Argh.

I missed my first piano lesson. I had written down that they started after labor day. In fact, they started the week before labor day. I got home (after meeting with my now-second graduate student) to a message asking where I was.

Argh. I don't do that kind of thing often but I get really irritated with myself when I do.

I will say it's taken care of - she had an opening Thursday afternoon so I will make up the lesson then. I'm trying not to feel TOO bad about it.

But I'm going to be a crispy critter by the end of this week:

Monday: fieldwork from 1 to 4. Student got her truck stuck so I was there an extra half hour trying to help her get it unstuck.

Tuesday: wrote most of a grant proposal, met with a student from 5 until 5:30 (after having come in at 7 am as I usually do). Also went to the Mart of Wal, which I will never again do on the first day of the month*

Today: the usual round of teaching plus lab. Plus need to find time to start writing an exam.

Tomorrow: teaching plus lab, more work on the exam, piano lesson, AAUW salad supper in the evening

Friday: Do a lab with biostats class (it involves many many filter paper disks and potato extract). Departmental lunch (for which I am providing ice cream bars; it is too busy a week to cook for a dozen people). If it's not storming, complete the fieldwork.

Saturday: finish exam and grant proposal.

Thank goodness I get Monday off for Labor Day.

(*Coming from the "privileged" position of not living paycheck to paycheck, and being squeezed at the end of the month and flush at the start, the first day of the month is kind of just another day to me. But I learned when I went to Wal-Mart yesterday, that lots and lots of folks who do live paycheck to paycheck go on that day - whatever day of the week it is. The place was mobbed. And they were out of lemons. And garlic. And there were a number of people who, let's just say, were not on their best behavior. I saw someone with two totally loaded carts going to one of the allegedly-20-items-or-'less' lane. (And it should be 20 items or FEWER, not LESS. Fewer is for number, less is for amorphous quantity. You would have fewer cans of soup but less soup in a bowl).


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Speaking of the piano, I did something this morning I almost never do. I trimmed my nails. (Normally they break off before they get this length; not sure why they are stronger all of a sudden). They were starting to "click" when I played and it was enough to bug me, and I suspect it might bug my teacher. (I have read stories of tyrannical piano teachers - of which mine is definitely not one - grabbing their students by the wrists and forcibly cutting their nails. [I suspect the most mine would do would be to pull an emery board out of her purse and gently ask me to use it before I went on]).

I'm also getting myself back into the schedule I used to follow: trying to get ready early enough that I have somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes before I leave the house so I can practice a little bit in the morning, when I'm fresh and the day hasn't had a chance to beat me down yet. (Also, with getting home after 5 pm some days, trying to find a large block of time to practice is harder).

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One last thing. And if you're easily squicked, you might not read the article. But this falls under the "you learn something every day." The condition described in the article (tonsilloliths) is something I've had occasionally over the years (thank goodness, not frequently enough to have to resort to what some of the folks are described as doing. But I had the exact reaction that some of them had, upon finding the tonsilloliths: "Gross! It must have been a piece of food that I didn't swallow and that got stuck on my tonsils." tonsilloliths (NB: New York Times article, may require free registration, or there's probably a bugmenot registration out there you can use)

I'm presenting this mainly as a PSA in case anyone else has these; I had literally never heard of them until I read the article. And yes, it is kind of a gross thing.