Piano Party

As for 99% of Russian children, piano lessons were a requirement when I was growing up. Unlike most kids, though, I got over the "I-hate-it" phase by age 10.

But playing before the public (my good friends, but still, public) tonight for my small party brought me the following realization: wow, I am really out of practice. The Russian romances I improvise just don't cut it: I need to get Beethoven and Chopin back to where they were before I started college and stopped my lessons.

If there is one thing I really miss from high school, it's having my weekly dose of piano. Towards the latter part of high school, I actually found it a complete therapeutic refuge from the stupid world of teenager-dom and looked forward to it the way married women might look to weekly yoga class.

Since I stopped taking lessons at Lena's piano studio, she got over 30 new preteen children (sans piano experience) to butcher Bach's preludes and Beethoven's Fur Elise... I was among her most serious students at the time and I haven't learned anything serious on my own, aside from the novice play-by-ear skills. Great emotional and artistic heights can't really be reached with faulty technicalities. In life, maybe; in piano, well, as I have witnessed--it backfires.

Unfortunately (and this is the case with piano, accordion, most of my jobs and generally most things), I need pressure and structure from someone else to practice, to sit down and read the notes and repeat them. That is, practice -- not play, because those are two different things. I can play any time... but practicing is devoid of instant gratification, of being able to actually listen to what I play instead of simply hearing the sound. I was never one to do scales, not even in music school in Moscow, because scales do not provide the inspiration or intoxication I get from sitting down and playing something without thinking, only breathing its personal meaning and story -- instead of its tonal changes. (I hated solfeggio.)

So the past four years I suppose I still played without having practiced. And several years later, the decline is unprecedented.




My best (and only!) co-pianist tonight

The Rule of Twos

Two days later and two teeth fewer (Surgeon: "Sooo... whaddya think, ya wanna pull 'em now?" Me: "Uh, sure, why not! Raaaawwwrr!"), I am almost ready for action. Let me tell you, I handled that bloody mouth better than Bruce Willis in Die Hard 172 (whatever). Despite some ongoing irritation, the offending molar and its buddy have been effectively terminated. (Two more await death-by-dentist, but that's another story.)

Oh, mandibles. So exciting!

And apparently, it's the most exciting thing to happen in a while here in Boston. I had called my boss from the office when I found out I'd spontaneously have my wisdom teeth pulled and told just her I wouldn't be coming in that day, with apologies, of course.

Today at work, everyone at the office -- from fellow intern to the research assistant to the grants lady that just came back from vacation to the chief operating financial guy (I know -- ?¿!) -- approached me and inquired with earnest concern about my dental welfare, adding in a teary memory or two of their own.

Pleasant surprise (told you the folks were nice). After all, I suppose, it is indeed an organization dedicated to social medicine. Big and small.

Bog the Blog

Blogger is as blogger writes, and I've been a bad one. Needless to say, there is not much to write about.

When I lived in Spain, I wrote about little details I saw during my day that seemed somehow fascinating at the time. I suppose I could do the same here, but it totally loses the effect -- unless, of course, my buddies from aquel entonces who out of the goodness of their hearts read this crap now feel differently. (Welcome, friends, to "Life in America 101: Lesson 1. Being Spoiled And Whining Shamelessly About It.")

The vast majority of you readers, if you are still here, are bored out of your minds. I don't blame you. But thank you for your support, everyone. Really, I don't deserve this... I'd be nowhere without you!.. I'd like to thank the Academy, and... God, and, like,... Barack Obama, and, um, my parakeet's foot doctor's, uh, apprentice's coroner's stepsister's ex-girlfriend.

Well, let's start with the news, I guess. Good ones: I've gotten my stipend for internship; some lovely social get-togethers will soon be had; I am moving to campus next Tuesday; classes and actual learning starts the week after Labor Day; I will have a fantastic new apartment in the brand-spanking-new dorm on campus with a couple of my best buddies from freshman year.

Yes! I am for the first time incredibly excited to go back to college and I am actually thrilled to do work and reading (I know, it's sick). It's because I haven't done it in -- oh -- a while, and I am psyched to be taking a completely new and random language (habibi!) because I CAN. Granted, I won't learn much of Arabic except the alphabet, but if I like it, nobody is stopping me from continuing. I may not have much patience in anything, but I do catch on languages fairly quickly.

That said, the bad news: the jaws of nature. Always comes down to @#&%ing nature! (Tuuuh-duuuh-tuuh-duuh-tuh-duh-tuhduhtuhdudhuhuhuhdhudh... no, it was not a typo, and this was my written reenactment of the theme from "Jaws" the movie.)

The JAWS of nature -- meaning my four impacted and partially erupted "wisdom" teeth -- need to be operated on in the [very] near future. Frankly, I'm not too fond of popping painkillers as I have been this weekend (to manage the pain from the upper tooth that's um, sticking into my cheek). The consultation with oral surgeon is tomorrow, but I don't know when this fun event will actually occur. I work during the week, have a bunch of plans for this weekend (recovery time is around 3 days) and I'm supposed to start school in a matter of... SOON. Not to mention that just getting this appointment in took exactly a month. But, baby, it's now or never. Tomorrow will tell.

I suppose I will be punished for having a dirty mouth? :-)

Alright, buddy. I don't believe this: you just wasted more than a paragraph and several seconds of your life reading about my teeth. This is a sign of a severe inspirational deficit that can only be rectified as soon as I have all-American collegiate idiocy in front of me to make fun of once more.

And then, I promise you some good ones. Really.

More From Mt. Chocorua, NH

(Some pictures were stolen from friends...)


Photography lesson from Dima's monster camera


Mountain drop


Skyline


Good morning, sunshine


The campers

Climb Every Mountain

This weekend I drove up to New Hampshire for an awesome hike and campout with friends old and new (our great group consisted of 8 Russians and 1 Guatemalan!). Amazingly, I managed to do this while wearing with my sister's contact lenses by accident (that's what happens when one gets up at 5:45 a.m.). I only noticed my less-than-stellar eyesight on interstate highway 93 when I realized that I wasn't exactly seeing some of the smaller-type signs without serious squinting... and after a 1.5-hour "detour" through Boston, when I didn't make about 3 necessary turns 'cause I couldn't exactly see the sign on time. Not a great way to go by any means (our contact cases must forever be geographically separated from now on!). Still, I made it there in a measly four hours (and back in the normal 3), without any occurrences.

As for the hike, it was awesome (despite my legs killing me now). We spent a total of six hours scaling up and down the mountain and a swim in the icy river with waterfall (so unsafe and yet so cool!), complete with fascinating discussions on a variety of, haha, interesting topics. Afterward, we camped out overnight in tents to the smooth sounds of fire and guitar and woke up to the not-so-smooth sounds of my accordion.

The company was excellent -- everyone completely chill with everyone else -- and it was overall a healthy, rockin' outdoorsy time. Unfortunately, I also managed to spill water on my camera during the hike, so photos aren't as impressive as could be (no fear, the camera should be okay). I also didn't take pictures from the dip in the rocky river, as I was afraid that the camera would get -- well, smashed. (It's taken considerable abuse already in Spain.) Hopefully people will send me their pictures! Ah, the warm, friendly days of summer...


Our camp site with one of the tents


Las chicas in the woods


It's cold at the summit! Here I am hiding in the rocks in Vera's windbreaker


Taking a break during the hike... and shocking the rest of the hikers with our, ehm, fascinating conversations


Summit of Mount Choco-something in New Hampshire (I can't remember the name!)


Mashka and me on the mountain


Me and White Mountains!

Rainbow Over Swampscott

Views from my window after the rainstorm

To Be Or Not To Be

Is "adult life" really this boring?

I like my new job. The people are cool, the projects have importance and the atmosphere is very pleasant. I have lunch with someone almost every day, unless I have too much work. They don't mind if I come in a bit late; my boss is cool. It's all good and I'm really glad I took it, actually.

That's not the issue at hand at all. Office space is a part of life, and computer screens have clouded our vision forever, yadda yadda yadda. Nobody's complaining.

The question is that every day, when I get on the train, I see the same miserable businessmen in suits. They're miserable because generally they are wearing ties and jackets in 85-degree weather, unable to tear away from their Blackberry set even at 7:46 in the morning, and are probably worried about the Dow Jones and other randomized numbers that were created by humans just like them to mean something greater than life itself.

I am simply wondering how many people out there are truly content with the 9-to-5, 1.5-hour commuter existence. Sure, the money is worth it; we all know it is, and that's why everyone does it, I suppose, and my turn will come, too. (The real earning part, I mean.) I wonder, though: how many of those empty faces that I see on the train each morning have bought real happiness with their 9-to-5, subsidized 2-week-per-year-vacation existence? And if they haven't, how do they convince themselves -- because there have to have been be silly romantics among them -- that this, indeed, is what they really wanted?

I know children sometimes wish to be doctors or firemen or astronauts. In my case, up until I was about ten, I wanted to be a singer. After that, I wanted to be a writer. At twelve I was certain I'd become a graphic designer. Then, at fourteen, I wanted to be a writer again, and kept up that hope until about age eighteen, when I decided I wanted to be an editor instead. At twenty I decided that in fact, I liked writing better than editing (because I never even had the patience to read my own writing over) but neither was really a true passion (whatever that means). Now I'm nearly twenty two and I don't know what I want to be. Probably not one of the dudes on the train and for sure, having nothing to do with any type of math or any type of coding.

I wonder how many children, though, hope to be office managers or developers in C++ or senior accountants. With all due respect for those professions, don't get me wrong! Even more so, because they aren't professions for dreamers. They are professions for the people that want them.

Perhaps the real question is, at what point in life is one obligated to become a realist?