Outcome of Orals and other updates (and or complaints)

The library catalogue is in rebellion and won't load any of my pages, if it does it takes ages and ages. Don't they know I have only one hour of alloted time where I have to find recordings of 15 or so songs, all of which are on different CDs? Doesn't it know that (Great. it finally loaded and....it gave me an error in my search criteria).

Anyway. Now that Orals are over... which, by the way, I PASSED! I have to catch up on everything else, especially practicing. I have a competition and concert on Saturday as part of the (fine...I'll search for something else) Utah Flute association. Warning: I'm going to complain. And it's kinda long.

The music for the sonata competition this year is Sonata Latino, which, if I do say so myself, rock its socks.  Well, my accompanist who has been with me through thick and thin on this piece, can't do it on Saturday. Bless her over taxed soul. She is in lady in charge of all the music happenings in the church (this is getting ridiculous, maybe I"ll do something else. It's load something and then stop, and then decide it hates everything that has to do with my research) and has to be at the rehearsal of the choir for the young women's broadcast.

So I call someone else. No big deal. Her daughter is a flute prodigy. She got her master's in Piano performance. Amazing, kind, strong family. WELL, it happened to be a big deal. Her daughter is playing the third movement of the piece (which took me AGES to get down), but she hasn't had time to practice the rest of the movements like she would have hoped (her grandmother died, etc). AND, little did she know, but the rhythm is complicated--as complicated as the rhythm of an improvised Jazz solo.

So I'm frustrated. I want to win a movement. Poor little Rachel never wins anything and feels like (success!) she is a second rate flutist who tries but never succeeds. Why do I have to practice things 100s and 100s of times and yet STILL mess up in performance. It seems like no one else has this problem. They say they do, but I know better. I hear their performances they call stinky.

As we were rehearsing last night, which I might add was from 9-11 AT NIGHT, it sounded...not so hot. I wasn't hearing the cues I was used to hearing and things I had practiced and used to never mess up were awful. It didn't help that her daughter, who is a freshman in high school is playing a piece which was recorded for the NATIONAL flute association, which they told me was nearly flawless. GREAT..... It just so happens that she is playing that piece in the masterclass that morning, probably way better and way faster then what I will be playing on that same day at a recital for unaccompanied literature...shoot I have to give a short presentation discussing unaccompanied flute literature. Not to self, don't forget and try to have something intelligent to say. Anyway. I just know, true to form, I am going to mess up and be embarrassed AGAIN.

So I'm practicing in over drive. And it's getting better....but not where it ought to be.

Oh, and my flute is broken to add to my worries. Some one is fixing it as we speak....if he has the chance to get around to it.

Back to the competition. I want SO BADLY to perform well. To have the opportunity to compete and stand a chance. Yes, I've won things before, but it feels different somehow. Sometimes I really do think I should have (shoot...I don't have my student ID to check things out with). stuck with the trumpet. A lot less competition. Maybe I could actually have made into the Philharmonic. Well, very likely. I want to show the flute community, and especially myself the last 6 years of my life have been worth my time. I want to prove to myself that I can stand my own against the indestructible army of flute players.

Is that too much to ask? Are my dreams too big? Are my expectations too high?

But I count my blessings. I'm married. We're both alive and haven't been crushed by a building by an earthquake. We love each other. Our future is bright together. I have friends who read my rants and still like me at the end of them. I'm born into the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm not thrust into slavery in Africa with the fear of being raped. I have the opportunity to get a MASTER'S degree. Life IS good. Why do I want more? Should I not? I'm like Ariel, she has so much, but still wants more. She gets it in the end. Will I?