The Silver Turtle

Sunday, July 08, 2007

my life as i know it

I've had a busy couple of weeks in real life.

STB was in a wedding, and then was the reception DJ. I've got some wedding photos posted. Most I think are pretty average, although there are a handful of shots I really like.

I also had another photo included on schmap.com
Aside: When I went to visit Boston Tony, I insisted that one of the very important destinations I needed to see was an authentic Boston Irish Pub. He had to go looking for them, as he didn't frequent any himself. In BOSTON. Of course, he discovered 3 or 4 within walking distance from his apartment.

I finally got around to getting some very basic maintenance done on my tuba, something I had been putting off for over a year because I never had the time to give my horn up for a week +. My tuba sounds great again, and I am very happy to have found a good repair guy.

I was also asked if I teach lessons, and a manager asked me to bring my resume by. I have zero time to devote to teaching right now. But I also really think I would enjoy it, and have really been trying to immerse myself more and more back into music.

So I'm working on my music resume right now, along with trying to figure out how many students I can reasonably handle.

This comes at a time when I am rethinking a lot of my career-life-self. I don't hate my job. There are parts of my job that I really enjoy very much, and could imagine doing for many years to come. There are parts of my job that I really do not enjoy, and those are the parts of the job that are expanding, and the things that increase as my position increases (paperwork, more bosses, more meaningless meetings, all of those management things I don't like).

I also happened to pick up a book from the library, Conquering Your Quarter Life Crises. I first read about this phenomenon in Douglas Coupland's Generation X - yes that book. The one that coined the phrase "Gen X", and led all of the baby boomers to label my generation as whiny slackers. Coupland referred to a "mid-twenties breakdown" long before John Mayer crooned the words "quarter-life crises".

Even though I'm 30 now (I can't believe it, and certainly don't feel 30), I still find the magic years of your 20s intriguing. And I've always enjoyed cultural studies, including (and recently, especially) generational differences.

So branching out and maybe teaching, and continuing to play, and network with other local musicians, that may just be what I need. Maybe in the future as my career, or maybe just as that one thing I'm passionate about no matter what.

Oh, and I attended my step sister's wedding yesterday (yep, one of those 7-7-07 weddings). I'll post photos some time this week, although I didn't get very many good ones.

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

misc. notes on my life at this very moment

Some notes:

1. I have 845 new emails in my yahoo box. Since I checked yesterday. I'll bet less than 10 are not spam.

2. I just had to turn down a gig with one of my bands. I have another commitment with a group I volunteer with. This is a group that I'm passionate about, and have been involved with for several years. This past year, however, I've felt less than enthusiastic about my required involvement. I love the people. I love the organization. But I hate turning down fun, paying gigs doing what I love more than anything else. I'm not sure if my apathy is just a little burnout, or a legitimate sign that I should find other ways to work for the group.

3. STB was in a wedding last weekend, where I took a lot of photos. I still have over 100 photos to sort through and clean up in photoshop. In 2 weeks my stepsister is getting hitched, so I'll have even more photos, so I need to get on it.

6. I want to clean up my itunes. I'm rather picky about some things, but there are a few things that I've let go, and now my OCD is taking over. I'm just not sure where I want to start.

5. Did I already mention ...

IT'S COMFEST WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you're in town, I hope to run into you ComFest'ing it up in Goodale Park. Happy ComFest everyone!

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