Welp! It’s a new year! I think on the whole 2012 was pretty rad. Thinking back, a lot of stuff happened!
– I got a grant to go to Sweden and do a ragtime xylophone workshop with students
– I worked really hard teaching and working at ANU all year.
– Charles came home from Sweden for good!
– I bought and received my beautiful Deagan vintage restored xylophone!
– We finally moved in together!
– We got married in August
– We did lots of fun concerts!
– We went to the USA to go to our friend’s wedding
– I did Frocktober!
– We moved into our own place (well, rented place) in late December
– Charles was accepted into a PhD program at ANU
– I was accepted into the clothing production course at CIT
– I started up my blog again for real!
This year I hope to do more craft and sewing (I probably will anyway with my clothing production course), more teaching (I already have 11 new students lined up, bringing my total to like 33), and maybe less Library stuff. Last year the library could really only offer me irregular shifts which were a pain to get to. It’s not fun to go all the way in to ANU to do a 2 hour shift. It was fine when I was a student and I was usually there already, but… Now I need to reassess whether my time could be better spent. Last year I was really just “keeping my foot in the door”, but now I realise they can’t offer me any better position with libraries being downsized all the time. It’s a sad situation but I am thinking of disentangling myself. I am not a librarian.
My CIT course will be two evenings a week, Monday and Wednesday from 6 – 9pm. And I’ll probably need to teach 4 days a week. Gosh! It’s not possible to teach more than 10 students a day really, because it’s so exhausting! Standing up all day moving gear. You might be able to teach 16 piano students a day, but not percussionists.
I have exciting plans for our new home! I am going to create a nice sewing space with an inspiration pinboard and plenty of space for all my patterns and fabric. It’s going to be the BEST. I also can’t wait to get our instruments in (currently at my folks house) and rearrange our living room to make the best use of the space. The garden is begging me to put some new shrubs and flowers in, and the sunroom wants me to turn it into a rainforest. The biggest problem with space at our place is the walk-in robe has hardly any hanging space, but loads of shelves. Where do I hang my 37 dresses?
We’ve already got some gigs lined up for the Canberra centenary celebrations so yaaaay!
Resolutions!
– write in my diary every evening
– do my sit-ups, push-ups, and running using iPhone apps. So scared about starting the running one!
– organise teaching better. Create folder of pieces with 10 photocopies in each sleeve, stop taking around 200 books.
– create schedule for blogging and stick to it.
That’ll do! Happy new year you lot 🙂
Christina Hopgood 