Visit to Parikrma School in Bangalore

I've been remiss in writing - yesterday I returned home after a week in India. I spent the week in Bangalore for work. The best part was the last day, where we volunteered at a school that serves the poorest children in the slums of Bangalore. It was an amazing experience that made me ashamed of how much we take for granted at home and disgusted with how students in the US squander the opportunities in front of them.

Parikrma has 850 children in 4 schools. They have diverse backgrounds but common stories include abuse, neglect, lack of food and medical care. The school feeds them, provides medical care and outreach programs into their communities, and supports them through university if they pass the entrance exams. The school has 96% attendance and 100% attendance for parent-teacher conferences. The children take a demanding curriculum that includes English and university preparation classes. What impressed me the most was that the children are also transforming their communities: the director told us stories of parents who came for their conferences and signed the report cards with a thumbprint, but over time started initialing and then writing their names, thanks to their child's tutoring.

I was assigned to the kindergarten class with 2 of my colleagues. The classroom held 30 kids and 2 teachers. The kids sat on the floor in designated spots - no desks. They were happy, cheerful, and completely engaged with as we shared songs, asked them to spell, and told stories.







Other colleagues were assigned to other classes. We all agreed at the end of the trip (a long week at work) that the visit to the school was the highlight of a busy week.

Exhausted

It has been a really busy week, and not good for cello playing.

Our group is getting ready to perform on May 17th, and we had dress rehearsal scheduled for Friday night. One of the pieces we're performing is the Mendelssohn Octet. Given everyone's schedules, we've rarely had all 8 of us together at the same time. We've practiced with parts of the group, but every person plays am important part.

I was really tired after traveling this week. I left Sunday and came home on Friday. It was for work, and was pretty stressful, with long hours every day. My playing last night suffered from lack of practice and exhaustion. At least I have a week to practice the parts that have been giving me trouble all along.

I was also bummed yesterday to find out that I have to start commuting to headquarters again. It's been so nice this year to be home for longer periods of time. The silver lining to budget cuts was that my work travel had been severely curtailed. Yesterday I found out that I have to start commuting again; we negotiated every other week, 3 or 4 days a week. Previously I was commuting every week, 2 to 3 days a week. Now I know I shouldn't be whining so much about this; I love my job and am thankful that I have one. But still, traveling for work is not at all like traveling for fun, and the frequency was exhausting. Plus it impacts cello practice time.

When I was commuting regularly I had rented a cello ( I am fortunate to be able to stay with my brother when I'm in the Bay Area). One of the reasons why I accelerated getting my new cello was so that I could have a decent cello in the Bay Area. Then I stopped traveling as much and the urgency to have 2 cellos disappeared. But I still only have one cello. My other cello is in Pocatello with Chris..he is doing some work on it. The plan is take my new one to him in September for a check up and another coat of varnish. He will return my former cello to me then, so I have a cello while he works on the new one. Now I'll have to decide whether to rent a cello in the Bay Area again or just not practice while I'm there.

Fun Gig Today!

Today at work we had our holiday potluck. It was supposed to be in December, but got cancelled because of the snowstorms in Seattle over the holidays. I had volunteered to play cello with a co-worker who plays the flute, and we had picked out Christmas music. Somehow Christmas music in January didn't seem appropriate. When the new date of the potluck got announced, we started looking for new music.

We played a Beethoven duet originally written for clarinet and bassoon, and a selection of "Rustic Airs and Dances" by Febonio. I think we played some of the pieces much better in the 2 rehearsals we had. Friday, less than a week ago, was the first time I saw the Febonio pieces. Needless to say I had a panic practice session last night. I think what threw me off today was that I wasn't seated where I could see the flautist very easily, so it was hard to stay together. Oh well. A lesson learned. Everyone who listened really liked what we played. One of the things I've learned through lots of performing is that most mistakes are not noticeable. It was a lot of fun to play!

There's No Place Like Home

It sure was fun to be in Singapore. The people are so friendly and it is my favorite place to eat. Even the hotel food for the event that I attended was spectacular. None of the usual chicken breast with some sauce. The service at the hotel was exceptional. I finally gave up trying to get myself a cup of coffee during the breaks; the serving people who were supposed to get the coffee/tea for us would get very upset if we tried to get it ourselves, so we quit trying.

I'm trying to work now, but after flying for 17 hours (thank goodness it's faster to fly east) and arriving home about 10am this morning...I find that my concentration is slipping. Good thing I don't have any presentations to make today!

I did get some amusing pictures in the Tokyo airport - of the vending machine with the bottled water "Pocari Sweat" and of the high tech toilet with its volume level controls for "Flushing Sound".

Singapore!

I arrived about 10 hours ago! I'd forgotten how brutal flying to Singapore is - first the 11-hour flight to Tokyo, then the 8-hour flight from Tokyo to Singapore. I arrived at 1:30am local time and love the efficiency - I didn't check any luggage, so got through customs, changed money, and was in a taxi on my way to the hotel within 15 minutes. This is the view from my hotel room:


I love visiting here; I'm stayed at this hotel many times before. It has been at least 5 years since I've visited, but I still remembered how to take the route through 2 shopping malls and an underground link to get to the MRT transit system (took a memory walk this morning - even after the flights I didn't sleep well last night)

I am looking forward to eating here!!! Yum yum!!!!

Ziggy at Work

Ziggy, hard at work

thank goodness for digital cameras....for every 1 shot with the hat on there were 10 where the hat was in the air or on the floor.

for more amusing pictures, check out stuff on my cat

work - life balance (not) this week

I'm waiting for my flight to go home - I got spoiled after spending a month at home, the longest period I've spent at home in about 2 years. It was really nice to be at home!

This trip was pretty tiring - and my days at work have been getting longer. At first it was the meetings that started at 8am, which isn't bad. Then most of them crept up to start at 7am. The day I flew down to San Jose, my first meeting started at 6:30am; I left for the airport at 2:30pm, arrived into San Jose (on time!!!) at 7pm, had dinner with my brother, and then jumped online to work again before going to bed. The rest of the week has been similar, and this is a work - life balance that is skewing in the wrong direction.

I returned the cello I had in the Bay Area in June, so I was cello-less (can't wait to get home to try to play a little tonight!) but I'm not sure I would have time to practice much anyway. So there's a little whining going on here; I really love my job but the constant demands on my times during periods like these without the relief of the cello are hard.

Pulling Back for Sanity

There was no orchestra rehearsal on Monday because we take a week off after a concert. Our conductor graciously offered to hold a rehearsal for any one who is playing for the Dalai Lama event instead, so about a dozen of us showed up. It was the second time I had played through the cello part, and as we went through it at the speed he thought we'd take it for the performance, I realized that it just wasn't going to be realistic for me to expect to be able to play it next week. I'm traveling now, waiting for my flight home to Seattle, and then my husband and I are going to take some time off to celebrate our anniversary. So as I thought it through, I decided that the stress of trying to learn the 4th movement of Beethoven's ninth in 2 days just wasn't worth it. Once I decided, I felt much better.

So I am looking forward to our trip! Our anniversary was on Tuesday, the day I left for my work-related trip. We're going to the Powell River area of Canada, which I am very much looking forward to! He starts a new job on Monday, so the timing is perfect for a few days of R&R.

Sneaking off to Play the Cello....

It's been a very busy week - my days have started at 5am and finished at 10pm, with the exception of Sunday, which started at 1pm and ended at 10pm. I am really tired - one more 1/2 day to go and then I can fly home.

It was a delight to play the cello with my friend! We both brought music, and of course didn't get to play through much of it, so we have a lot to look forward to if we ever get to play together again (and fantasize about playing together with better cellos!).

On Sunday her flight was late, so she hadn't arrived during the time we were going to play; but we managed to sneak away for a 1/2 hour and play! We played some of the de Fesch sonatas for 2 cellos, while she got used to her rental cello.

On Monday we snuck away for another 1/2 hour at lunch time and then again before dinner - playing through some of the Bartok duets (the ones originally written for 2 violins but of course arranged for 2 cellos), more de Fesch

Yesterday we played 2 movements from the Vivaldi double cello concerto, some Popper duets, and then tried to play a Haydn duet but were too exhausted to play any more. There never was enough time to play....

Today we were going to play, but work interfered for both of us and we were never free at the same time. I'm afraid that the little time we had to play was it for this trip; tomorrow we are both leaving as soon as the program is over. I need to rush back to my brother's house to drop off the rental cello plus other assorted stuff and get back to the office for one last meeting before I leave for the airport.

I brought orchestra music and the Popper Requiem to practice since our concert is now less than 2 weeks away. I managed to get some practice time in late at night, since it is now panic practice time to get ready for the concert.

Good thing I will have part of next week to recover and get back on my cello! And it will be nice to be able to sleep in this weekend...

My Latest Excuse for Not Practicing: 3 Tons of Frozen Corn

I tried to practice tonight but was thwarted by the blisters on my thumbs from helping to package 3 tons of frozen ears of corn on the cob. Our office volunteers once a year at the local food bank, and instead of sorting food this time, our job was to package up frozen corn. It was quite the assembly line, with people packaging 6 ears into a plastic bag, passing it to a set of us who were sealing the bags (squeeze all of the air out of the bag above the corn, twist the bag shut, push the bag through little sealing machine, throw to end of table, avoid getting hit by very hard bags of ears of corn flying by), which were then placed into boxes weighing ~ 25 pounds. I forgot my nice warm gloves and with only latex-free gloves on, my hands got very cold very quickly. I didn't feel the blisters until after we were done; I suppose that was one benefit of very cold hands. Nor did I warm up until much later today. I remember doing the corn thing a few years ago, but that time I was putting ears into bags and remembered my gloves. Tonight when I started to practice my fingers hurt so much that I decided not to push it and let my hands heal for tomorrow's lesson and Saturday's concert. I do hate to miss a chance to practice, since traveling and work eat up so much of most of my weeks (but I did get to stay home this week!!!!)

Posting, finally!

Wow, it's been a bad month for posting! I've been absolutely innundated at work, where I am monitoring a contest (sponsored by work) where we are asking people around the world to submit ideas to us - the prize is funding for their idea. I've been monitoring the site along with 2 other people, posting comments, writing a blog on the site, answering email inquiries, and doing the first reading and evaluation of the ideas. It is amazing to see the creativity of people from around the world pouring out - we have hundreds of ideas submitted so far. This in of itself has been pretty time-consuming. Then I got another large time-critical project thrown at me, and so...well everything not work-related this month has suffered, including, to my sorrow, cello. I've been working every day since the contest started and it won't be over for months.

Tomorrow's orchestra rehearsal is dress rehearsal for a set of 3 concerts we will give starting Dec 3rd. I'm not sure how those dates crept up so fast and now I'm spending some practice time getting ready, including practicing what I have now nicknamed the "carpal tunnel suite", otherwise known as the Sibelius Karelia Suite. I continue to practice finger exercises and thumb-free bow holds, hoping that it will pay off. At least I can do some of the exercises without a cello, on a plane, etc... I've been practicing my part of the Popper Requiem; we've had a few rehearsals but will need many more to be ready for our concert date in late March/early April.

Today's rehearsal with my Sunday chamber group was weird. Recently another cellist joined us. She asked if we could join our group, and my input was that she is a "first cellist", but we decided to let her play with us for now and to see what happens. Our group jokes about what different attitudes first and second violinists have, and most of the jokes aren't necessarily that complimentary towards the firsts (our violinists take turns playing first violin, and play second violin the orchestras they are in). Those of you in orchestras probably know what I'm talking about! Anyway, today, since there were 5 of us there we decided to play the Schubert quintet. Our new cellist hasn't played it with our group before. As I was handing out parts, I said, well, I've been playing the first part when our group has been playing this so why don't you play second cello. She refused. Flat out refused to play anything but first cello. So, finally,I just said, ok, I'll play second. It was very strange...I didn't mind reading the 2nd part but everyone else in the group (including a few people who weren't there) is much more relaxed about which part they play and would have instantly taken whatever part they were given. I thought it was pretty weird, and so did everyone else when we were standing around talking after the other cellist had left. At least it wasn't just me who thought it was weird. All through rehearsal, too, she just assumed she would always play first cello. The other cellist who plays with us wasn't there (I adore playing with her) and we generally alternate parts - a much better system, in my mind, since one of the reasons why we're there is to have fun. Well, enough for the ranting. Back to reading what new thing we should be doing....

Seven Things

I was tagged by Maricello, another cellist and Renaissance woman and will share seven things that I hope you will find interesting.

1. I started playing the piano when I was four, and took lessons through college. In college I had the privilege of playing and studying on 2 period instruments, a square built in 1806 and a grand built in 1811 that was a twin to a piano Beethoven owned. Pianos have evolved so much over their history, really appealing to the geek in me. Mozart sounds edgy on these instruments, and I could feel firsthand why Beethoven broke pianos and why his music was really written for an instrument he didn't have.

2. My first job was becoming my church's organist and choir accompanist, a post I held for my 3 years in high school. I learned to enjoy playing for a crowd on limited or no rehearsal time, sight reading organ music (talk about a full body experience), and experienced every embarrassing thing that can happen to a performer (including the mouse that ran out from under the organ while I was playing, during one memorable service). My worst accompanist experience was playing for a blind singer - I couldn't tell what he was going to do at any given time!

3. When I was growing up, I wanted to become a famous scientist. But no, alas, I ended up majoring in mechanical engineering, indulging my love for figuring out how things work and my passion for technology. My first job was as a manufacturing engineer, where I got to shock machinists decades older than me that I was the engineer.

4. I love the job I have now - after going to business school and getting my MBA I did what many engineers do when they burn out of engineering - I went into marketing. After doing 4 startups, about 4 years ago I returned to a large company that had acquired one of my startups. I am on a team that figures out what internal startups to incubate. It really appeals to my love for looking at very new technologies and working with new businesses. Hence the travel that I whine about in my blog...

5. I love to swim, and met my husband while I was swimming with a Masters group. He had just joined the coaching staff of the swim club and, well, the rest is history. He has retired from coaching and doesn't like to get near a pool, but I am still swimming. I never was very fast, but for a while my competitiveness won out and I was always trying to go faster and set personal bests. Now I've mellowed out and I swim so that I can eat more. The slowing body metabolism that accompanies getting older is not very pleasant!

6. I've often had to do a icebreaker exercise with groups at work where each person tells the group 3 things about them, 1 of which is not true. The group then has to try to pick out the lie. I've fooled every group (did I say I was competitive?) into picking out one of my true statements as the lie. It is this statement: "I've swum across the Golden Gate." No group has ever believed this is true, but it is. No wetsuits; the swim was scheduled during ebb tide, and I remember flipping on my back when I went under the bridge just to take a look at it from underneath.

7. I love to travel (for pleasure) and have had the opportunity to see many parts of the world - Asia, Europe, Australia/New Zealand...with many more places on my list to go!


I found CelloDonna and MusicGal's seven things quite interesting, and you will too!

As it is my turn to tag others, I'd like to tag (hopefully they haven't already been tagged by someone else)

CelloGal - who lives in Scotland and blogs about her orchestra and other ensemble experiences;
Cello teacher Emily Wright - whose passion for cello and teaching inspires me and whose blog educates and amuses me;
Celliste - an aspiring cellist who lives in Singapore;
and Yarnplayer, a cellist who shares her experiences playing in a community orchestra.

Musings from the San Jose airport

I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home. I had every intention of practicing while I was here, but with a sore throat that threatens to turn into the cold my husband brought back from Ireland, it just didn't work out. I just crashed last night, and this morning my day started pretty early, so no time in this morning to practice. I didn't even do the rhythm exercises that I've been trying to work on. I did play around with holding a pen with the modified bow hold that I've been working on and I can really feel the difference in how much control I feel that I have with my hand.

I was noticing the difference on Sunday when I played with the Sunday chamber group - a fuller, louder tone than I've had before and more control while crossing strings. We played one of the Brandenburg concertos - it was my first time playing through it and I know that there were passages that a year ago I would not have been able to play on a first reading.

One of the things I've tried to do on a periodic basis is to go back and play pieces that I played months ago or a year or so ago, to measure my progress. Progress for me seems to come in little bursts, where for weeks or months it seems like nothing is happening, and then seemingly out of the blue I notice a large improvement. It's nice to go back and play pieces I've played a while ago and to find that they're much easier to play now! And I sound better!

aargh - the flight is going to be late again. I take these flights enough that I know many of the other regular commuters who do the Seattle-Bay Area thing, many of the flight attendants, and have my favorite car rental return agent at Hertz. It's nice to chat with everyone but I'm not sure this familiarity is a good thing.

Sore Thumb

How frustrating. I tweaked my right thumb again. I had been trying to shift my bow hold (get more flexible thumb) and have only managed to make my thumb really sore. It had gotten better after I cut back playing time and iced my thumb after playing. Unfortunately I am on the road (I guess I am getting rest from playing) but it is hard to ice my thumb. Right now I'd settle for a little more rest - I had a long day yesterday, have another long day today, and tomorrow too when I fly home. Then I get one day home before we leave on vacation.

I am definitely not looking forward to getting back; the day after we fly home from vacation I have to jump on a plane again and travel for work again.