Settling in

Bloomington is starting to get a little bit colder. Not unbearably yet... I'm still comfortably wearing only 3 layers.

I'm starting to get more acclimated to being here (no pun intended). I'm getting used to the rhythm of my classes and they're not bad. It's nice that they are morning classes because I find that I work pretty efficiently when I complete the majority of my work an hour or two before class. Then I have the rest of the day to practice, to work on projects, or other miscellaneous things. I've also been way more successful at finding time to practice and getting into the flow of practicing. People really have to rely on using their reserved practice room times here. Fortunately, my teacher allows his students to use his room when he's not there, so that has helped a ton.

For about a week I was preoccupied with, distraught and anxious about trying to figure out what I can do about assistantships. It's actually kind of nice to have doors close. I was told pretty definitively that I am not getting one next year, and there's nothing I can do about it. What I feel God is telling me is that at this time, I need to embrace the opportunity to just be a student. My teacher says that I should not worry about the money right now and just focus on progressing. After letting go of trying to do anything about the massive amount of tuition over two years, I am at peace.

My teacher, by the way, is awesome and exactly what I need right now. I've been trying to figure out what kinds of expectations he holds, and after some slow thorough methodical work, I had a really kick-butt (and butt-kicking) lesson a couple of days ago that has really given me a lot of direction. We've dropped just ab0ut all the repertoire I worked on over the summer except for one etude, so he's seeing me in the learning process from step one--and he demands a lot. I came in with my new Liszt etude and a movement of my Bach French suite. He had me correct a few things in the Bach suite, and after I got through playing the first movement, he said good, and then flipped the page. !!! Well, I wasn't ready to play the next movement, so then he told me to drop the suite entirely and to bring in an entirely new one next week. HA! So I'm psyched about forcing myself to learn a new suite in less than a week. I started Wednesday night after my lesson and sort of have 1.5 movements down. 5.5 more movements to go by next Wednesday!

I think you can tell if you're talking to a student of his based on how that person talks about practicing. Everything is about conceiving of a plan in the mind first. Of course that sounds obvious and is probably agreed upon by any pedagogue or pianist you ask, but I think his students really learn the meaning of that. I've already learned so much in just three weeks and am excited to see how things unfold over the course of my time with him.