Tuesday

I did 3 hrs. 45 min. today and only made a dent in the Poème, not to mention the fact that I didn't get to the Hüe at all. Today my pen is here, I just felt like seeing if I could be neat for any length of time this this pen. Tomorrow I promise to go back to brown. I find that time is longer a burden the way it was before, even last summer. I could do five hrs with no mental strain at all. The only problem is I get physically tired. There's not so much you can do about that.

The Inspired Guessing class is getting even more interesting, although naturally there are still some outrageous things happening with Pnin, but that's part of the fun. It is interesting to see how one goes about discovering things, and how different it can be between two people with equally successful results. Or unsuccessful. I enjoy the challenge of the problems. The one about the children's truce words was very interesting. AH and I got going on a sort of nostalgia trip remembering things like "gools" and "gools-sticking" from childhood games. I didn't know all that stuff was so widespread, I though perhaps it was my crazy neighborhood. But apparently there are some ideas that are common all over, with different ways of saying it. Also, the Munteria problem was interesting, not as concerns me, because I got it right away, but seeing who didn't get it, and why.

I had a yoga class that was really good. but the teacher told me that I drive to hard, that I should relax and take it easy. Why do I always have to push and drive to excel? Was she trying to tell me the same thing as the I Ching? Sounds like it. I'd like to throw the Ching on my flute playing sometime, and also about my urge to be best or to be praised and commended and to have attention. Practically all my goals in life are to be looked on well by others. Am I really that insecure? If I was, could I talk about it like I'm doing now, or is there another explanation? It's all very interesting ~ and important ~ I really want to know what makes me tick.

Tomorrow is lesson day. I hope it goes well. I'll have to leave the Inspired Guessing earlier. I hope we can work something out so I won't be kept in the lurch anywhere. By the way, the whole note thing sort of passed on. I think they didn't want to make too much of a fuss over it. But I meant what I said in it. I realize how obnoxious I've been behaving. So with a little forethought perhaps I could avoid quite a bit of it. I really will try. Wow, when I get around to censoring this for my project report, there's not going to be anything left hardly. I few lines each day ~ maybe.

M and DB seem to be sharing a secret of some sort. I'm glad because that means that my subconscious stupid idiotic meddling isn't getting in the way. I can't believe that I was capable of such "typically female" catty behavior. Well. I'm getting chilly. I'm gonna tuck in. More about my hopes and dreams tomorrow.

Wednesday

I had a little harder time practicing because I was so tired, but it went OK. I've just gotta find a room without an echo, it makes me sound too good. I had a real comedown at my lesson, when i sounded really bad. Ah well, all the rooms in C are flattering. The Inspired Guessing class was really good, and I'm sorry I need to leave early. I'm floundering with the problems Mr. K gave them in class. Maybe I'll get the answers tomorrow. I've stopped objecting to what we're doing to Pnin. I just groan everytime some sneaky underhanded connection is made. If I was tired yesterday I'm going to be really tired tomorrow, it's even later. Dammit. i would have to watch Cyrano de Bergerac. I just got my metronome in my bag so that I won't forget it tomorrow.

Mom picked me up at my lesson late. She got home expecting Nana and Dad to be already to zip off to the Shanghai and fuming with impatience ~ they were both in bed, asleep. So Dad rushed out with Mom and I was stuck with Nana. The prospect of cooking for her all by myself was horrendifying, so I got Sara to come up. Between the two of us we fed Nana well and ourselves mediocrely. It could, however, have been alot worse. I really enjoyed the Cyrano, I could really get into the words and deception and tragedy. I hope Mr. D was watching it, it is right up his alley. He's a really neat guy.

Mr. M continued to give me I guess what's a little of my own medicine. I wonder if he realizes how effective it is, coming from him. He's trying to reduce my swollen head, anyways, not matter what the motive. but he sure knows how to deliver the insults. I can almost see him having a mouth like mine once, which age and experience have taught him to use with discretion. Not to mention a brain like a stainless steel trap, no rust there. The only place his age shows in a way that is not positive is in an area that is amazingly useful in revealing things ~ the hands. His hands are the only part of him that looks as if it were really old. (I don't count the graying silver hair, because far from taking away from his presence I would guess that he probably looks better this way than he did before.)

One person who I've discovered (over project week) is really nice in Mr. M. He's a really neat guy. Another who I've discovered really grosses me out is Mr. G. I've got to be really careful in re-establishing the fine line where it seems that I'm not gaga over him, but that I'm not repelled either. Fact is that I am repelled, but if he finds out he'll do a ricochet and stop leering and start frowning. My good marks will plummet. And I might (horrors of horrors!) actually have to work in Spanish. The though boggles the brains. Boggle away! (Doesn't the world "boggle" have a lovely sound?) Time to hit the sack, I'm so wiped I can hardly see, let alone see straight.

Thursday

Today I sinned. I didn't practice this morning. But i had reasons. 1) I was exhausted and 2) I was psychologically destroyed by my lesson. It deflated a lot of my enthusiasm. Instead I sort of frittered away the morning, and then got started for fun doing what MK was doing for his language. I got fairly far, actually. I ended up with 17 verbs (to be, to go, to come, to eat, to sleep, to live, to die, to begin, to think, to believe, to desire or want, to feel, to have, to make, to hurt or be painful, to love, and to hate), conjugated in seven tenses (pluperfect, past, present, future interior, future, conditional, conditional past), also object pronouns and possessives, 12 parts of the body, and 20 other assorted nouns with rules for making plurals. It is a perfectly working language. Now all I need are adjectives and adverbs and I practically have it made, all that would be left would be to translate the dictionary! I take most of my roots from the Swedish, Danish, Dutch or German, a few from the Romance languages. The verbs are conjugated by infixes and put in tenses by prefixes and suffixes. All the verbs end in consonants, all nouns end in vowels. There are no pronouns, and there is a neuter conjugation. It's all lovely and logical. If I pursue it, someday maybe I'll write a whole page or entry in it. That would be alot of work, but what a gas!

Mom and Dad and Nana went out to see The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (Le grand homme blond avec un seul chaussure noir?). They said it was charming. Maybe I'll see it with H or somebody. That would be fun. I'll definitely take dance next semester (now matter how embarrassed I may be), if only to stay in shape. I am going to get fat. I've been eating like an absolutely pig. I've got to stop. As soon as they stepped outside tonight I threw myself on the chicken and devoured, with fingers and teeth rending and flailing, those pieces left on the poor naked carcass. I wish I hadn't watched TV! Dammit, why am I so weak in the willpower department?

Saturday

Yesterday, I went in to school and practiced about 2 1/2 hrs in the library, which doesn't have any echo to speak of. But I gradually flew into a rage at my own ineptitude and had to put the instrument away. I spent some time on my language. It's pretty neat. I'm rather pleased with it. Perhaps some day I'll really work it out completely.

I had a talk with Mr. K, he was rather upset about my egocentricity. What he didn't realize was that I'm upset too. I don't know why I am the way I am, but I do have a fair idea of what I am. What he doesn't understand is that I've always wanted desperately for people to like me and think well of me. It seems that all that's ever done is made me act in a way that produced exactly the opposite effect. Oh well, I can only hope that I can be aware, and that will help. I don't know. I really don't know.

The Inspired Guessing class was pretty good. I was a little disappointed with the solution Mr. K found for the discrepancies in Pnin, but then again I couldn't think of any other. I prefer to think of them as distinct, private puns and games of Nabokov at the expense of the reader. Before that was what I rejected. I don't know why I now prefer it to an all-inclusive theory. I think the thing I found most impressive was the Holbein painting "The Ambassadors" with its foreboding message put overwhelmingly into the middle of the painting. I wonder how he had the guts to do that in a commisioned painting. But it's very impressive.

Today we had GBYSO and Mr. S informed us he would announce the winners next week. I thought the list Mrs. A had given him was it ~ as I wondered why he was being mysterious and creating suspense. After the rehearsal, as I was sitting there polishing my instrument, he came up to me and asked if I had auditioned. My heart promptly sank down to the vicinity of my bowels and I thought to myself "Oh God! He doesn't even know if I tried out, therefore I couldn't have been on the list." He asked what piece I had played and I told him, adding "it's kind of long." Then I asked him why he was keeping the suspense and he informed me that he hadn't decided yet! Well, that was surely interesting, but I guess we'll just have to wait until next week to find out what it all means (if anything). But it doesn't look likely for me.

After the rehearsal I tried to find B, but couldn't. I wanted to ask her how her audition went. Perhaps I'll call her later tonight.

This afternoon Mom and I went cross country skiing in Pattersdam golf course. It was fantastic! I loved it, I really got into the movement of the whole thing and (she said, beaming, the soul of pride, tch tch) I didn't fall down once. You get the pleasure of downhill without the strain, and freer kind of exercise. What a gas! I shall just have to do more of it. On out way out of the fields we met an older guy and his son who were woing to out onto the courses. The young kid was about my age and rather good looking. Perhaps this is the sport for me! Oh Soleil ~ you're so DUMB! I also am in the habit of repeating myself. I went to see T, she looked pretty good for someone recuperating from a serious bout with mononucleosis. I hope she gets better soon. She feels really bad about not being able to do things. She said "There's nothing to do..." meaning eating, or cooking, or cleaning up. Sounds like a very uninteresting existence. I should try and visit her, if it makes her feel any better, or less neglected.

Monday is "back-to-the-old-grind" day. Ah well, such bliss could not be expected to last. Anyway it wasn't much bliss. I haven't been really happy, truly and innocently happy for a long time.

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Last updated: 11/10/02; 2:27:42 PM.
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