After our band trip to CBDNA, we had our meeting Monday, where we were informed one of the band members tested positive for covid. I wasn’t feeling good, so I pretty much immediately left and grabbed some at home tests, took one and was negative. Cool, so I went about my day- going to a short “rehearsal” of collecting and passing out music, and then a small performance with the flute studio. Tuesday, I woke up feeling okay, so I went to my doc appointment as normal for a refill on my prescription. After that appointment I started feeling much worse and ended up cancelling the few things I had that day. Wednesday, same story, woke up feeling super bad, but I thankfully didn’t have class that day. Took another test and it was negative so I’m just thinking I got some weird bug. Thursday I was still feeling bad, so I took a sick day and headed home, as spring break was the next week. Friday, I took another test and was finally positive for covid 🙁 . I managed to not get covid at all, even during the pandemic when it was bad…4 years of avoiding it, just to finally get it some random day. So the rest of that week and half of my spring break was spent in a loose quarantine- I say loose only because I was at home with my parents. Wednesday I was feeling much better and for some reason decided to get in a car with my dad, drive to BG, grab my sibling and then go to Alabama.
My sibling got into a pretty big acting conference that was happening down in Mobile, and I ended up tagging along. I couldn’t tell you why, but for some reason I just love a good roadtrip. Clearly. Almost every weekend in March I was driving for 10+ hours. I’m insane, I know. But we drove down there, stopping at Buc-ee’s for the first time for my sibling and I. In the ranking of gas stations, definitely the best I’ve been to, though I will say it was super overstimulating and my anxiety had me going in and out as quickly as I could lol. The trip was short, with us getting back to KY on Saturday/Sunday (it was real early idek). But, we did get a chance to go to a nearby beach and take my siblings dog. I 10000000% miss the beach. We were only there for around an hour, but it was a much needed and nice hour.
And that bring us to this past week, which wasn’t super exciting. It was pretty normal, minus only having one rehearsal instead of three. I’ve decided to try to audition for some orchestras, so that will be interesting lol. A lot of this week has been planning and prepping for that. Yeah, this week wasn’t super special. Mental health wise this week was a tad more rough for some reason. I’m noticing a pattern within my weeks that has been pretty steady, though I’m hesitant to write about it online for reputation reasons. Aka, there is a large motivation drop after a certain thing that has been happening regularly, though I’m not convinced it is that person’s fault for my motivation drop. That’s pretty vague, but again I don’t want to get into specifics. I’m also not really sure there’s anything I can do about it, yes, I could talk to this person. But one that idea is very anxiety inducing and two, I only have like 50 days until I graduate…I can suck it up.
Something I did learn about myself this week was how much I dislike the practice rooms here LOL. I couldn’t find the motivation to go to campus and practice, but I also am not able to practice in my apartment. So my solution was practicing with a metronome, but air play instead of making a sound. I found that I was able to work with a metronome for much longer doing this than actually playing. And then yesterday, when I went to practice again, but actually play, I do think the pieces sounded better and were more steady. So this is probably something I’m going to be doing more of.
Speaking of yesterday, I had another lesson with a student, which I feel like went well! She’s auditing for a solo in concert band so we went over that, and will do so again Monday before the audition. As a side note- she’s also looking into a music minor which is super cool- though I can’t take any credit for that, as she was thinking this before taking lessons. I also got a text from a friend informing me there is a squishmallow with my name!! So obviously I went to five below and got my little squishmallow, Juniper, and some other things I definitely didn’t need. But how could I not get a little hello kitty playing flute?!! So cute.
That’s about al for what’s been going on the past few weeks, not much due to me being sick, but that’s okay. Today I’m going to a PSO concert with some friends, so that will definitely be fun, then it’s back into a normal-ish routine this next week 🙂
by juniparker
