jaala

Lots of interesting stuff has happened, and I haven't written about it. Same old story.

I don't believe I've mentioned yet that I am a highly distractible person, to the point of it being compulsive. I will dawdle and put off doing anything vaguely monotonous or routine, even if it's something I really do enjoy. I also lose track of time passing really easily. As my parents and several irritated teachers have discovered, I have to be given immediate and absolute deadlines in order to get anything accomplished. I fully recognize this (obviously, why else would I be writing it?), but still find them intensely irritating. Hence, I meet with limited success when trying to impose arbitrary deadlines on myself.

This distractability is one of the reasons I write so few entries. The reason they usually end up being excessively long is because I'm also a completist and perfectionist. And writing is one of those things that, when I get around to it, I really do enjoy. Sometimes, actually, when I get down to writing entries, answering email, reading books, whatever, I sometimes do it intensely for hours on end. Quite a paradox.

So, with that explained (?), I still wish to record for posterity what I've been up to since July 16th:

I have a new job, giving music "lessons" to a shy homeschooled ten-year-old girl. She takes piano lessons during the school year, but her mother had been frustrated with her lack of interest in practicing the piano or music in general. So I play piano duets with her, give some technical instruction and interpretative guidance on her piano part, encourage exploration on a variety of instruments (accordion, recorder, Yamaha fife), and generally try to make music learning unintimidating and fun. An extremely pleasant way to spend an hour (or an afternoon, depending on how it goes) and I get paid in too.
I've continued my rather impractical fascination with the Toronto improv scene. I've made the two-hour trip, usually on my own, to see such shows as Micetro (with a bunch of familiar faces), and been very irritated to miss three or four other shows I'd planned on seeing. I've met such talented and friendly people as Gord Oxley, Rod Crawford, Jane Luk, Derek Flores, and Rebecca Northan. Not only did I meet up with (Whoser) Rob on an aborted trip to Fistful of Loonies, but he got me free tickets to Toronto, Zed to "Eh?". I'm now hoping to get to Jamboree. I know, I'm nuts.
Dad, Mum, and I saw my sister's ballet demo, and picked her up from summer school. She has been in professional training for only one year, yet she danced lead roles in two numbers. We were all quite proud of her. (She's at home for August, and busily finding me intensely annoying again.)
The family went to see Resurgence Theatre's Romeo & Juliet. I've seen all of this company's shows since their first one four years ago. I wasn't sure if they could handle a tragedy, but they carried it off better than the last Romeo & Juliet I saw at Stratford.
I saw and read loads and loads and loads of World Youth Day coverage. The Pope himself was staying north of here, and the events were in Toronto, so it was unavoidable. My feelings about the event ranged from thrilled to disgusted. I didn't get the chance to visit downtown and see all the international pilgrims, but I still encountered several a few days after its end.
Mum and I trooped downtown to finally see Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), the first Inuktitut-language film ever made. It was fantastic. It takes a while for one to be drawn into the story (i.e. it's very confusing at first) but once that happens, they've got you for good.
I attended a local folk music "song circle", which was really more of a open mic show performed by people sitting in a circle. There was very little participation from those not presenting each song, I suspect mostly because people insisting on playing singer-songwriter material instead of well-known or traditional songs that everybody might know. I did not know one song out of all those performed from 8:30-10:30 pm, which frustrated me. Despite this, the people were very nice, and I intend to prepare something to present next month so I can participate instead of sitting in the audience.
The family went to Chicago to visit some of Mum's American relatives. This was a highly unusual event; we only ever travel to visit relatives, and there it's infrequent, and the last visit to the States was to Buffalo when I was a young child. I ended up seeing about the same amount of actual Chicago as I see on the average one-day trip to Toronto. I got to see my great-aunt, uncle, and cousins on my mother's side for the for the first time, which was wonderful of course, but they lived way out in the suburbs (where our hotel was as well). We did ride the El (at my suggestion), saw a couple exhibits at The Field Museum, and saw a show and an exhibit at the Adler Planetarium. After more than an hour spent in line at the Museum of Science and Industry, we only had time for one exhibit--about the Titanic, my sister's selection naturally, but very well put together.
I get a kick out of midwestern accents. I missed the CBC in our hotel.