So after my somewhat depressing post last week things inevitably seemed to pick up instantly. One full week of lectures made me realise pretty quickly that I can't possibly hope to get as much out of the yr when I'm spreading myself so thinly. With this in mind, I have dropped off the Jazz Saxophone Performance Fundamentals class and sax lessons. What they don't tell you is that it's not simply 1 credit = 1hr. So for instance, although the sax class was only 50 mins long, I was expected to attend and prepare transcriptions to play in every saxophone studio class on Fridays. As you can imagine, all of this coupled with double the amount of credit on clarinet and 6hrs of symphonic band practice a week was just not realistic with the academic stuff. The head of jazz sax was really lovely about it and there is a teaching fellow who is really keen to teach me saxophone privately (ie. I can work at my own pace without having to attend all the other things!). I am doing the reading ensemble. Basically it's a group designed to make you better at stylistic as well as simple reading ideas in bigband charts. I think it will be really useful and it has a really positive link with getting into a lab band next semester!
I had my first clarinet lesson on Thursday and it was fantastic. I managed to get the head of the dept and he clearly knows what he is talking about. Immediately he noticed my problems with my wrist and helped me to correct that. I just loving his teaching style and we seem to have hit it off immediately. I've already probably learnt more in a lesson than I did in a yr at Leeds so hopefully when I get back to the UK I will be able to kick some butt and get myself into a college for post grad! The clarinet studio are also equally as friendly and the english accent doesn't seem to lose it's charm with them. Tim and I have been stopped in the street with people saying 'OMG what kind of accent is that?'...to which we reply english! It is pretty funny trying to explain that they actually stole our language and have an american accent!
At the weekend we hit Dallas again, this time to another mall called the Galleria. It was absolutely brilliant and even had an ice skating rink inside it! Surprise, surprise the 2 Sarah's and I went spending crazy, but it was actually a really nice break from everything and made me feel like I've started to settle down a bit. On the way home we stopped off for an epic steak (what a surprise) and had a good chinwag with our lovely waiter, Justin.
We have spent A LOT of time in our pool as it is really pretty and cool at night. We still haven't managed to work out how the hot tub works so at the moment it remains a 'luke-warm' tub but at least it's a good topic of conversation to start up with our fellow neighbours. There is a big party for all the residents at the Ridge in a couple of weeks so hopefully we should be able to make a few more friends here.
Joe and I went to a houseparty on Golf Court last week. Little did I know that they would all be percussionists! It was pretty challenging but I actually really enjoyed myself. Being under the drinking age and all that I was a bit cautious so didn't drink but managed to make friends with a steel pan player called Shannon who also wasn't drinking! There are some pretty hilarious pictures from that night and I had forgotten how much fun it was laughing and teasing drunk people!
I had my first clarinet lesson on Thursday and it was fantastic. I managed to get the head of the dept and he clearly knows what he is talking about. Immediately he noticed my problems with my wrist and helped me to correct that. I just loving his teaching style and we seem to have hit it off immediately. I've already probably learnt more in a lesson than I did in a yr at Leeds so hopefully when I get back to the UK I will be able to kick some butt and get myself into a college for post grad! The clarinet studio are also equally as friendly and the english accent doesn't seem to lose it's charm with them. Tim and I have been stopped in the street with people saying 'OMG what kind of accent is that?'...to which we reply english! It is pretty funny trying to explain that they actually stole our language and have an american accent!
At the weekend we hit Dallas again, this time to another mall called the Galleria. It was absolutely brilliant and even had an ice skating rink inside it! Surprise, surprise the 2 Sarah's and I went spending crazy, but it was actually a really nice break from everything and made me feel like I've started to settle down a bit. On the way home we stopped off for an epic steak (what a surprise) and had a good chinwag with our lovely waiter, Justin.
We have spent A LOT of time in our pool as it is really pretty and cool at night. We still haven't managed to work out how the hot tub works so at the moment it remains a 'luke-warm' tub but at least it's a good topic of conversation to start up with our fellow neighbours. There is a big party for all the residents at the Ridge in a couple of weeks so hopefully we should be able to make a few more friends here.
Joe and I went to a houseparty on Golf Court last week. Little did I know that they would all be percussionists! It was pretty challenging but I actually really enjoyed myself. Being under the drinking age and all that I was a bit cautious so didn't drink but managed to make friends with a steel pan player called Shannon who also wasn't drinking! There are some pretty hilarious pictures from that night and I had forgotten how much fun it was laughing and teasing drunk people!
So I guess that is it for now! Catch you next week! xXx
No comments:
Post a Comment