Monday - Friday

May 6, 2006 at 5:10 AM

What a crazy week! A day trip (literally) to Vancouver to try out instruments, an AP English exam, work, now I'm trying to get caught up on the week of classes that I missed at school.

Monday: Relatively uneventful day. I went to my classes, wrote a test, came home early and had a relaxing afternoon/evening.

Tuesday: There's really nothing like spending 12+ hours of a day in a car. Wilder and Davis were out on one of their cross Canada trips from Montreal and I was able to arrange to have some instruments brought out for me to try. From what I deciphered from the various exchanges in e-mails during the months preceeding this trip, I gathered that I would probably have 3-6 instruments to try out. I got there and initially was given 14 to try. As I started the task and wading through them all and separating the possibilities into the "like" and "dislike" pile 5 more violins gradually appeared. My Mom came with me and she sat through a good couple hours of scales as I worked my way through the instruments to narrow it down to the ones that I was more sure and serious about. Gradually I managed to narrow it down to two instruments from the early 1900's. There were instruments from the 1800's up to instruments made in the last few years and even one 2006 instrument! I think I may have found the instrument for me though! I was really lucky in that after playing for a few hours and narrowing the selection down to two possibilities, my Mom and I went for a snack and a brief walk to clear my head a bit (it was an untypically sunny day in Vancouver and we were right on the ocean!) and when we came back a good friend of mine, and violinist happened to be there picking up some stuff she had had worked on and so I got her to play the two I liked most for me so I could hear what they sounded like from across the room. After 4 hours or so in Vancouver, we began the trip back home.

Wednesday: I didn't go to school because of the long day on Tuesday. I did, however teach all afternoon!

Thursday: Ah, there's nothing like having to arrive before 7:30am to write an exam. 3 written essays, 5 multiple choice essays...or was it only 4...I can't remember now....by time you get to the end of such an exam your mind is just mush so the memory becomes a bit foggy. I think it went well though. To celebrate the sucess (we hope!), a few of my friends from that class and I (we've all been in the same English class with the same teacher for two years now) went out for Japanese food and then icecream/bubble tea. We went back to school in the afternoon since we had an English class schedueled still and our teacher had got icecream pizza's for us to have! Now the evil process of waiting until the end of July to get my mark begins. After all that, I taught well into the evening.

Friday: I went in earlyish today, though I didn't attend classes this morning, I was too wiped and needed some headspace and time to start getting caught up from missing the rest of the week. So I spent a few hours studying this morning and went to my afternoon class where I was selected to set up dominos to be knocked over as part of my history teacher's speech. I didn't teach today, though I was schedueled to (my students for today cancelled) so I ended up doing some errand running with my sister and went out to starbucks for a cool drink to ease the heat of the summer. This evening I've been reading a book by Virginia Woolf and I also started Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I love English Literature! It's nice to be able to pick my own books to read now for the rest of the school year!

Now I'm going to say, goodnight!
Oh and I'm going to be brave, anyone who is interested can see my attempts at Bach from awhile back at: here

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on May 6, 2006 at 6:26 AM

Kelsey, what a busy week! It's good to have your exams and the necessary studying behind you. Your violin shopping sounds exciting! Let us know what you decide to buy. I have a couple of violins from around 1900, and one of them belonged to my childhood teacher. I love your video, too. Your playing is so expressive and rich emotionally. It just lifts me up and I float away while listening. Bravo!

From Emily Grossman
Posted on May 6, 2006 at 8:44 AM

I'm so glad you shared that. You've inspired me with your bravery, Kelsey. Maybe I'll get brave enough to share something here, too...

From Terez Mertes
Posted on May 6, 2006 at 1:27 PM

I've seen those video links but never realized how fun and easy they'd be to watch. Great job - very cool!

And I loved hearing about your violin shopping experience.

From Kelsey Z.
Posted on May 6, 2006 at 3:27 PM

Thanks everyone for your kind comments! I will most certaintly report my violin decision once everything is official! :D

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