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.