Professor Steph

Writing this title, I'm reminded of our dear family friend Pastor Wil Alexander, who, knowing that I teach violin lessons (to little kids) at the elementary school, always addresses me as "Professor...."

Well, tomorrow morning I'm off to Yosemite, camping with friends. My brand new Canon 28-135 mm F3.5-5.6 IS lens arrived in the mail today, right on time, so pictures should be forthcoming in a following blog (if I remember).

I'm looking forward to a little vacation, since I can't afford to take off work time for an actual vacation this summer, thanks to the US Treasury and the democrats. However, I wish I had a couple of extra days this weekend to work on a project I just found out about. I registered for a conference at La Sierra University next weekend called the Camerata of Adventist Musicians, kind of a very small GYC for musicians. Wolfgang Stefani, a pastor and musician from Australia who has done extensive research into the spiritual nature of musical aesthetics and Adventism, will be the keynote speaker, and Israel Ramos, GYC president, will be giving the devotional meetings. The conference seems to be lacking in a certain amount of planning however, given that an advertisement email was sent out to all the local musicians after the actual deadline (and this was the first I had heard about it), and it was only yesterday that I got the email with the conference schedule and, oh yes, I'm assigned to present a lecture recital on Friday at 1:30...

I have to reiterate that this was the absolute first I had heard about presenting a lecture recital next Friday. So I've been frantically deliberating what I am going to speak about (we are to choose two pieces to present), researching about the music, writing a paper about them, and practicing them because I have to talk and play. I feel like I'm back at school again. Or perhaps I even feel like I'm a real intellectual scholar or something, presenting lecture recitals at conferences. Maybe I'll make the conference circuit, and they'll be asking for me at Yale. Or, maybe if the speakers are recorded, I'll even make it to AudioVerse (just kidding)! All right, enough dreaming and back to work so I can make a little progress on this before I leave tomorrow morning, because next week I only have two days to work on it (and they are full teaching days).