Paperclips

My internal dialog often will reassure me that I'm "quirky" or "eccentric" as opposed to "neurotic" when it comes to my various opinions. However, my dialog is still trying to put a helpful spin on my passionate dislike of large paperclips. You have your regular sized paperclips, which are very useful. You then have multiple sizes of binder clips, also very useful. What is pointless are large paperclips. They don't hold things together very well and are awkwardly big.

I have been in charge of purchasing office supplies for my last three jobs and I have never, ever gotten large paperclips. In the last eight years, I think one person requested them and I assured them that a binder clip would be more appropriate for their task.

I'm not sure where this comes from, other than (perhaps) hating that little paperclip guy on the old-school Office Word. Him and all his smuggery as you grump about margins. He shows up all smirky and says something like, "It looks like you are stupid and can't figure out the most simplest thing in the world. Can I humble you?"

Or perhaps I always hated him because he is a large paperclip. Hmm. Chicken or the egg? Right. This came to my attention last night when I found a large paperclip mixed in with regular paperclips in my desk and I got very indignant. My internal dialog said, "Dude, I've got nothing. This is just weird."

An Erinku:
droopy
yellow flower
dripping petals
on my floor

Taking a Peek

On my adventures this evening, I took my car into its doctor's office to deal with its case of leprosy (losing antenna, windshield wiper, etc). Before heading home, I went to the library and left with a stack of sappy books. I find when I'm in the middle of stressy school, I get sappy books and movies to fill my late evenings. Since this degree doesn't call for much reading at all (as opposed to, say, and master's degree in writing), I actually enjoy reading for fun.

One of my new habits, though, has me a bit annoyed with myself: I've starting peeking ahead in books I'm reading. It's not even conscious. As soon as I get involved with the story line and caring about the main character, I suddenly find myself looking at page 155 and then sneaking a peek at page 274. I guess it makes sense.

I read a book a few months ago where the chapters switched between the two main characters. Suddenly, the guy was describing all the wonderfulness of his feelings for his girlfriend and going off about the lamity of his wife. I didn't finish that book. Callous ass-holery doesn't interest me, it turns out. And since that book, I've started to peek ahead. I just want to make sure there are happy endings (hence the sappy books, as opposed to the good, edgy books out there).

As I was thinking about this after my lightrail ride home (having peeked ahead to page 182 and seen that there are dramas ahead for the character, but a very happy ending), I noticed that there were quite a few Cat Women about on campus. It's near Halloween time and the parties are starting up. The costume this year seems to be spandex (everywhere) leopard print body suits, with a fuzzy tail and cat ears. I know this is not a costume I can pull off. Somewhere along the line, my body finished maturing. I have big girl hips, a big girl bottom, and full-blown big girl chest. I am shaped like a woman, and women don't pull off full-body spandex leopard prints.

As I walked up-stream through a variety of Cat Women and their boys (who never seem to dress up, by the way) one of the drunker Cheetah Girls asked me, "So...are you dressed up as a librarian? I said, "Yep, exactly! Books and all!" and kept walking. Sigh. It's time to go clothes shopping again, which I hate. Whenever I'm mistaken for a librarian or for a kindergarten teacher, it means I've run out of normal person clothes again. Alas.

An Erinku:
Bubbles
zooming in circles
happy fish
almost eleven years old

Fifteen Authors

Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

1. Christopher Moore (awesomely funny)
2. Douglas Adams (again, awesomely funny)
3. Jane Austen (don't act surprised)
4. Agatha Christie (has taught me to look at everyone as possible murderer)
5. Hanna Weiner (wrote a whole big thesis on her and everything!)
6. Billy Collins (awesomely funny)
7. Henry David Thoreau (great at describing the beauty of life)
8. Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (my main chica!)
9. Bill Bryson (awesomely funny)
10. Joseph Campbell (insightful stuff)
11. J.R.R. Tolkien (I did live in the Hobbit Hole)
12. Charles Dickens (though I routinely hate his endings)
13. Richard Froude (awesomely funny)
14. Kristen Andersen (again with showing the beauty in life is always there)
15. Funk & Wagnalls (fun to say and I have a serious love affair with dictionaries, seriously. I do.)

An Erinku:
candy bar
after dinner
and trash t.v.
brilliant!

String Education

While I mostly go off about stupid things or regularly chronicle my mundane adventures, there are some topics that I'm very much wrestling with. One of them is an education class I'm currently in that I need in order to graduate. This class is disrupting my life because I find I am absolutely opposed to many of the basic, unspoken assumptions being taught. It's a two-part class, so I have another quarter to go, and I'm having to give myself pep talks
.
The biggest crisis facing string players is that the music we are immersed in is generally seen as obsolete and boring. Classical music concerts don't sell out stadiums and plenty of fabulous classically-trained musicians don't have places to play. I firmly believe it's because of the elitist culture that goes along with classical music. You can trace the increasing snobbery over the past few centuries. You don't see audience members at rock concerts looking over the tab sheet and pointing out mistakes to other audience members...but you can see that at a classical concert. So the ticket prices rise, and fewer and fewer people are willing to spend $60 for “obsolete” music.

Add to the mix that playing a stringed instrument is not a cheap hobby. Low-quality cellos usually start at $800, a set of decent strings costs about $150 (and you're ideally supposed to change them twice a year), plus when you ding the instrument, it costs big money to fix.

When I started the education class on how to teach the Suzuki method, the very first thing that came to mind is that this method is designed with a very specific client in mind. And from my years at Naropa, I learned that specific client has a lot of baggage (and a lot to answer for). The specific client is called privilege.

When a parent spends $75 each week for a half hour lesson and $300 for bi-monthly group lessons for their pre-school kid to learn a stringed instrument, and has enough time to sit in all the lessons, learn the instrument as well!, and practice sessions with that kid, this is privilege. Single parents, and/or people who work multiple jobs each week don't have the monetary or time resources available to get Suzuki lessons for their three-year-old. And in the Suzuki world, that makes you a shitty parent and your child will be forever doomed to being a second-tier musician at best.

This would be all fine and dandy and just a footnote in history except that a lot of people are teaching this method as the only way to teach strings. A lot of other types of pedagogy classes aren't offered regularly because there simply is no demand for them from students. And so we are moving forward with a method of string education that makes an already elitist type of music even more inaccessible to the average person.

It could be that I'm misunderstanding the basic concepts, but these are the unspoken assumptions that are not being discussed. Or it could be a generational thing. I'm at the butt-end of Generation X. I'm part of the herd that went through school budget cuts and basically being encouraged from all sides that if I wanted to learn something, I should figure out how to learn it since it probably wasn't going to be offered through school. Now there's helicopter parents who plan out every minute of the day with an eye towards college applications, and yes, to me it is creepy (not inspiring) to watch a three-year-old play violin. I question the parent's motives. It's one thing if little Timmy honestly loves playing...that's awesome and I'm glad there are teachers out there for him. But for the others, I worry. And I know there are folks who would disagree with me.

All I know is that there are students out there who love to play cello and already can't afford regular, let alone Suzuki, lessons. I've participated in giving free lessons to middle-school cellists whose parents couldn't pay and who seriously didn't have the time to be present at the lesson. Instead of giving up the case, I treated the 12-year-old public school trained cellist (which is NOT the “greatest tragedy ever,” by the way) like an adult and expected her to work on her own on the things we covered in lessons...and she did.

I agree that anyone can learn to play music, but I really have a problem with excluding people based on their level of finances. The more diversity that can be brought to the string player world, the better off we'll be in the long run. So for the next quarter and a half, I'll be picking up the tricks to amuse 3-5 year olds and will take them with me when I work with students who are older and whose parents are more like the parents that I know.
/end rant

An Erinku:
ranting
it's what's for dinner
after the
pasta's gone

Some of the Primary Colors

Last week sometime, I went on a nice, long walk and enjoyed the sunshine and the turning of the fall leaves. At one point, a leaf fell from a tree and, as the breeze was perfect, accompanied my walk for about half a block as it slowly drifted down. I was very impressed with how long of a flight it managed and picked it up to look at it.

As I continued to walk, I realized that this little leaf had budded in the spring, collected sunshine all summer long, and made its one and only flight just then. I felt a little sad for the leaf that after all that work, it only got to fly once. Granted, it was a spectacular flight, but I thought that after the effort it took to grow and be all aerodynamic, it deserved another chance to play on the breeze. So I tossed it up high and watched it float away through the park in a very satisfying way.

While continuing my walk, I worried that perhaps other people don't feel sad for leaves. I quickly stopped this train of thought because I figured it would only make me feel more awkward in life than I already do. I also figured there was probably an analogy in there somewhere that I was too lazy (a.k.a. enjoying the sunshine) to work out.

My walk today was longer, but not as fun. The leaves were still firmly attached to their trees and were showing a brilliant display of primary colors, but my internal dialog was much more grim. I finally walked myself out of it and simply enjoyed moving my body (while checking out the half-naked runners) and loving a sunny fall day.

An Erinku:
hot sake
MarioKart
home pants
Saturday night

Retirement Plans

This week, it occurred to me that I have plans for world domination. I knew they were always brewing somewhere in the back of my mind, but this week was the week that steps were taken to actually achieve world domination. This was the week I got my very own work-study student.

Before she started (or even before we knew which student it would be), I was internally debating whether to call them my helper monkey or my minion. I decided that having a minion sounded much more appropriate for world domination. And so, it began.

I've started her on small, simple tasks for her first week: packet making, map folding, kung fu. Next week will be a massive mailing and stealth training. The third week, I suspect we'll storm a castle (I found out very recently that there is a castle here in town!). I plan for total Denver domination just after mid-terms. With my minion, I will be unstoppable!

The first major change I'll make will be to have decent coffee shops around. Next will be an expansion of public transit that isn't out-of-control expensive. Then will come the shopping around for a tiara that doesn't get tangled in my hair, which is currently a serious problem. I have big, big plans and I'm very glad the day job has provided me with the help I'll need both to collate packets and to take over the world!

An Erinku:
The tequila bar
across the street
has high drama
this evening