This year was the first year that I had virtually no time to practice for Nutcracker. And no time on the violin either. I've been spending every moment on my new teaching job, on my violin students, on the band, on the new living situation, on getting myself fed and trying to get sleep and...it's been hard to pick up the violin. I hate this.

But Nutcracker worked. This was the first year that I wasn't constantly stressing about whether I was in tune, whether I would be able to play that run, whether I would hit the shift, etc. It was fun. And that means...it's time to start getting my "real" violin skills back. With any luck, I'll make it through the school year and be out in May this year instead of June, and actually get some personal violin growth done this summer.

Pros of new job: love teaching. Like the students. Like the schedule. Like the staff.

Con of new job: sitting down all day. Showing kids how to model the world on the computer so that people can spend more time sitting at their computers pretending that they're out doing things in the world, instead of actually doing real things in the world. Yikes.

Major con at the moment: naturopath agrees that my adrenals seem to be shot, probably due to constant stress and several panic attacks each week last semester. Double yikes.