Breather

Dear Evan,

Here are some other things I forgot to mention about the trip:

On Saturday before going out to the parties, Paula and I went to a "World Press '09" exhibition which has a collection of press photos from the year. There are 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners for the photographers who captured the best pictures of important events. It was much better than I would expect it to be. One of my favorites was a picture of eyes, each of a very different animal, to show how varied eyes are depending on the environment and habits of the animal. My other favorite was a before and after photo of boxers on the night of a fight. It's enticingly disturbing how drastically different their faces looked.

Paula taught me how to yodel. I guess that's common in Austria.

Paula knows "The Puppy Song" by Harry Nilsson! No one ever knows about him! We sang the part, "Dreams are nothing more than wishes and a wish is just a dream" together a lot.

One of the first things Paula said to me was that he had always thought my dad was going to become the next Dan Brown!

Yesterday I got back from the airport then pretty much struggled over Greek homework, practiced some piano, realized I should have learned a Charlie Parker song for my piano lesson the next day, had dinner with everyone except Cody cause he was still in the UK, did a little bit more Greek, got fed up with it and watched most of "Risky Business".

Today, I had 40 minutes before my piano lesson after my Greek class ended so I learned "Confirmation", one of my favorite Charlie Parker tunes. I played it in my lesson and he said he liked what I did with it. I was pleased about that haha! After my lesson I had three hours until my History of Music Class and instead of goofing off like most other weeks I told myself to crack down on practicing. I practiced the Toubeleki and the Req for my Mediterranean ensemble, warmed up my voice the way my teacher taught me and then worked on a funny song for Whit that I might finish if I find the time and the motivation. When I got home, I watched some more of Risky Business before dinner. At dinner, Cody talked about his crazy experiences around the UK. He went to Dublin and London as far as I know.

I recorded a piano part for Zoe's Crossroads of Rhythm and Sound piece that she is going to enter into the "Women's Musician Network" competition. She recorded her part first and I gotta say, listening to her play the flute was thrilling. The best parts were the quick gasps of air she took between notes. I've never stood so near a flute player before and it was cool. I told her I might want to write a flute piece sometime and that I might want her to play for me in the future.

I studied a lot of Greek tonight because most of today's class was too ahead of me and I felt uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that when it was time for us to take a break in the middle of the class, I bolted out, ran down the stairs and took a breather outside. I was sick of it. So about two hours ago I wrote out all the past and future conjugations for about 20 verbs then I studied one of the pages in the book that she suggested to look over. Our final test is next Monday. We have two more classes before that. I'm determined to get a better score on the final than I did on my midterm (I got a B).

Y.