A Quiet Morning

I'm once again enjoying the peace and quiet of a morning spent out on the back deck of my parents' house. It's a slightly cool, late summer morning. I was up at 8:30(!), so the sun hasn't even come close to its zenith, and I'm keeping the chill out with hot coffee and my Fredonia School of Music sweatshirt. It's beginning to warm up; the cicadas are buzzing, the birds are singing and the squirrels are dashing around looking for breakfast. Our resident chipmunk is darting to and fro, sucking seeds into his cheeks like a little brown, striped vacuum.

It's a good morning to reflect and take stock of my start to the academic year, which has been lack-luster thus far. I have to go back to Fredonia tonight and be ready to charge out of the gate full-steam ahead tomorrow morning. I have to spend some time organizing everything, and creating a strict schedule to stick to so that I get everything done. Knowing how I am, if I allow myself too much time with no tasks scheduled, I'll spend it screwing around. I need to ultra-structure my life in order to succeed at school.

Yesterday was the three year anniversary of 9/11, and I mostly avoided thinking about it. I still can't deal very well with it, nor can I look at pictures or video of that day for long. It's strange how affected I am from events that happened hundreds of miles from me, and involved no one I know. But watching huge buildings be destroyed and seeing almost 3,000 people be violently killed while just going about their lives at least slightly scarred me. I actually find it tough to think about their families... parents, siblings, wives and husbands, companions, and long-time friends... and how it must have felt to them. And how I'd feel if that happened to someone close to me.

Anyway, I didn't spend much time thinking or reflecting on it yesterday. What I wrote just now was pretty much the extent of my thoughts on it, and it's a day later.

Onward to other things... I've gotten everything out of this weekend that I'd wanted so far. It was a quiet couple of days, spend with precisely who I was looking forward to spend it with. No big gatherings or anything. I needed this, and to recharge from this past week, which was mostly one to forget. I don't completely want to go back, but I feel I'm ready to do so, and to kick my ass in gear and start getting my work done this week. That's what I'm goddamn well there to do, after all.

This turned into a rather long post, and methinks it's time to go make breakfast and t hen practice trombone. I'll likely post something about my education classes, since they're pretty interesting and they help keep at the front of my consciousness that within 3 years I'll actually be a certified music teacher. Wow!