Wow, it's busy-time on campus. I've been slammed with stuff to do - grading, prep, research, all of that. I also have to find time this week to clean house and also do the last couple bits on the taxes (I forgot to claim the $500 I made reviewing textbooks, so I need to recalculate. And yes, I am worried enough about it being found out not to just go along and leave it off)

I have been doing some knitting - in fact, I knit a bit yesterday while invigilating an exam. This time it's the long-stalled Clapotis that I'm knitting out of Louisa Harding "Impression."

I had put the shawl aside, in part, because as I worked on the mid-section, I began to worry that I'd run out of yarn. That's actually my usual strategy when something starts bothering me about a project...if I'm afraid there's not enough yarn, or if it's a variegated yarn that's pooling funny, or there's possibly evidence of damage (insect or otherwise: I've learned through sad experience that carrying yarn in a zippered bag means that the yarn sometimes gets snagged).

It's not exactly a "I'm waiting to see if I should rip this back" kind of thing - I very rarely rip something back, unless it's a truly tragic problem (like, two skeins in a sweater that claimed to be the same dyelot, weren't). It's actually how I deal with a lot of problems that bug me: I am what they sometimes call "avoidant." I would rather not deal with a problem if I can put it off. (It's the one area of my life where I'm prone to procrastination).

It's not for nothing that I like the comment Linda Ligon made in her book ("This is how I go when I go like this"): How you do anything is how you do everything. I think that's true, of me at least. I can see how I react to certain things in my work-life being similar to how I react to similar instances while knitting or quilting, or where interacting with people outside of work. Or working on the piano.

Yes, I am still taking piano lessons, though I've not talked about it much. I'm getting close to proficient on Clementi's "Sonatina in C" (yes, all four movements. I've just started the fourth - Vivace, which sounds in places like it must have been inspired by some kind of folk-dance. I can't play it as fast as it should be played but I can sort-of play it). I'm still working on "Castle in a Cloud." It strikes me as odd: most of the stuff I play, I have it memorized (to the point where I forgot my exercise book at home last week, but could play the piece from memory without it to prompt me), but I CANNOT get this memorized. I don't know. I think it's because (a) it has a lot of dissonances and I, having pretty much been raised on Baroque and Classical music, don't expect them and (b) it's in an odd minor key (um...D minor I think? Enharmonic with F?). Another part of it may be that the repeated "figures" are similar but not the same...and I tend to expect sameness, or at least what-seem-to-me logical differences in figures in a piece.

I have pretty much run through (this week is the last piece) the exercise book. The teacher started casting about in her files for something else for me. "There's a famous book of pieces by this person...I can't remember his name right now" she said. "Hanon?" I asked. Yes, that was the one. I told her I already had a copy, and so, I'm going to start working out of it next week. Oh, I'll probably come to dislike Hanon in the way I currently dislike "Sportacular Warmups book 4," but right now I'm kind of pleased that I am able to use a book I bought and also that I'm working from a book that many, many people in the past worked from. (I can't remember the original copyright date on the Hanon, but it's pretty early. I have a similar book of Bergmuller pieces that lists 1903 as the first copyright date). Again, it's kind of like the whole thing with knitting and quilting: I like that feeling of connectedness with the past. And while maybe none of my grandparents would recognize Hanon (none of them played the piano, except for maybe my paternal grandfather, a little bit), I still feel that sense of connectedness and groundedness that I like.