The day after international women's day

Today, March 10 of 2020, the day after international women's day there was an attack on a mother and her daughter in broad daylight by a man. This was in my route to school, it was public, right by the bus stop I walk by every day. The public intervened and the man is in custody. I ran this morning with a friend 2 miles out and back, there was a man on a motor cycle who did a U-turn right by us as we were running on the sidewalk, he was only turning to wait for someone at the house we were running by.

I cannot tell you how enraged I am that these things are happening and becoming more popular. Especially since the attacks are only on women and children and are becoming more frequent.

Today was the first day on my walk home that I thought what do I currently have in my backpack that I could use as a weapon if I needed to? The answer, my half full glass water bottle, and my two epi pens. I decided that the water bottle would do, filled it up all the way so it carried the most weight if I were to need to use it and carried it in my dominant hand the entire 20 minute walk home, observing every car that went by to make sure it wasn't one that doubled back and not just 'glancing' behind my back but full on turning around to be completely aware of my surroundings.

I'M PISSED. ESPECIALLY THE DAY AFTER INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY.

Men, please help your female friends during these times, always and forever, the world is completely different from our point of view.

Big differences

I am noticing that my Spanish is getting A LOT better. I no longer have to really focus on the words people say to understand them clearly. I am also noticing that English sounds weird. If I’m walking down the street alone and I hear English it’s an immediate ‘WAIT, that doesn’t sound right...’ which is such a funny thing when your mother language becomes uncommon to your own brain. Big mind blown. But I am also seeing a ton of English print on shirts and they’re hilarious! Most of them have correct grammar and syntax - for example my house sister doesn’t really speak English, she knows some words but hasn’t had an interest to fully learn the language yet. She has a shirt that says something along the lines of ‘why by racist, or homophobic (and a bunch of other things I can’tremember) but she was wearing it at dinner next to our ‘abuelo’ (grandfather) who is extremely homophobic. I’m not sure if it was a retaliation towards him, or if she knew what the shirt said in it’s entirety but I do know she is one of my favorite people.

Today we are traveling to the Toucan Rescue Ranch in the mountains. I’m excited to see my old roommate (she spent a month living with us to learn Spanish and moved up to the mountains for an internship at the rescue. I am questioning why when our program told us to wear pants and closed toe shoes that there are some wearing Sandler’s and shorts. I’m not sure if some of these people have been on a farm or near animals like this before... could be interesting ;) 

I have decided and signed up to run a half marathon on the 3rd of May (hooray borgess marathon!) but ive Gad a bit o f an upset stomach lately and I’m a little worried about my longer runs and fueling when it mes to that. We will see how it goes. Today I have to do 3 miles and tomorrow 4 because I’m hanging out with my tico family Saturday. 

I’ve really been enjoying the Fasch it’s so much fun to play and I think I really enjoy playing baroque and baroque French pieces And super modern pieces. There is no in between. I’ve been trying to practice a lot more lately but it’s so hot during the day it’s more of a workout with me being drenched in sweat. I do practice after dinner most nights but I try to stop around 8/9. 

What to play?

Michael and I played the Mozart Sonata for bassoon and cello (or Euphonium - el bombardino) last year on my recital and we were joking that for his recital this year we would play the same thing but switch parts so we would play it two years in a row... but in reality it would be three due to Kathy's recital where I played the lower part LOL!

In all reality things are going very well here. We just finished our second module, celebrated by white water rafting for 5 hours and trashing our muscles while having a blast, and began our third module. I am taking Latin American Civilization and Culture. I've only had one class but it's amazing so far! We had great conversations about 'what is culture.' 

I'm coming to a point in my life where I'm going to have to make some big decisions soon... but I can wait at least until December, to apply to grad school. I want in the worst way to live and play bassoon in Spain for the rest of my life, but I have to get into school there first. While I'm in Costa Rica I'm preparing and studying with Isabel. She recently brought to me the Fasch Sonate in C major, and I LOVE IT! She also showed me a technical studies book by her old professor at the University of Kansas, Alan Hawkins. It's quite a handy book and really plays tricks on your finger brains by presenting an etude in C major, but could also be played in C# major, Cb Major, G Major and Gb Major. On the cover it's priced at $7.50, I looked it up to possibly purchase from TrevCo (fantastic company by the late Eric Varner) it was $35 :( 

I'm trying to practice more while I'm here to become a bassoon titan... one day

EM

Whats new in Costa Rica? 24/2

I will have another post coming after this one explaining my trip to Panama and my thoughts about DCI lately but for now I want you to be updated on my life!

Last Tuesday I began rehearsing with the National University Orchestra, so far we have Overture to Egmont and Beethoven symphony no.1 in our folder, I believe we will be getting 1-2 more pieces. I went to this orchestra knowing nothing of what it'd be like, I assumed relatively similar to orchestra rehearsals in the US. But first I had to get there.... So I called an Uber and he took me to the front of the University's campus.... then it was another 10 minute walk to get to the building which is fine but I had absolutely no idea where it was other than the name of an auditorium inside of a music building I was supposed to find. Thank you security guards because absolutely none of the students knew where the music building was until I got close and saw musicians with instruments (as of which I totally followed them). I arrived right on time, 6pm, which for me is late. BUT here in Costa Rica we have what is called tico time. A tico is a person that lives or is native to Costa Rica. Tico time is when everything is 'pura vida' or relaxed, no worries and typically means late or at the leisure of whenever. We didn't start playing until 6:40pm. Now you might be a little upset at this but wow I needed that time to meet the director, find a music stand, unwrap my new chair, warm up AND stop sweating. Now at this point I'm realizing I really should've looked up some terminology to help me understand rehearsal tonight but did I? ABSOLUTELY NOT! So incase you're wondering, a 'compass' in Spanish translates to 'bar' or 'measure' in english. I only got lost a few times and one of the times the director stopped, introduced me to the ensemble and said 'everyone talk to Emily a lot!' as to which I said 'yeah, Spanish isn't my first language' but it went great other than a few mistakes.

I am getting ready for fall semester, I transferred my GRCC credits to WMU and I'm on track to graduate in the fall, along with taking a SCUBA class! So I'm thinking a lot about what's next. I don't know if I want to go to grad school right away, I don't know if I want to go to Spain for grad school or Minnesota for performance and repair. But I do know that if I don't get into the Aspen music festival with a fellowship (I find out today!) I want to stay home, complete a summer intensive EMT course, go to a music festival in Maryland, possibly IDRS if I can take that much time off and just save money and live in an apartment with Michael and try to not kill the veggies I want to grow.

Every week through the Sol education abroad program we have 'immersion excursions' where we go out and take a dance class, cooking, baking, or this week on Friday we went to a club. It was definitely weird going to a club on a school sanctioned event, it also included one free drink. I had a terrible time, not to say the club was bad or anything of such but I don't really like to drink, and I REALLY dislike loud music. Guess what they had,.... REALLY LOUD MUSIC! It was a live band and it was mic'ed terribly and the mic's were turned up incredibly loud on already loud instruments, which results in a nice screeching noise. We got there at 9 and I left at 10:30p, its all I could take. I do enjoy going out with friends but typically not at night and if we're going out for a drink I'd rather go to a restaurant so we can chat than a club or bar.

On Saturday I decided to begin training for a half marathon and practice to become a titan of the bassoon world. We'll see about the second one. I had been running down here prior to deciding this and I knew I wanted to run the Borgess run but at what distance? I've always wanted to run a marathon but I don't think its feasible in my current situation with time so 1/2 is halfway there and we can do the other part later. But running her is KILLER! I live in Heredia which is in a valley with a similar elevation to that of Kalamazoo MI, so no need to worry about altitude sickness but just because we're in a valley doesn't mean there aren't MOUNTAINS to run up every turn and a very strong headwind both ways! Here I run on an average about a 12 minute mile and I think when I get home it'll shave off 3 minutes a mile LOL. I also practiced for a bit this day, hit a nice flow in my practice session. I'm trying to memorize the Courante of the third Bach cello suite, which is an awesome piece to play but memorizing Bach is DIFFICULT because he repeats passages increasing in stepwise motion or only a step off and you really could play the same thing twice and it would sound okay but its really not.

On Sunday my roommate and I went to Ojo de Agua, which is a public pool here. It's a small kiddy pool, a young kid pool and an olympic sized swimming pool with platform dives. I was so excited to swim again! and I didn't get burnt! I think I did a little over 600m but who knows.

Today begins the last week of module 2 classes. So basically its finals week but we only have one final on Wednesday. Today we had a role play which is improvising in front of the class in a conversation with a partner using a prompt and a grammar tense previously decided. I was so unnecessarily nervous for this - it went fine we all got 100%. But we also learned swear words in Spanish! I also started my first tutoring class today, I want to learn to translate for a hospital. The tutor knows all of the words and we went over the respiratory, digestive and nervous systems but he doesn't really know what they do. I guess the purpose of translating is to directly translate and not advise but I want to be able to use this in my EMT and paramedic courses as well. I guess one will learn as time will tell.

Ten un buen día hoy, y mañana!
EM

Rough day

Today was pretty good and then it was awful.

Classes went fine, breakfast was great (toast, melon, and yogurt with granola and a cup of coffee). We finished our presentations in class, which were about the best and worst moment of our life.... a little bit personal... mine were about when I went to China with the KJSO and how its bittersweet because the people in those photos, I will never be able to play with again even though they've gone on and continued their musical education profoundly. My worst moment was the entire debacle with Lukeman... and how the house made my face swell up and break out in hives for 4-5 months, how our ceiling fell on my cat, how when moving out they decided to come in early and clean everything out (including my piano) and throw it away. And how I sued them for it. Continuing on in class we spoke about future tenses of verbs, events occurring with nature in latin american countries and our final presentations.

I had a great lunch of beans, rice, some noodle salad, roasted cauliflower, and a chickpea soup. And then I went to have a lesson with Isabel, this is where I found out that my phone doesn't have data. I had no way to contact her to let her know I was at her house so I rang the bell at her neighbors, who didn't answer, rang the bell of the business next door and was able to use their phone. Had a good lesson, went really well and we're progressing.

The next step was getting home.... I stopped in a cafe to use their wifi to look up a bus route. Got to the bus stop on time, got on the right bus it told me to and I'm following it along and then it makes a wrong turn and I pull the string to get off but he doesn't stop... so I go to the front and ask him if I can get off at this Stop sign. He says no... So I stay on the bus and he finally stops halfway to Heredia... as of which I had an appointment for allergy shots at 5pm. Its now 4:30p and I have to walk to a different bus stop but I'm too far away from the bus stop to calculate the correct time to get on a bus because I'm already to late and missed it, and I can't look up another bus because I don't have data. So I walk all the way home. And I sweat through every piece of clothing I'm wearing and I get home at 4:50p... I'm not going to my appointment.

Em

No sé que quiero por un título?

We're going to Panama this weekend! .......its a 13 hour drive..... we're leaving at 2am.... BUT I'm excited to see a new place (even though it'll be pretty similar, maybe a little colder because we'll be in the mountains) ALSO!!! I bought an awesome duffel bag today for the trip AND IT HAS BACKPACK STRAPS!

Lessons:
Things have been going really well with Bassooning, last week during my lesson she assigned me to memorize Milde no.1 and the first half of the Courante from Bach cello suite no.3. The Milde isn't too bad, some accidentals throw me for a loop but the Courante is H.A.R.D, and I believe its only difficult because I'm also trying to play it in the correct Baroque style while memorizing which gives some liberty but when your memory falters it ruins everything lol! We are also continuously working on major and harmonic minor scales and the Mozart bassoon concerto (also played in the same Baroque style)

School:
I'm a little upset with school. The professors are amazing people and I would love to be acquaintances with them but when it comes to quality of teaching, organization or other incredibly important things necessary for being an educator, they lack. And it's quite frustrating that I am still paying for college credit but I don't believe I'm still getting the same quality. Pros, these classes qualify for my upper level Spanish classes, and my capstone project for minimal effort.... not sure if its right morally but never-mind that.

TTFN,
Em

End of module 1 and Deaf composers

Today we finished our first class or module. In this program we complete a class per month rather than take 4 classes at once for the whole semester. It's very nice. Theoretically we finished yesterday, as thats when we had our finals but were still required to come in today to present our final group project to the entire program (we split up into four classes based on language comprehension level). Our final group project was to tell a childhood story, like goldilocks and the three bears, and adapt it Costa Rican style. Of course we chose the three bears, and we had two 'foreign exchange' girls staying at our house. We had to explain to them the shower, as showers here are backwards, the less you turn it on the hotter it is but less water pressure, and the further you turn it on the colder it gets with higher water pressure. As well as throwing used toilet paper into the garbage by the toilet, not down the sewage system. Then the bedrooms, those are exactly the same in the states except everything is tiled instead of carpet because its easier to clean and my host family cleans the floors every day to keep the bugs out. And finally goldy chose food. First were platanos dulces, fried sweet plantain, then sopa negra, a soup made out of black beans, water, cilantro and eggs, sometimes with veggies. And finally but the most important staple of Costa Rican food, Gallo Pinto. This is black beans and rice cooked together with 'flavors' also known as onion, garlic, celery, sweet chilies, a special sauce and some 'complete seasoning' this is also typically served with a salsa of tomatoes, onion and cilantro.

Overall the production went really well and we won best comedic play.

We got out of class a little early and I went to go talk to Janiva, the SOL program director, about adding tutoring onto my class-load. I want to be tutored in both medical and musical terminology and tutoring 1-1 with a professor only costs $12/hour here! Waiting to hear back, will keep you updated.

I also had another lesson with Isabel on Wednesday (of which I had to leave my bassoon at her house overnight because I was going to get my allergy shots at the hospital in downtown San Jose, not the best place). On Wednesday we talked a lot about musicality. I'm preparing a Bach cello suite Courante and leave it to me to play everything exactly like a robotic etude. We are continuing to work on scales and she told me to move onto Milde 2  and bump up Milde 1 to 90bpm.... thats a fast boi.

I've been struggling lately with the want to practice. When I get home from school for the past few day's I haven't wanted to do anything other than nap or watch Netflix. Which is okay but I have another lesson next week that I already feel super unprepared for and I'm trying to revamp the Marriage of Figaro bassoon audition excerpt to apply to the National Music Festival by February 10 and oh lord thats super rusty.... but the other option is the Beethoven 4 mvmt IV fast solo which in my opinion is also terrible to play.... I have a theory that he wrote such difficult things for bassoon and contrabassoon because he didn't know how terrible it sounded.


Anyway I practiced for a bit today (probably only an hour), maybe we can try again tomorrow,
EM

I also wrote this without my glasses, good luck!