I finally feel like I'm coming to terms with the current state of my life ;) A few potential reasons: I'm now used to the two new schools I am attending and am back to feeling bored with school rather than intimidated by all of the things I need to do and figure out ;) (I've got library internet accounts at both schools, know the parking ins and outs, where to get decaf coffee, how much time to allow for driving and walking across campus, etc ;)

The other thing that's been much nicer the past few days is that Patri's been working less. Even though he's on meds that specifically make him irritable, its much better to have a somewhat irritable Patri around than none at all ;) And I'm glad that I set up an allergy appointment for him and that it sounds like the doc has a lot of ideas for things that might help him :)

The ring came in the mail today... its huge!! But I'll get used to it... ;) It does fit well. Wearing a ring on that finger is very strange. I almost never wear any jewelry at all... wearing a ring all the time is going to take some serious getting used to, especially with this monster! Pictures to come ;)

I "fired" my first student today. I'm up to a 7(!) long wait list, and decided that its time to stop putting up with the parents who not only don't bring their kids to the lessons, but don't even call to cancel. I was able to do it graciously: "maybe when your schedule gets less hectic you can give me a call and we can try again." There's another one that I'm going to get rid of tomorrow.

Hopefully the potential students who have been calling haven't all already found other teachers, but even if they have, I'd rather make a little less than deal with the irritation of arranging my plans around people who don't have the decency to show up! I really do need to print out a notice and implement a policy that payment will be required if they don't give me at least a few hours notice. But that won't be so necessary now anyway, since its only those two I really had the problem with. (although I should still do it... just rationalizing because I don't want to ;)

This whole music teacher's association thing has turned out to be quite a bit more than expected ;) I'm taking the school classes for it (although for other reasons as well) have taken a special lesson from one of the association teachers, gone to the special music store and spent a lot of time thumbing through books, and I have a meeting with someone to talk about credits in a couple of weeks. I need to sit down and recalculate to see if I can get away with not taking a music class this coming quarter... it seems silly to be taking all these classes to keep one student when I could be teaching at least a couple more during that time... although I'm not really doing it just for Cindy.

I think it will be good for myself to check out the association as well. Its already been nice talking to a couple of teachers. I look forward to having more of a pier group in the piano teacher realm. Also I expect that once I'm on the site I will not have to worry about searching for students again so long as I'm living in this area. (even though that doesn't seem like much of an issue at the moment anyway :) The teacher I spoke with has a two year wait list, and her friend who teaches in the area has a similar wait and is currently teaching 50 students!

It would also be nice to be able to participate in their recital programs. While I do intend on making a yearly recital of my own a tradition, it is a lot of work, and a few of my more enthusiastic students would really like to participate in recitals more often.

And lastly, I am officially hormone free... at least birth control hormones... I'm actually heavy into pms hormones at the moment ;)