babycakes

Dating for Mommies

2011-11-21T19:38:00.000-08:00

Everywhere I go these days, people are emphasizing the importance of having good community - real, authentic community that supports you and goes through the challenges of life with you. I've always known this is important, but it is one thing to know the importance of community and another thing to actually have good community. The last sermon I heard on this topic this was this past Sunday where I promptly thought to myself, He's preaching to the choir on this one - now how do I get it?

We live in a society where caretakers and their children are more isolated than ever. It's more and more common for people to live far away from their extended families, leaving mom (or dad) who is home with baby alone for long periods of the day. I've recently experienced how isolating this is and how I long to meet other women in my area who are going through the struggles of taking care of an infant day in and day out, if only just to talk about which diapers to use or what their baby's sleep schedule is, how their lifestyle has changed, etc. Mostly because it would make me feel a little more sane to know that I'm not the only person in Los Angeles who contemplates spit up and diaper cream all day.

So I've been trying to put myself out there whenever I meet another mom and reach out even in the strangest of circumstances. I was emailing with the chef of a nearby restaurant we love who made food for our housewarming party a few weeks ago, and she introduced me to a moms' support group on LA's east side aptly named the Booby Brigade. I posted a message on our message board looking to meet up with other moms and have gotten a few responses so far. I also emailed a mom twice that I stalked out (well, sort of) at a church we have been visiting because her baby was the same age as Elisa. So far no response. Every time I see a mom walking with her baby or with a stroller, I wonder if I should just introduce myself but I usually feel a little awkward about it. I feel like I'm dating or something. I mean, am I cool enough for all these hipster moms in our area?

Elisa is 4 months and is just a little ball of cuteness. I am getting more rest than I have since she was born (which is still not exactly a normal 7-8 hours of interrupted sleep, but you take what you can get!). I love waking up to her smiling face and watching her interact with the world in new ways all the time. Here she is with her big morning smile. Getting greeted by her when she's in this good a mood definitely overshadows all the tiredness.

Around the Bend

2011-11-07T18:31:00.000-08:00

I blame the lack of blogging on something very simple - this month, we moved! We're now settled in a 2 BR house in the Silver Lake area of LA, only about 5 minutes from where we used to live but with way more space. We've also got a lovely patio area, a non-working hot tub, and carpet instead of hardwood, which is nice for Elisa.

This past week, I think Elisa has finally turned a corner. She is adjusting more and more beautifully into life outside the womb. The past month or so, she would be in a good mood in the mornings, but get fussier as the day progressed. Lately, I can get a smile out of her almost all day long. She's doing better with riding in the car without crying, and she charms most people she meets with a smile and sometimes even a laugh.

Sleep training was hard to stomach at first...in the newborn days we didn't feel good about letting her "cry-it-out" for very long since her needs were so physical (hungry, poopy, tired). Then we realized that more and more often, she cried because of her emotional attachment to us and our soothing methods were becoming less and less effective. So we letting her cry, and after one night of a rough wailing session and us going in to comfort her in intervals, she woke up bright eyed and smiling, and napped without a complaint the next day. It's been up and down since then, but overall, she is learning to sleep better in her crib than she ever did. Now, when she's content to go to sleep, we can put her in the crib without the usual swaddle, rock, nurse routine, and she'll eventually drift off to sleep. There are of course times when she does not want to sleep, but in general it is getting easier and easier to put her down for naps and bedtime. What a huge blessing! Getting her off the pacifier will be another battle, but hey, one thing at a time.

Here's our happy girl at almost four months.

End Fourth Trimester

2011-10-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Elisa had her 3 month birthday yesterday, which we celebrated with our monthly cupcakes from Lark, my favorite bakery in the neighborhood where I always eat way too many pecan bar samples every time I go in there. Yum. Of course, the only way to have her taste the cupcakes is for me to eat them. This is a good tradition. Yesterday we got the autumnal pumpkin flavor and our classic vanilla favorite.

I've been waiting for the end of the first three months. Not that I haven't enjoyed taking care of her and seeing her grow in the newborn phase, and I often really miss how little she was when she was first born. But everyone kept telling me - hang in there, the first three months are the hardest and my doctor even termed it the "fourth trimester." I had this glorious view of what this next period would be like, that maybe I would wake up on October 12 and she would be a perfect angel, no crying and fussing or anything. Wrong. Today has been a tough day, probably because I am itching to get more of our stuff packed up but frustrated that she won't seem to nap for more than 20 minutes. I finally got her to take a nap now after a fight with the swaddle blanket. Last week, Paul's mom and grandma came to visit and she was great in the mornings, but totally fussy every evening. It took tons of rocking, swaddling, and shushing to get her in any kind of state to go to sleep. We even had a meltdown episode at our favorite dim sum restaurant. For some reason, Elisa just wouldn't stop crying for the 1 1/2 hours that we were there. We had to take turns taking her outside, and just when we thought we had gotten her calmed down in the car, she started another crying session that lasted the whole way home. Suffice it to say that we won't be going back there anytime soon, unfortunately. So far the end of the fourth trimester has been pretty unremarkable, sadly enough. People were saying, the first three months are the hardest - it'll get easier. Now they're saying things get easier after six months! Hopefully things will get easier soon.

Little Miss Personality

2011-10-03T20:43:00.000-07:00

Lately, Elisa has been smiling and cooing to no end. It's such a fun stage that she's getting into. Last week, I brought her to work where we were having a faculty luncheon and she charmed everyone she met, smiling and laughing, sitting quietly while we ate, and then making her exit with a very big poop that leaked onto my hand while I was holding her (luckily, no one else noticed).

I'm seeing some of her personality start to come out, and although she's barely 3 months old, these are my guesses. We'll see if they hold true:

She's a people person - she loves meeting new faces and smiles at both familiar and unfamiliar people, then gets totally exhausted from the energy it takes to process all of it.
She's determined and a bit stubborn (don't know where she get's this...). This is evident in the way she fights her way out of swaddles, refuses to sleep even if she's really tired, and the vigorous way that she nurses.
She's vocal and communicative. If she's hungry, she has a specific cry (sounds like, "Aaa. Aaa. Aaa!") and if she's not done quite yet but I try to close up the cafe, she'll let me know right away.
She's a clean freak. If her diaper is the littlest bit dirty, she protests - loudly. Sometimes she cries loudly right before she starts peeing, which we've found out the hard way because it often happens while we're changing her diaper and pee ends up on the changing table and all over her clothes. It seems like she thinks the idea of sitting in her own urine for any amount of time is philistine and unrefined. Maybe she's ready for potty training already!
She's smart. Lately, she's been cooing and babbling, and when you say a word to her, it sounds like she's trying to say it back to you! A word she seems to say a lot sounds like "Ah-go" which I think sounds a lot like "Aiko," the name of our dog and something we say a lot around the house. I'm sure all parents think their children are smart, but she has one particular expression where her brow is furrowed and it looks like she's processing something really complex, like contemplating her philosophy on life outside the womb or solving quadratic equations in her head.

Another parent told me that the 3-6 month period are the "golden months" because babies sleep longer during this time and start to become so cute and interactive. If this is a glimpse of what's to come, then I'm looking forward to it. We're still working on the sleep part of it, but hopefully she'll sleep longer and longer stretches soon.

This is currently my favorite photo of her, which Paul and I both posted on FB so you may have seen it by now! I bought this hat when she was about a week old and didn't think it would ever fit her - it seemed so huge at the time.

In the present

2011-09-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

I think we've been looking for a new place to live intermittently for about 6 months. It started at the end of my pregnancy, after graduation when I had time, but I was soon too huge and immobile to deal with moving. So we put off the search for awhile, although I'd still poke around on craigslist to see what was out there. We've seen places from as far as Sherman Oaks to Koreatown to Highland Park and Eagle Rock, all the while lamenting the fact that we'd probably be leaving our neighborhood of Silver Lake, which we have loved living in for the past 3 years. Well, finally the right place has come along, only about 5 minutes away here in Silver Lake - and we'll be moving in October 15!

It reminds me that in so many areas of my life, I'm always waiting for some kind of change to occurs which I am somehow convinced will improve my life, and I don't do anything well until it happens. Waiting for the ideal job, the bigger house, the better car, the superior guitar. While I'm sure some of these things might make life easier or more enjoyable, I really want to learn how to just be here in the now and enjoy what is before me right now. This new house will be a big improvement in space for the baby, but it won't make my life so much better that I should stop everything now and place all my hopes in our new living situation. So while normally I would be pretty stressed out about moving, especially with a 2 month old baby, I am trying to let the moving happen when it happens and still focus on what is before me.

I'm constantly reminded of this challenge while taking care of Elisa every day. She changes and learns so many new skills and things each week that if I keep my eyes on the future, I will miss what she is in the present. Lately it seems like her development has really taken off. She can now follow faces coming in and out of the room, suck on her fists and fingers, pet the dog when I help her, sit in the Bumbo, and drool. Her neck control is improving, she is nursing less frequently, and she is smiling - smiling lots, which is so precious that I find myself speaking in a really high voice and cooing and oogling over her whenever she does. We're trying to shift her bedtime a little earlier, and are hoping the evening fussiness will go away soon as she gets used to the new schedule.

Here's Elisa at 2 1/2 months, completely enthusiastic about her ability to be sort of upright.

Better All the Time

2011-09-15T22:33:00.001-07:00

Elisa is now two months and four days old. She's suddenly in her third month of life. I don't know what has happened since her birth - it's all a total blur that is somewhere deep inside my memory as a hard time but a beautiful time. Lately we've turned a corner in her growth and in our everyday lives. Somehow things are getting easier, and it happened very suddenly yet very gradually.

The biggest improvement as of late is that Elisa is now getting up only once a night! I feel like I'll jinx it by writing it here, but it has been pretty consistent for the past 2 weeks or so. It has made a huge difference on my body and my energy level. Getting up to feed her 3 times a night like I had to in the very beginning was exhausting, and left me feeling like a wreck every day. Last night she even went for a 6 hour stretch from about 11pm -5am. A few times a week we have a bottle ready for her at night so that Paul can feed her and I can sleep through the night, which is A-MA-ZING!

I think my emotional health is improving also. The biggest reason is that I am making a concerted effort to get out of the house every day. I'm making a little schedule for us - Monday: walking Silver Lake; Tuesday: the local farmer's market; Wednesday: weekly Target run; Thursday: Trader Joe's or Costco; Friday: City Center (our favorite Korean food eating area and grocery store). These lovely activities can happen out of order too - this is just a sample of our glamorous life. Even if I don't necessarily need anything, it's essential for me to get dressed every day and get out of the house to remember that I am some kind of active member of society, if even just a consumer.

I've also just started exercising again, which has been completely painful. My local trendy workout class, Pop Physique, offers a new mom's special which is an unlimited class pass for 3 months at a discounted price. It's an intense hour long workout similar to the Bar Method with exercises targeted at different parts of your body and core combined with some ballet and yoga stretching. I used to go before I got pregnant and found the class difficult but totally worth it. Now it is beyond hard, but I'm pushing myself to go three times a week to get the most out of my unlimited pass. It's pretty awesome so far - I've been twice this week while Paul watches the baby in the evening, and I've already noticed some changes in my body. Mainly soreness. Right now my core is totally sore and it's hard just to get myself on and off the couch! After labor, all of your extra body fat just turns into this squishy mess as if to remind you that something happened there. On my first day back at Pop, I was sweating through my workout trying to keep up with the instructor, telling myself to keep going. I had flashbacks of what labor was like and the sheer determination it takes to make your body do something it doesn't think it can do. It's very much like what my hands first felt like when I started practicing guitar again. It's so hard but so possible.

I've started a tradition that every month on the 11th, we get cupcakes to celebrate another month of Elisa's life. This month we didn't get pictures of the cupcakes because Paul accidentally dropped the box and they got smushed, but I still ate them. You know, so Elisa could have some too. But I did get a picture of her in the pretty blue dress that Auntie Lav sent us last month. All the 3-6 month clothes are fitting now and the newborn stuff is too small - in fact, at her 2 month checkup she was weighing 9 lbs and 15 oz - nearly 10 lbs!

Our little girl is growing so fast!

Love and Fear

2011-09-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

I suppose that when you start to love anyone, the most human thing you can do is also become afraid. I never feared starting to love my parents or siblings since I've always known them, although I have feared losing them so much that even now, just thinking about that will often bring me to tears. With my husband, I grew to love him very gradually, dipping my toes in the water a little bit at a time, giving my heart time to process and consider if this endeavor would be worth the pain if I were ever to lose him someday. When it finally decided yes, it was already too late; I was in love with him and could not be convinced out of it even if I tried.

I wonder about this love/fear phenomenon because ever since Elisa was born, I have begun loving her so intensely that sometimes it brings on these gigantic fears. This past weekend, I turned 30 and my mother graciously offered to watch the baby for a night while Paul and I went to Napa for a surprise getaway. I had a fabulous day. He had booked me 2 hours of spa time, which was followed by a lovely little picnic on the balcony of our room before we went out to dinner. I was looking forward to a full night's sleep in the plush hotel bed, but could not fall asleep for the life of me. There was this huge void in my heart and I lay there awake, staring into the darkness while Paul snored away peacefully, thinking about the baby and missing her like crazy. Even though she was with my own mother (who sent me photos of her every hour) and I had no reason to be afraid for her safety or her life, the irrational, terrible demon of fear started to devour my mind. I tried my best to stop thinking and feeling scared that something could happen to her, to stop worrying for once and let sleep overtake my tired body, but I couldn't.

I woke Paul up after tossing and turning for a few hours and he was sweet enough to process all of this with me and pray with me. Instead of reassuring me that she would be perfectly fine and safe, he reminded me that everything was in God's control and that I needed to trust God's hand in this new journey of motherhood. Such a hard thing for me to do, especially in the wee hours of the morning. It isn't true that my baby will always be healthy and safe, but it is true that God's plan is always better than mine, and here is this new area of my life that I need to continually lay down at His feet and say, "You give and take away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

On the long drive back to LA, I continued thinking about this new blessing in my life that I have not yet learned how to submit to God. My heart has been so full that amidst the exhaustion, it often feels like it is about to burst - and I think, how could loving a little person so much ever steer me away from Him? But God calls us to love Him above and beyond anyone else, even our kin, our own flesh and blood. It was this very relationship, that of parent and child, that God decided to use to demonstrate His immense love for me on the cross. I don't think I have ever fully grasped what it means to give your own son for someone else's life, and in that moment as we drove into the sunset on interstate 5 gazing upon cows and dry landscapes, it hit me what this great sacrifice really was - that God gave His son, in all His perfection, to die so that I could live. And God probably felt the intense love for His child the way I feel about Elisa, but a thousand times over. Could it be that He gave me this child so that I could get a better grasp, if even just a tiny inkling, around the whole concept of the meaning of the gospel ?

I think so. I think Elisa is in my life because somehow loving her does bring me closer to my Maker. And not because her life will be perfect or free from sickness or hardship, but because when I lay down this precious gift in my life to my Lord and King, I am loving Him a little bit more - and that is indeed my greatest calling as a mother.

Baby Blues

2011-09-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

No one ever tells you that along with the bliss and intense love that comes with being a new mom, there are also a lot of tears. They say this is common, since your hormone levels are skyrocketing, you are sleep deprived, and you're getting used to a new little person that demands your attention 24/7. It's the baby blues, or more severely, postpartum depression, or most severely, postpartum psychosis. I just heard a story about a mother in Irvine that dropped her seven-month old baby off the roof of a parking garage. It made me sick to my stomach to think about, but also shows how delicate a woman's emotional health can be after birth.

Mixed with the moments of love and baby bliss, I've shed a lot of tears this past six weeks. I cried when we first got home from the hospital because the baby seemed so unhappy and somehow I felt like it was my fault that her entrance into the world was so rough. I cried when the baby cried and I had no idea why she was crying, and my friend who happened to come over probably thought I was a serious nutjob. I cried when all of my family members who came down to LA to help us left and I went about my day alone for the first time and felt so lonely. I cried while breastfeeding because it hurt so badly the first few weeks and I wanted to give up. I cried whenever I touched my Boppy pregnancy body pillow because it reminded me of how much I used to sleep when I was pregnant (proudly, about 10 hours a night!) I cried when the dog barked at the baby crying because I didn't know how I could deal with crying and barking at the same time, but couldn't bear the thought of giving away the dog even though we would never do that. I cried when the neighbor complained about the baby crying. I even cried when I was really hungry one day, there was no food in the house, and I had no idea what to do because I was so tired I couldn't think straight.

Luckily, I feel that things have turned a corner although it's been a rough transition into motherhood, mostly because I had no idea that it would be like this. When people used to talk about babies waking up in the middle of the night, I would think, "Oh, I'm sure our baby will sleep through the night" or "I can deal with getting up in the middle of the night once." But you don't imagine that it is multiple times a night for days on end, and all of that added with the pressure of adjusting to feeding the baby 8-12 times a day and trying to be a great mom can make you feel like you're about to crack sometimes.

I had a heart-to-heart conversation with my mom when she was in town last week to help me with the baby while Paul was away on a company retreat. I was exhausted from a few awful nights of the baby not sleeping well, combined with anxiety plaguing my mind causing terrible insomnia. I tried to nap and couldn't fall asleep for the life of me, and was so tired and wiped out I almost felt like I would vomit for whatever reason. I came out of our bedroom in tears, and begin rambling about every single fear or anxiety that had taken over my thoughts and prevented me from sleeping. My mom listened patiently, assuring me that it was perfectly normal to go through all this huge life change. She reminded me to keep everything in perspective - here was my beautiful, healthy baby girl, and she needed a mom who was happy, not a mess. This stage, after all, is temporary - she won't be an infant forever, and it will all pass before I know it, and this isn't the end of my career as I fear it will be, but a special season where a baby needs her mom the most.

I've taken much of her advice to heart and feel that somehow I've turned a corner lately. In an honest conversation with my doctor, I told her that I had been feeling slight signs of depression. She asked me if I had thoughts of hurting myself or my baby, which are signs of more severe postpartum depression, and I quickly said an honest no. So she assured me that what I was feeling was normal, and that it would pass quickly. But sometimes when I don't have enough alone time or go for days without leaving the house and not realizing it, I still feel like I could be teetering on what feels like a dark abyss - and I fight my way through it, reminding myself that I am blessed beyond belief to have this baby in my life and I want to love her with every ounce of my being. Now that I've gotten the green light from my doctor to exercise, I'm going to try to get out a few times a week to take my little creatures (dog and baby) for a walk around the lake and to get some sun (not hard in LA) because that helps prevent depression too. I also pump a bottle for the baby every night so that Paul can help with one of the night feedings, which allows me to usually sleep for 4-5 hours straight. And when I do need it, Paul takes the baby out so that I can teach, have some alone time, and just collect myself every now and then. This helps a lot too and he enjoys taking her out on joyrides around town. In fact, tonight they are out in Westwood at a dinner while I taught a new student, took a nice long shower, and finally got to blogging again.

So you who are reading this can help keep me accountable. I'm keenly taking steps to fight against a darker place of emotional health, and I'm going to try to be the optimist that I'm not and think positively for once - because as my mom says, if you want your children to be happy, you have to be happy yourself. And when Elisa smiles up at me as she did today after a really big poop, I know she deserves all the happiness in the world.

Here are my two little creatures in our first time together around the lake (about a 2 mile walk).

Labor. It's work.

2011-08-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

I was so eager to meet her. At 39 weeks of pregnancy, I had had it - I was tired of being immobile, hot, uncomfortable, and chained to the bathroom. I could not wait to hold her in my arms. I was impatient and curious - what did she look like, what would she smell like, what would her cry sound like? Would she recognize my voice when she heard it, and would I feel like I had known her for so many months already? Sometimes I would sit and poke my belly and say, "Come out and play with me!" and Paul would scold me because he said that she'd come on her own time, and that he wouldn't mind a few more days of sleep either.

Maybe somehow I willed her exit to happen. I woke up on July 10, 2011 in the middle of the night to discover my water had broken. It wasn't like in the movies where everything is wet. Things were only a little bit wet, yet I knew that it was water and not anything else. I waited and waited that morning, wondering if my contractions would begin and the process of labor would start. We waited some more, making plans to go to a friend's birthday party if she didn't come, repacking the hospital bag if she did come; yet nothing happened. I felt some Braxton-Hicks contractions, which are more like minor cramping, but nothing that told me that my body was going into actual labor.

I called my doctor that afternoon and she advised me to come into the hospital, saying that there was a risk for infection if my contractions didn't begin soon. Little did we know what we were in for. They tested to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid, and the test came out negative. But my doctor was dubious about the results and told me to walk around for an hour and take the test again. I was okay with that until the nurse told us that we had to stay on the eighth floor (the labor and delivery floor) of the hospital. This made the hour particularly slow, as I was moving at a snail's pace (I had pulled my groin in pre-natal yoga class the week before, making my walking ability that much more impaired!). Paul and I walked from one side of the hospital floor to another, stopping to stare out the same window about 50 times, sometimes laughing at the futility of the exercise and sometimes staring at the clock in disbelief. But what do you know - my doctor's instincts were correct. At the end of the hour, I took the test again, and it came out positive. My water had indeed broken, and the clock was on before the baby was at risk for infection. And so the ride began...

We settled into a rather large delivery room and the nurse stuck an IV in me and started me on a low dosage of Pitocin, a synthetic form of oxytocin used to induce contractions. As hours passed and they raised the Pitocin level notch by notch, we waited for my contractions to get stronger, but nothing seemed to be happening. I checked Facebook on my phone, played Words With Friends on my iPad, and even watched an episode of Friday Night Lights. It was boring and I wasn't doing anything; we were waiting for the drugs to do the work. I didn't feel good about that but nothing could be done. At one point, the fetal heart rate monitor indicated that the baby's heart rate began to drop and a barage of nurses burst into the room interrupting my sleep, flicking on all the lights and talking in loud, urgent voices. They threw an oxygen mask on me, did a rough cervical exam (ugh!) and waited to see if the baby's heart rate would go back up. Even though I felt like I was in the middle of an ER episode, I knew the baby was just fine because I could still feel her moving in my belly. They then had to turn off the Pitocin and start all over again from a low dosage.

Finally, after about 12 hours, my doctor figured that my water hadn't completely broken - it had just started leaking from the top of the bag, which prevented my body from receiving signals to go into labor. So she broke my water (I didn't even know this was happening when she did it) and then the contractions began to kick in so strongly that I knew I wouldn't be able to handle them for very long without pain medication. I had long kissed my dreams of a "as-natural-as-possible" birth goodbye, and had to accept that this was what was in the cards for me. Letting go of the desire for a natural birth was hard, as I had read all these books about it, including The Joy of Natural Childbirth which heralded all the ways birthing could be a beautiful, painless experience. But being on Pitocin, I couldn't use all the coping methods that we had learned in our birthing class, like walking around, using a birthing ball, taking a bath, shifting into different positions, etc. I was chained to the bed with an IV pumping antibiotics and fluid, a fetal heart rate monitor, and all kinds of things stuck invasively in every part of my body. And because the Pitocin made the contractions even more intense than they would have come on naturally, the pain was searing. In tears partly from the pain and partly from letting go of what I had wanted for my labor, I called for the epidural.

About 20 minutes later, the anesthesiologist showed up. He was a little Korean man with a cart full of drugs. I imagine he must be a popular guy whenever he enters a hospital room. It took about 15 minutes to administer the shot in my back as he casually made small talk with my nurse about last year's hospital holiday party, and almost immediately I felt a numbing sensation come over my lower body that finally brought relief from the intense contractions that had had me writhing in pain. Ahhhhh. I smiled, relaxed, and felt like myself again, wanting to hug him. It was the perfect dosage - I was relieved from the pain, but could still wiggle my toes and feel my feet. I was able to sleep intermittently for the next part of my labor, as I wanted to rest as much as possible for delivery. But the nurses watching the baby's heart monitor again burst into my room a few hours later, repeating the exercise from what was now the day before, saying the baby's heart rate had dropped and they had to turn off the Pitocin once again. It was another scare, but deep down I knew she was just fine. At this point, I realized that so much of obstetrics is about preventing the worst-case scenario, despite a mother's intuition telling her that everything is okay.

I had now been in the labor process for almost 24 hours. At this point, my contractions were still going even without the Pitocin, and once they turned it back on again, I was finally closer to the right amount of dilation. At last, I was at about 8.5 to 9 cm dilated, and it was almost time to push. But my doctor came in with a doubtful look on her face. "I'm really praying that the baby will start moving down more, but I don't know..." She was worried about the amount of time since my water had broken, which was approaching a point dangerous enough that a C-section could be a safer route since the more time that passed increased the chances that the baby could get an infection, and the baby was still feeling a little too high up. With all the antibiotics they were pumping into my system, I didn't feel that worried and something told me that somehow, my body was going to make a way to get this baby out safely.

Finally, I was dilated enough that it was time to push even though the baby was still pretty high. And push I did. With a nurse holding one leg and Paul holding the other, I pushed with all my might because it was the only way to bring relief to the intense contractions that I was feeling now that my doctor had turned the epidural off. I thought about the technique I had read about in my Hypnobirthing book that discouraged traditional "purple pushing" and instead advocated for the mother to "breathe your baby down." Well, I hadn't taken the class, I'd just read the book - but at this point there was no way that just deep breathing was going to make this baby come out. Maybe next time, oh somewhat-misleading-natural-birthing-methods.

Continuing to push, I went through bouts of frustration, asking my doctor desperately, "Why isn't my body helping me?" to which she replied sympathetically, "I don't know, Connie. I don't know." I pushed through sweat and tears, groaning and using every last ounce of energy in my body. Nearly two hours later, I finally heard my cheerleading team screaming more optimistic chants such as - "You're almost there!" (me: "You promise?!") and "I see the head!" (me: "Are you serious?!") "You're doing amazing!" (me: "Really?") and "Oh my God!" from Paul, shocked by what he was seeing, along with a rather sweet, "Thank you, thank you" he whispered in my ear seconds later. Then, a final push, my doctor saying, "I know you have a birth plan and you didn't want a vacuum used-" and me saying, "IT'S OK, JUST DO IT!" And then, a cry. A very sweet cry.

A crying, wet baby was placed on my chest and though I couldn't see (didn't have my glasses on) and all I really wanted to do was take a shower and sleep for 10 hours, I was amazed at this little person wriggling around finding her way to my breast. She was really here. I felt a strange sense of peace and rationality float over me, and this first encounter was nothing like what I thought it would be. I had imagined myself bowled over with emotion, crying at my first glimpse of her. But instead it sunk in slowly - I was a mother; I was calm and collected, and here was my baby at long last, needing me for survival, wanting me, and in her own little way, loving me. I strained to see Paul and the baby as he cut the umbilical cord. I wanted so badly to be standing there next to him and the team of nurses hovering over the baby, but I was still lying in the bed with my IV in as my doctor was quietly focused on stitching me up. I kept asking her if she was done, and finally she said she was, putting away her collection of scissors and tools that had made me cringe at first glance. She looked over at the baby and from behind her scrubs, shower cap and face shield said, "Happy birthday" to the baby softly, and then, "Oh, you guys - she's so cute!"

And then it was all over. Paul held a calm, quiet, clean baby in his arms wrapped up in a pink and blue hospital blanket and cap. He had this huge grin on his face with a tenderness in his eyes that I had never seen before. The nurse helped me get cleaned up and use the bathroom, and I nearly fainted from dizziness and pain. I got refueled on some cranapple juice and was moved to another room in the postpartum wing, where I nursed the baby again and gazed down at her little face. I melted as she held my index finger tightly in her tiny grasp, feeling a deep love wash over me. She was perfect, healthy, and nothing seemed to matter except for the three of us in this tiny room, soaking in the bliss of being a little family.

Introducing Elisa!

2011-08-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

I was going to discontinue this blog, but I have been itching to journal some of the experiences that have been my life for the past three or so weeks. So this site has now been transformed into my M.O.M. blog = Musings On Motherhood. Thank you for being curious about this new journey. I'm overwhelmed, but so excited about this road ahead.

So far, it's been this whirlwind of emotions - some which I expected, some I had no idea even existed. I don't think I realized from the very beginning that pregnancy was the easiest part, no matter how uncomfortable I was at nine months. I was so tired of people giving me stupid comments like, "Wow, you look like you're about to pop!" or "How in the world can you still play the guitar?" But it was true - I was pretty much unable to play the guitar with my belly that big, and walked about as fast as an elephant on sedatives. I also had to be near a bathroom at all times, which limited my choice of activities so much so that my idea of "exercise" became walking down every aisle of Target soaking up the air conditioning. And then there was my 36 hours of labor and delivery (the most pain I have ever experienced in my life), which was followed by a crying, wet baby being placed on my chest, leaving me confused about why I wasn't allowed to just sleep 10 hours right then, but that now I was supposed to learn the beautiful "art" of breastfeeding?!

You're supposed to fall in love with your baby when you first lay eyes on her, but I didn't have my glasses on and I was really sweaty. So as they stitched me up and I was straining to see what was going on, asking my doctor if she was almost done and asking my husband, "What does she look like?!" - I guess you could say I fell in love with her the second time I laid eyes on her, when I was a little more alert and had corrective vision working for me.

And now, as I watch her grow and change every day, I'm overwhelmed - that this little person somehow came out of my body; that she will grow up and be an adult someday; that when she smiles, I see my husband's face on her; and that we are inextricably linked to her even after we both pass, however depressing that may be. I look into her wide eyes as she spits up on my shirt or pees on my hand while I change her diaper, and I think - wow, you are the most amazing creature I have ever seen. You are so amazingly beautiful I just want to eat you. (Her middle name is Madeleine, which is a cake after all.) And I am overwhelmed with love, and even at 3am when I am feeding her for the zillionth time, I understand why people do this.

Moving time

2011-06-23T14:14:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how many people are still following this blog, but I do need to tell any of you loyal readers out there that my blog is now moving here. This is in an attempt to gain a bigger readership, hold me accountable to blogging more frequently, and not be ashamed to integrate my faith and spirituality with my artistic and professional life. The two have never been separate for me, so why should I act as if they are?

In my last few weeks of pregnancy, I've got tons of time - some of which is used well (sleeping 11 hours!), and some of which isn't (watching my sister slaughter me in a round of Words With Friends). I've read so much about labor and pregnancy that my head is spinning. The hospital bag is packed, my birthing ball is blown up, and now it's time to just wait...and wait until this baby girl decides its her time to make her grand entrance into our beautiful world. I am so eager to meet her and wonder daily, what will she look like, feel like, sound like? My husband's typical reply is simply, "Probably a little bit like us!"

So thank you for your loyal readership - my blog will now be transitioning into my website, and I hope that you'll still follow me on your blogrolls and RSS feeds. I admittedly haven't played much guitar lately (it's kind of hard when your belly is so big that you can't see your fingerboard any longer) but I'm daily on the lookout for some artistic inspiration so that my insides don't crumble and dry up. Today - a new book on my iPad and a movie on Gustavo Dudamel and El Sistema. I'll let you know how I like both of them.

Manna

2011-04-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in so long that my computer doesn't remember the address in the browser. It's been a little busy around here in sunny LA - I spent three months in hibernation studying for qualifying exams, watched my husband run a marathon in the only torrential downpour that LA has ever experienced, and have been going crazy with my "nesting" instincts. Pregnancy is going by fast, this being the final week of my second trimester. I can't believe that my belly is going to grow even larger than it is now and that this is the final stretch before we get to meet our little girl.

This has proven to be one of the most thrilling and yet totally anxiety-ridden seasons of my life. A few months ago, P lost his job and we were faced with the reality that we are once again in a season of financial strain. Graduating this May will be thrilling and freeing, but is putting me out on the market for a college teaching job that doesn't seem to exist right now. I am for once more qualified than ever to do what I've dreamed of doing - teaching guitar at the college level and having a performing career - and yet the steps to making that a reality sometimes seem so far away.

Some doors are currently closing and some doors are opening. For now, I have a few really great concerts lined up for next season and am trying hard to create more opportunities in that area. I've tried to use every outlet of my current network to find teaching jobs and have gotten a few maybes, a few no's, some complete lack of responses, and have tried to pick myself up after each one and continue to think creatively about my career. But despite all my feminist convictions about balancing a hefty career with impending motherhood, if God says this is a season for me to have the luxury of being home part-time with baby, than I have no reason to doubt that could be the best thing for our family.

I've admired the way that P has made a challenging situation into a time of self-discovery, exploration, and contemplation. It's made us all the more reflective over what is truly important for our child to have in her life. There's a crib in our dining room right now, a sight that the practical, get-it-done side of me thought would be fine, rationalizing it with a good friend and mother of three's humorous words in my head: "Babies don't need their own room. You could put a baby on the floor and it wouldn't know the difference!" But the night I came home and saw P building the crib that we snagged on craigslist, I burst into tears, pained by emotions that I'd never experienced before - the fear of not being able to provide for our child. I realized that this fear was not completely legitimate; I mean, I don't fear not being able to give the baby food, shelter and clothing, but I only fear not being able to give it all the things that our culture says is necessary for our little ones.

Realizing this, I'm trying hard to see past the American need for more stuff and more space, the controlling, materialistic urges and idols that plague American parents and tell us that we absolutely need all these things for such a tiny little person, that if you don't get this thing, then that could happen to your baby, etc. It is ridiculous the way that the baby gear industry instills fear into parents and guilts them into buying more stuff and more expensive stuff. As P reminded me the other day, sometimes God gives us manna, and you get only what you need for the day. But sometimes the baskets of loaves and fishes indeed overflow, and the abundance of his grace showers us. Right now, our manna is more than enough. He has promised us this, and I have no reason to doubt the right provisions will come in time.

So we've decided to name our baby Elisa, which means "God's promise" - a reminder of the necessity of a season in which we are utterly dependent on His provision and promise, and the character we pray that will develop in our daughter as a result of trusting in His promises.

Expecting?

2010-12-27T04:32:00.000-08:00

We were going through security for the umpteenth time at the Rome airport, victims of a delayed plane with a flat tire that resulted in us spending two full days in the very proudly named Leonardo Da Vinci Airport.

Cranky and tired, I moved through the security line with dragging feet, knowing the drill. The coat comes off, the boots could stay on, the liquids came out. As we got to the front of the line, the security woman checked our boarding passes and passports. A family with children moved to the left in a shorter line for people with kids, their baby crying and toddler whining. The woman, a pretty Italian in her 30's, glanced at me and I felt her gaze move downwards to my belly.

"Aspetta?" she asked.

"Sorry?" I said, not sure what this word meant in our current context. When I spent a summer in Italy at a guitar festival, I had an Italian roommate who said this word quite a bit as she fumbled to look stuff up in her Italian-English dictionary. I had gathered it to be a sort of Italian space filler like, "Umm" or "Hold on..." I also knew it to come from the verb aspettar, or to wait.

But here the security woman smiled matter of factly, drawing a gesture of a rounded belly with her hand.

"Aspetta?" she asked again, this time with the tummy gesture.

"Oh," I said. "Oh, um...yes. Er- si."

The secret was out at 12 weeks. She smiled again and pointed for us to go in the shorter family line with screaming babies and whiny toddlers.

So it's true - I'm pregnant, but this had sort of been our secret until now. It was kind of fun having this huge piece of information and keeping it from the world, like we had formed some sort of elitist club with only our closest friends and family. I've reveled at knowing that I have this thing growing inside of me that is going to turn our lives upside down and never leave us the same again. I was a secret agent of sorts with an important mission - to stay healthy, happy, and provide a nice warm place for baby to float around and be comfortable.

But now it appeared that the cat could easily be let out of the bag. My cover was blown, at least by this woman who possessed the Italian panache to say so very directly. I knew this time would come - I was sometimes almost eager for it so that I could be honest and authentic with those around me, sharing the news with excitement. But I suppose all the pasta I had eaten during our 10 day blitz through Rome and Amalfi expedited the formation of the baby bump, and the baggy gray dress I was wearing wasn't so baggy that day. The public had now confirmed to me - it's true! We know you're having a baby! Congratulations and walk through this shorter and supposedly faster moving line with screaming children since you'll soon have one of your own!

I passed through the metal detector blinking back tears (oh, hormones) and realizing all over again the magnitude of this new thing in our lines, flooded with a swirl of emotions - anxiety, joy, fear, peace, excitement, trepidation, anticipation. The responsibility, the miracle, the changes, the exhilaration. It's really happening; the nausea, gas, hunger, and multiple trips to the bathroom are not just in my head. I really am entering the world of motherhood... and never going back.

I'm back...

2010-11-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

I haven't seen this screen for awhile. It looks strange. My banner is messed up. My readership has probably dwindled to zero. If you are out there somewhere, dear reader, I must apologize for my silence. I'm not sure what happened. It became habit not to write and I guess I have been in a too-busy-for-reflection sort of mode as I started teaching more and working for the Guitar Foundation of America. Life without reflection is not as good as it is with. So I'm going to start blogging again, mainly because so much stuff is happening and I'd like some record of it when I'm old and gray.

A new school year has begun (and the semester is 2 weeks from being over) and I am about as burnt out as bad toast. I just got through a stressful few months in which I premiered a new recital program that is probably the most meaningful to me that I've ever played. It went really well, and I got wonderful support and encouragement from all of my faculty mentors at USC. It's a program of original music written for guitar by women, much of which is not often played by many guitarists on the concert stage. This program makes me feel that I've somehow found part of my voice as an artist, that this series of miniscule finger movements and muscle memory are communicating some kind of voice for the voiceless. There is some part of an injustice that I feel that I am slowly helping to unravel. Because music by men is played day in and day out without any question of why there is a gender gap and why a program of music by female composers is a strange thing. But in all reality, life interrupts and music by women has often been tossed by the wayside, not taken seriously, or discounted because of the composer's gender. Or there were just not as many chances for these composers to get their music published, played, and circulated when it was written because opportunities like these were not available to these women.

There is still work to be done in the fight for equality between men and women. There's always been a bit of a feminist inside of me. I used to wear this Rosie the Riveter T-shirt in 8th grade with the WWII slogan on it, "We Can Do It!" Yes, you know the one. It was actually a slogan used to encourage more women into the workforce as men fought the war during the 40's. Well, in 2010, we still need to hear this slogan as woman juggle career, family, motherhood, marriage, etc. Somehow, playing the music on this program makes me feel connected to these female guitarists and composers throughout the ages, as I imagine them struggling in a male-dominated field just as I sometimes do today. But I thank them for being who they were and doing what they did, because my struggle is not nearly as difficult as theirs was.

Here is a piece by Emilia Giuliani, the daughter of well-known Italian composer and guitarist Mauro Giuliani. She died around 1840 of unknown causes at the age of 27. Before she died, she wrote over 50 opus works of music for guitar which show that she must have had some serious chops - they are not easy pieces! I've read before that she stopped writing and performing around the time that she got married, which I assume was because she did not want to overshadow her husband, who was a moderately successful opera composer. She was probably also expected to primarily be a wife and mother as well. I wish she had lived longer and that more of her pieces survived, but the ones that exist I will be tackling one by one. She fascinates me and I'm excited to be unearthing music that has never been recorded or performed much.

This is Variations on a Theme by Mercadante, op. 9 by Emilia Giuliani Guglielmi. Hope you like it.

Carpe Diem

2010-03-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

I hope that I will never rest on my laurels, and continually strive to have enough motivation to get up and keep going. This season I've been seized by a surge of ambition once again, a quality that developed in me during my teens and has come in ebbs and flows during adulthood. I'm feeling a sense of stability in where I am, confidence in who I am, and the development of roots here that I haven't had for years after we've moved around so much. It feels good to be planted. Despite the way cities can wear down, they inspire me. I'm happy here.

I'm now preparing to put together an audition tape to enter a guitar competition that happens every two years in which the winner gets to perform with the Buffalo Philharmonic. The entry happens in two stages- first a recording of the first movement of the concerto you choose, along with a required set piece and five minutes of free choice music. If you make the semi-finals, you pay your own way to upstate NY this summer (very glamorous), and all four finalists perform with the Buffalo Phil as the judges chooses who wins.

I don't have high hopes, but I'd be thrilled if I made it to the semis. I very honestly doubt that I will, but I know I have to at least try. I've had so many moments this month where I just want to call it quits because of my dislike for the required piece. But I can't help wondering what could happen if I just put my nose to the grindstone once again and give it my all. Behind every win there are so, so many losses. Behind every decision to try, there are so many missed opportunities that pass by, untapped, potential sinking into the ground. One of my greatest fears is to live my life squandering what God has given me and to failing to recognize his hand in my life. And so although I'm tired, when I'm honing, working, trying, pressing on, I feel like I'm alive and I somehow feel free.

On Winning

2010-02-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

I don't usually win stuff. I have never won anything out of a drawing. Every time I shop at Trader Joe's, I put one of those little tickets into the BYOB lottery. I have never won in my many years of shopping there. A long time ago, my entire family won prizes in a drawing at a church party and my name was the only one that didn't get picked. I often enter the Lucky magazine sweepstakes to get some of those fabulous beauty prizes. Nope, nothing.

These are pretty flippant examples, but I have barely won anything that could be deemed a little more important either. I have entered many competitions in my time, some that I've blogged about, some that I haven't; some I've entered without telling a soul. Some I have won by default because there was no one else competing. Many I've gotten a quiet rejection letter to which I nodded and put promptly in the recycle bin.

So I thought I would write about winning, because I don't usually win stuff. I did the USC Donald Miller Concerto Competition last week, and I won. The prize? I'll be performing with an orchestra for our department recital in April in Newman Hall. I am totally psyched. I've longed for playing with orchestra since my days as a cellist in California Youth Symphony. My current axe of choice not being an orchestral instrument, I've left that world behind and continued along, not wanting to pine for anything that is outside my realm of expression now. But here I have another chance to play with an orchestra- and this time as soloist! (If they can hear me, that is. Perhaps it's wise that the guitar is not an orchestral instrument. It would promptly be drowned out by just about any single instrument in the orchestra.)

I have a terrible habit of imagining every possible outcome for every single uncertainty in my life. I think it's my way of managing my expectations and protecting myself from any kind of shock or surprising emotions. Here was one scenario that I had imagined, and when they announced that I had won, it didn't feel anything like I thought it would. I felt no different than I did right after I finished playing and sat down to watch the rest of the competitors in the audience. I guess this is because my real anxiety was to play the concerto my utmost best as I had been prepping for it vigorously for some time, studying the score, listening and re-listening to my favorite recording of it while driving while imagining the orchestra and singing along to my entrances; practicing passages slowly and at tempo, drilling small sections, and running it as if it were a performance, with bright lights and a canine audience to boot. So the real release was getting through it and feeling good about it overall. Only one pseudo-missed entrance that I promptly got back on with my pianist. No other major mishaps to tell of.

And so continues the journey, onto practicing and more practicing. A burst of confidence reminded me that I need to always be pushing forward if I want any semblance of a performing career, not settling and not stopping. Another performance of the concerto at a noon concert yesterday proved to myself that I am making progress in the art of performing. I know how to manage it and I know that what matters is my heart, and the process. I know how to be in it, and my stomach doesn't hurt every time as much as it used to. And I love it.

300-Something Days of Practicing

2010-01-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of 2009, I made a New Year's resolution to practice every day of the year.

Now mind you, I didn't define what constituted practicing (no time limit or requirements). The idea was to want to go to the guitar as naturally as other daily activities were, like brushing my teeth or feeding the dog. I also wanted to avoid lapses of nothingness after a big recital where I usually feel like I deserve a break and leave the instrument untouched for weeks at a time. So even if it was just a scale, to go to the guitar daily and play something- anything- was the goal.

I didn't quite keep it 100%. I think I missed about 10 days, mostly when we were out of town. For example, the day we hiked Haleakala (volcanic crater in Maui) I was too exhausted to think about anything guitar afterward. And some days I sort of cheated. I mean, playing a scale (sometimes taking about 5 seconds) did not always make me feel that I was connecting to the instrument, but was a way to check the box each day. By the time we got to December, I guess I ended up feeling a bit disillusioned and decided not to bring the guitar with me on our NYC trip (not wanting to fly with it, but with good reason!). So I did some mental practicing instead, reviewing my scores, imagining fingerings, and listening to recordings, which is actually a really effective part of practicing also.

Now a year later, I can say that I think I practice "better" than I ever have. I'm not sure if this is a result of the resolution, or just the fact that I have less free time on my hands. I am more efficient, targeting hard spots, running sections slowly instead of just breezing through the piece and taking a million breaks. Today I have no commitments at all, no students, no classes, no other work. I could practice 8 hours today if I wanted to. I'll be honest and say that I really don't want to even do half of that. I cleaned the entire bathroom before sitting down to write this blog entry. That's how much my flesh hates working sometimes (or just how much I love cleaning bathrooms?!).

As I was told at a yoga class yesterday, showing up is half the battle. So as my red practicing stool stands empty this morning, I feel sad that it is alone. I think I will go and sit on it.

Bienvenido, Gustavo!

2009-10-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

Classical music needs to change with the times.

And the LA Phil is doing just that in the hiring of Venezuelan superkid Gustavo Dudamel. Tonight, in a spirited performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, along with performances by Youth Orchestra LA and various other student groups throughout the city, the LA Phil demonstrated its commitment to investing in the future of classical music through reaching a broader demographic of audiences than ever before. At a free concert at the Hollywood Bowl sponsored by none other than my favorite superstore, Tar-jay, 18,000 Angelinos gathered to hear the new young maestro lead the city's finest.

Sitting around me, I gazed at the various snippets of the population that were enjoying the sound of the Philharmonic in the cool evening air. To our left, a Latino family of four, with two small children huddled in blankets. To our right, a group of young professionals, UCLA grads based on my skilled eavesdropping of their conversation, kind enough to let us borrow their bottle opener for our four-buck chuck. Two rows in front of us, some older Caucasian ladies bouncing their heads along to Beethoven's every beat. On the stage some thousands of rows in front of us, some of the world's best musicians in their summer garb white-jacket attire. Above the stage in the hills, the iconic Hollywood sign; to its right, a cross planted on the hillside and brightly lit, and directly above us all, a full moon.

Dudamel's conducting was shown on four large screens directly on both sides of the stage, which was a good thing considering how far back we were. I took note of some of the more unusual forms of his conducting, all of which had a tinge of mischieveousness and flair about them- a shoulder roll here, an extended fist pump there, a sidelong glance and surprise cue to the brass section. Mouthing the words of "Ode to Joy" to the choir, never was a cue out of place or without a burst of energy that radiated throughout the entire Bowl. Always a steady beat, his left hand full of expressive gestures, and his curly hair dancing on the podium.

There was an excessive amount of hype leading up to Dudamel's arrival in Los Angeles. The city has been plastered with posters of his face everywhere, on buses and benches, always with an open-mouthed expression, his hair flying and "Pasión!" or "Vibrante!" in big capital letters next to him. So far was the reach of his PR that I even found myself reading an interview with Dudamel in my September Vogue magazine. (Yes, there are articles in Vogue- good ones too, once you get past all the ads.) New York music critics lamented not having a hip, young conductor of their own at the time of his hiring. But was all this hype just a marketing ploy? Was Dudamel being used by the forces that be as a poster boy for the Philharmonic, a mere tool to bolster ticket sales? Because it's cool to be young, artsy, passionate, and, dare we say- ethnic?

But tonight's performance was no let down, nor was the young maestro's ease with the orchestra and impeccable execution of a masterful work. The excitement was palpable. After a three curtain-call standing ovation, Dudamel tried to say a few words to the public. Stumbling through his English, he eventually transitioned into Spanish, with cheers erupting through the audience. "Today I am proud to be Latino. I am proud to be South American, and I am proud to be Venezuelan. But most of all, I am proud to be American!" More cheers, more curtain calls, more unifying language - "No North America, South America, but one America!" His words feels appropriate for the age of Obama, an age built on a vision of America without red states and blue states. As Adam Green says so poignantly, if Bernstein was a symbol for the Kennedy years, then surely Dudamel is a symbol of the Obama era.

I thought about the words from the Spanish subtitles of Schiller's poetry on the big screens: "Abrazos, abrazos, el millon!" A fitting message for the arrival of a conductor bringing new energy to classical music, one that is not only fresh and hip, but fueled by the enduring message of great composers like Beethoven. Vibrante indeed.

Encore! The final movement of Beethoven 9 played again with a chorus of fireworks.

Writer's Block

2009-10-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

It is now October 1. Did I really just not blog for the entire month of September? I am probably losing readership by the second. Hi, I missed you. I haven't had a free second to collect my thoughts in awhile. Anybody out there?

Here's the brief update on what's happened since the end of August. Started a new job at the Pasadena Conservatory in which 19 guitar students were thrown in my lap. Starting another new job today working for the Guitar Foundation of America doing membership/development stuff. Teaching two adult group guitar night classes back to back in Culver City on Wednesday nights after being in class basically from 11-5 straight. Taking three classes and prepping for a duo recital in December.

By far the most exciting thing this semester is my Arts Writing class at the journalism school. Unfortunately, I think that has actually contributed to my writer's block this month. I have been totally in awe of the people in this class, so much so that I haven't really felt like writing much. I guess I didn't feel like I had any interesting to say, and wondered if I could say anything very well at all. Introducing ourselves on the first day, we went around and said what who we were and what we do. Half the people in the class had written for newspapers and cultural magazines. Meanwhile, I wondered what a lowly musician like myself was doing in a room full of journalists who can claim pieces from the Village Voice and LA Times as their own! I felt like a total shmuck. Most of the students are in a specialized program at the journalism school for covering the arts, and they have some sort of artistic interest or experience- fashion, dance, photography, reality TV production, acting, you name it. A truly amazing group of people.

Every week, we are given an assignment, we read our work aloud for the class and everyone critiques it. It is sort of like a master class for musicians except your performance is you reading your writing, and thankfully that can be done ahead of time. I am getting really great feedback though, and am so blown away and touched by a lot of my classmates' writing. Some of it is so beautiful, witty, or clever that I often can't believe we are writing about the same topic.

So I'm going to continue to write, now that I've gotten over my cold feet, and received a boost of confidence from class yesterday and from a brief office hour meeting with my Pulitzer prize-winning professor in which he really encouraged me. The most important thing is that I keep doing it, without the self-imposed pressure that it has to be brilliant or profound every time. I am going to try to blog even more frequently just to help me process everything that is happening this year. Next week's assignment is to see a really disturbing film and give a 500 word review about the separation between art and message. We'll see how that goes.

Guitar Heroes

2009-08-31T21:58:00.000-07:00

There is something about having a space set apart for your work that makes it easier to go to with the intention of working, and easier to leave with the satisfaction of having completed something meaningful.

In our little apt, we have a dressing room closet that has a built in vanity. When we first moved in, P was working from home and set up his office in this little area, using the built-in shelves to hold his various monitors and stock ticker screens. After that job was over, I claimed the vanity for myself and the closet became a mish-mash of unorganized storage. In doing a little redecorating this weekend, I realized that this little space could actually become a very sufficient practice room for me. As a small space, the sound is great in there as everything I play bounces right off the wall and I'm able to listen in a way that has eluded me while practicing in the living room or bedroom.

In my dreams, we have a detached studio from our house that is soundproofed for recording, has tons of beautiful guitars, is perfectly cooled and humidified, and decorated with concert posters and pictures of famous guitarists. Well, that day has not come yet, but this little space is more than satisfactory, and I dug up these photos of my own personal "guitar heroes" to keep me company in my new little studio.

Agustin Barrios Mangore (1885-1944), Paraguayan guitarist and composer who wrote beautiful 19th century sounding music during the 20th century. Also incorporated South American folk dances into his compositions and introduced European audiences to elements of his culture.

The great maestro himself, Andres Segovia (1893-1987), also referred to often as the grandfather of classical guitar. The first musician of the 20th century to bring classical guitar to the concert stage throughout the world. Without his work and life, there would be a huge gap in the repertoire and stature of the guitar.

Francisco Tarrega (1852-1909), great Spanish composer of the 19th century who wrote original music for classical guitar and was a great pedagogue of the instrument. He was in the "no nails" school of thought and history says he got a really beautiful sound out of his animal gut strings.

Ida Presti (1924-1967), my personal hero as of late. I think this photo is so beautiful- the elegance of the lace on her dress, her incredible focus, the perfectly poised hand position. She was one of the only women of her generation to play the guitar, and to play it extremely well. Part of the famous Presti-Lagoya duo, she died tragically at the age of 42 and had she lived longer, her virtuosity would have been given its proper place in guitar history. I also believe she would have inspired many more women to play the guitar.

I have a lesson tomorrow with Pepe Romero, another guitar hero of mine. He is larger than life as a teacher, with the wisdom of a sage and the warmth of a close relative. There is philosophical meaning hidden in every carefully worded statement he says in his thick Spanish accent. Surrounded by the spirit of all these heroes, I am hoping the motivation will run strong throughout this new semester.

The perfect summer meal

2009-08-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

Out of all foods, there is only one thing that I crave, at least once a week in the incessant dry heat of a Los Angeles summer. Withholding it from me for any amount of time leaves me dazed, lethargic, and completely incapacitated. Without a mid-week charge of it, I simply can't make it until Friday. I have developed a serious addiction this summer and with good reason- it's refreshing, affordable, blends a perfect combination of a variety of flavors, and maybe even sort of healthy. This incredible food is a bowl of Korean buckwheat noodles in ice cold beef broth known as naeng myun.

For the virgin naeng myun eater, the temperature of the dish may be a bit startling at first. There are few foods that I know of across all cuisines that are served as cold as naeng myun. Yes, cold soups exist as do cold appetizers, but cold entrees that are this cold are few and far between. Often, naeng myun is even served with a heap of shaved up ice on the top of the soup, and though it may sound strange at first, I assure you there is no better treat on a 90 degree day. Typically, naeng myun comes in an ice cold stainless steel bowl, the lump of long chewy buckwheat noodles usually cut in half for you by your sever, the tangy beef broth enveloping julienned cucumber, daikon, and if you're lucky, Asian pear, half of a hard boiled egg, and thinly sliced pieces of sirloin to top. Naeng myun is often eaten after a Korean BBQ meal as a sort of palette cleanser (because what better way to polish off a a few pounds of meat than with a pound of noodles?), but for a warm summer evening it is a most perfect stand alone meal.

Two main varieties exist: mool naeng myun and bibim naeng myun, the latter of which is coated in a sweet and spicy red pepper paste instead of a beef broth like the former. Some restaurants make a happy combination of the two by putting just a dab of red pepper paste into a bowl of mool naeng myun, which is becoming a fast favorite of mine. Another great innovation is the 50/50 bowl with a metal divider in the middle and a portion of the two varieties on either side.

The consistency of the noodles is of utmost importance and can really make or break a naeng myun dining experience. The noodles are thinner than Japanese soba noodles, and should be soft, but have a bit of chewiness at the first bite, vaguely similar to the way Italian pasta should be served al dente. (In Taiwanese the word for this is kew, but I'm not sure there is really an English equivalent.) Some restaurants here in LA also use a noodle that is made out of what they claim is a healthier starchy plant called arrowroot, which is black in color has a bit of a thinner and even softer consistency than buckwheat. As with all varieties of soup noodles, also of incredible importance is of course, the broth. Traditionally, vinegar and mustard are available at the table so you can mix the acidic, sour, and tangy content of your broth to your palette's exact pleasure, but at a few places in this fine urban playground, the broth is so perfectly sweet and zesty with the addition of the chef's secret ingredient (rumored to be Sprite) that absolutely nothing is needed.

The best part is that my current summer addiction will not break the bank. Quite the opposite. After trying dozens of hallowed naeng myun shops in the largest concentration of Korean businesses outside of Seoul itself, we have now discovered the best deal in all of Koreatown to be at a hole in the wall joint that offers two huge bowls of naeng myun for $10. Add a plate of marinated short ribs and the bill becomes a whopping $14. Why things are so cheap in K-town we just don't understand; these deals are only known by Korean people and thankfully my husband has enough proficiency to be able to read the signs. At moments like these, I am so glad I married Korean, although he feels the great injustice of having to speak Korean to the servers in order to get the special deal while I smile and remain mute. But we keep going back because we really don't want them to go out of business, and at this price, we just don't understand how they won't.

Come visit and we'll take you to our secret haunt.

On wanting to become a Rock Star.

2009-08-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

My new fascination as of late is electric guitar. I have long been a purist, sticking staunchly to my professed identity as a classical guitarist and guarding my fingernails with my life. I gave my acoustic guitar to my brother long ago, deciding it was time to streamline and focus on the style of guitar playing that I would be building a career around.

Now as I've spent a few years specifically honing my classical technique, I've suddenly become fascinated with the world of electric guitar which I've neglected to take an interest in because it was perhaps too loud, too masculine, too different than what I've been training my fingers to do since I was five. During a class I took last semester on British Pop Music Since 1970 (yes, that is actually a class at USC, and it was so fun I didn't want the semester to be over!) I was introduced to the stylings of electric guitarist Vini Reilly of the post-punk band, The Durutti Column, which is still going strong today. I'd never really heard electric guitar played the way he does. He plays without a pick and does little strumming, and his right hand technique makes it obvious that he's had some classical training. He's got this great atmospheric sound that shifts effortlessly between keys with bits of melody floating about that always have a sort of haunting flavor to it. (Check out this video if you're interested; the viola and brass instruments are also a nice touch.)

There is a burgeoning scene for electric guitar in the art music world, and many electric guitarists are starting to bridge the gap between their instrument and classical music. There are even concerti being written for orchestra and electric guitar, an unlikely combination, but almost more practical because of the advantage in projection that electric guitar has over classical. And as classical players deal with issues such as finding authentic sounding methods of amplification or sticking to the traditional belief that a classical guitar should not be amplified at all, it is hard not to admit that the instrument has limitations in its use in many arenas of its own genre, especially in the orchestral and chamber music world.

I've had my electric guitar for about 7 years now (I got it for my 21st birthday as a fun gift from Paul) and can probably count the number of times I've fiddled with it. In wanting to expand my musical abilities this summer, this was one area I have been increasingly intrigued in and decided I would see if I could try playing electric in the band at church. Our band is not an easy band to play with, at least for me, as we generally do lots of gospel-style songs that are always in flat keys, a deterrent for any guitar player. Go figure why many contemporary worship songs are written in very basic diatonic keys like G or D; most guitar players dislike any mention of E-flat since our instrument is tuned to E.

So in my time last week playing with my electric and the awesome experience I had this weekend playing with the band, I discovered something I should have realized a long time ago: it's the same instrument! I can sort of play this thing already. In fact, a lot of stuff is even easier than it is on classical. The upper positions are way more accessible because of the cutaway, hammer-ons, slurs, trills and licks take way less effort to make audible, and changing the quality of sound is possible by the flip of a switch. How about that for technology? I guess sometimes I'm scared of things that are unfamiliar to me, and now I feel strangely liberated from the classical pedestal that I've stood on for awhile.

The nice thing about LA is that there is music absolutely everywhere. We saw a fantastic show this weekend by singer-songwriter Priscilla Ahn, who has a voice like a bell and a girly personality that makes you feel like she's one of your best friends. She also plays a mean kazoo. And I opened my window about an hour to hear my neighbor across the street shredding it up on his electric guitar. I'm listening intently to see if there are any riffs I can pick up. Mixed in with the trumpet playing of another neighbor down the street, I smile knowing that I am in a mecca for the creative- and I love it.

Now, to find myself a distortion pedal.

5000

2009-07-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is easy to believe that God can't do the impossible. I believe this quite often and ironically, it takes faith for me to believe that God can't do certain things because I have seen him do amazing, miraculous things during my lifetime. Yet my memory is short and I forget to attribute so many blessings to Him. In times of need, I am like a whining, crying child.

In John 6, I relate to the character of Philip. When Jesus asks him how they could feed the crowd of 5000, he responds that even 8 months wages would not be enough to feed the entire crowd. To disprove Philip's cynicism, Jesus takes five loaves of bread and two small fish from a boy and feeds the entire crowd. And as for the leftovers, he tells his disciples to gather them up so that they will not be wasted.

God wastes nothing in our lives, even when it is things that flow out of his abundant provision. I have been seeing this happening in my own life lately and I am so incredibly grateful. In just a few weeks, I have seen him suddenly provide for my every need- from selling my car, to being able to pay my tuition, a summer job, and finding part-time teaching work for the fall.

I can't believe that there was a point where I forgot that our God is in the business of miracles- miracles that meet our every human need and waste absolutely nothing.

For the hatred of money...

2009-07-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil..." -1 Timothy 6:10

I usually picture greedy people with money signs for eyeballs when I hear this, or imagine fast-talking Wall Street bankers from the 80's with big hair and mustaches, expensive suits, and rolls of $100 bills in their pockets.

But do you really have to be greedy to let money get the better of you?

It is tempting for anyone to believe that your income is reflective of your self-worth. And although our society pays engineers more than teachers, bankers more than artists, this should never be taken as an assessment of one's worth. It is much easier to measure an engineer's output and utility to society than a teacher's; however, the impact that a teacher can make is immeasurable and largely unknown to anyone but the student. A banker's profit can easily be counted, but the impact that art has on those who experience it can only be sensed within the heart and soul of the viewer or audience member.

I have never thought of myself as a greedy person, but sometimes I become so acutely aware of the "injustice" I see in artists' paychecks, or lack thereof, that the danger of loving money easily preys on me. But it takes a sort of opposite form, actually. I find myself hating money, its very concept, and the fact that I as a human being can be enslaved to it even if in my heart is not greed, but bitterness. Disguised in this bitterness is a multitude of ugly things that exist because I somehow deem them to be more acceptable than greed: pride due to an inflated sense of self-worth, jealousy that artists do not produce capital easily assigned value by society, and the allowance of money as a concept into the crevices of my heart and mind where I want only God to live.

The danger in the love of money lies largely in its control over one's thoughts and actions. Ironically, my own innocent attempts to be frugal can allow it to do the same thing.

Here is an excerpt from New York artist Makoto Fujimura's Refractions, a newsletter he sends out monthly that is chock-full of wisdom and beautiful writing:

"So, if Joshua Bell with his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius cannot stop people, none of us who creates music, art or work in iambic pentameters should expect much. But then what good are the arts? Why would artists spend time collaborating, spending days working on something that would not be well paid, or pay nothing at all, without anyone to stop to take it in? But we should note that this wasteful excess is being exercised in many hidden places, in homes where a child protégé plays his violin, on the canvases of self-taught artists, or on a humble square table filled with poetry. They may or may not turn out to be Joshua Bells, or Grandma Moses or Emily Dickinsons, but the prerequisite for the arts never seem to be a guarantee of an audience, or income. Artists are clearly not driven by mere monetary capital, but they are driven by another form of capital - creative and relational capital, the discovery of new ideas and thoughts and cultural geography."

Judith Hill

2009-07-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

You might recognize this gal from the Michael Jackson memorial- she was one of the Jackson's backup singers for his upcoming tour who was featured singing "Heal the World." I was struck by her because of the soul in her voice and the fact that she looked part Asian. I guess I wasn't alone in my curiosity because since the memorial, her website, myspace, and youtube videos have been getting a record amount of hits and comments. She's half black, half Japanese, and she loves Jesus. Prior to getting chosen to tour with Jackson, she was a local gigging studio musician like so many others here in LA. With over 30 million people watching the memorial and wondering who that girl was, I hope she'll be recognized for her talent and have no doubt that her career has now been launched. I think the world's ready for a new diva of mixed race. Here's Judith Hill singing "One Love Forever" at Temple Bar in Santa Monica.

And I'm off!

2009-06-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

The past month has been quite an exercise in discipline, obedience, and perseverance, and it's been fun to share about the progress I've made as a result of preparing for this competition. Yesterday, as I was running my program for the umpteenth time, I had a moment after I played a piece and said to myself, "Wow. That was fun!"

To be able to play something difficult without the burden of difficulty is one of the most joyous things I've ever experienced as a guitarist. I imagine it feels like being on the course of a marathon and not feeling fatigued, skipping and jumping to the finish line.

God continues to affirm me through this process. This morning, our pastor talked about David, a harpist whose skill, heart, and character led him to play music with healing power and be called "a man after God's own heart." I was reminded that with this investment in my skill, God will continue to open doors in my career, and that he is satisfied with me right here and right now, before I have even set foot onto the competition stage.

"Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men." -Proverbs 22:29

La Joia by Vicente Asencio

2009-06-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

"La Joia" means "the joy" in Catalan, the native language of Vicente Asencio, an obscure Spanish composer whose music I have come to adore. His music is filled with rich French Impressionist harmonies (a la Debussy and Ravel) mixed with the valor and precision of Spanish flamenco rhythms. You can almost hear the castanets, imagine the dancers on stage, and feel as though you're observing a private moment of romantic tenderness in the melodic interludes. This is not a perfect take, but just wanted to share. It's the last piece on my preliminary round program.

When I first learned this movement I didn't feel much joy due to its difficulty. It seemed more to me like the joy that results at the conclusion of some sort of crucible, hard-earned and not flippant or happy-go-lucky at all. This has really made me reevaluate the real meaning of what joy is- that it is something that does not come easily, but is the result of one sacrifice that was made for us on a cross long ago. The result is a blissful freedom that is sweet and exhilarating all at once.

An exercise in tenacity

2009-06-02T16:53:00.001-07:00

I suppose there is no point in setting a goal for yourself if you don't really go for it and do everything that you can think of to get yourself there. I read the pianist Lang Lang's autobiography earlier this year, and the determination that he exhibited to get himself into the best conservatory in China, albeit forced by his obsessive and domineering father, included practicing into the wee hours of the night with no heat, living in poverty to pay for piano lessons, and being separated from his beloved mother from early childhood to live in Beijing near better teachers. I found it hard to fathom wanting anything that badly in life. Some consider me a pretty hard worker, but my work ethic is nothing compared to his story and the story of so many other determined musicians out there.

With less than two weeks left until my competition, I am struggling with staying motivated and inspired. It comes and goes, varying with factors as arbitrary as my mood, the weather, the condition of my nails, and what I ate for breakfast. For the time being, I'm making my own efforts to do prepare my best, which includes slow practice, mental practice, small sections, running the pieces in their entirety, videorecording and critiquing myself, and scheduling extra lessons with my teacher, who was kind enough to see me all the way until next week. This week, I'm giving a few informal performances to friends who are willing to sit through 12 minutes of guitar music and hopefully make me a little nervous so I know what to expect when the pressure is on.

Undoubtedly one of the harder things about this competition is that the preliminary round is in front of a jury of about 5 judges in a normal classroom where you can see their faces and expressions and hear them writing stuff while you play. This can be really nerve-racking for me. Ironically, I'd much rather play for an audience of 1000 people where you are alone on a stage, there is physical space to separate you from the audience, the world can disappear, and the crowd at least appreciates your effort even if you make mistakes. With competitions, there is very little grace in that regard and it is harder to focus on simply expressing yourself through the music because you know that their only job is to critique you and determine whether you deserve to get to the next round.

So today I did a funny exercise. I turned the iMovie camera on, and staged my entrance into the room 7 or 8 times. I imagined how I would feel right before walking into the room and tried to make myself a little nervous. This actually worked as I felt a little more tense and noticed my heart beating slightly faster. I walked to my chair, sat down, got settled, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I started the first piece and stopped after about 10 seconds. With an instrument as naked as the guitar, any tension caused by nervousness in your hands can really alter the sound of your playing. Tensed right hand fingertips will lead to a harsher, thinner sound and less accuracy in plucking the correct strings at the right time. Tension in the left hand can make you buzz, slide off a string by accident, make your stretches less flexible, or cause you to completely forget where you are going. These are things that have all happened to me before, and the goal of this exercise was to help train my body to deal with it better. Though I felt silly imagining the judges sitting in my living room and giving a fake hello and smile to them, by the last time I went through with the exercise, I felt a good rhythm and played the first 10 seconds with much more ease than I did the first time. My dog found this whole shenanigan to be very curious, lifting her head and perking up her ears whenever I would walk out of the room, and going back to her nap on the couch whenever I started playing.

I will probably never run a marathon during my lifetime, nor do I have the desire to do so, but this certainly feels like a marathon- and right now I feel like walking. Which is perfectly fine, right? Maybe for just one mile?

Segovia Therapy

2009-05-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

On a particularly hot day in Los Angeles, the air is stuffy in our small apartment, the dog restless from being cooped up with me all day as I sit on my red stool practicing the day away. I keep the windows closed to keep her from barking and the neighbors from hearing the tedium of my daily routine. Every so often I open them while I rehearse a score mentally or file my nails, enjoying the breeze and the sounds of the neighborhood. And sometimes when I just don't care, I open them and let my practicing flow out the window to whoever passes by and let the dog bark if she feels like it.

At around 2 o'clock every day, it gets too hot to stay at my seat near the window even with the fan on, so in several trips I move all my things into our tiny bedroom, shut all the doors, and turn on the AC unit. A new wave of concentration develops, only to turn into a wave of lethargy, the temptation of lying down too great to bear. I grab my score and study it lying on my back on the bed, inevitably falling asleep. Awaking with a start after about twenty minutes, I return to my seat and get back to work. I've practiced nearly five hours total and my fingers are fatigued and sore, the callouses peeling off on my left hand and the nails on my right hand starting to chip.

At 6:30pm, I've not accomplished anything close to what I had hoped for at the beginning of the day. I'm starting to doubt myself and wonder if I'm in over my head. I take a break and shift my energy into making dinner, taking care to make it taste exactly so, as if preparing something satisfying for my stomach will somehow make up for what I have not been able to create for my ears to hear.

After a long dinner break, I put in a recording of Segovia and lie down on the floor with the windows open once again, enjoying the cool breeze of the summer evening. A sound that I haven't heard for awhile overwhelms my ears: the round, sweet sound of the guitar as I once fell in love with it. I've been so wrapped up in my details that my insides nearly hurt from craving this sound for such a long time.

Lying there on the floor, with the breeze flowing in from outside and the soft sound of Segovia's guitar washing over me, I remember again why I started all this in the first place. I remind myself not to stop loving this process, despite the occasional day in which the labor of love is merely just labor.

The Airborne Toxic Event

2009-05-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

While playing a lunchtime gig today at a hotel restaurant in downtown LA, I ran into a violinist that I performed with once while I was at Juilliard. He now plays in a LA-based cutting edge string quartet that commissions tons of new music and experimental stuff called The Calder Quartet, although they play Mozart just as well. He mentioned that they had taped for Jimmy Kimmel last night, and in checking out the quartet website, I discovered that they are actually playing with the indie rock band The Airborne Toxic Event. His sister plays viola/keyboard for this band- and they totally rock! (Incidentally, she went to Columbia and was class of '04.)

I checked out The Airborne Toxic Event on myspace and I can't stop listening to them. Depressing, poetic lyrics are covered under an upbeat, guitar-driven texture with occasional richness added by strings a la Belle and Sebastian. They hail from Los Feliz, a Los Angeles area adjacent to ours that, along with Silver Lake, is the bastion of numerous indie bands, many of which make it to the top.

I love the role that the quartet plays in this version of "Sometime Around Midnight," bow hairs flying and everything! The string sound in the rock genre is usually reserved for more melancholy, plaintive, slow songs, but here is proof that classical musicians can totally rock out.

The technology bandwagon

2009-05-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

I'm usually not the first to jump on the bandwagon about anything. Especially things media related, like TV shows, big movie openings, the latest gadgets, and popular internet tools. I sort of take my time, see what sticks and what doesn't, and get into something like four seasons (i.e. 24) or two years later. Sometimes I just crave the bliss of quiet after a busy day.

As an aspiring artist, it's now more important than ever that I keep up with media trends and utilize those which can help my career and put me on the cutting edge. This is where I often fail. I'm not great at promoting and marketing myself, but I've gotten somewhat comfortable with the concept. My problem is now that the tools by which one does so are changing so quickly that once I settle into a groove with one thing (like having a functional website), the next thing is taking off.

Well, here are some ideas that I thought about today which have been brought to my attention by various media-savvy friends of mine.

1. YouTube. Upload current videos of various pieces to amass a following and therefore publicize your name for concert attendance.

2. Twitter. Tweet your current musical endeavors, upcoming concerts, and latest musings to help people get to know you as a person.

3. Blogging. Clearly, I'm on this one! But I never meant for it to be read for the general public. That is, I choose the setting where it doesn't come up on google searches, although of course I know that everything on the internet is fair game. At least to my knowledge, it is mainly read by my circle of friends and family. Making it a public blog linked to my website where I continue writing about my current range of topics (the intersection between my spirituality and my life as a musician, funny or important personal anecdotes, particularly interesting encounters with art/food) has been suggested and I'm still not sure about that. (If you are a stranger reading my blog, please speak now or forever hold your peace.)

4. Facebook. Yeah I'm on this one, isn't the whole world? But the more that my social circles collide on it, the less I want it to reveal about myself personally. And granted, if someone sees you perform and actually bothers to look you up on facebook, I suppose this means they want to be a part of your network in a more personal way. Connecting with your audience is a goal held by most musicians, so in theory this would be a great thing. I even asked a stranger in the audience at one of my concerts in NY how he heard about the event, and he mumbled quietly, "Facebook." But, I still don't feel that comfortable adding people as friends who I don't know personally. I once attempted to create a fan page for myself but felt completely narcissistic.

5. Instant Encore. This is a cool site where you can allow your audience to relive a concert experience by punching in a code and listening to a recording of the concert after they see it live. I don't think it has a critical mass following in the general public though. But it wouldn't hurt to try it.

Anyway, I'd love feedback from you lovely readers about how you think any of these tools might help enhance the career of an artist you might follow (actors, writers, singers, etc.) Are there any other mediums that I'm missing here? This summer I'd like to get my website overhauled and try to tap into more of these tools, so the question is not so much if, but really to help me understand how media is changing the nature of music's accessibility and the persona of any given musician. Do the latest internet tools provide a more personal interaction between artists and their audience, or does it merely give a facade of connectivity? Is there any reason to circumvent the latest innovation, or must one inevitably change with the times? What's next? Thoughts welcome.

The Competition

2009-05-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

In about six weeks, I am going to Ithaca, NY to enter the Competition to Become the World's Best Classical Guitarist of the Entire Universe.

Ok, so it's not really called that. There are lots of competitions that take place throughout the year, but this really is the only one that matters, in my opinion. The winner gets not only $7500 and a CD recording made by Naxos, but a fifty city concert tour of America! For any classical guitarist, it's an absolute dream come true. Basically, they hand you an international concert career on a silver platter. I've had the privilege of studying with three former winners of this competition, all who were brilliant artists and phenomenal teachers as well.

It's a stretch, and I don't honestly believe that I will win this competition this year. My goal really is to make it past the preliminary round and onto the semi-finals, and I would be surprised, ecstatic, and terrified if I actually made it to the finals. But if I go and play my best and still don't make it past the first round, I will be totally fine with that because if everybody else is just better, then that's totally fair. If I go and don't play very well, I honestly will still be ok with that because just entering this thing is taking a giant step of courage for me. I even signed up last year and then withdrew my name partway through. So basically, I'm looking at it as I have nothing to lose. I am going to work my tail off for the next six weeks, and then just let things go how they go.

But why not believe that I could win this year? Confidence, at least verbalized in such a way, has never been my strong suit. I tend to think of myself more as a "realist" (or to an optimist like my husband, a pessimist) and my first instinct with things that I really, really want is to say, "Pshhh. Yeah right. That would never happen to me!"

It's time to let go of negative thinking. I want to believe that I can win, and not feel like I'm on some sort of ego-trip or that I'm being ostentatious about anything. It's time to stop embracing false humility and believe that God can do anything through me because doubting the possibilities is in essence doubting his power.

The other day, the parking shuttle driver saw my guitar case and asked what it was. I told him it was a classical guitar.

He said, "No kidding! Are you good?"

I paused. Then, a sudden surge of confidence. "Yeah! I'm good!" I replied enthusiastically.

Usually I wouldn't say something like that. I might typically say something like, "I'm alright" with a chuckle, or "Uh, I guess.." but for the first time that day, I decided to give confidence a shot.

This summer I am giving confidence a shot in my own small way.

Compadre by Astor Piazzolla

2009-04-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

A first take on the required piece for a competition I'm doing this summer. I'm giving it a run tomorrow for a concert in Orange County. Sorry about the barking. Aiko has impeccable timing. (I didn't actually kick her at the end, although I wanted to- it was just a nudge...)

Declaration of Attempt to Become a Writer

2009-04-09T17:44:00.000-07:00

Can the dancer be a photographer, the potter a musician, the actor a sculptor?

Perhaps one language just isn't enough. Sometimes, the things that want to be said exceed their medium. I have a general sense of restlessness that goes through its peaks and valleys of activity. In the past, I've attributed it to too few amounts of meaningful personal interaction, general mental boredom, and lack of intellectual stimulus.

But what if it is really none of those things, and instead, the restlessness is an uneasiness created by potential for another form of expression that hasn't yet been realized? A medium that has been under my nose for my entire life, but not honed into a craft, not refined in the fire, not given the chance to speak much of the heart?

I really believe that there's an artist inside of everyone, and that connecting with this part of yourself is an essential aspect of understanding the Creator and yourself as a work of art. I gravitated towards the guitar at the age of five, for some reason unbeknownst to me. It pulled me and called me, and I was given the means with which I could answer. But I've always hungered to do more than just that; ironically, speaking without words has not always satisfied me. After much pondering, I'm going to take some of my friends' encouragement seriously and give writing a real shot. I just got the green light to do a minor field for my degree at USC's journalism school in arts criticism. We have a phenomenal Pulitizer prize-winning visiting professor on faculty right now who used to be the music critic for the Washington Post. And, his approval of my writing was a huge boost to my confidence. I sent him an academic research paper and to contrast, of all things, my blog entry about ramen- and he said he liked it enormously!

I'm really excited about this opportunity and have no idea what will come out of it. I don't even promise that I'll write anything good, or that I'll have the guts to share it. But, if this works out, I'll be taking his writing workshop in the fall. I'm not a natural critic, and am hoping that delving into the world of arts criticism will help me begin to articulate the nuances that make any work of art excellent, moving, shocking, or beautiful. I believe this will make me a better musician as well. I'm craving a new set of weapons to wield, and thinking about the possibilities unleashed by the power of the pen has me incredibly inspired.

Oh, the humanity

2009-03-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

Today, I got rear-ended on my way to school. The damage was not that significant- a displaced bumper and a small dent. But I was pretty upset, only because the guy apologized to me, told me he would pull over, and then drove away speedily.

This threw my day into a bit of a haze, until a friend brought to my attention another hit and run accident that happened near campus last night. A driver ran a red light and hit two USC students while they were walking in a crosswalk, proceeded to stop only to remove the body of one of the victims from the hood of his car, and drove away. One of them died- an undergraduate student that was only 19. I can't imagine what her family is going through. I saw an interview with her mom on the news and it was so devastating. Read the story here.

Are we so numb to the well-being and livelihood of others that walking away is the easiest thing to do? Even if they are strangers? I put myself in the shoes of either driver from the above accidents. The temptation exists to just drive away, pretend not to notice, put it in the back of your mind and move on so you don't have to "deal" with the repercussions of your actions. And though my first instinct is to say that behavior like this is sickening with no regard to human life or decency, I know that I have done this in some form or fashion so many times when I have walked by someone who is hurting, hungry or broken, or run away from the consequences of my own sin. The choice is the same. The condition of sin runs deeper than we know. But the great tragedy of being human is that we are capable of so many things beyond our comprehension. We are capable of death, destruction, beauty, and compassion all at the same time.

More than ever, this realization makes me want to live my life loudly, with fierce passion for what I do, not letting anything stop me from expressing that there is always something worth living for, that people are worth caring about, and that humanity has always and will always be in need of a Savior.

Ramen inspiration.

2009-03-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

It's hard to keep blogging when you haven't had a profound thought in awhile.

And then, out of the blue, inspiration comes. Ever had one of those meals where you just couldn't stop thinking about it afterwards? That whatever you ate brought your taste buds such sweet pleasure that you felt like you'd just discovered a new addiction and were teetering in a hazy area between enthusiasm and obsession?

Well, I had one of these moments this weekend in the food court of Mitsuwa supermarket in West LA. An unassuming place for an amazing meal? You bet. Usually, this is also the best kind.

This ramen turned my whole perception of the art of Japanese flavors upside down. Santuoka, a Japanese ramen chain, exists at three different Mitsuwas in southern California and I feel blessed with good fortune. A salty pork-flavored broth with just a hint of sweet seafoodiness to balance. Perfectly chewy noodles that curled so beautifully in my spoon. Rich and fatty slices of pork to top, along with some pickled seaweed, fresh scallions, and (could it be?) fish cake that actually tasted like fish. I was floored by this umami perfection, and ended my meal by verbalizing this to my husband who was in an equally dumbfounded stupor. "It's perfect," I said. He nodded in between slurping, causing several drops of the precious broth to alarmingly fall to the table. Not wanting to tolerate any more waste, I picked up my bowl and drank every last drop of the sweet soup afterwards and considered ordering another, so delicious was this incredible nectar. We barely said two words during this meal, usually a sign that the food is good- especially when the two words were the ones I mentioned above.

But this was not just a fleeting moment of bacchanalian satisfaction. I felt inspired from this ramen. It made me believe that I could do anything. My perspective on the world began to shift. In a moment while slurping down noodles with my burnt tongue, I had an important realization. Thoughts become things. This ramen was once a thought. Now it is a thing. I'd just had a week where I wasn't doing much, feeling uninspired and lazy from an uneventful spring break. But this superhuman food brought me to my feet, recharged and ready to take on the world as a new woman. I can do anything. Thoughts become things. My thoughts can become things, too. I CAN DO ANYTHING! SLURRRPPPP!

To top it all off, they have double matcha green tea soft serve in the same food court. I haven't been this happy in weeks.

Ode to Unemployment

2009-02-03T23:49:00.000-08:00

Well, it's nearly official- Paul received an offer package from his future employer this morning!

We are excited that a new chapter is beginning. I've read in the news recently about how stressful unemployment is for so many people- particularly for men when the burden of provision in our culture is still heavier upon them. But not for this one. I suppose Paul and I are different in that I always need something busy and "productive" to do, and he is content and cheery whittling away the hours on various other types of activities- including, but not limited to, playing fetch with the dog, video games, reading random things on the internet and then telling me about them, writing music on Garage Band that sounds like electronic eurotrash, putting that music to a slideshow featuring pictures of our dog, playing basketball with the Filipino high school kids in our neighborhood, doing transcriptions on Sibelius for me, listening to audiobooks, and today, the most bizzare thing of all time: he voluntarily went shopping for me.

I have a concert this weekend in New York for which I've been picking an outfit for. I bought a new top at a sample sale last week and was having second thoughts about it. He wasn't totally sold on it either, but I decided I would just wear it since it was a sample sale and I can't return it anyway. I like it just fine and I really don't care all that much. I also don't have time to hit the mall between now and Saturday and things approrpiate to wear for a performance are hard to find for me.

So he insisted this afternoon to head to Macy's and basically raided the women's department. I told him my sizes, and that I generally like long-sleeve tops that have some sort or sparkle or interesting sleeves or something a little flashy for the stage. What did he bring home? About 20 different tops with some sort of sparkle or interesting sleeves in more colors than the rainbow can hold, including mustard yellow, pale gold, and magenta. He said he would return whatever I didn't want. Unfortunately, after trying on these nearly 20 different tops that were all pretty unflattering, I have decided to stick to the original top that I bought at the sample sale and fire him as my personal shopper.

Well, I was pretty blown away at his willingness to subject himself to the mall in an effort to help me, and we had a pretty good laugh when I tried on the mustard yellow top that made me look like a Star Trek character, the pale blue frilly top that should have been part of a clown costume, and the magenta top that I am convinced was some sort of maternity wear. All I can say is that I am excited for his new job to start and I am certainly glad that it's not in the fashion industry.

Satisfied and dreaming

2009-01-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

I have to say that I love my program. Lately I've been thinking that I think I would have been a much better guitarist had I come to USC earlier in life, like for undergrad or masters. It's a combination of the amazingly supportive guitar faculty who have the sharpest ears and most intelligent musical insight while being articulate enough to explain kinesthetic concepts and technical ways of playing the guitar easier, more efficiently, and more beautifully. I already feel that in the last 6 months of being here, I have learned more about how to be a better guitarist than I did in the past 6 years of schooling.

Which does not make me regret the decisions I made earlier in life, because I know that without being in those places, I would not be in this place. I also feel that with this degree, many aspects of my education are coming together in a way that weren't ready to be cohesive until now. In some way or another, it's all sort of coming together. A friend once told me that God doesn't waste anything. That is, the reason I majored in history, or played the cello, or ran for student government in high school will all come to fruition even if it doesn't look like it from the outside.

I also know that there is a reason I spend hours investing my time in playing the guitar better. I'm starting to feel immense satisfaction in even the smallest of improvements. There are many more to be made, but at the end of each day I have begun to feel that I am reaping some sort of fruit in a way that I have never felt before. At Juilliard, I mostly practiced out of fear of getting yelled at, or embarrassing myself in front of my peers. I was insecure and treaded carefully, trying to do the right thing, look altogether on the outside, and not rock the boat too much. I think I've needed to get that out of my system and although I still feel insecure at times, I don't work because I'm scared. I work because it is a choice I make every day out of pleasure, calling, and passion.

At the end of it, I don't believe that my destiny is to be a performer primarily. I've always liked to wear many hats. I have been dreaming lately about other things I'd love to do- like teaching guitar to adults in all walks of life, being a music history professor, mentoring students through the relationship between faith and music, organizing festivals, becoming a dean at a music school, working for the NEA. I feel great audacity in being able to even type these words because in the past I never verbalized what I really hoped for from life because of the fear of disappointment. It just occurred to be that I'm not afraid if I fail. I am satisfied even being able to just dream. God doesn't waste anything and I know He'll use me somewhere.

My husband (a hopeless dreamer) must be rubbing off on me.

21 days of consecutive practice

2009-01-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

Today, I had a two-hour lesson at school with my guitar teacher. I wasn't feeling all that prepared going in because we had driven up to the Bay Area this weekend for a wedding, and though I brought the guitar with me, I didn't get nearly as much time with it as I would have if we had been at home for the weekend. But it was the first weekend traveling where I had to be sure to fulfill my New Year's resolution to practice every day this year. So on Friday, I made sure to practice before we left for San Jose- got about 1 1/2 hours in, on Saturday, I practiced about an hour before we got ready to leave for the wedding, and on Sunday, I practiced after the 5 hour drive back to LA when we arrived home at around 11pm. This one was a hard one. I wanted so badly to crawl into bed, but Paul reminded me of my resolution and helped me build the resolve to sit myself down. He also told me that if I practiced, I could have the sour gummy worms that we had bought for the road trip but had forgotten to bring with us. I jumped up- this was just enough motivation for my tired body to get on my red practicing stool. (I love sour candy.)

At the very least, I got some affirmation today at my lesson. Yesterday I barely got an hour in between cooking for our small group dinner, teaching my fifth-grade guitar class in East LA, getting a run in around the lake, finishing some reading, and being glued to the election coverage. But I did get about 1 1/2 hours in at the end of the night, and today after I played my piece, my teacher said these words:

"Wow! You've been working your ass off."

I beamed. He has never said this to me. In fact, I've never had a teacher say this to me in recent memory. It's usually, "Ok, good." Or, on a bad day, "Good piece, huh?" For someone that gets bored pretty easily, I've never been one to practice enough, ever. But I suppose the consistency is a great start. I've been working. And it feels good.

What's in a name?

2009-01-14T20:04:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been contemplating my name.

When I was a kid, I got made fun of. I got lots of Shoe jokes. There was a brand of shoes at the local mall called Connie and it was perfect fodder for a whole onslaught of Shoe jokes. Some kids got creative and thought up variations on that, like Connie Sock or Connie Boot or Connie whatever. After awhile I didn't care. I tried to use it to my advantage. When I ran for Junior Class President in high school, my friend designed a campaign tag that was shaped like a shoe and said "Connie for Prez" on it or something. They were super cute (I think they were designed to look like Converse shoes, which were in at the time and incidentally in right now) and I won that election.

I thought things would only get better when I got married and had the opportunity to change my name to something easier to spell, know how to pronounce, or not make fun of. But the other thing I used to get called when I was a kid was Connie Chung. As in the the first major Asian American news anchor who is married to Maury Povich. Little did I know that I would marry into a name that was so similar to this one. In fact, after two years I'm still not used to it. When I hear people call me Connie Chun I often think they are mocking me. In fact, I gave the guy who changed my oil the other day a dirty look when he said, "Connie Chun? Your car is ready." And when I hear them call me "Mrs. Chun" I often look around for Paul's mom.

Well, when we got our marriage certificate I remember the moment when I fiilled out the form and wrote that I intended to change my surname. Paul looked at me sympathetically and asked, "Are you sure? You don't have to." I responded that I wanted to, and that I wanted our names to symbolically reflect that we were becoming one family and I wanted our kids to have the same last name as both of us. At the time, I worked in a school where there were a lot kids whose moms had decided to keep their maiden names and I guess the traditionalist in me wanted it to be different than the kids whose last names were different from their mom's or who had hyphenated last names. But I also felt bound by a sort of duty or desire to partake in this rite of passage of for a married woman to change her name, though I later discovered what a pain it was (and still is) to fulfill this process. After this process, the feminist in me has often been bitter that this is still an understood social norm in our society for the woman to go through all that trouble and confusion. I mean, why can't we just decide based on which name sounds better for both people? I think Paul Sheu is pretty good.

So our solution was for me to keep my maiden name as my "artist name" as Paul calls it, and to use my legal last name (now Chun) for other circumstances, which was nice when we moved to a new place and people didn't get confused that we were married, and they know us lovingly as "the Chuns." I think that's kind of fun. It means to me that we are our own household and family, a concept that we spent a lot of time contemplating during our engagement. And I also get to write "Paul and Connie Chun" on things like address labels, Christmas cards, bills and such. That's kind of fun too, I suppose.

Well, now that I am in school again and most of my professors know my last name to be Chun, since that's what I put on my application and that's what they have on their roll. But the guitar faculty all know me by my "artist name" and it sort of feels like I have two identities. Part of it makes me feel special, a little bit like having an alter ego or being a superhero. But on the other hand, it is just plain confusing. So sometimes I resort to putting my full legal name down on papers, and in my email too, and for people not familiar with either name sometimes they get the vowels and syllables mixed up so that it becomes "Connie Shun Choo" or something stupid like that. And you would be surprised at the amount of people that pronounce a name like Chun to be "chooon." Because "fun" and "run" aren't good enough examples of a short U sound? Add on the mixed up consonants I become Connie Chu Shooon. I mean, come on people!

I thought seriously about hyphenating recently, and going through all the trouble of changing my name to something that would help people understand that it is a married name and to just simplify things and just use both all the time. This was because I recently got a teaching job in which the administration put "Shu-Chun" down as my last name. They apparently assumed that it was hyphenated (though they didn't spell it all correctly, but I'm used to that), though I never indicated anything of the sort. But then hyphenating wouldn't really help with the pronunciation, though it might aid in the confusion of knowing which name to use. However, one syllable Asian last names don't really sound that good hyphenated. I think that more than one Asian sounding last name for one person may be too much for the American general public at large. Paul told me he was sorry that he's not a Kennedy. Ooh, I thought to myself. Now there's a name I would have been ecstatic about. But alas, I shall remain Connie Chu Shun for the rest of my life.

Enter 2009

2009-01-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

Every New Year's, Paul and I take a little day retreat to recount everything that happened in the closing year and set a list of prayer requests/resolutions for the coming year. This year we decided to check out the Griffith Observatory and take a little hike in the surrounding hills in the balmy and perfect 70 degree weather.

Aiko dreams of being a movie star as she overlooks the smoggy view of the Hollywood sign.

We found a bench and sat down to have some water and apples after our not-very-strenuous hike. Here we took out my journal and jotted down all the things that happened this year. Some highlights:

Fasting meat for 40 days and subsequently having to go on a diet
Gaining a job extension, losing a job
Saying our goodbyes to San Diego after a short year in paradise
Starting my DMA
Settling into a new church
Seeing Paul's dad again after two years
Releasing my first CD
Paul joining/managing an adult baseball league
Moving two times in one year
Going to France at the last minute with my sister
Waiting and waiting and waiting on God
Enjoying whirlwind trips to New York
Discovering that we like LA- who would have thought?

It's been a year full of changes and looking back now, full of blessing. We took a minute to watch the sunset over the hills and said goodbye to 2008.

Looking forward, I have a few hopes for 2009.

Practicing every day this year. Yep, that's right. 365 days of guitar. No two week breaks after a concert. No taking holidays off. Making it a part of the rhythm of my lifestyle. Seeing if it can become as second nature as eating or brushing my teeth and discovering what comes out of that. Which makes me think that I need one of these babies:

It's a travel guitar that my former teacher endorses called the SoloEtte. The wire edges come apart and they zip up into a portable bag. It has the feel of a normal guitar so you can keep your hand muscles in shape even while you're on vacation. It even has a headphone jack so you can hear yourself practice on the thing while you're traveling. I have never cared enough about playing that I thought I would need one of these. But I think its time to up the anti. Alas, this baby retails for a whopping $850 and I don't have any vacations planned right now. Oh well.

Taking better care of my body. I don't know why I've been feeling the signs of aging lately (being tired without fail at 11pm, seeing a few wrinkles around the eyes, feeling like its harder than ever to get back into shape), but I've been reminded of how much I should cherish my health and take care of my body- not only because these are the last few years of my 20's, but also because if we have kids in a few years, I know that my body will never be the same again. So I'm going to try to do more jogging, yoga at home, and get back into lap swimming, something I did briefly in college and learned to love at one point. USC has a gorgeous heated pool and a jacuzzi that I should take advantage of while I can. This also includes taking better care of my skin and cutting back on things like beer and fried food for sure. (Not so easy considering who I'm married to.)

Learning to live with little and seeing how God multiplies it. Right now we are doing our best to live more frugally. We've thought about some ways to save money during this season of unemployment, and have wondered why we can't make that a normal part of our lifestyle even after a job comes a long. God is really showing us that He can make so much out of so little. And life is all the richer for it.

Case in point: Korean BBQ at home! When you have all-you-can-eat BBQ in K-town here, it's about $17 per person, which is pretty cheap for the amount of food you get, but still runs a little over $40 after tax and tip. So instead, for our first dinner of the year we grabbed some thinly sliced sirloin from the Korean market (disturbingly cheap at about $2.50 a package) and all the coordinating veggies (green leaf lettuce, sesame leaves, thinly sliced scallions with red pepper flakes, and a Korean herb called ssuk) and whipped out the tabletop grill we got as a wedding present. So instead of $40, we managed to spent less than $10 with the stellar prices at the Korean market. Add an $11 bottle of champagne from Costco, and we were pretty happy.

The new year brings many unresolved challenges, but much excitement for what God has in store. As I've learned to say in Korean, seh-heh bock man-ee bahd-euh-seh-yo! Happy New Year!

holiday 2008

2008-12-30T22:28:00.000-08:00

A Christmas song

2008-12-22T21:49:00.000-08:00

This week I played at our church Newsong LA for the first time. I've always liked the song "O Holy Night" and spent part of the week working on an arrangement for service. I also discovered I can capture video on my computer. I've had the computer for two years and had no idea. We took this video in front of our Christmas tree and if you look closely, you'll see a certain reindeer running around. Well, hope you like it.

Merry Christmas!

Commitment

2008-12-21T21:07:00.000-08:00

“The drama nerd comes out in me when I’m in a theater,” he explained now, as the actors rehearsed. “When I saw ‘All My Sons,’ I was changed — permanently changed — by that experience. It was like a miracle to me. But that deep kind of love comes at a price: for me, acting is torturous, and it’s torturous because you know it’s a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, That’s beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great — well, that’s absolutely torturous.”
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, New York Times, 12/19/08

The hardest part about acting, according to Philip Seymour Hoffman, is the very pursuit of it. When I read this quote, something struck a chord in me about the ease of falling in love with an art form, that love igniting the drive to pursue it, and the torture of knowing that the ideal of the beauty in this art is so intangible and at times feels so completely unreachable that the wanting of it only brings oneself to a torturous state of pursuit because of its beauty and fragility. It's easier to want than to do, and the doing at times feels as though it hinges on the brink of destroying the beautiful from too much effort or too much pining.

I've often wondered what I can do to make my commitment to my own art form less torturous in its own right. Why is music not as natural as a part of my daily doing, my daily being, like breathing? Instead, it is often this monstrous thing that looms ever before me, its beauty slipping further from my grasp with each day that I don't purposely pursue it. It often feels like an insatiable burden that I've only brought upon myself, an insurmountable duty that I've chosen. What is it in the human spirit that allows to reach for the things that are completely intangible, much akin to a longing for a Creator that we can't see?

I think it has something to do with a much needed commitment to believe that the intangible beauty that first captured my heart at the age of five is a inseparable part of my life now that I've chosen it. Even in its torture, it is somehow a part of me that is inescapable as long as I keep making this decision to want it. I hope for the day that music will become as natural as living is. Like breathing.

Artists can learn a lot from athletes. I saw Michael Phelps on TV the other day. He talked about how there was one year in which he did not miss a single workout. Such was his determination that not 1 day out of 365 was taken off. Could I ever be that committed?

I guess we'll have to wait and see in 2009.

A new kind of bliss.

2008-12-16T22:42:00.000-08:00

I'm discovering more and more that LA offers a lot of the things that makes me love cities. And despite the traffic, smog, and unabashed superficiality, there is one thing that I now love which was never even in my vocabulary before I moved here.

The Korean Spa.

Now, I like anything with the word spa in it. I think I get this from my sister. Nail spa. Foot spa. Spa Day. Day Spa. Massage Spa. A sigh of relief calms my body with the utterance of this magical three letter word. Given the fact that money is tight and there is no way I'm going to one of those expensive spas in West LA to get my R & R, I decided to save up to treat myself to a less expensive post-semester stress-busting reward before I started studying for my last exam. Considering that I've been having upper back pain all semester and could use a little beauty treatment, I decided to investigate the phenomenon of Korean spas that exist in our neck of the woods here next to LA's expansive Koreatown.

So after checking out some of the reviews online, I picked Natura spa because it was reportedly clean, modern, and not as expensive as some of the others. I made an appointment for a scrub and massage, which was about half the cost that nice spas in LA would charge for one of these services. The fee included access to the jacuzzis and saunas at the place, so I went early to take advantage of the amenities.

Well, I read online that these spas are pretty "old world" in the sense that they observe a lot of the traditional bathhouse protocol that you find in Korea. And reportedly from my husband, visiting a spa in Korea is a pretty shocking experience. In fact, it was the only experience that made him feel that he was in a foreign country when he visited Korea a few years ago for the first time since he was like 3. The reason being that everyone is NAKED! Of course, men and women are separated. But the shock of seeing even members of your own gender completely in the buff is well, shocking. Especially when many of them are twice your age and often your grandma's generation.

I found Natura to be a world away from the busy street of Wilshire Ave. Hidden underneath a Korean mini-mall on the basement floor, I was greeted at the front desk by two ladies who weren't sure if I was Korean or not and offered me half-apologetic smiles and confused looks. I said loudly, "Hello!" not even bothering to say the formal Korean greeting because if I said it correctly, they would only assume that I was Korean and proceed to talk to me in Korean. So I tried to make it clear that I was 100% Americana.

A nice lady proceeded to give me a tour of the premises, showing me my fancy key access gym locker, set of white towels and terrycloth robe, the cucumber and citrus-infused drinking water, and complimentary toiletries. It was a very nice changing area and was impeccably clean. She also pointed me to the sauna area, stressing to shower before and after entering the pools, the sleeping room, composed of an elevated floor with tatami mats and comforters with a flat-screen TV on the wall, the restaurant, which sold overpriced Korean food, and the lounge, which had sofa chairs with wooden ottomans and Korean magazines. I liked what I saw. I quickly changed and put on my terrycloth robe, making my way into the sauna to take a shower.

Well, opening the door to the sauna was a bit like entering the Twilight Zone. I was prepared to enter with my robe on, thinking I would discreetly take it off and find a little corner to shower where nobody would see me, since the showers and the tubs were all in one large room with no walls whatsoever. But a sign on the door said, "FOR SANITARY REASON, PLEASE DO NOT BRING ROBES INTO THE BATH AREA." Huh? I guess I had no choice but to enter in the stark, carrying my little towel, and to remain in the stark until I would leave 3 hours later!

So, I entered the world of nakedness, and pretty soon I got used to it. None of the other ladies were looking at me, and I avoided making direct eye contact with anyone so that I could try to blend in as part of the bathhouse scenery. After a few minutes, I found this Naked World With Complete Strangers to be somehow liberating. I was no longer concerned about the extra tummy rolls that I gained this past week when I went on a baking frenzy and Paul and I had Korean BBQ and fried chicken in the same day. I wasn't concerned about anything. I was comfortable in my own skin. Quite literally. And apparently, everyone else was too.

I tried a comfortably hot jacuzzi first that was supposedly infused with tea, called a Mugworts Bath (which reminded me of something from Harry Potter, and I spent most of the time in it wondering why they called it that). It felt heavenly and the sweet smell of the tea or herbs was intoxicating. After a little bit, I investigated the other options around- an extremely hot, scalding jacuzzi, an ice cold plunge pool, a steam room that smelled beautifully of Chinese herbs or something, a sauna room with Korean TV blaring (I didn't like this one), and two funny rooms called the Jade Stone Room and the Yellow Clay Room. The Jade Stone Room looked like some sort of cave where you might find Gollum. It looked creepy at first, but I went in and sat on a leathery coushin I found on the floor. It wasn't until some other ladies entered that I learned these coushins were pillows for your head. The others proceeded to lie down, rest their heads on them, and take naps. I found this strange at first, but quickly followed suit, and took my nap next to some other naked ladies on the floor. After a little while, I wandered into the Yellow Clay Room, where people were doing the same thing. This room was made of yellow clay reportedly imported from Korea. It had an earthy smell and even had bags of clay hanging from the ceiling. I think its supposed to be good for your skin to be around such earthiness.

The time came for my appointment for my scurb and massage. I waited near the massaging area for my number to be called. The massage area was a strange sight as there were no walls and about a dozen massage tables were grouped together in a corner. I'll spare you the gritty details, but forget having a towel to modestly cover the areas not being massaged. The lady who called me up promptly took my towel from me, pulled me by the arm like an auntie might pull you to the dinner table, and cheerfully gestured for me to lie face down on the massage table. She then began throwing buckets of hot water all over me. I yelped a little at first, and then decided to just forget about any reluctance and just enjoy the treatment. The lady proceeded to scrub every single inch of my body with this little scrubby mitt, and the results were immediate. Layers of dead skin started falling off me (which Koreans call dae) that she cleared out by throwing more hot water all over me. I spent a little time wondering if they use the same scrubby mitt for everyone or not, but then just shrugged it off as I was scrubbed into oblivion. This little lady was sparing no inch and was no joke. She scrubbed with superhuman strength and spent a particular amount of time on my right armpit and left thigh. I wondered if she tells her grandkids about what she does all day.

After several layers of my epidermis had been rinsed away with hot water, she then proceeded to lather oil all over my body, gave me some facial cleanser, and then told me to "take shower." I obeyed and rinsed off the oil and facial cleanser, and then game back to the table for part deux of the experience. Hot towels were put on me and she began to massage. But apparently the Korean version of massaging is more like using a punching bag- me being the punching bag. She literally got up onto the table and hit me with the back of her elbows and fists. I've come to like very strong pressure in massages, but I just found it funny at first. I almost let out a giggle, but she hit the air out of me at the same time so it came out more like the sound of an endangered small animal. I let her work out some of the knots in my upper back using this method and began to get used to the treatment. After she had let out her agression on my back, a silky substance was poured all over me. I opened my eyes and peeked at my arm to discover that it was milk! She also gave me an ice cold cucumber face mask and then proceeded to shampoo and condition my hair, along with a very intense scalp massage. Wow, what treatment! I felt like a queen and when it was finally all over, I was instructed to shower yet again for about the 10th time that day, and then went into the locker room to change. I noticed that my skin had a new glow to it and I went into a state of happy relaxation for the rest of the day. I was a new woman.

Take it from me, the Korean spa treatment deserves a try. Now that I think about it, I am probably not making this sound very appealing. Pay someone to scrub you with what feels like steel wool and punch you for an hour? And not let you have your clothes? Well, there must be something in the water. I am definitely going back. But not with anyone I know.

Holiday Sale!

2008-12-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, I said the magic word- SALE! Here's an idea for holiday shopping- all CDs are 25% off at www.conniesheu.com. From now until Dec. 24th, enter the coupon code HOLIDAY at checkout and receive 25% off your order. A great way to pass along the gift of music to someone in your life and support an independent artist.

Sorry if you're tired of me plugging myself. I've gotta get the word out somehow...

On family

2008-12-03T23:10:00.000-08:00

I am at the tail end of one of the busiest weeks of school that I can remember in my life and happy to take a blogging break. Although I think I remember one week my junior year of college fall semester that I was more sleep deprived and caffeine fueled and overloaded with work than I am now. The difference being that I am 7 years older now and can't pull all nighters anymore, lest I forget where I am, crash the car, and start some sort of city-wide disaster while driving to school.

So I wasn't that helpful over Thanksgiving this year because of all the work I had to do, but my siblings sure were. Check out my sister's blog here for an account of how awesome it was in the Chen/Sheu/Chun household. I must say, food is a love language in our family and it was mightily poured out on us!

When you don't live locally from your family, the nature of the visits always change. I realized this long ago when I went away to college, but it's becoming more evident to me as I get older. Every time I spend time with loved ones, I realize something new about myself and get a fresh perspective on who I am because of how much my loved ones have affected me. And I count myself lucky to say that I think their influence has been mostly good. It's also always fun to observe little quirky things about your parents and see if you're like that too. For example, at the end of our trip, we were joking about my mom's addiction to email and how my siblings are equally obsessive about certain things, like a new Wii game or facebook. I quickly agreed that this was the case for me too- but then couldn't think of a single example for an addiction of mine. In fact, I think I'm sort of the opposite. I don't have the attention span to do anything for too long or I will get bored real quick. Maybe it's some form of adult ADD. I could also have my Dad's love-to-work, can't sit still sort of thing. But then again there are lots of times when I sit real still when I should be working (i.e. practicing).

Our families affect us so much as people and its fascinating to see how we as individuals take some of those traits that are passed down to us and make them our own. As we grow older, self-discovery is an inevitable thing that helps us gain perspective about who we really are and why we are where we are in life. When I last spent time with my in-laws in New Jersey, we did what has now become a habit when we get together with Paul's mom and sister- sit on the floor, share prayer requests, hold hands, and pray out loud together. Usually, the prayer session ends with crying, hugging, and verbal "I love you"s. This kind of expressiveness is something that my family culturally is not accustomed to, so at first I used to think that the extreme intimacy of spiritual sharing and verbally declaring our love for each other in a family was really weird. Now I am blessed and thankful for it every time, and I can see the way that their closeness has shaped Paul's faith and is reflected in how very expressive he is with his thoughts and emotions. I also saw the way he enjoyed our time this weekend with my family and the comfort and ease with which everybody interacts. It's a beautiful thing to share, and when we grow our own family someday (keyword is someday), I hope we'll be able to pass down the good from both.

Two years

2008-11-24T17:51:00.000-08:00

Our two-year wedding anniversary came and went and I didn't get a chance to blog some of my thoughts. It was on a Tuesday this year and since I have a Tuesday night class, it was hard to be able to go out and celebrate. We did manage to have a nice brunch though and celebrate in our own small ways, and are planning to take a short camping trip once the semester ends- but it was nothing like the somewhat extravagant trip (for us) to Palm Springs that we made for our one-year, complete with multiple spa treatments and mineral water soaks.

I suppose that right now we are in the middle of a challenging season. Paul has been out of work for about a month now, and me being a student have no real form of income besides the one little teaching job that I have. Money is tight and hearing about the economic crisis, along with the coming holiday season which is supposed to tank for retailers, it seems that a lot of people we know are generally in a money-saving mode. When we found out that Paul was losing his job, it came as a big jolt when we realized that the steady income would be pulled out from under us. This resulted in me freaking out for about a day, then brainstorming our options on how to stretch a dollar.

One of the first things we did was go to trim the ways that we spend money on food. Basically this means not splurging on a Friday night meal out, staying in and cooking more, stretching one meal into two, and learning to trim the grocery list of things that are not necessary. This has resulted in a big lifestyle shift since we love eating out...but, it has also really opened the doors to lots of yummy homemade meals made with TLC by my very own house husband! We don't spend a lot of money on ingredients, but so far everything has been delicious. I never thought I'd see the day where Paul would make kim-chi jigae for me (he's more of a beef and grill or pizza sort of guy, and Korean men traditionally don't cook much), but hey, spam is cheap. I've also tried hard to surpress my monthly shopping urges, we don't drive if its not absolutely necessary, we only watch movies at home, and we're trying to persuade Aiko to get a job.

Many people say that money issues are the number one source of grief within marriages. Knowing that, we entered this season of unemployment hoping that we could actually remember it as one of our sweetest. And I can't say that that hasn't been the case. We often cuddle up on the couch with a fuzzy blanket and snuggly dog in our little apartment and feel that we couldn't ask for anything more in life. I'm learning that there are very few things that money can buy that can make the joy of our little family any sweeter.

New candidate for the White House

2008-11-07T08:03:00.000-08:00

The search is on by the Obama family for the new First Puppy.

The press is abuzz with speculation. What kind of dog will they get? The American Kennel Club is hoping they'll get a rescue dog, and has even offered to pick one out for them. There are lots of factors at play here which will be scrutinized like any other political decision. Pure-bred dogs are equated with elitism. Rescue dogs are usually mutts. And, Melia is allergic to dogs, so a dog that is part poodle is high in the running since it would be hypo-allergenic. Rumor has it that the Obamas are considering the goldendoodle, which is like a retriever with bad hair, or a cockapoo, a classic fru-fru sort of dog. Have I got the perfect candidate for the White House.

Being part poodle, she's hypo-allergenic. She's good with kids and loves to snuggle. Her father was a rescue dog. As the only black puppy in her litter, she's dealt with the struggles of her color. All her other white brothers and sisters used to push her out of the feeding zone, but she persevered. She's a mutt, just like Barack called himself at yesterday's press conference. She's overcome barriers and brings people together- dog haters, cat lovers, scared parents. Even Paul's grandma likes her. We think Sasha and Melia would love her.

The only problem is that we would never give her up. But Aiko dreams of one day getting to Washington. The warm weather out here gets monotonous.

America!

2008-11-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

I have always had a deep love for the story that is American history.

I anticipated that this could happen, hoped and prayed that it would, and yet when I heard the projection on NPR while driving home from school tonight, I couldn't help but feel a huge wave of emotion come over me. Relief, disbelief, pride, humility, joy, and anxiety. Tears streaming down my face, I drove through the streets of downtown LA marveling at the stories and journeys that have made our country what it is and the President that will represent them beginning in 2009.

For the last 8 years, I have not felt pride for the only country I have ever called home. I haven't felt that our government was functioning wisely or honestly. Every trip I've taken abroad, I've had conversations about the incredulity that others have felt toward our policies. A distancing from politics in my own life occurred, a cynicism developed, an excuse formed in my mind that it doesn't matter much anyway. A long journey from the younger version of me that once considered a career in government service, spent a summer registering new citizens to vote, and organizing election monitoring.

And now I feel as though I've reawakened. An amazing thing has happened in our country today that proves that America is never static. We can judge a candidate fairly, we can think for ourselves about what is best for our nation, and we are still the land of the free and the home of the brave. Free because we spoke today for a candidate that we believe represents our story, and brave because we stood up for him despite the opposition's attempt to otherize and distort him.

Barack Obama is a brilliant, eloquent, amazingly gifted man, but he is not our savior. He will not make all our problems go away. But he has fought to achieve an extraordinary moment in extraordinary times, and the pride I feel to be a part of this moment has overwhelmed me in a way that I did not expect. That my own father, a 1st generation Taiwanese immigrant, saw in this African-American candidate a man worth casting his vote for after years of telling me that votes cast in California don't matter, so much so that he would bring his ballot with him on a business trip to China and mail it from distant shores so that his vote would be counted- that tells me that something amazing has occurred. We are still a country that is righting the wrongs of our past and making the world stop and wonder at the endless possibilities that could occur on our shores.

God, bless America.

Who poked me?

2008-10-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

I finally convinced Paul to rejoin facebook. It stemmed from me shouting out random things about our friends that I knew and he didn't. Like, "Hey guess what! So and so are engaged!" or "Did you know that this person moved to this place?" or "Let's go to this thing that's happening at this place on Friday night." Every time he would ask, "How did you know that?" and I would respond loudly, "FACEBOOK!"

This was followed by Paul asking me lots of funny questions about how it works. Such as:

"So if this person requested me to be their friend, does that mean they can see me?"

"What does wall-to-wall mean?"

"Why did they poke me? That's not very nice."

Now I don't update my status every single day, or constantly update and change everything on my profile, but it's pretty crazy how many people are on it these days. I think I know people from virtually every circle of friends I have ever had on facebook. I do value it for certain reasons, if not for the extremely impersonal way of keeping track of people these days. But seriously- I suppose that if people don't really call other people anymore just to say hello, and if even a personal email is hard to come by these days, blogging and facebook have replaced all other more personal forms of communication, and if you hold out on either, there is a whole world of contact that you are not a part of. How did we come to this?

I've realized that I really like impersonal forms of communication too. I like that sort of voyeuristic way of keeping tabs on people I haven't talked to in eons and probably would not ever think of calling up personally. I like that element of surprise when you find out someone you know is doing something totally bizzare with their careers (like a very shy high school classmate I discovered is now a hand model!). In short, I suppose I like knowing what people are up to, think about, or are doing with themselves without having to ask them them about it personally. I don't really think that's a good thing.

Maybe I should actually commend Paul for holding out this long.

An update on life

2008-09-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

Life has been whizzing by. With school in full swing, I haven't been blogging as often as I used to. But here are some fun things that happened this month.

I turned 27. Paul took me to Providence for my birthday. It was unbelievable. Might be the best meal I have ever had. I think the foie gras ravioli with truffle shavings sealed the deal for me. This is also the place where they make the world's best chocolate chip cookies and Paul had the waiter bring me a box full of them to take home at the end of the meal. Score!

The SDGQ had its first two full-length concerts! Here we are at San Marcos Lutheran Church. This was a great crowd and even gave us a standing ovation. It's a lot of fun to play with these guys- they are all really wonderful people.

I gave a solo recital at Point Loma Nazarene University, a small Christian college in San Diego that has a special place in my heart. It isn't because their campus overlooks the ocean, although that certainly doesn't hurt. The students that I've met are appreciative and gracious, and the faculty is wonderful as well. I played a full-length recital in their beautiful hall on Friday night. Boy, was it tiring. By the second piece I really needed a water break and a massage. Overall, I think it went pretty well. The audience was small but sweet and I sold a few CD's too. And with a little bit of sucking in, I somehow I managed to fit into this dress, which I wore for our Chinese wedding banquet in 2006. I haven't been able to fit into it since we left NY. Magically, I've lost 5 pounds since we've moved to LA, which doesn't make any sense to me since all we do is eat!

We've settled on a church, we think... NewSong Community Church, which a new friend of mine from school introduced us to. So far, it has been awesome. They are really living out a few of the important things we look for in a church- multi-ethnicity, strong teaching from the word, social justice, and community. We are hoping to join a commnity group soon.

And there's home life. We had a pretty chill weekend after my recital, and recovered from all the driving to SD we've been doing lately. We had an awesome brunch at Comme Ca, discovered The Farmer's Market, cleaned the apt a bit, and made our monthly Costco run.

Paul works from home now and loves it. Here he is being super productive.

Will the minivan reach the White House?

2008-09-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

I usually choose not to blog about politics, mostly because I don't want to offend anyone. But I can hold it no longer. I've been in a pretty angry mood this week and it's for one reason: Sarah Palin.

Yes, you've heard all the commentary and heard all the speeches. The debate swirling around her is centered on a number of issues- inexperience, gender, privacy of family. I had to really sort out what I disliked most about her. Was it the sarcastic one-liners, the parading of the baby around stage, the joke about the pit bull, the fact that she has no idea what a VP actually does? The feeling that I got as I watched her speak that I was in the middle of "Mean Girls- 20th Reunion"? That this woman could possibly be elected as second in command of our armed forces and nuclear arsenals when she just received her passport in 2006 and has visited just 4 countries? (I wonder if Canada was one of them.)

And I realized that I am a sexist. I dislike her because she is a woman. An underqualified woman that takes the feminist movement back 30 years. A woman that undermines everything that well-qualified, intelligent, educated women have fought so hard to achieve. That her inexperience and lack of knowledge about everything that one in her position should know make women in power out to be laughable. And that is a disgrace.

Women in this country have worked too hard to allow someone as inexperienced as Palin into the White House. To think that Hillary voters will be won over is offensive. I can barely believe that she had the audacity to reference Hillary, as if she had something in common with her besides X chromosomes. Hillary's battle was long and courageous, and those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling were a result of her tenacity and determination and not from being hand-picked by her party to be its personal cheerleader. But to have Palin come along and claim that she will be the one to shatter the ceiling when she possesses zilch of Hillary's education and experience makes me sad beyond belief.

And that's where we see how hard it is even today to be a woman in leadership. We put all of our political leaders under scrutiny. But if you are a minority or a woman, you still have to work twice as hard to get to the level of authority that white men have had in our country for over 200 years. If you are going to help run our country, show me that you know anything about the issues that matter- the economy, health care, the housing crisis, foreign policy. Being the closest state to Russia is a pathetic excuse for foreign policy experience. And being the governor of a small state that has requested nearly $750 million in special spending from Washington during her two years in office while keeping state taxes low for residents is an easy way to win popularity.

I believe that one of those 18 million cracks was for me, and I will keep working as hard as I can to shatter the ceiling in my own way. But thanks to Sarah Palin, women will need to work doubly hard all over again to prove that we can be chosen for positions of leadership because we are qualified, hard-working, educated people, and not just because we are women. Palin's candidacy is the result of foolish political strategy and the GOP's desparate attempt to reach evangelical and small-town voters. Thanks Karl Rove, but no thanks.

I refuse to vote for a candidate that is unqualified to run our country, even if she is a woman, a Christian, a mother, pro-life, or the president of the PTA. The thought that Palin could be next in line to the most powerful job in the world makes me scared beyond belief. Hope that sports journalism experience will come in handy when you're sitting down with Ahmadinejad.

I also can't believe that people at the RNC were wearing "My VP is a Hottie!" buttons. Who in the world decided that it would be a good idea to duplicate those? Who ARE these people?

Vote Obama.

The Multi-Something Church

2008-08-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, we visited a new church plant that has a vision of reaching downtown LA, an area which is notorious for the vast amount of urban poverty it houses on what is known as Skid Row. I've recently taken an interest in learning more about Skid Row after a variety of resources brought my attention to it- particularly, reports on NPR, my sociologist friend Naomi who studies urban poverty, Michael Moore's Sicko, and from reading The Soloist by LA Times columnist Steve Lopez. I was shocked that a city with as much glitz and glamor as LA could be so neglectful in its urban planning as to close mental hospitals and government run social programs, leaving thousands upon thousands of mentally unstable and sick homeless people on the streets. We were curious about what a "multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic" church in downtown LA would be like.

The experience left me with a lot of questions about the concept of a "multi-something" church. Especially as a result of going to Ethnos in SD, I love the idea of the multi-ethnic church, though there is of course the need for culture-specific churches also. Something about the thought of worshiping with other believers where you have little in common but your love for Jesus is really exciting to me. I really believe that God's heart is for all people groups, languages, and cultures, and if that's the case, I want to be part of a church that pursues this part of God's heart in a society where being in community with people different than yourself is completely unnatural. And, the call to be multi-socioeconomic is an important one too. Jesus' ministry obviously reached a wide variety of demographics- tax collectors, fishermen, lepers, prostitutes. I have far less experience on this one though.

I suppose the challenge of building diversity socioeconomically is even harder than building a church that is multi-ethnic. There are often some signs of ethnic diversity in neighborhoods of the same income level. But this doesn't change the fact that neighborhoods and physical communities are often built along socioeconomic lines. So how do we expect, say middle to upper class folks to be in spiritual community with people who might be classified as poor- people who don't have homes, cars, live off welfare or nothing at all, and spend their days looking for a decent place to sleep?

I like to think that I'm an open-minded person, that I hold few biases in my mind, and that I care about things social issues and urban poverty. But here's my confession: when I really think about it, this is the most unnatural concept for a middle-class American like myself. Being in spiritual community with others implies vulnerability and brokenness together, living life together, sharing in each other's struggles, loving each other, supporting each other. At least, that's what I want from being in a church community. I picture myself in this kind of setting, trying to understand the struggles of being a homeless person in downtown LA, being in community with them, being friends with them. I think it is safe to say that I have no idea what that's like. And I think I can also say that even though I say that I care, and I think I care, when I really think about it I'm not sure that I really care enough to let it invade my "safe zone." In fact, when I really think about it, I realize that I primarily go to church for selfish reasons- to meet God, yes, but also be fed and cared for and find people that I have things in common with. When I really think about it, I'm willing to care about the poor until it inconveniences me. I guess I want my Sunday mornings to be comfortable and not have to deal with the burden of poverty and homelessness every week. I want to meet people that I get along with, like to hang out in the same kinds of places I do, and have similar interests and goals. I came to this conclusion after a very unsettling feeling in my heart told me that somewhere in my supposedly liberal, compassionate, and open-minded thinking, there is hypocrisy.

Another thing left me with a funny feeling as we left the service. Comments from a few people we talked to casually- questions like, "Do you guys live in the lofts?" and "We need people like you at this church!" What were these comments based off of? There was very little small talk about what we did for a living or what we were doing in LA. Mostly I felt that many assumptions were made about our socioeconomic background based on our ethnicity and appearanace. Did Paul and I scream that we were a well-educated, middle-class Asian-American yuppie couple just by the way we look? Ok, fair enough. I made a half-joking comment to Paul on the way home- "We must look rich today or something." He pointed to a stain on his shirt and the fact that we were both wearing flip-flops and we laughed. But it was true. They made assumptions about us based on a combination of first impressions, whether it be race/ethnicity or the way we dressed, talked and carried ourselves. The assumptions were correct to some extent (although we don't live in the lofts downtown) yet seemed to go against the very spirit of the community. It made me feel that there was already a division in the church between those who obviously have and those who obviously do not. Because in reality, they don't need us at the church. We need the church. We need to be reminded that poverty is not something you can tuck away and not think about on Sunday mornings, or every other day for that matter. If you really do care, then you don't care if it makes you uncomfortable and inconvenienced. If I really believe that God's heart is for all peoples, I should want to see some of that shalom that Tim Keller always talks about on earth, right here, right now.

I wonder if it's really possible to create the kind of community that this church is envisioning. A place where yuppies who live in the new downtown lofts come to worship with people living on the streets. This church has great intentions and my purpose in writing this is not to knock their vision or the execution of that vision. I really believe their vision is a big part of God's heart. I shouldn't be looking for a church where I make friends easily and have a ton of things in common with the other people there. I should be looking for a place that helps me live out Jesus' teachings to their fullest. And while we're not certain that we're going to go to this particular church, I'm thankful that it forced me to think honestly about what goes on in my heart and the natural biases and fears that exist there.

Family Time

2008-08-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

It was great to hang out with my parents and brother this weekend. Moving a little bit north means that we are now only about 5 hours from my parents house, and 20 minutes from my brother. Danny got baptized at his church here in LA the day after his 20th birthday! There was a lot to celebrate. And in our family, that means food...

We discovered the awesomeness known as Monterey Park. Here, some of the delectable dishes that landed on our table. Prawns and walnuts, spicy jellyfish with asparagus, and the house special crab, which was seasoned with some sort of salty tasty goodness and fried. YUM.

Danny gets dunked in the pool at the Marriot! His church meets at the hotel and they used the swimming pool as the baptism place. It was pretty funny to see some tourists in the hot tub watching the whole thing. It was beautiful to see a full immersion-style baptism again. I feel like it communicates a lot more about the symbolism of baptism than just the sprinkling on the head. I was so proud of my brother for making this decision on his own.

Us with Danny after his dunking

This is generally my expression whenever I eat really good dim sum. I did a little dance after our meal and sang my "I love LA" song.

All you can eat Korean BBQ for dinner. The LA style is to wrap it with rice paper crepes, kind of like won-ton wrappers. SO good. My brother is a monster at these places and easily polishes off two platters of meat.

My parents sitting on the curb outside our place. A nice quality weekend together.

Just so

2008-08-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it took me about a week, but the last box is unpacked, the floor is mopped, the styrofoam particles are dustbusted, the pictures are up on the walls, the new furniture is assembled, and everything is in its right place.

I love putting things in their correct places and am a constant tidy-upper. So I thought unpacking all our stuff would be tons of fun. It wasn't that fun. We had to get creative in learning how to use a smaller space again. And with Paul working from home (out of our storage closet turned office- it sounds awful, but it's actually really cool), that took away lots of valuable space for other stuff that might have gone there. But we got creative and have used every nook and cranny and now we just can't accumulate anything else because there simply isn't room. And I think I kind of like it that way. Somehow, everything seemed to fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It felt like we were saying this over and over again- It fits just so. That was just so. This was just so. Everything was, and is, just so.

And so I realize that everything in my life has been just so. This experience has led to that realization has led to this action has led to this outcome. This closed door led to this emotional process which led to this rational thinking which led to that particular choice. And so on and so forth. Somehow we also feel that this little neck of the woods we've landed on in LA fits us just so right now and we are really loving it. To fit in and feel your way around in a new place means you take on some of that city's values and culture. And while some things still perplex me about LA (there seem to be about 9 different rush hours), other things seem to be full of excellence (i.e. Vancouver-trained dim sum chefs) and excitement (microbrewery down the street) and I realize how much I love the diversity and color (we're right in between Filipino town and Armenia town) that a big city breathes day in and day out. A part of me feels alive again, the way it did in New York, stimulated by all the people and places so different from myself and contrary to my comfort zone. I feel my perspective change when I see the lady with a cart rummaging through our recycle bin for cans, making me step out of my self-centeredness for a moment. I feel my senses burst with excitement at seeing a gorgeous LA sunset (they are really nice here for some reason- must be the smog), tasting Cantonese-style deep fried crab (we discovered Monterey Park this weekend when my parents were in town), or hearing my neighbor down the street killing it on his drum set. I like hearing the ice cream truck come around at about 4 o'clock every day playing some sort of messed up variation on the Forrest Gump theme. I'm amused that the weather lady on the local news screams cleavage and botox. As arbitrary as they are, these are the kinds of things that make a city what it is and I'm soaking it all in. There was a sermon by Tim Keller that I heard awhile back that convinced me wholeheartedly that Christians should live in the heart of their city, love the city, pray for their city, and be the best civic participants of their city. I'm hoping that no matter where life leads I'll have the chance to do that and never forget how much God's heart breaks for the lady with the cart, the ice cream man, the weather lady, and the neighbor playing the drums. And so it starts here, in a neighborhood called Silver Lake in the heart of Los Angeles.

Pictures to come of this weekend when my parents were in town for my brother's baptism...it was full of, well you guessed it, lots and lots of tasty food.

Possessions

2008-07-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

The room that used to look like this:

Now looks like this:

As much as I hate moving, I am trying to find a little bit of fun in this process. I like the challenge of seeing if we'll actually make it out of our apartment. It often feels like there is no end in sight. I pack a box and feel completely done with one area only to find a whole other cupboard or drawer with more of the same stuff. But it's fun to see if I can conquer a whole area with my boxes, packing paper, and tape. I also feel very satisfied by labeling a box with my massive sharpie, sealing up a box really tightly, or finding one more thing to add to the donation pile. There's also the challenge of getting my husband to let go of some of our stuff. This can be pretty fun if I win. Paul being a packrat and slightly sentimental about inanimate objects, we have this conversation just about every night:

"Can I donate this?"
"But that's useful."
"When was the last time you used it?"
"Well I think it could be useful."
"If you haven't used it in the past year, you're not ever going to need it."
"But it looks useful."
"But we don't need it!"
"But it could be useful."
"JUST PUT IT IN THE PILE!!! GAH!!!!!"
"Oh, alright."
"YES!"

I usually win. It must be my superior argumentation skills.

Celebration Weekend

2008-07-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

This was our last weekend in San Diego. I was in a great mood on Friday because I finally got my car back from the dealer with a new hybrid battery installed, covered under warranty! So that's why our mileage has been sucking- the hybrid battery has been dead since the engine light went on about 3 months ago. And it's taken me this long to get it fixed. The auto technician said it was actually not very safe to drive. Whoops. We made at least 3 trips up to LA in the poor thing.

I was mostly just happy because the service on the car was free. So I went to my favorite supermarket (Henry's) and bought a bunch of groceries since it will probably be my last run there- oogling over the fresh produce, I came home with a plethora of white flesh peaches and nectarines, blueberries, mangoes, sweet white corn, and my favorite- brussel sprouts! Yeah, they get a bad rap, but sauteed with some garlic, salt, and olive oil, they are delicious. Or, even better- we've found that brussel sprouts on the grill are amazing! Fresh and cheap produce is definitely the best thing about California.

I also got a porterhouse, some amazingly large scallops, and some yummy cheeses. So I decided it was Celebration Weekend. To celebrate our year in San Diego, which was filled with some particular themes when I look back: Personal growth. Community with married couples for the first time. Waiting on God. Companionship.

Well, the grill was out of gas and we didn't want to refill it before moving, lest the Uhaul blow up. But we did manage to have a tasty dinner anyway, with the help of the broiler, a small bottle of champagne, and some pate that I brought from France. (We're trying to eat as much as we can from our cupboards.)

Yesterday we used a gift certificate that Paul's sister gave us for Christmas. She thoughtfully researched a kayak rental company and got us a tandem tour for whale watching. Since there are not whales in the summer, and I hate whales anyway (been seasick every time I've gone- and yes, I know it's not their fault, but I can't help the bad association) we exchanged it for a tour through the La Jolla caves. It was a ton of fun! It was a gorgeous day (as usual) and the water was giving off a particularly beautiful greenish-blue hue. I guess Paul was doing most of the paddling though, because he was sore this morning and I wasn't. Or maybe I'm more fit than he is!

San Diego has been good to us. Paul says that he thinks it's been the best year of his life. I can't disagree. I look back and I think of many happy times. Just a sweet kind of happiness from enjoying having a life together as a couple. I think of my old restlessness being replaced by a deeper contentment with life in general. It was just what we needed as a sort of "gap year" to detox from the stress and busyness of New York. I would have been a different person if I had moved from NY to LA directly. I can't really say how, but I do know that I've learned to relax and just be for the first time. That's a hard thing for me to do, but there really could have been no better place to do it. And now begins a new chapter.

Wow, technology

2008-07-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

So I'm always a little bit behind the times. I just put myself on YouTube for the first time. I feel pretty cool for doing so. Check out the two videos of my guitar quartet here! My hair is really short in these.

Another thing I got hooked on recently: Pandora, a free music streaming service similar to radio, but you can customize it. One of my students introduced me to it. He was shocked that I had never heard of it.

Hope you enjoy these- they are from our March concert at Mira Costa College. The first one is this set of Brazilian pieces by Celso Machado in which the audience insisted on clapping between every single one, even though some of them are like 30 seconds long. The second is an arrangement of Bach's Brandenburg No.3, Allegro for 4 guitars. Definitely one of the greatest things about our year here in SD was getting to know and play with these guys. We are going to continue together, but I'm sad that I won't be a real San Diegan anymore since we did name ourselves the San Diego Guitar Quartet and I'll feel like a poser. One week in SD left. It feels weird.

THE CD IS OUT!

2008-07-14T22:12:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go. I had an awesome weekend in the Bay Area and a great turnout at two CD release concerts, and finally it is available for purchase online!

Click here to sample the CD and order your copy. Or 2. Or 3. Well, you can buy up to 10 at a time. Who's to say when you might need some extras?

It was amazing to see my whole family pitching in to make this thing happen- my parents organizing the reception, greeting people, printing programs for me, taking millions of pictures, coming back to sneak me a hug during intermission; the five of us praying together through tears before the concert started and feeling God work through us as a family. My siblings being there with their amazing skills and putting their time and energy into making beautiful music together. I'm overwhelmed with how supportive and enthusiastic my family has been, and I know that they are the only reason this has all come to fruition. And of course, my dear husband manning the donation table and charming people into buying more CDs!

The high point of my weekend may have been my dad saying to me in a very serious tone of voice, "Connie, you need a manager." Well, shoot. I'll take that over, "Connie, you should go to law school" any day. Finally, they get it!

Thanks so much to all the friends who have already been pouring out their support to me. It really means so much. My cup overflows.

Perfection in our new neighborhood

2008-07-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

I have found the world's most perfect chocolate chip cookie.

And it exists...in Los Angeles. (I'm not the only one who is cookie obsessed- just check out the most emailed article on the NY Times today.)

Last weekend, Paul and I were in LA looking for apts. We saw 11 apts between Friday and Saturday morning, having to go back each night because we had plans in San Diego in the evenings. This was a pretty tiring two days, but we had a system pat down...I would drive the northbound trip while Paul used his laptop to continue looking up listings through the magic universal internet service they installed on his computer (can't remember what that's called) and made phone calls to set up appointments. Once we got there, I would navigate us with the GPS on my Blackberry from appointment to appointment, and Paul would drive since he's better at parallel parking than I am. :)

Well, on Friday around noon, we were in between appointments and decided to stop for a very quick lunch. We debated driving to the Valley for dim sum, but decided there was not enough time if we wanted to get a couple more appointments in. So I said, "Let's just go to the nearest coffee shop and get a sandwich or something."

Enter Lamill.

We drove from our last appointment about a quarter mile up Silver Lake Blvd., and spot a coffee shop on the right. It looks crowded inside, so we figure it's gotta be decent. Everybody inside is beautiful. Some are in groups looking Hollywood trendy, some are reading books by themselves, one older man sits outside with a notepad scribbling a thought every now and then. We had Aiko with us so we opted for an outdoor table on the sidewalk patio where she proceeds to bark at the giant golden labrador on our left (she hates blondes).

A lady comes out and greets us and asks if we've been here. No, we say, our little silver table cluttered with crumpled up craigslist postings and Paul's laptop. We're sweaty and thirsty from being in the hot car and all the driving. The server proceeds to hand us menus and says, "Our menu was designed by Michelin starred restaurant owner/chef Michael Cimarusi."

I look up from my menu. What? Someone with a Michelin star restaurant designed the sandwiches on the menu at this coffee shop? I just wanted a quick bite. Turkey and provolone would have been fine. I wasn't ready for this. But- okay.

So, we order. I get The Farcell, a hand-crafted panini with coffee-washed Spanish cow's milk cheese, chorizo, and piquillo peppers. It is fantastic. Oozing with flavor with every bite, perfectly pressed, the spice of the chorizo and peppers adding an extra kick. Paul gets the Jambon au Buerre on a French baguette, the best bread I've tasted west of the Mississippi. Each of our sandwiches comes with hand cut Yukon gold potato chips, a little tray of Kalamata and green olives, and some preserved cippolinis (small, sweet perfect little onions).

The flavors all blend together magnificently and we down a couple iced teas and coffees with our meals.

We forgo the dessert menu on an attempt to save a little money, and I opt to go to the counter to get a chocolate chip cookie for dessert. Perfectly crisp on the outside with a little bit of crunch, giving way to the chewy center oozing with Valrhona chocolate. I like my cookies a little bit salty, and this one is perfectly seasoned, bringing out the decadence of the chocolate even more. With the chocolate melting under the hot LA sun, I manage to speak only a few words before getting my fingers and my purse covered with a little bit of the chocolatey goodness. My purse is white canvas and now has a small stain on the back, but I don't care. A small sacrifice to pay for bliss. I manage to mutter something like, "THIS...IS...AMA-ZING!"

We love this neighborhood already. The past few days have been a waiting game on the apartment front...waiting for a landlord to get back to us about an apt that we put an application down on, waiting for a prospective renter to get back to us about whether they would take over our current lease. We waited and prayed. And God answered. We didn't get the unit we put down an application for- they wanted to rent it out to a single person instead. But we were apparently at the top of their list (we can't believe this- our credit is not really that amazing) and they just got word that a bigger 1 BR will be available two units down that comes with a parking spot and about 250 more square feet. The original unit we applied for was small (about 550-600 square feet) and had no parking, but we figured it was worth it since it was a great location, newly renovated inside, and was priced super low. But this one is an even better fit for us! The landlord called today and said he'd like to rent it to us. And the renter called last night and said they would take our apartment in SD over! On both sides we still need to do the paperwork- but I am pretty hopeful and excited that everything is going to work out. According to Google maps, the apt is 11 minutes (without traffic) to USC's campus and 11 minutes to the train station where Paul will need to go twice a week. 11.11. Hmm, I've seen those numbers before. How auspicious.

Finally the stars (and cookies) are aligning. Relocation is stressful. But not when you have a God that answers prayer and always knows what you need.

Unabashed Self-Promotion

2008-07-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

I may have picked the wrong field to be in, or maybe this applies to careers across the board. I have a huge problem with feeling bold enough to promote my career, concerts, and playing. Even if the quality of my work ever warrants a huge audience or a fan-following, something about marketing myself makes me cringe and want to crawl into a hole and hide.

I think this may have a lot to do with my upbringing. I remember when I was little and there was this one kid in our cello class who was known as the show-off kid. As a little boy, he was unafraid to play the hardest piece he was working on at any spare moment and try to beat everyone else working through the Suzuki books. We used to talk about him at home as the kid who showed off. I was young at the time, but I remember thinking that I never wanted to be that kid because we all agreed he was a show-off, and I figured that it was probably bad to do so. I didn't want to be talked about in someone else's house as the kid who showed off. So in my 5-year old mind, the logic went like this: show-off=bad. Quiet and nice=good.

I suppose that Asian values have a big role in this. I always felt like I was encouraged to succeed in whatever I did, but that this should never be flaunted. My parents never told me this in exact words. But somehow I picked these values up. I would overhear conversations where compliments were spurned and higher praise was always given to the other person's kid. I never wanted unnecessary public attention. I was shy. I just wanted to fit in and be polite and nice and well-liked and not get in trouble.

And then I entered the guitar world, which is dominated by male machismo (albeit the meticulously filed long right-hand fingernails) and boys in death metal T-shirts showing off how fast they can play their scales or any number of famous pieces. Usually, I was naturally set apart just because I was a girl. I never felt the need to join in showing off how fast I could play this or that because somehow I found a niche as the girl who could hang with the boys and even beat 'em, but in a graceful way. (At least that's probably how I like to think of myself.) But this continued to reinforce in me that I should still be a hard worker and good at what I do, but I never felt comfortable demonstrating this to others unless I was poked and prodded to do so.

Well, I'm not as shy as I was when I was 5 or 6, but I realize that I still have deep-seated issues with the notion of public attention. The whole idea of putting out a CD with multiple pictures of myself on it, asking people to buy it, and publicizing a release concert brings out a whole slew of insecurities from under my skin. Maybe that's why this project has taken so long. What if people think it's lame? What if the concert sucks and nobody buys the CD? What if people are just tired of me going, "Buy my CD! Me, me, me! Come see me play! Look at me, everyone! Oh, wonderful me!" My innate crawl into-nearest-hole instincts come raging back like a flood.

Yes, I'm being a little facetious here, and I know (or hope) that people don't really think that way. There's a tricky balance between false humility, true humility, sharing your talents, and ostentatiousness. I want to stand in a good place on that spectrum. I really just want God to be glorified through all of this. It's just hard to know how to do that and it takes courage that I don't have by myself. Lord, help me to do that.

That being said, if you live in the Bay Area, here are the details:

Saturday, July 12, 7:30pm
San Jose Canaan Christian Church
1228 Redmond Ave.
San Jose, CA 95120

Join Connie Sheu, classical guitarist, at a CD Release concert
with special guests
La Verne Chen and Danny Sheu

Featuring music of Villa-Lobos,
Torroba, Barrios-Mangore, Chopin, Piazzolla, Rodrigo,
and traditional hymns.

Free admission.
Connie’s debut album, Waking or Sleeping, will be available for purchase!

Los Angeles: the final frontier

2008-06-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

The summer has only just begun, but it feels like it is going to fly by so quickly I won't know what hit me. And the closer we get to July and August, the closer we get to our next big move two hours north to the great city of smog, also known as LA. Now, being from Northern California I must have some elitest complex of never wanting to live in LA and hating it since the day I was born. I realize now that I'm moving there that I really don't know the city very well and have probably written it off to easily. But as we get ready to find our 4th apartment in ours less than two years of marriage and say goodbye to our newly developed connections in San Diego, I feel pangs of sadness already even though we've only lived in San Diego for about a year. I have to say that life is just so nice here, that SD is a place that we have grown to love in a very dear way even if we can't find decent dim sum in this town. Mostly it's a sentimental attachment- the first new place that we settled in together as a couple, the first place we learned how to live like married people working normal hours, the first place we found a church together and built our community through it, this new adventure of a place that made Paul walk around for months going, "I can't believe we get to LIVE here!" (He's from New Jersey.)

While doing my daily search on craigslist for LA apts, I suddenly got very discouraged by the higher prices, ugly streets, and thinking about the thick layer of smog over the horizon and the traffic that plagues the city at a time when I definitely want to be driving less, not more. My stomach churns at the new uncertainties that are going to come our way. New friends, new school, new church, new places, new neighborhood. Change is hard on me sometimes. I get all worked up over all the things that are out of my control. But everytime we sigh in resignation at the thought of moving to LA, I just read this fantastic list from LA Magazine that Paul found called "The 64 Greatest Things about LA." I guess they couldn't come up with 65?

Well, my favorite is this one:

Dim Sum in the S.G. Valley
Here it's not just cuisine; it's a competitive sport. The area's huge number of immigrants from the dumpling capitals of Hong Kong and Taiwan put the heat on chefs to devise the next new thing while producing fully realized versions of the classics. From hot spots like Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park to old-school favorites like Rosemead's 888 Seafood Restaurant, wherever you go, expect long waits, noisy rooms, and bliss delivered on a rolling cart.

Good dim sum covers a multitude of sins. I shudder in excitement and a sigh of relief comes over me.

Mediocrity

2008-06-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. Maybe it's the hot weather, being sore from body boarding this weekend, or because it's Monday. When my alarm went off at 6:45am, I snoozed it until about 8:15am. I know why this is. Besides the fact that I was having a really good dream about crispy spring rolls wrapped in lettuce and dunked in fish sauce, I know subconsciously that when I get up today and start my day, there will be no one setting a deadline on me, no one telling me to sit down and practice, no co-worker or boss to check up on me. I just have to work on stuff because I have to. Mondays I have no students to break up the day, so it's just me. And Aiko. But mainly just me.

Somehow the heat is the greatest reminder to me of the work I need to do also known as practicing. This is mostly because the dry, hot Southern Californian heat reminds me of my summer in Italy in 2005, which I still hold on a pedestal in my memory as one of the best summers of my life. That was the summer I attended a guitar course in Siena and spent my days sitting in hot, sweaty master classes and practicing in the sweltering heat (somehow, AC never caught on in Italy), pushing and pushing myself to master my scales, fingerings, pieces, and interpretations. I was motivated mostly by being around so many phenomenal guitarists, but also by a certain drive that came upon me by being so inspired by that environment. It could have been the Chianti, the pasta, the rolling hills of Tuscany, or the simple love of the guitar that came over me. Whatever it was, I crave that feeling of having an unquenchable drive for excellence. I crave the desire to push myself beyond limits. I crave the desire to work harder and longer despite sweating all over my guitar and having my fingers turn black and blistered from practicing.

Lately, everything feels "good enough." Everything seems like it's passable or alright, or ok. In fact, I can't help but think that this is also a part of being in Southern California that has rubbed off on me. I saw a mural on an elementary school near Pacific Beach painted in big bubble letters that said, "Just take life easy." This was not so surprising considering that the school was less than half a mile from the beach. But still, it made me stop and think. That's what we're teaching children here? Just take it easy? It wasn't, "The sky's the limit!" or "The world is your oyster! Go for it!" Sure, there is truth to not taking life too seriously. But a little motivation would be nice.

In the end, I know I can't blame anything on my surroundings or my environment. Work is a part of the curse that resulted in the fall of man. It's supposed to be hard. Our flesh opposes it. I believe this because I feel it in my physical body every day. I know that my flesh is by nature lazy and undisciplined. But there is something about working when it is dramatically uncomfortable to do so, when everything in your flesh tells you that you want to do otherwise, that ends up producing such enduring fruit. Thinking about the apostle Paul overwhelms me- that he approached his work with such vigor, working to further the gospel and running the race, pressing on, despite all of the physical ailments and challenges that came his way. Surely I can spend a few uninterrupted hours with my guitar if Paul could carry Jesus' story across a continent after being shipwrecked, beaten, tortured, and sick?

Cutting it pretty close...

2008-06-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

And by the skin of my teeth, my first album is off to duplication! The past few weeks have been many days and nights of editing, listening, and proofreading until I felt like my eyes and ears were both going to fall off. Never had I really imagined how much work putting together an album is as an independent artist without a label to do all the legwork for you- from the music selection to the graphic design, producing and editing, coming up with an album concept, duplication, distribution, song licensing; it has been a real life crash course in the plight that musicians have to go through to get their music out to the public. It's also been a struggle for me in my work habits, too. I've experienced both feelings of resignation and perfectionism throughout the process, which was as frustrating as it was illuminating. Knowing how much work goes into album production, I now shudder at the thought of ever ripping an album from someone else (remember napster back in the day?) and vow to always pay full price for every piece of media I will ever own again, knowing that the artist makes pennies compared to how much work was put into it!

I've had some amazing help along the way and I'm so grateful to have had the means to do this. It looks like the CD's will be arriving just before the release concert in San Jose on July 12. I was worried that it would be a close one because of some recent delays. But I just spoke to the duplication company today and hopefully I will be getting the shipment (how many boxes does 1000 CD's come in?) on July 9th or so. Wow, that's close, considering the fact that I began fundraising for this project over three years ago.

Stay tuned for more info on how to buy many, many copies so you can help bail me out of the poorhouse! It will be available for purchase through www.conniesheu.com, www.cdbaby.com, and www.digistation.com- but the way to help the artist the most is by buying it directly from her or on her website! So, get ready for more shameless promotion in the next few weeks. :)

Oh, New York!

2008-06-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

I hereby declare that my great love affair with New York City will never end. Every time we go back I am all smiles, scheduling meals with old friends, making sure we hit all our old haunts, and reveling in the sights and sounds of the city. What makes visiting NYC so much fun is that everyone wants to see us while we're in town and we spent our whole time hanging out in cool spots and catching up with amazing friends. This was not how regular life necessarily was while we lived there. But it makes moving away a little more bearable. Here's my detailed chronicle of our latest adventure. Be warned- this post is very, very long.

Saturday, May 31

After spending the night at my friend Anna's place (who is now engaged and on youtube!), she and Mitch drop me off at Living Hope for the wedding on Saturday morning. Congrats to Dave and Sheila, a classy couple who threw one heck of a party. We doubted that people would be out on the dance floor at 3pm, but these Harvard kids sure know how to party (the open bar probably didn't hurt). Paul led worship at the wedding, and he was glad to be reunited with his old band. Above are John, John, and Rana causing trouble at our table.

Well, the wedding was such a good party that at 6pm (it was an 11am wedding) the music was still pumping! But we had tickets to the Mets/Dodgers game, so what to do? We piled in John's car and booked it to Shea Stadium...and got there in time to see the Mets beat the Dodgers 3-2. We literally saw one batter go up and the game was over. But hey, parking was free. Should I be rooting for LA now? I'm not sure if I can undo 7 years of brainwashing to love the Mets. But the Dodgers have Brooklyn roots, so I guess we'll consider it.

No visit to Flushing is complete without some tasty Asian food. So we decided to take a break from the sticky, humid day and make a pit stop at You-Chun on Northern Blvd. for some naeng-myun, a Korean cold buckwheat noodle soup in beef broth which is always a perfect treat for a hot summer day. Add some mustard and vinegar to taste and bulgogi on the side, and we were happy as clams. We got dropped off at our temporary home at Paul's sister Suzi's apartment in Brooklyn after a long day and topped our evening off at Stonehome Wine Bar, a neighborhood joint in Fort Greene where Paul and I tasted two flights of wine and indulged in three delicious cheeses and a plate of charcuterie.

Sunday, June 1

We started the morning off at church with our friend Oscar, who attends a new church plant on the Upper West Side called Grace. It was a super cool service, with a straightforward and culturally relevant message, an amazing funk-influenced worship band, and friendly people. They meet in a black box theater on top of a storefront space on 72nd street. After church, we had lunch and then Paul and I headed over to my recording engineer's studio to do a final listen through of my album. And, it's done! I'm very pleased with how everything turned out and walked away with my official master CD. Hopefully in a few weeks it will be duplicated and ready to sell.

We had some time before dinner to enjoy a stroll through Central Park after picking up some goodies from Savoy Bakery on the Upper East Side. They are an amazing Chinese-owned bakery with all the classic Chinese bakery goods- pork buns, egg custards and lots of fluffy cakes along with lots of croissants and a pretty tasty pain au chocolat. Wow.

Dinner couldn't be more enjoyable. Food is an expression of love in both our families, and when we lived in NY we were routinely spoiled by the scrumptious home cooking of Paul's mom, grandma, and aunt. That evening they drove all the way over to Suzi's place from Jersey for a feast of Korean BBQ (his grandmother has some secret recipe for making the kalbi amazingly tender and perfectly sweet) and some other homemade treats. We also celebrated Suzi's birthday a few days early. She's turning 1 in this picture.

Monday, June 2

We spent the night at my mother-in-law's place and had the chance to see one of Paul's aunts in the hospital, where she is being treated for leukemia. It was a somber visit and I don't know if she was fully aware of our presence. While we are not particularly close with her, it was heartbreaking to see her in that condition and to see the pain that her Paul's uncle is going through. It was a very brief visit and after some more time with Paul's mom, we took the bus back into the city.

We visited one of our college hot spots, Taqueria y Fonda, for our favorite thing on their menu- the chicken quesadilla. This is not your average quesadilla. Flavorful grilled chicken is trapped in a handmade flour tortilla and topped with romaine lettuce, freshly made sour cream and quesa fresca. We still haven't found anything quite like it in SD. I often daydream about their tortilla chips- greasy, crispy and always fresh out of the fryer.

Then a stopover at my friend Julie's apt on the UWS to see her and her baby Anna. Anna is now crawling and she is absolutely adorable. Just one look in those big blue-gray eyes and she gives you a huge smile that would undoubtedly melt even the coldest of hearts. I could spend hours oogling over her. I like the way she's eyeing me in the picture above. Seeing Julie as a mommy is pretty amazing. She's my closest friend from Juilliard and we went through school, graduating, getting married all at the same time- except now she's leapfrogged me into another lifestage! Anna has her sweet disposition and is a pretty happy, smiley little girl.

After an overpriced pitcher of sangria with Josh and Miriam at The Yard at the Soho Grand (the very hotel where we spent our wedding night!), we headed over to meet Dan, Naomi, and Maureen for dinner at Aurora, one of my favorite Italian restaurants in the city. They are a Brooklyn joint that now has a Soho location, and it surely did not disappoint. My papardelle with wild boar ragu had me pining for Tuscany and left enough savory goodness in my mouth to last me a few more months in California. For dessert, a panna cotta with roasted blueberries, a chocolate ganache with fior di latte gelato, and a flourless chocolate cake with hazelnut gelato. Ahhhh....

As if this weren't enough activity, we had scheduled after-dinner drinks with Paul's two best buddies from high school, Woojin and Seung-joo at the Brandy Library, which has got to be one of the coolest places in the city. Completely unassuming from the outside, walking in is like a different world- there are bottles of aged cognac, scotch, whiskey, various other spirits on the shelves that are arranged in the fashion of well, a library. The furniture is dark and polished and has the feel of an old Ivy League study room. There was even a live pianist playing Joplin. The bottles seemed to be alphabetized according to some sort of Dewey decimal system for liquor. I'm not huge on the hard stuff, but the boys seemed to have a good time and we all shared a bunch of different tasting flights while catching up and celebrating Woojin's recent engagement. We got home exhausted at about 2am and decided to sleep in the next morning.

Tuesday, June 3

After getting up at 10:30am, there was only one thought on our minds...DIM SUM! We hop on the subway to Chinatown and land at Golden Unicorn, a restaurant where we had spent many a Saturday morning at before. The best thing about getting dim sum on a weekday is that there is nobody there! Wow, what a discovery. We had all the carts to ourselves and I didn't hold back from ordering most of my favorites, which was probably enough for 4 people. Stuffed, we make our way back to Brooklyn and realize that there is only one thing left on the food list that lies unaccomplished. A slice of New York pizza! Pizza being Paul's favorite food, we don't know how we let this one slide. The line at Not Ray's Pizza on Fulton St. was a little on the long side, and by the time we finished a gooey fresh mozzarella slice we're a little behind schedule for our trip to the airport. Uh-oh. Here's where the fun begins.

Well, we managed to find ourselves arriving at the airport for a 3:25pm flight at about 3:01pm. I am panicking all the way. I usually like to get to the airport about 1 hour and 15 minutes before my flight, and we narrowly miss an earlier train to the airport and the Airtrain takes forever as well. Paul is an expert at nearly missing and definitely missing more than a few flights in his time. He has clearly done this before, and as I'm worrying over how in the world we are going to get home and who I have to call to reschedule things, he sweet talks his way to the front of the first class/business class check-in line after the self check-in computer tells us that it is too late to check in for our flight. Somehow he convinces the agent to not only check us in (even though we're in economy), but to call the gate and tell them that we are on our way to what has got to be the furthest gate from that check-in counter in all of JFK. She tells us that we might not make it since the gate is really far, and we start sprinting towards the security line. We squeeze our way to the front, apologizing to everyone and explaining we are "really, really late" while taking out a laptop, toiletries, shoes and throwing everything back in/on, and continue the sprint up and down escalators, running past the moving walkways and large groups of tourists, losing my shoe a few times, all the while with our luggage in tow. I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack by the time we arrive at Gate 41, and an agent is looking around for the two crazy, sweaty people who are making this flight wait for us. I wave frantically at her as about 4 different people move out of the way as if they are going to be run over by a pick-up truck. We somehow stow our huge garment bags on board, and the flight attendants are courteous and helpful as if nothing has happened. Wiping our faces and fanning ourselves, we land exhausted in our seats and burst into uncontrollable laughter. To top it off, Paul drops his cell phone under the seat and we cause another raucous getting two different rows of people to stand up and look for it. What troublemakers we are! I always roll my eyes at the people who get on the plane at the last minute while everyone else is seated. And I couldn't believe that I was now one of them!

The pilot announces that "the weather in America's finest city is a comfortable 65 degrees," and 5 1/2 hours later, we arrive at the San Diego Airport in classic Chun style. Seth and Courtney pick us up and take us for a tasty meal at In n' Out. I woke up this morning very, very sore...from sprinting through JFK like a madwoman.

And all for a slice of pizza.

Spontaneous Travels

2008-05-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

Spending a week in France last week was one of the most spontaneous things I've ever done. Four days before, I stepped in for my brother-in-law at the last minute who couldn't make his scheduled trip with my sister due to work. And yes, canceling all of my important work obligations (ha!) was a big sacrifice, but of course, my loyalty as a sister comes first. This trip was really one of a lifetime. We stayed at a 13th century chateau (in the first photo) in the Champagne region about an hour outside of Paris. The French really do have an impeccable eye for the beautiful. My senses were overwhelmed the whole time experiencing Paris and the gorgeous countryside. Oh, to be French. I don't know how they do it. They eat such rich, buttery food and they look so darn good. Now I am back home and dying without my daily dose of chocolate croissants and contemplating a diet. All I can say is thank you, Jack for the gift of spontaneity!

I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Wildflower Heaven

2008-04-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

Today I'm loving life. For no particular reason. I'm just happy. It's amazing what beauty surrounds me within a five-minute walk of our apartment.

And while I doubt all of them are actually wild, they sure do make me love spring, even though it's been the same weather (sunny and mild) since February.

The Soloist on NPR

2008-04-23T10:13:00.001-07:00

I've become somewhat of an NPR junkie. Yesterday on Fresh Air, the most amazing story was featured. I was so touched by it that I sat in my car and listened for half an hour.

It was an interview with an LA Times journalist name Steve Lopez who befriended a street musician in downtown Los Angeles. It turns out that this man, Nathaniel Ayers, was once a student at Juilliard, and battled schizophrenia for a number of years and was homeless, living on Skid Row in downtown LA. Lopez saw his talent when he spotted him playing a two-string violin and decided to see if there was a way he could help the man. After writing a few columns about him in the LA Times, people started hearing about his story and donating instruments for Lopez to give to the man. Through playing music again (violin and cello), Ayers slowly decided to get help and reengage with the world. Lopez helped him in several other ways- finding him an apartment, getting him psychiatric help, and introducing him to musicians from the LA Philharmonic. Ayers is now taking lessons with musicians from the Philharmonic, and has goals to become a music therapist.

I'm not doing the story justice- you've got to listen to it for yourself on the NPR website here. The interview was featuring Lopez's book which came out yesterday entitled The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Power of Music. And, there's a movie in the making- starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx! I don't know how to feel about that- but I like the fact that his story is being told. I know that it's shown me how much I've taken my mental health and musical training for granted.

Ode to the Veggies

2008-04-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

It's day 21 of me and Paul's experiment with vegetarianism. It's actually a meat fast, the details of which I won't get into here. But basically, we gave up meat for 40 days and I thought I would evaluate how it's gone.

The first week I was loving it, feeling healthy, in love with the fresh California produce that I rummage through at farmer's markets, thinking this thing will open a whole new repertoire in my cooking that would have easily been neglected had we stuck to our normal diet. We eat quite a bit of meat on a normal basis, I've realized, especially since we got a Costco membership and a grill. Here's a sampling of what we might typically have on a daily basis for dinner.

-Pasta (usually the papardelle from TJ's) with my homemade bolognese sauce (which I would argue is the best in San Diego, a statement that is meant to tell you less about the quality of my cooking than the quality of the Italian food around here)
-Chinese style stir-fry usually at least once a week. Paul's favorite is beef, tofu, and tomato or mabu tofu, usually with bok choy or spinach on the side
-Fish (usually salmon, tilapia, or cod), with a side of garlicy roasted potatoes and mesclun salad mix
-Roasted chicken- I love to stuff it with some gooey truffle cheese and rub olive oil, salt and pepper all over it.
-Pork chop or tenderloin usually in a red-wine reduction, or steak on the grill (I think we usually have one of these every week)

Well, that's a rough sampling. Here's a couple things we've tried instead:

-Pasta (not with the bolognese). I tried my hand at a tomato and pureed chickpea sauce, with some organic arugula from the farmer's market thrown in. Something about that one didn't agree with my tummy.
-Eggplant parmesan. I found a great recipe in my Mario Batali cookbook that didn't require breading and frying the eggplant. It still took about two hours to prepare, but it came out quite tasty in my opinion and I was pretty proud of myself. Little did I know that Paul doesn't even like eggplant. I think it was the first thing I've ever cooked for him that he didn't really eat. And that hurt! Well, I didn't know he only liked it breaded, greasy and on top of pasta. I think eggplant is underrated.
-Sesame noodles. I don't really think these are an authentic Chinese dish. But you can't go wrong with peanut butter, sesame oil, and lots of scallions.
-Kimchee stew. This is the first time I cooked Korean food on my own. Granted, it was missing one of the essential ingredients- spam! I substituted some tofu and enoki mushrooms instead. It was actually pretty tasty.
-Risotto with five kinds of mushrooms (porcini, shitake, crimini, portabello, oyster). I'm a mushroom freak so I LOVED this one, but Paul wasn't that into it.
-Pizza- we usually make it ourselves with the trusty TJ pizza dough and some buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, scallions, and basil

(above: our tasty signature pizza; brussel sprouts sauteed with shallots and olive oil; tofu, asparagus, and red pepper stir-fry; mini-heirloom tomato salad with lentils and avocados in balsamic vinegarette; potato, portabello, and artichoke casserole)

All in all, I think we've been keeping our meals pretty tasty despite the absence of meat. Eating out is a challenge, especially since eating at some of our favorite restaurants presents a serious temptation. Two from this weekend were tough- had to forgo the amazing burgers at the Stone Brewery in Escondido, and our favorite brunch spot, Americana in Del Mar, was a toughie- I love the eggs benedict (with prosciutto.....argh!). God is better than meat. 19 days to go.

On Practicing...and quitting

2008-04-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music by Glenn Kurtz. It's a memoir about a guy who has a dream to become an internationally renowned, world-touring classical guitarist. He goes to the New England Conservatory, graduates, and eventually quits the guitar, crushed that his dream of being at the top doesn't come true. Eventually, he goes on to pursue a Ph.D in literature at Stanford and ends up as a professor teaching lit to art students. And he also comes back to the guitar after 10 years of not playing and finally finds peace with it. Practicing eventually becomes more than a means to an end. It becomes a freeing form of self-expression that he does out of passion for the music itself rather than a pathway to greatness.

I was wary of the book at first- would this book make me want to quit, faced with the reality that there really is not room for another Segovia in 2008? But so much of it resonated with me and made me feel more positive about things. His honesty really struck me, as evidenced in this passage:

"Practicing can be a dream world in which you escape the reality of time. You believe that you have everything to do over again, that you have all the time in the world to achieve perfection. And every day we must practice. There is no other way to improve. Still, practicing, by itself, cheats you of half your life. Even if you are your only audience, music lives fully only in performance. Performance brings all the strands together, for a moment, joining the many conflicting voices with which music speaks- the joy, the frustration and anger, the loneliness, regret, and sudden elation. But unlike practice, every performance has an end. And without an end, music is just a fantasy. Now, returning to music, I hear how these tones equal my experience. Ringing and dying; my dream and its loss- together these define the boundaries of my ability, the high and the low, the edges I will always push against. Together they describe what music is for me, what "music" is, the full measure of my love."

I found this to be so true. The relationship between practicing and performing seems pretty straight-forward. Practicing is a means to an end, the end being the performance. Performance makes everything come out in the music that most of the time is not possible while you're practicing. Often times, an interpretation can spontaneously change in a performance because of the energy of that moment, the communication with the audience, and the intensity of the focus required to be fully involved in that piece of music. It can become more profound, beautiful, and revealing than you ever thought possible. Or, it can go completely awry and a memory slip can come up on something that you've played and known for years simply because you let self-doubt and fear control your playing for that moment. I've had both happen to me and I know that performing is not at all possible without many, many hours spent practicing. But is there a way to practice that conjures the essence of performing, so that half of my life is not spent preparing for something that ends right after the concert's over?

My personal struggle with practicing is about making something that I love into a form of work. Since music always came so naturally to me, I used to be able to fool my teachers into thinking I'd worked hard all week when really I practiced the day before my lesson and half an hour before my lesson. When I got to college, this was no longer possible and I knew that there came a point in my life where I had to start to work. Like, really work. I'm not a lazy person, really. I worked very hard at the things that I thought I was supposed to work hard at, like school. I was a great student in school. But I still find that I am a very bad music student. And now that I am a teacher too, I can see right through the ones who do as I used to do and practice right before their lesson day. And now that I am now my own teacher, there is no one to keep me accountable to what I do each day except for myself, which is a very difficult thing sometimes.

This is something that I have thought about for years and years, and there came a moment in a Juilliard practice room when I was so fed up with fingering and re-fingering a Bach suite that I cried tears of frustration over how futile, pointless, and irrelevant to the outside world this "work" seemed to be. After college, while my friends were working on Wall Street and getting jobs in the real world making money and moving money, I was stuck in this music bubble trying to figure out how guitar was relevant to everything else. Luckily, I had good friends at school who encouraged me and taught me that all of this "work", however tedious it could be at times, was delightful in the eyes of the Lord if my heart treated it as a form of worship. To know that God delights in my struggle to hone and cultivate this gift He's given me is what has made all the difference for me.

At times, I still desperately want a cubicle job where my expectations are clearly outlined and my deadlines are made for me. People always think I'm crazy for saying that. When I'm close to the edge (and this happened once last week) I start combing the job listings and wondering what else I could do with my life. It's mostly a pride issue, and I know that in the end it's also to prove to myself that I'm capable of other things, too. But as I've thought about it this week and as I gave a little "performance" to Paul while he was eating dinner last night, I feel more and more confirmed in my heart that I could never, ever quit. I will always play the guitar, always struggle with it, always teach it, and always love it just as I did when I was five years old. Maybe I'll never be Segovia, but I am going to take every opportunity that God gives me by storm as long as He gives me strength to.

Cabin Fever

2008-04-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks my mind has been in a bit of a haze. Especially the week that we moved. It was not a hard or frustrating move- everything went smoothly and soon the new place was feeling like home. But I am a creature of habit, and the lack of order was probably what caused my mind to become so crowded and crazy.

Well, in the middle of all my mental blankness, I managed to get into a car accident. Ok, maybe you wouldn't call it a car accident. It was an accident. And it did involve my car. But it did not involve another car or another driver. Thank goodness. It did involve a wooden pillar in our parking structure. And it did result in a huge foot-long dent on my left front door and my left side mirror being knocked completely off. The mirror somehow hung on by a thread and we taped it back to the car so that I could still see (vaguely) out of the left side. It looked completely stupid and was a perpetual reminder of my carelessness and the $$ that will go down the tubes for the repair- all that, gone in about 2 seconds!

This week the car is in the shop being repaired, and I am stranded without a mode of transportation for getting out of our apartment. It was a good week to do it since my students are all mostly on spring break this week. I have a few that come to our place, so they are my only dose of human interaction each day. Days like this make me a little crazy. I feel like typing out long sentences on the computer that go something like "All work and no play makes Connie a dull girl." (that's a movie reference in case you have no idea what I'm talking about)

Anyway, this is a great excuse to make me buckle down and practice. I always want those periods of time which don't have any immediate deadlines so that I can work on learning some new music, or writing some arrangements. But when they come, I would rather do anything but work. Yesterday was halfway productive. Ask me how much progress I've made by Friday- but first check if I'm sane.

The Quieter Life

2008-03-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I have moved every year for the past 8 years of my life. Every year during college, every year after college, including twice back and forth across the country. I really detest the process of moving. I think mostly because I am traumatized by the NYC apt search process. I really never want to do that again. Because of the high prices and competitive renter's market, once you find something you've got to JUMP on it or some other fish will take the bait. If it's a good apt, they often have 8 or 10 applications at once for the same place and then just pick whoever has the highest income and best credit. I used to always hit 'refresh' whenever looking at a craigslist so that I could snag the newest posting. I even learned to sort out which postings were what I called "totally bunk" (a technical term). Like when the posting says there's a picture on the listing and it turns out to be a creepy-looking broker in front of an exposed brick wall, as if his presence in front of the brick meant that your apt could have exposed brick also.

Well, things are easier outside of NY, that's for sure. Our landlord was giving us subtle hints that we would not be able to renew our lease here, especially since we were seeking a shorter-term lease. We love this apt for the most part, and when we move, Paul is going to have to release my grip from the stainless steel appliances and the granite countertops. We're leaving mostly because we are fed up with the manangement's lack of responsive to things like the broken dishwasher, electrical problems, growing mold in the bathroom and windows, noise complaints from anal neighbors (about us playing Rock Band- the nerve!), and the shady landlord whose details I won't get into here. Finally we said screw it and decided to look for apts on a Sunday afternoon.

This was a decidedly easy process. We just drove around to apt complexes we thought we would like and asked if they had any availability. Most places they did, and in most places there were model units to see if not the real unit for rent. And, they were the ones chasing US to rent the place. Imagine that! I am so used to having my checkbook in hand and going, "We'll take it right now, here's our deposit!!" if we see something we like. But they were the ones telling us, "If you take it today, your security deposit will only be $99!" Wow! $99! I was sold pretty much every where we went.

Well, not exactly. There were some pretty dingy places in UTC that were charging up the wazoo simply for the location. There was one building that we called the Miami Vice apt which had a sign in these very 80's capital letters, and fake plants and plastic chandeliers everywhere. It gave me the creeps. They also didn't allow dogs but the guy kept winking at us to ensure that it would be ok to bring a dog anyway. I wasn't very comfortable with that, or the winking for that matter. Finally, we found one complex owned by a company that owns hundreds of complexes across the country. You could sign a year lease and then if for whatever reason you had to relocate, move into any of their complexes at no additional charge. This is a perfect arrangement for us since both of us have a lot of uncertainty ahead in terms of job and school location. We really have no idea what we'll be doing post June, actually. It's pretty exciting. So after seeing a few of their complexes, we decided the one with the best value was in Torrey Hills, which has a humongous pool and a nicer gym, and is close to many of my students and closer to where Paul's office will be moving soon. It also has a HUGE walk-in closet (I've had bedrooms that were about this size), a full-size washer and dryer, and more square footage than we could find in our current neighborhood. It is a pretty area and our unit has a patio with a view of a canyon. It's also right off of 3 different freeways, and there's a walking trail nearby where you can see the water. It is very, very quiet over there. We say that we have "the quiet life" here. Now we enter "the quieter life."

After I packed about 10 boxes the other day, Paul said to me, "See? Moving's not so bad, right?" I promptly gave him my evil glare and he did dishes for the rest of the evening.

Oklahoma!

2008-03-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

In the middle of the Great Plains of our country, a new mecca for classical guitar has arisen.

On Thursday, I returned from a 4-day trip to Oklahoma City. This was indeed quite a whirlwind of a trip in which I played a full solo concert, gave a master class, and taught private lessons for a full day. It was also pretty fascinating to be in a part of the country that I am completely unfamiliar with, meeting new people, and having guitar be the bond that connected myself to everyone that I met.

A few realizations- first of all, there are parts of the country where the arts is still funded in the way that I believe it should be. Take for example, the high school/middle school that my host Matt is a full-time teacher at. The Classen School of Advanced Studies in Oklahoma City boasts a six-level program of classical guitar with over 240 students enrolled. Yes, we're talking 240 teenagers all filing their fingernails, obsessing over Segovia, and having arguments about which contemporary players have the best fingerings for a Bach Prelude based on the incontrovertible evidence of YouTube videos. It was pretty amazing to meet so many young people all getting such quality instruction on the instrument and so eager to meet a guitarist like myself. I was practically getting celebrity treatment, since I think their teacher had blown me up to be some sort of star and not a whole lot of performers come through Oklahoma.

On my first day, I watched the Advanced Guitar Ensemble practice for an upcoming youth guitar competition in Texas. They were sounding really amazing. I really think there is no other guitar program (especially at a public school) in the country quite at its caliber.

The next day I had my concert at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma. It was a nice hall with great acoustics. We had a good turnout with most of the advanced students from Classen in attendance with their families. Since the concert was hosted at a Christian college, they welcomed anything I had to say about my faith and encouraged me to do so. In general, I've decided to try to make a statement of faith in as many performance opportunities as I can. This concert turned out to be a great platform to make share a brief testimony about my faith in front of all of these public high school kids and their families, along with people from the community. Before I played my hymn arrangements (Were You There?/What a Friend We Have in Jesus/Be Thou My Vision), I shared a little bit about the way I grew up being surrounded by my mother's beautiful piano playing and the way hymns have seeped their way into my heart and mind, and that worship is the reason I pick up my guitar every day. I really felt something special happen during that time and I know that God answered prayers of simply being present during the concert. Though the first half had its ups and downs, the second half of the concert I was able to feel completely in my element and really just enjoyed playing. And I knew that I was doing it out of a strength that was completely beyond me. Playing a 2 hour concert is physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining, but by the end I was so energized that I could barely sleep that night. And after a post-concert meal at T.G.I. Friday's (the food selection in OK wasn't all that vast), it was probably better that I stayed up for awhile to digest! Although I did have really good BBQ and fried okra on my last day. Unfortunately, no photo from this concert- I was too preoccupied to even think about it that day.

The next day I was booked up with private lessons at Classen from 9-5, with a 2 hour master class in the middle. A master class is when you give a lesson to someone, but it's open to the public, which ups the anti on both the performer and the teacher's side. Having gone through many master classes during my time as a student, I know how grueling it can be to be up there. Every student was pretty nervous and I tried to be undestanding and engaging since the room was packed with guitar students and guitar teachers from the community. It was actually a lot of fun, and the thrill of teaching is probably equal to the thrill of performing for me. I love presenting a new idea to a student and seeing how change can come across in their playing immediately, or making them think about a piece in a completely different way. It was really a privilege to be there, and I met some really talented students that day.

And my final full day, I got to do some sightseeing around town. Oklahoma to me looked like a combination of New Jersey and the suburbs of Atlanta. I guess I don't have that many places to compare it to. The trees were pretty bare since it is still the end of winter. I thought this one was cool.

And I got to see the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing. It was really beautiful. I caught one good shot of the sun setting over the part of the memorial where a bronze chair was sculpted for every victim of the bombing.

A great trip, but I'm so glad to be home with Paul and Aiko. Home never feels quite so much like home until you go somewhere that is completely unfamiliar. I have been looking forward to this time so much because I am done with deadlines for awhile and now have a few months in which I can ease up on the practicing and learn some new music. So I did stuff that I haven't had time to do in months. I went outlet shopping. I ran lots of errands. I did some spring cleaning. I slept a lot. But in the end, I am somewhat of a workaholic. I feel purposeless unless I have goals.

So I started playing again tonight. Somewhere in the time and place where music became work, I forgot how much I really enjoy playing. Just playing.

Big City Buzz

2008-03-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

So I'm back from the big city. This was my second visit back since we moved from our home of seven years, the city where I went to college, grad school, met my husband, got married, and had an amazing set of friends. After a four day trip to the Big Apple, I am actually really glad to be home in San Diego- a place that has somehow become home to me more than any other home ever has felt like home, mostly because of a special person called my hubby and what we call our "quiet life" here. I suppose the glorious 70 degree weather doesn't hurt either, compared to the 20 degree weather with "wintry mix" precipitation, which is basically the sleetish-snow that gets in your eyes and your face and makes you feel freezing, but never actually accumulates into anything pretty on the ground.

Anyway, it was pretty fun getting a taste of my old life back- lugging my guitar around on the subways, popping into my favorite places for a bagel or slice of pizza, seeing some of my favorite old friends from school, and wearing my puffy down coat along with three layers of everything underneath. The funny thing is that I didn't feel an ounce of tiredness the entire time I was there- in fact, on most nights I had trouble sleeping because my mind was still spinning with the excitement of being back. How long has been since I've stayed out past midnight or gone out after 8pm? Way too long. Oh, how exhilarating!

And so, the album is finally done. After being a half-baked project for much too long, it's finally done- now the fun part of waiting for it to be processed, duplicated, thinking about album art, copyrights, distribution, etc. Now that it was my second time in the studio, it was so much easier to have an idea of how to manage my expectations. My recording engineer was an absolute God-send and didn't give me an ounce of impatience or attitude the entire time. He magically edited all the little blips, buzzes, and string noise out of my recorded playing while I sat back and repeatedly went, "Wow. I can't believe you can do that."

Recording is a musician's best friend and worst enemy all rolled into one. Not really a warm fuzzy experience. Your mistakes are magnified and everything you ever didn't want anyone to hear is absolutely audible- string noise, buzzes, your clothing on the instrument, your breathing. Basically, your imperfection as a musician and human being are amplified and then you have to spend hours scrutinizing it, seeing what should be re-recorded, what can be taken out with the magic of technology, and what is passable and hopefully won't stumble listeners from enjoying the music. The whole process made me painfully aware of my own imperfection. To seek perfection for 8 hours a day three days straight was exhausting for me mentally. But then I had to stop and ask myself whether I should be seeking perfection in the first place.
I really do believe that the struggle of an artist to create something beautiful in a fallen world is perhaps the most beautiful thing of all. I mean, isn't the best thing about an old jazz recording that you can hear the musician humming along with his solo, or a vocalist taking a deep long breath before she starts the next phrase? In the end, I had to just let things go, realizing that this album ain't perfect, but it's me- it's human, so it can be gritty, awkward, ugly, worshipful, nonsensical, beautiful, and pleasant all at the same time.

I think that's the magic of being a human being.

Waking or Sleeping

2008-02-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

I don't usually tend to remember my dreams unless they are scary or completely ridiculous. But, recently I've had this recurring dream that goes something like this. I am trying to put in a contact lens into my eye except that the lens is about the size of a giant party platter. It looks exactly like a normal contact lens in its curvature and bluish tint, except that it is way too huge for my eyeball. In the dream, I am always feeling flustered and extremely upset with myself because my eye is way too small for the lens. I am never frustrated that the lens is too big for my eyeball.

Well, I mentioned this dream to Paul the other day in passing, thinking we would get a good laugh about the fact that a dream that seems so ridiculous could have me worked up into a cold sweat in the middle of the night. But instead, he paused and thought very seriously about it. Then matter-of-factly, he concluded, "Do you think it has something to with the frustration you feel when you lose sight of the vision that God has for your life?"

Ok, prophetic husband has me here. I stopped open-mouthed, ready to shoot back a witty contradiction. But in my heart I knew there was something true about what he had just said. Often, Paul has a gift of speaking truth to me in a way where it smacks me in the face. And though I don't think I've had very many dreams which had spiritual meaning attached to it, this one definitely symbolized the thing that is most frustrating for me personally about being on a very amorphous career path. The lack of structure bothers me to some extent, but it's manageable. It's the fact that it is sometimes so hard to see the bigger picture and feel the driving force for what this is all about in the long run. Though I have plenty of ambition and a long list of personal goals, I'm not good at coming up with big picture, grand vision, lofty dreams. But I need big vision in order to face my every day. And losing sight of that vision is one of my biggest fears- the notion that I will have no purpose for every day when I wake up. Which is why I think this dream left me in a cold sweat every time I had it, as if it were some sort of nightmare.

Anyway, lately I've been stumbling for what to title the forthcoming album and I think that this loss of words has been somewhat symbolic of my life lately. Today, something hit me as I rifled through some hymns to put together in a medley for the last track. Thou my best thought, by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

The Assads at Balboa Theater

2008-02-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

Monday night was an exciting night for me and Paul, as we had tickets to see the world's best classical guitar duo- The Assad Brothers. This Brazilian duo has been a huge influence in the guitar world, inspiring many other new guitar duos, and popularizing/arranging/composing new music for the genre of the guitar duo. We were excited also because they were playing at the newly renovated Balboa Theater in downtown SD, which was built in the 1920's and used as a vaudeville house and movie theater for many years. It just opened this past December after many years of renovation and dispute over its very existence.

Well, the venue turned out to be slightly disappointing, at least for a classical music performance. We discovered that the lighting people really like using different colors as backdrop for the performers. Sometimes the Assad brothers were bathed in a purple light, sometimes red, sometimes blue or green, and this lighting would change color and intensity in the middle of nearly every piece at awkward moments. The house was pitch black and the stage bright, which to me made a greater distinction between performer-audience. Now this is completely natural since obviously they were on the stage and we were in the audience- but to me, making that line more distinct than necessary put more of a boundary between the two parties, making it easy for me to disengage as an audience member and feel more disconnected to the performance at hand. I personally like house lights at a medium level so that the performer can actually see the audience and engage in a more personal way, talking about the music, gauging reactions, and making the performer feel more accessible to the audience. Somehow being shrouded in darkness makes you feel like your presence as an audience member is negligible and that no one would really care if you fell asleep or got bored and walked out. Well, that's not the case at all. Speaking from a performer's perspective, every member of the audience is an essential part of that performance. Especially in intimate settings, even just one person can completely change the energy of a room and increase a performer's connection to both the music and the act of sharing that music with others. I really believe that this connection is essential in making a concert a personal, spiritual experience for both sides.

All that aside, the Balboa Theater is a really nice place. The ceiling is very intricately carved in a 1920's art deco sort of way, with unexpected carvings and flourishes of pink, red and blue everywhere. The most unusual thing is that there are two water fountains on the walls that sandwich the stage. They are running waterfalls that produce the sound of trickling water which were not turned off while the Assads were playing. It kind of made me feel like getting out of my seat to go to the bathroom. The other acts booked at the Balboa are totally different than the show that the Assads put on. They included the Shanghai Circus, the Vienna Choir Boys, and Frog and Toad (the play). The Assads definitely had to adjust to play in such a mainstream sort of venue. The concert was entitled "Brazilian Guitar Festival" and included Celso Machado, an amazing Brazilian folk guitarist/composer/percussionist, Romero Lupe, a Brazilian jazz guitarist, and their sister Badi Assad. She was by far the more outlandish. More than just a guitarist, she is an excellent singer and mouth percussionist. There was a whole piece in which she made rainforest sounds with her mouth, which the audience ate up. In fact the whole crowd started making rainforest noises and the sounds of monkeys, birds and rain filled the theater. It was pretty random.

Still a good show, but it made me a little sad to think that this performance was probably only picked up by the Balboa because it wasn't straight classical, which probably would not have drawn a large audience on a Monday evening. But what is needed in order to sell classical music? Does a classical musician only succeed in playing a venue like the Balboa through crossing over into the worlds of jazz, pop, and folk? And if so, does the concert need to be such an entertainment-focused, flashy event to appeal to the masses? Looking around, I was pleased to see a pretty heterogeneous crowd which definitely differed from some of the other concerts we've gone to places like La Jolla, which is a predominantly white, upper-class crowd. This was a mixed crowd of people of all ages and ethnicities, who were probably attracted not by the name of the Assad Brothers, whom the average person probably has not heard of, but who probably wanted to see a good show at the newly renovated theater and the words "Brazilian" and "guitar" sparked interest. So at the end of it, I'll take that- if it means more exposure for classical guitar to the public despite the flashing lights, running waterfall, and crossover additions, then fine. But it's just disappointing that these days, it doesn't seem like excellent artistry in its purest form is really enough.

If you've never heard of the Assads, check 'em out here!

Cooking Korean

2008-02-08T10:25:00.001-08:00

Having my in-laws in town this week has proved to be a very delicious experience. My mother-in-law has been cooking Korean food nearly every evening and I've been learning a little bit in the process. Hopefully walking into a Korean grocery store won't feel so intimidating now that I have a handle on some of the basic ingredients. My favorite thing about Korean food is the variety in every meal, since the tradition is for everything to be served with an array of appetizers and always some sort of kim-chee.

A classic homey Korean miso-based stew with enoki mushrooms, tofu, potatoes, onions, anchovies, and scallions.

Fish cakes sauteed with garlic and scallions. Side dishes of boiled spinach with sesame oil, pickled spicy green vegetable which I don't know the name of.

In honor of Lunar New Year, the tradition is to eat a rice cake soup made from an anchovy stock with egg whites, yellows, kim-chee, ground beef, and seasoned seaweed. Side dishes of dried squid, seaweed, and pickled spicy vegetable.

Korean fried rice, usually served in a hot stone pot. This version has ground beef, carrots, spinach, shredded sesame leaves, fern root, and pickled cucumbers which are all stirred together with a spicy red pepper paste mixed with sesame oil. In the back you can see the egg-batter fried sirloin and halibut slices.

Market in Del Mar

2008-01-31T09:01:00.000-08:00

(Disclaimer: I didn't intend for this to be a food blog, but since food is in my "work of art" category when done well, I can't help but post about a restaurant we just went to. And in case you can't tell from this post, I am wildly enthusiastic about food.)

We've had a lot of bad food since we've moved to SD. Don't know what it is. Maybe we just got all the wrong recommendations, or we are now thoroughly spoiled from living in NYC with every kind of food at every price range right at your doorstep. The restaurant scene in SD is growing, but it's young and hard to get anything but chain restaurants or over-the-top pricey seafood or fusion.

It being San Diego Restaurant Week this week, we thought we would treat ourselves a little bit and partake in the $40 three-course prix fixe menus being offered at many of the restaurants around town. Paul and I eagerly made reservations at three different restaurants in town, not intending to keep all of them: one at 1500 Ocean at the Hotel Del in Coronado, one at Sbicca in Del Mar, and one at Market, also in Del Mar. We ended up accidentally eating at Sbicca one evening when we were in the area, and since our 1500 Ocean reservation was not until 8:30pm we thought we'd save it for another day when we could eat during daylight hours to admire the ocean view.

Well, it was a good decision. Market ended up being the best food we've had in San Diego so far. When the waiter welcomed us and told us that all of their produce was from the famed Chino Farms in Rancho Santa Fe, we knew we were in for a treat. We visited Chino Farms recently, and the produce is absolutely out of this world. (I plan to dedicate a whole separate post to Chino now that I have a camera!) Everything at the farm stand is freshly picked and looks like it has just burst its way out of the earth, with dirt clinging to the root vegetables, tiny baby lettuces of all different shades of maroons, greens and purples, and a whole variety of huge funny-looking squashes that look like they could be mistaken for small (funny-looking) children. We came back from Chino once with a few vegetables that we had literally never seen before- a Jerusalem artichoke which looked like a gangly mess of ginger and tasted similar to water chestnut with a little more bite, and a skinny, green, Italian vegetable with a bitter flavor whose name I can't remember and had to be blanched in icy water before eating. (Here is a blog about Chino Farms from Bay Area Bites so you can see what I'm talking about.)

For starters, I ordered the bleu cheese souffle, which came with a very wintry grapefruit and beet salad. I've seen the beets at Chino farms and they are so beautiful with so many varieties of color. On my plate were a mix of golden and maroon beets that were dressed perfectly with some oil and small crumbles of bleu cheese. I love bleu cheese passionately, and in a souffle it was perfect- not too eggy, not too salty or heavy, but a fluffy, light texture that nearly melted in my mouth. It was paired perfectly, the sharp flavor of the cheese offset by the tangy sweetness of the grapefruit.

Then for our main course, Paul had the skirt steak and braised beef short rib combination which came with an incredibly delicious potato puree dressed with truffle oil and bacon. (Is there anything that doesn't taste good with truffle oil and bacon?) The skirt steak was unbelievably tender for the cut and the short rib gave the dish a hearty touch. I had the miso glazed Japanese white bass over udon, topped with some colorful micro-greens. The fish was cooked perfectly and unlike other Asian fusion that I've had in CA, didn't taste like soy sauce dumped all over it, but retained the authenticity of the miso flavor. I'm not a big fan of Asian fusion, but if ever there was an example of what it could be- here it was. Authentic flavors used in traditional Asian cooking paired with the presentation and ingredients found more commonly in Western cooking.

For dessert, I had a delicate creme fraiche panna cotta with a raspberry puree sauce drizzled on top of it, with cylindrical pieces of sage-infused marzipan on the side and a tangerine sorbet to boot. Paul savored every bite of his cheese plate, a handsome cut of a Spanish cheese similar to Manchego. The plate came with some green grapes and a dollop of fig preserve and some small slices of baguette.

We both agreed that we wish we'd ended up at Market sooner, it being less than 15 minutes away from our apt. Apparently the menu changes daily depending on the ingredients available. Paul joked, "Want to come again tomorrow?" as we finished up our meal, and I laughed. Then looking at his facial expression I realized he wasn't joking, and laughed even harder.

Photoblog :: Happy things

2008-01-30T11:24:00.000-08:00

Aiko tries out her scholarly side and falls asleep.

Dinner I made last night: mache salad with citrus vinaigrette,
pork loin with caramelized fuji apples and vidalia onions, rosemary polenta

Watching the gliders over Torrey Pines

Dreaming of being as free as this seagull sailing over La Jolla

Sharing my calling

2008-01-24T12:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was invited to Point Loma Nazarene University here in SD to play and speak about my "life journey" to a meeting of 50 music majors and faculty members. I often find myself in situations like this (last month I had the opportunity to speak and play at Pepperdine), although I have no idea what qualifies me to speak to a bunch of very impressionable college students and was pretty nervous about the whole thing beforehand.

So I played a few pieces (Verano Porteno by Piazzolla and Elegy by Mertz) and then began to speak. Basically, how did I find myself as a free-lance classical guitarist living in Southern CA? There was a very pivotal moment for me in which I decided to become a musician. It was in 2003 when I went to the Crescendo annual conference in Basel, Switzerland. With the encouragement of some CCC staff, I flew to Basel by myself in the middle of midterms during the fall semester of my senior year in college. (Crescendo is a network for Christian classical musicians that has had a lot to do with my development as a musician and a person.) At the conference, the speaker shared this verse from Song of Songs: "My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places of the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely." (2:14)

Upon hearing this verse and the accompanying message, I knew that there was something that God delighted in in my playing and in my struggle to use my talent- something in which only I could bring to him. I had a voice on my instrument that was special and important to Him, which could bring beauty and truth to his ears and to those around me. I felt a strange sense of peace as I realized that this was a sort of "calling" for my life- to make the most of the talent given to me and to give glory to the Creator in the process. I shared this with the class and then closed by playing a few of my arrangements of "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord," followed by "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and a beautiful arrangement of "Day by Day" by Oscar Ahnfelt, which will forever remain an old friend in my repertoire.

Well, I'm paraphrasing all this here, but the reaction of the class was pretty overwhelming. A few people were in tears, including a piano professor from the school who came up to me and told me that my playing was somehow "anointed" and that she could sense that it was an act of worship from start to finish. One girl said that she loved my playing, but loved even more that she could sense my spiritual journey in the way that I played. A few asked if I had a CD. Others asked questions about grad school, about living in New York, about their various struggles as musicians. As I walked back to my car later, admiring the ocean view of the campus, I couldn't help thinking- Wow, what just happened? It was all God, that's for sure. I hope there will be many other opportunities to be a mentor and blessing to music students in the area.

The value of an album

2008-01-16T13:40:00.001-08:00

So I'm in the process of recording a CD. This is a project that has dragged out for about 2 years now, and at times I wonder if it might drag out for 2 more years. There is just way too much to think about. Picking the music has proved to be one of the harder things for me. I have decided and changed my mind a million times and finally I think I have the right combination of pieces. I'm trying to create an album that sounds somewhat cohesive, but at the end of the day, I think this album is just characterized by having some of my favorite pieces on it. Well, the ones I like playing the most. Recording is such a nit-picky process that I know I must play music I love, or the process will take longer than I can afford.

Since everything is so accesible now, it's easy for any independent artist to put an album together and distribute it without the help of a label. Easy enough, that is. Along the way, there were a few things giving me a headache. First, it was having the finances to start the project off. So I went home one summer and played a concert at my home church and the donations were generous. Unfortunately, that nice little installment went to paying my rent that summer since I was broke at the time. But since then, the fund has been somewhat restored. Next, I had to find a professional recording studio. This fell into place easily through a recording engineer that Paul met at one of my friend Victor's shows, who had helped him with some editing in the past. I booked a few days with him in the studio in New York on a sweltering, sticky week last June. Unfortunately, we moved before I could finish the rest. Assuming it goes well, I'll be finishing the rest of the album next month in NYC with the help of a JetBlue sale and some credit from a delayed flight I had leftover.

I've also started thinking about the album cover and what I want it to feel like. This is very important to me as I often judge a book by its cover and can't help but do so. I also have a deep appreciation for good design. I had some headshots taken by our wedding photographer last year and was fortunate to meet a graphic designer at our current church who has agreed to design the cover and insert. I got really excited when he showed me what he had started working on- there was little I had to explain about what I had in mind since somehow his design style was something I was drawn to right away. The next thing to do is make sure all the copyright stuff is in order- this is a thoroughly annoying process that will probably take longer than I want it to and end up costing some, too. After that, getting it reproduced won't be difficult, assuming I can front the costs, and figuring out the best way to distribute should be pretty easy since cdbaby.com is great and so are many of the online music services.

The funny thing is that CD's might be outdated in a few years. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I physically bought a CD from a store. After Tower Records went out of business, I didn't even know where to buy CDs. And why have all the clutter of jewel cases when you can buy it on iTunes and have the album art too?

I need to continue believing that the music on this album will be worthwhile for people to listen to, that it will inspire them and give them new perspective on things that are beautiful, meaningful, and real. This has been challenging lately as part of me is losing steam. The inspiration seems to come and go daily. Hopefully at the end of it all, it will have been worth all the effort!

Some good reads

2008-01-07T11:59:00.001-08:00

One of my biggest problems in life is that I am very easily bored. I thrive on a constant stream of stimulus and busyness, and I'm always trying to multi-task and do a million things at once. I guess the same is true of my reading habits. I usually start about 3 or 4 books at a time (usually this is only the case when it's not fiction) and get through all of them at a pretty slow pace. In fact, the trend has been that I'm lucky if I get all the way through any of them at all. It's a bad habit and hopefully that will change.

Well, here's what is on my coffee table lately.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
I don't think I will ever look at red meat in the same way, or anything I'm eating for that matter. This is a great book for anybody who shops at a grocery store, or anybody who has ever thought twice about the type of ingredients you want to use in your cooking (which is most of us nowadays). I am now constantly thinking about what I am eating came from and how much corn is in it- if I dare to even find out. This book would make you become a vegetarian just by telling you about the amount of petroleum is needed to get your beef on the table. The truth is that we certainly do live in a society where our food is now at the mercy of science and legislation. I've never wanted to live on my own farm so badly.

The Artist as Citizen by Joseph Polisi
This is a collection of speeches by Joseph Polisi, the president of Juilliard. Some of them are inspiring, funny, at times repetitive, but overall a great collection of short writings that comment on the situation of the arts world today and how we as artists need to engage in our society to fight these problems rather than sit idly by and complain that there is no work. I took a class with Polisi while I was at Juilliard and have great respect for what he has done for the school and about his viewpoints on arts education in general. This book is a great way for me to stay inspired about what I do while not being a part of an academic/artistic community like a school.

This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin
This book revolutionized the way I think about music- not just classical, but all kinds of music, especially pop/rock. I mean, we never do sit down and ask ourselves what it is that makes something fun to listen to and why it makes us feel good listening to it. How do a series of pitches at different frequencies attract us, inspire us, commiserate with us, to the point where many of us are just plain addicted to music? A great read for anyone interested in the intersection of science and music. The science side of it was a bit technical for a non-science person like me, but it is explained well enough by Levitin so that it doesn't go over your head.

"Starting Out in the Evening"

2007-12-18T12:08:00.000-08:00

The other day, we were deciding whether to see "I Am Legend" at the AMC or "Starting Out in the Evening" at the independent theater. (Yes, two very different types of movies- the only thing they had in common was the show time.) After reading a few reviews, we thought we'd skip the flesh-eating virus-infested zombies that appear with Will Smith and go for the lesser known independent film- and we're so glad we did.

"Starting Out in the Evening" is the quiet story of a retired teacher and novelist Leonard Schiller, played by Frank Langella. He is struggling to finish his last novel and as he is doing so, a graduate student played by Lauren Ambrose approaches him about doing his Master's thesis about the other four novels that he has written. Their relationship takes on a strange form- not exactly romantic, but definitely not a respectable professor-student relationship. I won't give the rest away, but there is great insight about the process of writing and the power of literature over readers. The movie also follows Schiller's daughter, Ariel, a former dancer in search of a committed relationship and motherhood. All the characters are entangled up in their own personal journeys, seeking out what's next for them in life, struggling to create art and act on their ideas while not giving up their own happiness. It is overall a beautifully done movie that is full of subtlety, which the cast does a fantastic job of bringing out and making the characters believable. Definitely recommended for a quiet, contemplative, rainy evening in which you want a thought-provoking movie that will hold your attention without the help of any explosions , aliens, or nudity on screen.

The Metropolitan Opera in theaters near you!

2007-12-16T00:05:00.000-08:00

I'm fortunate to be married to someone who loves opera as much (or perhaps even more) than I do. In fact, our first date back when we were 19 was to the New York City Opera. Paul was trying to finish a Music Humanities paper at the time and conveniently asked me to go see La Traviata with him for the assignment. Of course, I couldn't resist the opera or the date, and the rest is history. Very convenient indeed!

Well, for our one-year wedding anniversary, he did a little research and discovered that The Metropolitan Opera has been pioneering a new way of disseminating their performances to the public. Today was the first production of the Met that was recorded live in HD and shown at 600 movie theaters all around the world. I often complain that Paul goes over the top with presents or nice gestures for me- so when he told me that for our anniversary we would be seeing the Met live, I almost began scolding him about spending too much money on plane tickets and opera tickets- until he explained to me that we would be watching the Met from the AMC movie theater down the street from our apartment here in SD! Yes, living down the street from a major strip mall has its perks. Although I don't count CPK as one of them. The movies ain't bad though.

The day finally came today, and we joined a nearly full house in the theater for a production of Romeo et Juliette by Gounod. It was a pretty rowdy crowd, which was amusing considering that nearly everyone there seemed to be of the older concert-going public that frequents the La Jolla classical music scene. We were by far the youngest people there. Everyone yelped and hollered when they showed Hollywood action movie previews while we were waiting for the HD broadcast to load. About 20 minutes after the scheduled starting time (10am PST/1pm EST), the opera came on the big screen and we were watching the fabulous Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna live from Lincoln Center in HD.

We've been to the Met Opera several times over the years and usually we were only able to afford the nosebleed seats, so the opera viewing experience wasn't exactly optimal even though it still sounded great from up there. Every visit to the Met was always a privilege and we knew it was one of the things we would really miss about New York when we moved. But I have to say that being able to see an opera from so close up and so many different angles was a completely different experience, and almost topped physically being there if we were to get our usual third tier balcony seats. There was also funny backstage shots of the singers chugging water, joking around, warming up, waving at the camera, and live interviews with Placido Domingo, who was conducting, and the two leads. The performance was absolutely phenomenal and what really got me was being able to see the facial expression of the characters so clearly, which helped conveyed all the tragic emotion of the characters and story. By the end of it, I was bawling my eyes out- and I have honestly never done before while watching opera! I felt pretty silly feeling all of the dark tragedy of Shakespeare and trying to collect myself as we walked out to the smell of buttery popcorn and cheesy movie posters.

This idea has given me a lot of hope for the future of opera and classical music. Though it wasn't reaching a new demographic in La Jolla today, public schools students all over NYC were watching the broadcast in their school cafeterias for free. (An official blog about the broadcast is here.) If kids in the Bronx and Queens can be captivated by opera for three-hours on a Saturday afternoon, I think there is hope that opera can be made accessible to all demographics of the population. There is no reason that a work of art with universal themes like love, betrayal, and rivalry needs to remain beloved only by the upper class, despite the high-brow stigma opera has as an art form. I'm so glad that the minds behind the Met are taking advantage of technology and bringing all of their hard work to the masses in and outside of New York. Being the first broadcast of its kind, it wasn't well advertised around here unless you were looking for it- but I hope in the future that the audience in our theater will become a little more diverse. Plus, everything looks good when its in HD!

Check out the upcoming Met HD broadcasts coming up in your city!

North Korea or bust

2007-12-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

A nation whose citizens are starved for artistic expression (not to mention food and other basic human rights) will soon hear America's finest. The New York Philharmonic is planning a trip to North Korea in February at the country's invitation. An amazing decision considering that there has been almost no connection to the West inside its borders. The fact that a symphony orchestra is being invited, with the concert being broadcast on government controlled radio, is going to make a huge impact on American relations with North Korea. Not only that, but once people hear the music over the radio, after years of only being subjected to Communist marches, I do believe they are going to be hungry for more.

This reminded me a lot of one of the best movies I saw this year- The Lives of Others, a German film about the role of art in East Berlin during the early 80's. In one particular scene, the main character, a Stasi officer, hears piano music being played over the wire tap that he is listening in on and tears begin to flow down his face. It's almost like a physical starvation. And although I have never lived through a serious time of war or crisis in my own country, I can imagine what it must feel like to be starved for art and music, that it could be this very physical sensation that nearly moves your insides when you finally do hear something beautiful after being surrounded by the cold decay of war.

What is it about the arts that can touch us so deeply? Experiencing art makes us dream. It can take you to a place where you have absolute freedom to be, to express, to create. Kim Jong Il may believe that this will be a harmless little trip that will bring increased glory to his reign, but I think this will be a move that could endanger his power in the long run. I believe that hearing the NY Phil can do this for the people of North Korea and I know they will want more. This could be an amazing way for the figurative and physical walls of North Korea to begin to come down and for messengers of good news and beauty to come in. Not only that, but although classical music can seem like nice, relaxing, background music, the composers that wrote the much of the canon played by symphony orchestras today all live(d) in free societies where democracy and ideas about power to the individual existed, and these messages come out in many great works of classical music. For now, these messengers will be under the baton of Lorin Maazel, and I will be praying that their impact in North Korea is a monumental one.

Beethoven 9: A true masterpiece

2007-12-09T21:50:00.000-08:00

Last night, Paul and I went to see the San Diego Symphony perform Beethoven's 9th. It was a really excellent performance by the symphony and the SD Chorale. Despite the pouring rain, I was happy to see a nearly sold-out house that evening, which ended with a standing ovation. Jahja Ling is a true master at bringing out the heroism, subtlety, and drama of the piece. San Diego is truly lucky to have him, and it was, of course, absolutely fitting for the symphony to perform the piece as its tribute to the holiday season and the spirit of eternal brotherhood.

There was a moment in the last movement where I was floored by how ethereal the choir sounded. I started thinking about what it is about human voices singing together when pitch and intonation and harmonization are all aligned that has such an amazing effect. Breathing together is also something that makes a choir sound like a sort of machine, but with human qualities- making it a living, breathing collective thing that is communally producing this gargantuan sound. And the usage of Schiller's text is always thrilling to hear again. This is the line that gets me (of course I'm sure that the English translation barely does it justice):

"Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss for the whole world!
Brothers, beyond the star-canopy
must a loving Father dwell.

Do you bow down, you millions?
Do you sense the Creator, world?
Seek Him beyond the star-canopy!
Beyond the stars must He dwell."

Put that on the lips of a 100 person chorus and a full orchestra, the power of Beethoven's composition and there is surely something spiritual about the experience. Just the agreement between conductors, musicians, and singers to continually perform the piece for nearly 200 years shows how deeply this message has resonated with people through the years. The belief that joy and beauty exists, the harmony of mankind, the thought that even beyond this idyllic, utopian dream of universal brotherhood that there may be a higher being that can be sensed with the help of a little bit of perspective from the stars- that, to me, represents the true meaning of Christmas. I'm glad so many San Diegans got to experience that this weekend.

Joie de vivre

2007-12-04T23:19:00.000-08:00

In a sudden outburst of happiness, my best friend once whipped out a pen to scribble something onto a napkin as we sat at our favorite coffee shop sipping Frozen Mochaccinos.

"CONNIE GIVES ME THE JOIE DE VIVRE," she wrote.

I saved the napkin for years to come.

At the time, I didn't really realize what an honor it was to be described by this phrase. In fact, I didn't really know what the expression meant exactly. I knew it had to do with joy, with living, possibly being translated as the "joy of life" based on my rough knowledge of the French language. But actually, the phrase is even more specific in meaning than simply having the joy of life. Vivre, being present tense, has a much more active connotation which lends the phrase to describing the very sensation of joy that you get while actively living- while eating, dancing, running, working, breathing, and doing anything else that life may present to you in a given day. And through all this, to find this joy of living is a special thing indeed.

Thus is the inspiration for this blog- to find joie de vivre through actively living my life and discovering all the beautiful things out there that affect me as a person, artist, and musician. Because without these things, the pursuit of art is a futile and needless one. It's my hope that through discovering beauty in the everyday and the extraordinary, by searching for profundity in all forms of media and people, and by realizing the meaning of things that God has bestowed around and in me all the time, my soul will well up with a desire to produce music on my instrument that is more poignant, discerning, and profound then what it was just a day ago.

And so begins this journey.