saccharine promos make me ill

Sunday again? Already?
Sadly, I have no tales of incident-packed personal grooming for you today. I managed to shave my legs again yesterday without any leftover salad hijinks. It's been a week of busy busy busy.

Next weekend my piano students have their AMEB exams. For the first time in many years I have more than about three students sitting. This time I have a student sitting for her AMus.A diploma which has meant many hours of extra lessons. I also have 7 other students ranging from preliminary to grade three. Some of them have done more practice than others which makes for interesting lessons as well. Two of them I have not seen for a fortnight as they have been on a holiday to the Seychelles. They will get one lesson before their exam on Sunday. I'm really hoping there was a piano in the hotel they stayed at and that the guests didn't mind two kids playing a few scales now and then. Thankfully, the students who I accompanied for their instrumental exams are now all done. The last two were yesterday. I like accompanying a lot. It's just the fitting in of the rehearsals with them into an already jam-packed week that is the tricky part. So I have been working at my actual job all day and then coming home every afternoon and doing lessons and accompanying until 7pm. As you might imagine I am a little bit brain-fried after that. As a result I am behind on my marking and on my study. However, yesterday I did manage to set up the new printer that I bought two weekends ago. It only took an hour and a half. Yes, I am a technical genius after all. ;-)

In between all of this I have been trying to find at least 20 minutes a day to play my violin. Next weekend the Bundaberg Youth Orchestra is having a 40th anniversary concert and past members are going to join in and play in the concert. Here is evidence that I was once in the orchestra.

This means a three hour rehearsal on Saturday afternoon and then the concert on Saturday night. Given that I barely play my violin for more than 15 minutes at a time, sometimes with months in between, I thought I should do some playing beforehand so I don't look like a total fail. The program is Beethoven's Egmont Overture, Death of Ase, Night on Bare Mountain and Finlandia. During the week I realised it had been nearly ten years since I had put new strings on my violin. Probably dumb to change them so close to a concert but I did it anyway. They are settling pretty well after a day.

The TV has been rubbish lately. While the Olympics coverage from Channel Nine was pretty darn hopeless I did enjoying that I could turn on the telly and have something to watch. I am looking forward to the Paralympics now. I have returned to my DVD cupboard over the last week or so. I finished watching Lark Rise to Candleford, rewatched all three series of the IT Crowd, revisited Standing in the Shadows of Motown ( I never tire of that) and watched Gigantic (the TMBG doco) again. Last night I recorded the 25 years of Rage early 1990s so will do some reminiscing when I get to that. The only thing on the actual television I watched was I Will Survive a second rate, yet mesmerising reality TV, singing competition based on Priscilla Queen of the Desert. From this I learned that both Jason Donovan and Stephan Elliot must be pretty hard up for a gig. I also learned that I had no idea who the host was because I refuse to watch Packed to the Rafters on the grounds the saccharine promos make me ill so why would I watch an actual episode? Oh..of course I watched Rockwiz. That goes without saying because it is the best thing on the teev at the moment. Mary Wilson from the Supremes last week was truly inspirational. When I grow up I want to be Julie Zemiro.

And in my spare time I worry about the Kath and Kim movie. I love Kath and Kim. Before it moved the Channel Seven it was wonderful telly. I wrote a PhD chapter about it. I still use "noice, different and un-ewe-usal" in daily conversation. But I think it was of its time. And that time is gone. So I worry that the movie is going to be bad-cringeful rather than good-cringeful.

cucumber-leg hair surprise

I shaved my legs this week for the first time since around the beginning of June. That's right. You heard me. JUNE. It's been too cold to bother with them. I've been wearing winter clothes so no-one could see the increasing hairiness and be shocked into speechlessness. I was not frightening any horses. That was until I happened to be visiting my parents and the topic strayed to the fact my sister had just bought a new lady shaver kind of thing that she thought was fabulous. "Oh" I said nonchalantly, pulling up the leg of my jeans, "I should probably shave my legs sometime soon". My parents both gasped in horror at my lack of ladylikeness. As the young, cool people say, they were full of disappoint in me.

Later that week my Mum rang to see if I wanted to come up and eat dinner with them. I was teaching late so I declined but she tried to entice me with the promise of a present. "What is it", I demanded, wondering if it was worth my while after all. "A lady shaver". Hmmmmm. I decided to go up and see them the next evening.

We ate dinner and then like an excited child my Dad raced off to get the new shaving device. "I'll put it together for you". (This entailed getting it out of the ridiculous packaging and putting in the two triple A batteries). I pushed my plate away and decided to try out my gift. Note: (and this will be very important in a moment) I had not finished up my salad. There was a slice of cucumber and some lettuce still on my plate. Once again I pushed up the leg of my jeans and attacked a path of my yeti-like leg. It was only a minute until I needed to clean out the hair. So I got the little brush that came with the shaver and scraped the hair out. What to do with this. I didn't want to put it on my mother's clean floor, so I deposited it on my plate on top of a slice of cucumber. I returned to my leg when suddenly all was disturbance and mayhem and my father was hacking and spitting into his hand. Oh yes, gentle readers, as is his habit of polishing off everyone's leftover food, he had decided to help himself to my slice of cucumber which was now garnished with some leg hair shavings.

Laugh? My mother and sister and I were nearly sick with laughter.

Now I realise nobody emerges from this tale looking particularly classy or genteel. Shaving legs at the table? Eating cucumber covered in leg hair shavings? Finding that uproariously amusing? It's not exactly champagne comedy. But these are the things that life is made of. The incident has been added to the time my father got really cranky because the TV remote wasn't working until someone pointed out to him that he was using his mobile phone as well as the time he was watching (*sleeping*) Billy Elliot and half an hour from the end asked "Does this boy dance?". The list goes on but he asked me not to tell anyone about the cucumber/leg hair surprise. So I have just written a post about it instead.

corporate polo shirt

I'm thinking it would be wonderful to have a Sunday where I mooched around the house in my pyjamas and do not much at all. Perhaps I would read a work of fiction or watch a film. Perhaps I would do some cooking or go outside into my much neglected garden. Perhaps I would have a little nap in the afternoon. I might even do some vacant staring out the window. It's been some time since I've had a Sunday like that.

Instead I'm going to quickly shower, put on my university-issued corporate polo shirt* and black pants (no denim as per the staff briefing document circulated last week) and front up to the campus open day looking helpful and welcoming. I will answer questions and fill out forms for an hour and half before leaving to drive into town and accompany a cello student for her exam. I shall play Haydn, Elgar and Piazolla. I may or may not still be wearing my aforementioned corporate polo shirt. Then it's off to buy some groceries, get a prescription filled, return home to organise the week ahead, complete my coursework for the week, feel guilty that I haven't yet started my assignment due at the end of the month, unpack the printer I bought yesterday and in a feat of technological genius manage to get it talking to two computers. I fear the last task will take the longest. And that, my friends will be the end of Sunday.

*there's also a corporate issue cap. I choose not to wear that.