I'm in Costa Rica for half a year?

Long time no see? I know I'm terrible at keeping up with this but I'm currently studying abroad for a semester in Heredia Costa Rica. My 'scholarly focus' here is Spanish, I'll be taking advanced Spanish 1 and 2, a class on culture and a class on Spanish literature. They do things a bit differently here, with this program I'll be taking a class per month from 8a-11a every day and a different class in 4 weeks. But normally in Costa Rica kids are still on 'summer' break. They take their long break from school in the winter because it's cooler and during the dry season. Their school starts up in March.

While I'm down here I have the amazing opportunity to study bassoon with Isabel Jerimas. She has German training from Karlsruhe Musikhochschule and received another degree from the University of Kansas and a speciality in baroque bassoon from the ESMUS in Cataluña Spain. I basically stalked her last year at IDRS as she was one of the judges for the Fox Gillet and the Meg Quigley Vivaldi competition previously. I tracked her down and asked if I could study with her in the winter and she said yes, so we came into contact on facebook and later Whatsapp as that is the best way to communicate here. I messaged her when I arrived in Costa Rica and we immediately set up our first lesson.

Keep in mind I'm coming from not playing all of winter break, as I take it off to remain a sane human, and the first day she assigns me Milde etude 1 with her correct fingerings and venting on all tenor A,B and C's, the Courante of the third Bach cello suite and all of the first movement of Mozart bassoon concerto AS WELL AS all of my major and minor scales.

Now thats where this gets tricky(Kathy if you're reading this I totally feel for you learning moveable Do).  In the US we use this crazy thing called moveable Do, as in solfege. This is where if you play a Bb major scale (or minor) Bb is Do. But here in Costa Rica and almost everywhere else around the world (like the metric system) they use fixed Do. Meaning that Do is always and forever the note 'C' no exceptions at all. Seems cool right? Try learning it not in your native language. PLUS they don't really say Bb major scale they will say Si bemol or si sostinido bemol and so on, its a bit much to get... BUT I REALLY WANT TO!


More to come because every day is an adventure!
EM