing. forget the fact that, number one, it is an orchestra, but you'd probably guess that you could find at least a few normal, nice people in ANY organization right? well you'd guess wrong. besides the fact that everyone is tremendously older than me, they are also massively weird. mostly it's the old (by old, i mean, senior citizen, or at least acting like senior citizens) people who are just old and disgruntled. but then there are the super-into-music nerdy ones (like the one i have to sit next to who says "it looks like tonight we'll be performing the cell phone symphony in d-flat" whenever anyone's phone goes off during rehearsal) who are completely socially awkward, and i want to be nice by making conversation with them but i also don't want to because then i'll be associated with the nerds.anyway, so the last two weeks i've been having a number of rehearsals for this special one-time mozart concert, which might have been kind of cool, i mean, it was in this cool church (cathedral of our lady peace) and playing in more like a chamber orchestra is a lot different than playing in a band. but alas, it was very far from cool. well, a lot of that had to do with the music, i just can't get excited about this old stuffy music. it's ultra-long (one symphony, in four movements, was fully 30 minutes long, which was half the program), it's mind-numbingly repetitive, and there's just nothing very interesting about it (although, i guess you could argue that the predictability of the musical themes, like how every phrase resolves, etc, is what makes this type of music, especially mozart, so likable to so many people). i'd really love to play something more like songs from princess mononoke or if you're gonna go with the classical stuff at least make it a little more well known. oh well, i only played in the very first song anyway (they didn't make clarinet parts for the other songs) and that was all of 5 minutes long. but i stuck around after my part to listen to the rest of the program, mostly because of the church, i think if it was in a regular building i would've book-ed it way outta there.
but now that concert is over and all i have to worry about again is monday rehearsals (even though those aren't so much fun anymore, for a variety of reasons), at least it's not overload like it's been (6 rehearsals and a concert all in the past 9 days) so perhaps it'll be a little more manageable now. that's what i need, just a casual "sometimes" kinda hobby.
2. unhealthy day - so with all of that busy-ness, i've had to skip a few yogas and some workouts and many hours of sleep, and all that's taken its toll. in fact, on wednesday (the day after the concert was finally over) i had to take an intentionally unhealthy day. last week friday i had mcdonald's for dinner because it was late and nothing was open and the drive thru was on the way home, and then for some reason i've wanted to eat mcdonald's all that weekend, and i never eat mcdonalds, not because i have will power to resist fast food, but because i don't even crave it. and on wednesday all i could think about was chicken mcnuggets and fries. ugh. so i had to take an intentionally unhealthy day, ate mcd's for lunch, skipped the wednesday workout and couch potato-ed it all afternoon watching my dvr-ed tv shows. but that was exactly what i needed. i needed that extra purposeful downtime to get myself recharged and back on track. like brandi commented about wanting to make the most of every day i very often give myself guilt when i don't fill up my days with activities and experiences because i feel like i'm wasting my life or youth or something, but ever since that post when i decided to stop writing down all my daily activities on the calendar i've been much less guilt-riden and enjoying going with the flow of life more, which is a very happy thing for me. so this unhealthy day was desperately needed, it gave me a chance to catch up on...
3. real reality tv - while i do love american idol, i'm even more of a sucker for real reality tv, which is... SPORTS! of course. these past two weeks was the australian open and man has it been great! the return of jelena dokic (a serbian who plays for australia, so the home crowd was way into her run to the quarterfinals after being out of the game for years... like since 2001 really when she was a top 4 teenager). andy roddick playing well again, taking out defending champ novak djokovic and then playing a great match against roger federer in the semifinals. and one of my faves from a couple of years ago fernado verdasco nearly taking nadal out in a 5 hour and 14 minute semifinal (a couple of years ago verdasco played roddick in some davis cup match and i liked his game, thought he'd make some noise sometime soon... well, it took a couple of years, but i think he's on the right track to some big wins now). serena williams playing right now as i type this against dinara safina (marat safin's little sister) for her 10th grand slam title (and 4th aussie open championship) and no. 1 ranking. but the story of the tournament i'm sure is still to come tomorrow night when the now no. 2 roger federer takes on the now no. 1 rafael nadal for the men's title. they've never played in a hard court major (the aussie and us open are played on hard courts) and nadal's had roger's number on clay and then just beat him in that monster wimbledon final last year so this one has got to be awesome. i'm looking for roger to reclaim the top with this win... go roger!
but the problem with this tv is that it's live in australia, which gives the prime time matches a 10:30 pm start time so i've been majorly losing sleep, and that leads me to...
4. need a weekend - i need some recovery time. y'know how when you're training they say rest and recovery is just as important as working out, i mean, if you don't give yourself the time to let your body heal, temper, and re-steel itself then you're not going to see results. and so that's what i need. i finally had some time to get to the gym today and give myself a nice workout, then i ate some good food, nutritioned myself up and gave myself the rest of the day off to recover. of course, it helped that there was UH volleyball on tv (and they actually won! finally, i think they got a good team, but they've been losing a LOT and only ranked 12th... mike wilton's coaching has always been a question mark for me, still, they got the talent to keep it going, like the upset they pulled tonight over no. 2 cal state northridge) and right now i'm watching serena williams dominate safina in the first set of the women's final, she's up 5-0 already, geez, she's a monster, i mean, just look:
5. on the up and up - and i'm going to need this weekend because i definately have a lot coming up, it's an exciting time of year for me because there's a lot going on, things to keep me busy and doing new things and things to look forward to, like:
- volleyball league starting up, i love playing volleyball (even more than watching it) and i so rarely get to actually play so i relish every second of this volleyball even though it's with my dad and all his almost-senior citizen friends, nah, but it's fun anyway
- tennis league starting up, same deal, love playing, don't get to do it much, but this time it's my sister and her friends who are starting a team so i'm lucky i get to join in too, and i get even less opportunities to play actual tennis matches so i love every chance i can get
- weather getting warmer so i can go surfing again, i haven't been in a long time, partly because it's been too big up north (and i've been so spoiled by going exclusively up north that i don't even want to hike it down to white plains most of the time) but mostly because i don't think i'd last 5 minutes in the water when i can't even go outside without a jacket (even though i love the cool jacket-wearing weather)
- UH actually doing good in basketball and volleyball at the same time, well, let's not get too excited, it is still UH afterall, but after being so spoiled by women's volleyball the rush of excitement and anxiety to see if they'll even win half their games is kinda fun
- schedule's kinda back to manageable so i can fit in my workouts and yoga classes along with all my activities, just gotta keep the sleep (or lack of) in check
- and finally... SUPERBOWL SUNDAY! i'm all for steelers, but you gotta credit arizona huh? something to be said about underdogs... and that's why roger federer will win his pete sampras record-typing 14th grand slam men's singles championship tomorrow, believe!
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