What About You?

If I were [happy], I would want to get married. There are a lot of verbs/ nouns that can be placed within these brackets and continue to make the sentence true.

Thinking about my friends and family that have gotten married over the last decade, I tried to think of some of the things they've said when they were talking about marriage.
If I were: [in love]... I'd get married.
                [ready]...I'd get married.
                [smitten]... I'd get married.
                [financially stable]... I'd get married.

It makes me so sad that some people had to say [legally allowed to]... I'd get married. I know there a lot of people that don't agree with me, but I also know that there a lot of people who do. I want to share my ideas so that my friends who are LGBT.

Is change easy? No, not usually. But guess what, if you don't want to, don't marry a gay person! Pretty simple I would say.

Tutoring: Saying Goodbye

Monday was my last night tutoring one of my students. I've been tutoring children who are in foster care for 1.5 years now and he was my first student and the only student I have worked with throughout this entire span of time. He is a great kid and it has been wonderful seeing him mature. I love his humor and his willingness to learn. Yes, it's difficult at times, he's young after all and would rather be running around outside playing sports. I am really going to miss seeing him every Monday evening.

I have seen this little kid transform. When I first started working with him, if he thought anyone was disappointed in him, he would shut down, completely, and it would take hours to get him to talk/ function. He has taught me so much, not only regarding different ways people learn but fun ways to approach subjects kids don't gravitate towards.

A few weeks ago, I warned him that after this school year, I would not be able to work with him anymore. He seemed so sad, it broke my heart. He said he didn't want me to leave because I was his best friend. It makes me sad, he has a hard time fitting in school, he's moved a lot. He's definitely had some huge gaps in his knowledge and I wish him the best. He's so smart, and he is sweet, attentive, hyper, active, creative, and thoughtful. He's good at reading me and it's been fun to see the things he could come up with to try and make me laugh. I am going to miss him and I wish him the absolute best in life. It frightens me to see him without guidance, limited parental help, etc. He has my contact information but given that he's so young, I'm not convinced he will contact me. Who knows :)

Brightening Your Day

A friend of mine was having a bad day and I found this online. I don't share photos unless I actually laugh out loud and I love this one:

 

The Huffington Post shared these uplifting quotes today, these were a few of my favorites: 

Life Lately: Traveling & Music

Our current show at the college is Becky's New Car by Teven Deitz. This is our set and I love it! The actors are doing  a great job and every show I try and take a picture of the set. It's built by faculty and students and a lot of muscle work and brains goes into it!

Life has been super busy lately. Well, for those who know me, it's always busy, always packed, and I'm always doing something. This time though, I went to Seattle and days were packed with different things in order to see people I don't get to see enough. There's never enough time to do everything though. I mainly went home because my grandma turned 90 and I was invited to perform a recital at my alma matter. It was great being back in the PNW and the day I arrived was beautiful! Even better, I spent it with a great friend and her son at a park by the ocean.

Thursday

Redondo Beach

The night I flew in I got to have dinner with my mom and grandma. We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant. I love fajitas and decided to try the vegetarian ones. This is how much food I got!!! Holy bananas, people! Two FULL plates, ridiculous though actually a good deal. I got FOUR full meals out of it. 

An obscene amount of food

Driving home we had a great view of The Mountain, not that this picture does it justice.

Mount Rainier, April 2013

Friday

I spent with family. I got to see my best friend and niece and she is so cute!! Since I don't like to post photos of people without their permission on my blog, you'll have to enjoy these photos of mini-golf that night with friends. I even got two hole in ones!!

Saturday

My family went to Vashon Island to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday. We had a delicious lunch, I love me some clam chowder!!! And I had a salad on the side.

My grandma was surprised with this little birthday cake and it was so cute, the surprise on her face. It was sad though when she started crying, wishing my grandpa was still there to celebrate with us.

 

Sunday

I drove over the pass to CWU where I taught a flute/ piccolo masterclass and performed a solo recital. It was so much fun and I'm grateful for everyone's support. I took a ton of photos with friends/ family and they're all uploaded on my Facebook page. 

Photo By: Chrissie Chang

Monday

I drove back to Seattle and got stuck in this weather for almost the entire drive:

 

Yes, that's snow, and a lot of it. That's the mountains for you.

Monday night I flew back to LA. My mom, being awesome, gave me some Greek meatballs to go, heck yeah! They were so yummy. Impressively, I didn't them all before I got on the plane. ;)

I wouldn't say that I fly a lot, but I do fly frequently. I flew with Jet Blue again and loved the experience. Having dealt with so many airlines, it's nice to have the little sensitivities, like blue chips instead of peanuts, or nothing.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip home and I'm so glad that I was able to see everyone that I did. I have some truly amazing friends and it's always good being back in familiar stomping grounds. I went back to work Tuesday morning and it's been busy ever since! More recitals to play, more teaching, and always: MUSIC!!

Upcoming Flute Recital

I am so excited to go home next Thursday!! I will be able to celebrate my Yiayia's 90th Birthday with family and get to see as many friends/ family as I can pack in a short trip. There's never enough time to do everything, see everyone that I want.

I am excited to see my niece too, it's always too far in between visits and she's growing up so fast! On Sunday, I will drive to Ellensburg where I have been invited to teach a masterclass. That evening I will be performing a recital (CWU, Music Department, Recital Hall) at 6:00pm. I love planning programs, this time I will be playing works by Taffanel, Clarke, Debussy, and Taktakishvili.

I hope people come, I'm so excited to go back to my alma matter and share music with friends and family who've been supportive along the way.

Later This Week

Wednesday:

Turned out to be a great day though I have to share the early morning phone I call I received. While the caller was nice, it was the structure of her initial interaction (which had happened about 3 times previously) that annoyed me:

CALLER: Hi, this is Maria. *long pause* (me waiting for her to continue or....)
......really, that's all you're going to give me? Not only is Maria a little common but yeah, I know a crap load of them and a little more info would be very useful.

I texted my trainer this morning, and apparently, Maximus is a name for auto-correct. Well, I usually just type butt but was thinking... hmm, that may be a bit crass this early in the morning. Since maximus was autocorrected to be capitalized I see that I have two options:

1. I'm saying that I have an abnormally large butt of which I should defend, which I don't believe to be all that maximus, or
2. I believe my butt is better than other people's and therefore, when referred to, deserves capitalization.

I wish Mary Tyler Moore had never gotten plastic surgery.

I wish it were common courtesy that if you shared an office right next to someone, with no real barriers in between, they wouldn't be on speaker phone for 45 minute conversations. 

Found this great photo:

Thursday:

By 6:30am today, I was already in a grateful frame of mine by realizing how much I make myself laugh. If laughing at yourself and not taking things too seriously helps preserve life, then I'm all set :)

It was brought on by another awkward moments for which I seem to have daily. You know when you put your mascara on and a few seconds later you sneeze? It's freaking hilarious, because if you've done it once you know that you will now, one or both of my eyes, there will be little hash marks from the wet mascara. Maybe one day I'll do it on purpose and tell people I'm doing a feminine version of the black marks football players put on.

Today will be another day I enjoy a George Takei photo. Today:

Tuesday Randoms

Tuesday Randoms:

• I dropped my reusable Starbucks mug last night *sad!*
• Today I spilled iced tea all over everything in my bag. I don't mind that some stuff got wet but one of my books is pretty damaged :(
• Anyone else watch Storage Wars? I'm thinking that if you were a hoarder with expendable $$ it would be a great way to increase your stash of cr@p. It's fun to watch though just to see them gamble on what may or may not be in the boxes.  It's entertaining when you have an idea how much certain things may be worth (ex. musical instruments) and you hear them talking about how much it may be worth. Yeah, umm... no.

I am so excited to go home to Seattle in just 9 days!! I'm grateful I get to be with family to celebrate my Yiayia's 90th birthday. I am also teaching a masterclass at my alma matter and performing a recital. So excited to see my friends and family!

www.flutingmiller.com