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May 2, 2005 at 4:52 PM

Greetings from a little town near to Brussels. Contrary to popular believe, there is a hughe difference between Belgium and Holland, and I feel I am in a different part of the world. I can't decide if that is because the keybord on the computers are entirely different than ours. I'm typing with 2 fingers ones more...

I am nr. 88, which means I am playing thursday morning. I had some great practicing this past weekend and I am looking forward to playing. Things are pretty uneventful, I practice about 7 hours a day and read a lot. There is not much to tell.
I start everything slow with metronome everyday, working my way up to the tempi, focusing on sound and intonation. I don't feel I can do much more than that right now, just solidifying everything.

Tomorrow I start rehearsing with the pianist, I am curious to see what that will be like and do to my nerves. For now I am calme and relaxed, enjoying oysters, aspergus from the garden and other things from the ghughe garden. The whole neighboorhood is rooting for me, this family has been hosting candidates for 25 years and this is the first time they have somebody who speaks a little bit Flemish ( I consider it to be Dutch like it was about a century ago, but I can not say that out loud, there always has been some tension between the flemish and dutch)

Anyways I am going back to my Paganini. I am playing thursday at 12.25, so send me some good karma and prayers!
Greetings, Carla

Carla, I am sending you the best possible karma. I really admire you for doing this. You must have nerves of steel. I'm sure you will sound great.
It occurred to me this afternoon that giving the neighborhood that's rooting for you a mini-concert would be good karma. Sorry I didn't think of it sooner :) Plan to do it 2nd round, same difference. Meanwhile, I'll send telepathic karma, like you requested. Best wishes, and I know you'll do great.
Carla, you're awesome. I have every confidence that you'll play wonderfully!

Ah, hold on a sec...
[good karma transfer initiated]
...... transferring .....
[karma transfer complete.]

As they say in the theater, "break a leg!" (pretty morbid, isn't it?)

Let us know how it goes!

Carla, we haven't heard from you for a few days. You must be really involved with the Competition. I keep thinking of you and sending you the very best karma. I'm sure your performance will be (or was) awesome.