Early Birthday Gift

I had a lesson on Saturday morning. This lesson was dubbed the "Hilda" lesson because my teacher offered it for free in celebration of my MCAT score (I scored in the top 10% of test takers). She also presented me with a gift of Venezuelan chocolate and a brand new reed. These were early birthday presents!

MCAT costs (including Kaplan class I never attended): $1900
Gas: $35
Triborough bridge tolls: $7
New reed: Priceless

I got to call all the shots at the "Hilda" lesson which meant that we did NOT work on reeds. Hahah. I ended up talking for the first few minutes, playing a few scales, and then playing some of the Mozart I had worked on.

The Mozart is going ok. While there she secretely moved up my metronome and I ended up playing at 108, even though at home I couldn't play over 92. However, she wants me to slow it back down because I am not getting the articulation right in all spots. For my next lesson (this Friday) I have to play the entire first page (I'll get the bar numbers later) with the correct articulations.

I'm still struggling with my motivation to practice daily (and to post here too). I am hoping everything will go back to normal once I'm done with the med school application process. MY AMCAS application (the primary, central application) was submitted this Monday. Once that gets verified it will get sent out to the 14 schools I am applying to. Then each school will require submission of a secondary application. Some of these are short, others require more essays. All require more money, approximately $100 each. Once I am done with those then it's just a waiting game to see if I will get called in for interviews.

In the meantime I hope to have a lot more time for my oboe. I miss it. *sniff*