burning it at both ends

I'm not really a whiner, and I'm willing to work hard - but I have to say, this schedule is really difficult.

I'm finding it hard to get my daily practice in, which is making me quite resentful. When it comes down to it, there is this small window of time around mid-day, between racing home from San Rafael, and heading back out to teach, accompany at SI, or do a choir rehearsal (if it's Thursday).

Ideally, I'd have time to practice and exercise before heading back out the door. But when I'm pressed for time, it's practicing that goes by the wayside - because if I start skipping workouts, it's all downhill from there and then I have real problems.

The other challenge is, if I do end up having 45 min to an hour to practice, it's challenging to get into the right mental and emotional state for singing, at the snap of a finger. It's like sitting down to paint or draw or write poetry, but on a schedule. This process doesn't always work that way.

But if I am to learn this music and stay on top of things financially, this is the way it's got to be for the next 10 weeks.

Yesterday I felt totally overwhelmed and frazzled - so I came home, skipped it all, and cooked one of the delicious vegan meals I've been wanting to try, but haven't had time (the ingredients have been ready to go for a week). It turned out pretty well - Barley Casserole with Tahini Dressing (pictured).

Then I popped in a 20-minute yoga video. I felt much calmer as I headed back out to what was actually a pretty good stretch of teaching, until I ran into an Incident that made me want to cry. I have this adolescent boy who hates piano, will not practice (but fools his mom into thinking he does), won't say two words to me, and is generally a major drag to teach. I have bent over backwards to motivate him - even gave him Harry Potter instead of what he should be playing from his method books. We've had the same damned lesson for about 8 weeks now, because he won't practice and doesn't care.

Yesterday, when he wasn't even bothering to remember the basics and hadn't touched any of his assignment yet again, I told his mom "this isn't working". Mom: "he usually practices, but I don't know what's going on this week." Me: "I have yet to see him practice anything I give him." At this, she got red-hot angry, defensive, and basically showed me the door and told me to have a nice life.

I'm still not sure whether she was mad at me, or mad at her son, or just embarrassed or annoyed at the waste of money. Who knows.... all I know is, being a sensitive person, it totally depressed me for the rest of the day - in spite of the really positive lessons before and after that one. That's the thing about teaching - 99% of your students can be totally awesome and positive, but it's that 1% that we seem to take home with us.