Ithaca, NY: Model of Environmental Responsibility

Prior to my arrival in Ithaca, NY, I anticipated a north-eastern combination of South Bend, IN and Memphis, TN. I expected it to have a few small hills, the people to be mildly friendly and in a constant rush, and overall the city to be fairly "business-minded" like stereotype New York City to be.

Ithaca did not meet my expectations. It definitely exceeded them. When I walked through the center of the downtown shops, I saw a man with dreds doing yoga, found a cinema showing independent films, met a man who does beatbox with flute, and had multiple options of local vegetarian, organic, or vegan food for dinner. I also have not seen a McDonald's or Walmart here.

At Ithaca College and the shops I have been in, there are compost, recycling, and trash bins. Even in the classrooms. While in most cities you have to be intentional in your recycling, you have to be intentional in Ithaca not recycle. Here is another example of a way Ithaca College tries to promote environmental responsibility:

Unrelated thought: I have a canker sore right where the outside of my lip becomes the inside of my lip. It has been driving me nuts all week. I'm eating a sandwich not that has a citric sauce that makes it sting. It hurts.


After my arrival to Ithaca, I met a girl in my class who was a student at the college. After hearing I slept in my car the night before, she told me to come stay with her if I needed a place to stay. So I've been staying with her since I arrived. She's super sweet. She also works at a French patisserie. I visited her at work yesterday, and this is what I enjoyed (it's a brownie cheesecake thing!):

Last night I went with her and her boyfriend to see Spiderman 3D. It was quite a good movie. Natalie and I really got into it. Alex, on the other hand, was pointing out all the scientific flaws. He's working on his PHD. I made sure upon entering the movie that I would not be sitting next to him so that he wouldn't ruin the movie for me.

Today has been my first day off in the past 5 weeks without travel or classes. There have been times that I seriously thought I might be sick with mono again just because I have been running myself so thin. Here is the book that we went through this past week:

My day off started at 7am when I woke up. My body can't sleep in anymore. So I took my time getting ready and headed out to the Farmer's Market and arrived at 8:30...a half hour before it even opens. It was huge though! It consisted of only local providers that were within a 30 mile radius. I bought Natalie, Alex and I pastries, and local buckwheat honey for myself to take back to Bolivar. On the way out, I grabbed a vegetarian breakfast burrito.

                               

After my little escapade to the market, I headed to Buttermilk State Park to go hiking by some falls. It has been my favorite thing from my whole summer this far. It was beautiful and I got to climb rock ledges and wade through high water. It was super refreshing There were several moments that I wished that (1) I could drink the water and (2) that no one was around so I could go skinny dipping. At the bottom of the mini falls, there were several deep swimming holes that I wanted to dive into.

On my way down from the big hill/small mountain I had to climb, I met 3 musicians who marked me as a violinist from the hickey on the side of my neck. It was nice to meet and talk with fellow musicians. There are a lot in Ithaca.

Ithaca has a great institute. The New Zealand Quartet even came for a performance and to teach a couple masterclasses. There is one girl who has played some pretty advanced pieces well, like Tambourin Chinois by Kreisler and Sibelius Violin Concerto, 3rd movement. At the beginning of one performance, a girl who looked younger than 10 began playing a Suzuki Book 8 piece. She played it well...she had all the basics of intonation, left hand mechanics, and good bowing as well as mature tone and musicality. I have been very impressed by how well all the children can play. It's incredible what they are able to do. It's also very inspiring to me as a teacher to push my students to be disciplined and produce the best possible sound they can make.

Well, I'm off to the park to watch dragon boat races with a friend I just made! 

Here's a link to information about the city of Ithaca if you're interested. 

In the Heat of the Windy City

After a day of mowing lawns and picking blueberries in South Bend, IN with my mother, I was headed to the Windy City of Chicago. Because I grew up so close to the city, I have been to Chicago many times. But I've never lived in a condo downtown for 5 nights.
I liked it.

And did I mention that it was on the fourth floor of a Thai & Sushi restaurant? Well it was. And it was amazing.

The Chicago Institute was around 20 miles north in Deerfield, so it took me around 35 minutes to drive there every morning. Coming back it took nearly 90 minutes. Chicago traffic is horrible. However, it has definitely improved my driving skills.

One evening while I was eating dinner with my host family in the Thai restaurant, the electricity went out. In the whole block. We discovered that the transformer blew out. It was over 100 degrees outside, but we made it 12 hours without air conditioning or my phone charger. The flashlight iPhone app is wonderful for lighting stairways. Especially as you lead three 65+ year old seniors up to the fourth floor. It was an exciting time. We lit candles and I played baroque music while we enjoyed dessert.

Here is a photo taken the morning of our un-airconditioned night. Even though I'm making a face, it really wasn't that bad. I even wore long-sleeves that day.

Everything in Chicago takes longer to do. Dinner is an event. Grocery shopping is an event. Driving anywhere is a haul. I love the city, but the only way I would live there is if I could take the metro to work and was in walking or biking distance of nearly everything.

The day I arrived, we took the metro in to the loop so I could get my violin checked over and my bow fixed at William Harris Lee & Co. on Michigan Street. My violin teacher from high school is the manager there, and we were able to talk some about life, Suzuki, & violin before I left my bow to get straightened.

The Chicago Institute is the best one that I've been to so far. I have been amazed at the quality of playing produced from the students there. My teacher instructor of Book 7, Nancy Jackson, was a woman who was very selective of the words she chose to use. She does not give false flattery, and keeps all of her students accountable for responsible practice.

My class only had 4 students, which was very different from my training the previous week that consisted of around 15 students. I enjoyed the size of the smaller group a lot. Unfortunately, the smaller group did not mask my obvious lack of practice. I had thought that when I was Suzuki trained that I had completed Book 7, but apparently I only played one piece before I moved on to a traditional teacher. So that made this week's training tricky. I had to learn new repertoire and memorize the Bach A minor. Fortunately, it was only the 1st movement.

A discussion I really appreciated our last day of class was the importance of saying "no" when demands are placed on you to alter your policies. One of my biggest strengths is adaptibility. I am able to look at a situation, see what is needed, and quickly come up with a solution. However, I have had many people take advantage of this.

For example in a lesson:
A student may call me 30 minutes before their prepaid lesson is supposed to be, telling me they can't make it that day because of a soccer game. They then ask if they can reschedule for another time that week. I then look at the time that I was going to clean my house on Saturday and decide to clean during their lesson time. Then I give them the option of coming during 30 minutes of what was supposed to be my cleaning time. 


While this may not seem like that big of a deal, I have had several people assume that because I allowed that to happen once, then it must not bother me that much. Which isn't true. But then a similar scenario with the same family happens again.

I learned in this lecture that whenever you say "no" to something, you are usually saying "yes" to something else. In the example I gave, if I were to say "no" to adjusting the lesson time, I would be saying "yes" to giving myself that morning to get things done uninterrupted. I would also be saying "yes" to helping that family learn how to be responsible and to be respectful of me and my time.

I really appreciated that lecture because I don't like to say no to people and am willing to alter what I want to do to make things more convenient for them. I acknowledge that I have to know when it's okay to be "adaptable," yet still be okay with saying "no."



I'm off to Ithaca, NY now for training in book 5 & 6. My dad is helping me drive to Erie, PA where he'll catch a train, just to give me time to nap in the car. What a good father I have.