Interlude: Piano

My paper writing has been going quite awfully. I can't say I've finished any of my four papers. I can't say I've made a serious attempt at starting more than one. Wow, time's ticking: got a week left. It's not that I'm lazy or whatever, I'm just not feeling too well and I'm so overwhelmed at the scope of this work load. Fast forward my life by 10 days, please!!!

In other news, I took a break to go downstairs and practice some piano. Let me note that I've never had one piano lesson in my life. For years, though, playing piano is something I've always wanted to do. I remember back to middle school huddling around the piano and watching in complete awe as several of my classmates played away so elegantly it made my heart want to melt.

My dorm has a piano, and a little booklet for beginners, so a month or two ago I decided to give it a try. Learning the position of the keys and their names was completely counterintuitive for me, and learning how to play with two hands still is quite impossible, though I'm making improvements.

Lately, I've been looking for sheet music from popular songs and trying to play those. I spent about an hour downstairs today attempting to sound out Coldplay's "Clocks" and "The Scientist" along with Evanescence's "My Immortal." It wasn't easy, but so rewarding when it began to sound right.

Walking down the corridor as I left the piano, two girls were standing against facing walls. As I walked by, one of the girls blurted, "Good job!"

I stopped and stood still for a second. Who me? I thought to myself. I told her that I thought I'm pretty awful and that I never had a piano lesson in my life. She was impressed and insisted that it sounded pretty nice.

I couldn't ask for a better compliment. Now if only I could practice my piano instead of working on these wretchedly dense final papers....