Of Dr. Sandor, Fist Sized Spiders and a Gaggle of Girls!

The name "Moose and me" is actually no long correct as I actually have a new person to share my life with. One with a degree. A doctorate no less. His name is Dr. Ernst Jullien Sandor the III. Dr. Sandor came into my life a few months ago and has done nothing but great things for me, sorry Moose, I'm on to bigger and better things.

Good. Next.

I arrived in North Carolina about 12 hours after my final performance in and intense chamber music workshop at the U. We had our final concert after a week of 9 hour days at 7pm, and I was on a red-eye flight at 9. After a flight of varying degrees of consciousness in which I listened to an earsplitting (at 3 in the morning on a flight everything seems louder) conversation about how many countries the guy in back of me has visited, what he did in each, what foods he ate, what his views on their politics are, his job, his girlfriend, what he thinks of his girlfriend, what his girlfriends hobbies are, what countries she had visited... etc. I found myself wondering at various points if in fact he had an audience or if, perhaps, this long rant was intended for my ears. I woke up 2 hours later and, since his story was still going, figured my drooling either went unnoticed or came during appropriate parts of his story.

So, I arrive into the humid climate with a lack-of-sleep-haze and that fresh off the plane smell, my hair instantly transformed into an exquisite wasps nest and I meet about 30 people I would be spending the next 6 weeks with. Good first impression- Check.

Most of the first week was spent meeting the other RA's, letting my digestive system get used to the fact that it was going to have to go into overdrive for 6 weeks to repeatedly digest cardboard, and relearning the meaning of good, uninterrupted practice! I live in a "residence" (not cabin as the dean is constantly reminding us) on one of the hills in the Brevard Music Center. The 'residence" is called Patton and it's on one of the many hills that are found on campus. The "residence" , who am I fooling? It's a cabin and we're proud of it that way! There is absolutely no air conditioning, it's what they refer to as "open air" meaning that the walls are screens and the floorboards aren't sealed together. Yeah. It's hot, and muggy, and nothing drys. This climate is a little bit stressful for the human inhabitants of the cabin, but wolf spiders seem to thrive in it. For those of you who don't know what a wolf spider is allow me to bring you up to speed. They are roughly the size of a grapefruit in diameter when the have their legs spread out (not kidding, look them up). Their hair is visible from long distances and their little fangs in front are almost as long as the first section of their body. Now, for those of you who don't know me quite as well as you should, you will be pleased to learn that NOTHING, NOTHING on this EARTH scares me as badly as bugs and spiders. So, the first day of the camp I am taking a shower. My roommate is somewhere else (probably practicing though I've forgotten), and I've decided to do a nice, post-shower pedicure. I pop on a towel and prop my foot up on the vanity to start my pedi, look to my right and see a gigantic, hairy leg extending towards me from behind a toilet paper roll. I flip out. Thinking it was a brown recluse (a spider that can be deadly and one about which we were extensively warned in our training), I run out onto my porch screaming... still only wearing my towel. Good second impression-CHECK. I decide that I should call the dean of the day as I was unsure of what to do with a spider that was as large as my hand. No answer (probably a good thing owing to the fact that I was now producing a frantic bubbling, gargling sound quite unintentionally from my throat while simultaneously hyperventilating). I see my two neighbors Ingrid and Emily coming home so I wave frantically at them and they came running over. I lead them, still incoherently babbling, into my bathroom. They freeze... we all begin babbling. I look around. Nothing to use on a spider of that size. I can't smash it, that would only make me sick to clean it up and scare me more to get that close. My eyes lock on the "Clinging toilet bowl cleaner". That'll do. We slowly move everything away from the spider to clear a path for the devastation we were about to create, I grab the clinging toilet bowl cleaner, Ingrid arms herself with the foaming cleanser and Emily settles for the broom handle. Armed for battle, Emily slowly pushes the last roll of toilet paper away from our target and we open fire. Toilet bowl cleaner, foaming cleanser and broom handles begin flying around the room. My maniacal laughter coupled with Ingrid's hysterical gasps and Emily's calm and focused face but wild eyes made this, I'm sure, a hilarious event to witness-- though since the only other being was the spider this was happening too, perhaps I've spoken too soon. After 3 dowsing with the cleanser and the several times asking "Is he dead? NO HE'S MOVING AGAIN!! SPRAY!" we conquered our target. I scooped up our fallen victim in the dust pan trying not to feel badly about the hell we just brought to this poor creatures life, and dumped him by the tree next to our cabin(secretly hoping this would ward off the other spiders thinking of making Patton their home). I instantly run to one of my friends to relay this terrifying event. The response I get? "Do you have any idea how long it takes spiders to get to that size? Why didn't you just throw it outside?!" In my defense, Patton is a High School girls cabin after all, and I am charged with strict orders to make sure that only female High School students are allowed up that hill. As that spider is clearly not a teenage girl enrolled in any schooling whatsoever that i'm aware of... he had it coming. Let that be a warning to any high school boys trying to sneak into our cabin.

I am in charge of 12 (more or less, I realize now that I've never actually counted them...) high school girls. I am also charged with the tasked of insuring them a solid 7 hours and 45 minutes of sleep per night. NO more, no less. At 6:45 each morning, I bust the girls out of bed, helped by a miserable teenage trumpeter who sounds reveille every morning at 6:45. My roommate and I get up, get the girls up with much difficulty and many trips into their rooms, assign each girl chores, oversee them doing their chores, make sure they all have gotten a shower, made their beds and swept their rooms. Then, Casey and I take a freezing cold shower (the hot water being as exhausted as we), walk into all the rooms and tidy them up (I've realized only now how different a teenagers version of clean is from someone who has lived on their own for a while!!), finish making their beds or organizing their shoes, empty trash cans that had been forgotten, shut off fans, take shampoo out of the showers, mop standing water that the girls somehow mopped without really mopping (yeah, it's a mind boggling experience to look at something that is obviously filthy and say "who's chore is this?" and have them say "oh! I just finished it" yyyyyeaaaah). Then, we go through inspections, battle our way down the hill and at 8:00 a.m we have breakfast. Yep, that all happens in an hour and fifteen minutes.

Rehearsals are near death experiences every time the thermometer reaches over 80... which is most of the time here. We are in an open air auditorium which means NO AIRCONDITIONING. I don't know how many musicians are reading this, but if you are a musician you already see the problem. If you're not a musician let me cue you in ( no pun intended). IT'S HOT. That's an understatement, but I can't put it any other way. Perhaps think of it this way: after I have a vigorous work out I have a light "glisten" on my forehead. When I get through a rehearsal here I have soaked through two layers of shirts and have wet hair. It's that bad. Seriously.

That about sums up my first few weeks. I love it here though. I am able to practice whenever I want and have found a nice little niche. Lessons are going well and I'm learning so much. Orchestra is hard and hot (as you hopefully just read) and we have 5 practices to mast 3 major works each time. If you miss a note you're told to learn it before you come back. If you cross your legs or don't mark in a bowing, you're called on it. If you turn around when the Oboe's have a cool part, their section leader tells yours to tell you not to do that. Life is crazy when you're living with hundreds of people who only have their instrument in mind. Several times I get blown away by the fact that everyone here is such a great musician.

Glad to be blogging again!

Much Love,

E and Doc