Morjes!

Welcome to my blog. I write about fitting in, sticking out, and missing the motherland as a serial foreigner.

My other job

What does it say about me that I am in danger of loving my on-the-side job (accompanist) more than my actual, I-have-an-MA-for-this job? I don't know, but it's true. I love music. I love accompanying. I make mistakes sometimes, and I get a little wistful being surrounded by people with lovely voices when I can't make my own do much of anything, but I love being there with these musicians and talking about music, trying out music, singing/playing a piece this way and that, seeing what works.

Our concert is next week, so we were in the throes of rehearsal all this week. In addition, there was a master class tonight. I accompanied six students. Between those students and the concert, I have eleven pieces on my plate right now. And when I'm playing at the university, I get to use their fancy grand pianos. I've always been kind of meh about grand pianos. I mean, I get that they're nicer and everything, but I am really quite happy with our digital piano and couldn't be bothered with pining for anything grander.

Until now. There is so much power in a grand piano, and I really notice it now that I'm playing on one regularly. Sigh.

The solo voice students I'm accompanying come to my house to practice. It's so nice to not have to arrange for a babysitter, and I love that the kids get to hear them sing, and see Mom at work. In fact, one or the other of the girls often comes with me to choir practice. I'm teaching them how to be my page-turners, and I think they'll be ready for the concert next week.

Oh yeah, yesterday one of the voice students I hadn't met before showed up at my door to practice a song. She looked a little familiar, and I told her so. She made some comment about how she works on campus and maybe I'd seen her there, blah blah blah. But just before she left, I realized who she was - the woman who was proposed to in the video I blogged about a few weeks ago! So basically I'm famous now, too.

December 12th, outsourced

Five things I would totally sign up for if we lived in the US