How do you practice handbells at home without your own set?
Well, let me tell you. When you are a newbie to a crazy-good new group and feel the expected trepidation, you take home your music, copy it, highlight all over the copy, and get an mp3 file to listen to from the recordings guru. Then it's time to sit on the floor and practice with spoons. Currently, laid out around me on the floor, I have:
4 big spatulas
1 plastic whisk
1 plastic spoon
1 large flat cake spreader thingy
1 serving spoon
1 regular spoon
1 serving fork
1 regular fork
I then sit and listen over and over and stop and start and correct and beat these various implements on the floor and my shoulders and wave them in the air like I'm really playing. It would be a pretty strange scene to walk in on unawares.
Each of these implements represents a specific piece / instrument that I am expected to keep track of and play at just the right time... Usually at any given time I'll have 3 of the above things in my hands. No pressure, though...
Oh, and this is just one song of an approx. 20-song lineup that we're learning for April concerts. Let the peeing of the pants commence.

Sometimes, I wonder what in the world is really going on in my subconscious mind... last night I dreamed about catheter-related bloodstream infections and walking to France. In the first section, I was at a hospital with a group of people and I think that we were going to watch a procedure on or talk to my friend's dad. However, the doctor informed us that he had a catheter-related infection and was not doing well and so we could not see him. In something that would only make sense to my Cook friends, I asked him if he used a Spectrum catheter and he said no, he used some other company's antibiotic coated catheter, as opposed to this antibiotic inpregnated one. He said it was cheaper and I remember actually screaming at him that the Spectrum catheter had a 2 mm zone of inhibition (I think my dream made that up) with no resistance developed in any of the literature studies (I think that part's real) and that if it could have prevented this, it would have been worth the extra money. Why do I dream about things like that?
Later after this eventful visit, I dreamed that I was going with my friend Betsy and some others to France, where she's doing her study abroad, only... we were planning to walk. I was confused by this and how we were planning to get there the same day, and was kind of cranky because I figured we'd be pretty darn tired from all that walking. Somehow I learned that there was a place up north where France was really close to the US, and that we were going to cross there over a bridge or something (what the heck?!?), but that still made me cranky because we were going to have to walk up the whole East Coast in one afternoon and that sounded like hard work.
So strange...

So, everyone who knows me knows that I am a geek for science, math, guys in glasses, owls, all things Chi O, and handbells. Today I'm humbled and excited to share that I auditioned for and got a spot for next year's Raleigh Ringers, which to me is pretty much the top group I could be in! I've known of this group since I was a little girl and watched their television Christmas specials on PBS. My handbell directors & teachers always spoke of the Raleigh Ringers with esteem, and if any of my groups ever tackled a really super challenging song, chances are it was commissioned by/for Raleigh Ringers. When my bell group was gearing up for a tour in Russia, we went to go see RR in Indianapolis, on their week-long summer tour! I never thought that I'd end up here, in this area, and actually be able to have a spot in this group!

I know it's going to take a lot of time, and I'm going to have to work hard to get to the level of the veteran members of the group. But I'm excited, and ready to work hard! I'm still on an emotional high tonight. It's been a great week!!
www.rr.org - we could be coming to a city near you this year!!!

After an often frustrating day and first week of the new year, tonight I reached for the good stuff... no, not hard liquor... the crack-for-women of all chick flicks, Pride & Prejudice. It doesn't matter that I know the fictional story and idealistic romance is unrealistic and even unhealthy... sometimes it is just what you need.

I usually consider that I'm a fairly patient person. I will stand in the line at the store for ages behind a difficult person with their price check or returns and never get snappy with the cashier... I was a math & science phone tutor for 4 years for heaven's sake ... I don't know if anything else has tested my patience in quite that way. Yet when it comes to the condition that is being young and single it is a constant struggle for me to be patient. No matter how much I can direct myself with my logical side to not worry or care, that 'obsessing' or worrying is detrimental, it still hurts my heart sometimes and I guess I've just been acutely aware of it in the past week or so.

Do you know, it's an interesting thing that moving to an area with many educated young people, as this Triangle is, should open the doors to more opportunities, and certainly I think that's true. It's also true, though, that the 'competition,' if you will, is tougher. A nice guy can actually meet a girl at a bar who's a gorgeous, outgoing, med student, or PhD candidate from some Ivy League school. We can't just assume that things will go well by virtue only of our not being bimbos, here.

On a better note, I'm really lucky and fortunate to have wonderful friends here and also in places far away. I got to talk to Krystal last night (yay, Krystal) which was great. I got to catch up with a ton of Indiana friends, and family, over my wonderfully long Christmas break, and that was wonderful! Ultimately, these things are lasting and are the most important things, and I am deeply grateful for all of these friends and for my family. January, I suppose, is always just hard.. cold, the holiday lights come down, it's always dark... :) But that's why they make chick flicks and warm blankets.