the best medicine

Tuesday morning was the worst.

         We have a class with the five of us Wellesley ladies at 10, and Clara and I both slept through our alarms and woke up with a start at 9:50. We were ready in under ten minutes, but we still didn't get there until half past, which was pretty rough. Then my computer refused to cooperate for the entire class, so that I took zero notes and could barely contribute because I couldn't access my notes. My job back at school is fixing computers, so it was utter torture spending the entire class period trying to make it work and getting the rainbow spinny wheel of death in response. Even once I got back to my room it took another 2 hours to get it functioning like normal. 

at least the google chrome message is cute. i couldn't even take a screen shot my computer was so frozen. 

          So after the entire morning/early afternoon of being utterly exhausted, rushed, and frustrated more than I think I have felt in about 6 months, I had lunch and 2 cups of coffee, drank my entire water bottle and wasted some time reading funny things online, and felt a bit better. I reluctantly headed to my internship (because I have to complete 100 or so hours in the next two months...woops...this one time this semester was INSANE and went by WAY too fast...). It's at the Musikschule Döbling, which is one of many music schools in this city. Students can study at the school for 12 years, no matter when they begin, so sometimes there are even college age students taking private lessons, like a few friends from the choir I sang with. Basically, the school is beautiful in a villa with the main courtyard acting as the main concert venue, and vines with beautiful flowers growing down the sides from the second floor. The oboe teacher, this ancient Egyptian man named Ibrahim Abraham handed me music to learn as soon as I got there and asked me to play in his concert this Friday (tomorrow), which is my birthday.

         I took the music to a free room, which overlooks the backyard of the music school through these windows (can you say amazingly calming?) and it was a jolt of instant happiness. I felt like a new person, with all of the icky vibes from the morning wiped away as if someone was window washing the stress lines off my forehead. I told Ibrahim I would play one of my favorite pieces, the first movement of the Bach Partita in A Minor for solo flute, and he told me that he was going to get pizza, wine, and juice (for the kiddies) to celebrate my birthday with me after. He's too cute! The plan is also to go get Pakistani food at my favorite place with a few friends afterward.

          I ended my time at the internship sitting in the park next door organizing all of the concert dates and whatnot in my planner and waiting for a percussion recital to start. The concert was SO GOOD that I literally wanted to go home and play Bach all night afterward....a few students played solos, two twelve-year old boys and one fourteen-year-old girl, all on marimba and they kicked ass. Memorized, four sticks, and so musical and intense. It was fantastic, and heading home I felt so silly at how horrible the day had seemed at first. Nothing can ever stay bad that long, and especially not when the sun is shining.

           A friend told me once that he thought Vienna was a completely different city when the sky was blue; it made the streets and buildings full of color and light. He was right.

-lab