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I spent Friday working on my CV, a harrowing experience that sent me right over the edge. Well, maybe it wasn�t the CV so much as simultaneously trying to figure out how much my time is worth, thus enabling me to quote rates to anyone who options my services. After sending out a scattering of questions to other freelance workers, I�ve eventually settled on a price for my time. I also have a �relevant experience� CV which, when I look at it again after the weekend, looks pretty good.

Since then, it has amused me no end to think while working on something, �This is worth X dollars of my time.� Did it take three hours? Then it�s worth X multiplied by 3. Was it a rush job for someone that took two hours? Then it was worth (X times 1.5) multiplied by 2.

This has really, really, helped me understand the value of my time and energy. It has also helped me understand that my volunteer work is truly a gift, and that I absolutely will not accept any further volunteer editing/communications work. On top of the freelance work I do, and the work for myself� well, it�s no wonder that I shut down every once in a while and panic. It never seems like much when I agree to do it, but breaking work and time down like this has really shown me that fitting it all in makes life into a crazy quilt.

Now that I understand that my time is worth money, I can be, well, picky about what I choose to do. Investing time in a project of my own that will pay off in the future is one thing, but pouring valuable time into other peoples� projects? They�d better be darned important to me.

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A wonderful line that I just had to share:

“Unrequited love. Very nice. Just like our twelve other songs about unrequited love, now with ten percent more sorrowful ravens.”

I loved it!

The author? Oh. Emily Horner. Yes, the Emily Horner. Remember her? Send her good wishes, because she’s lost the original notebooks in which she wrote over 20,000 words of a story, a situation I have had nightmares about in the past myself. The recent past, actually, now that I think about it, although it’s been an ongoing fear since I began my first novel over ten years ago.

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Every once in a while, I’m reminded of why I choose to teach.

Last night, for example, was the first of a two-part workshop. In complete contrast to the last time I led it, this group was dynamic, positive, and communicative, as opposed to the last bunch. All in all, it was a terrific evening – and we get to do it again next Thursday. Woo-hoo!

More proof that teaching can be rewarding: the students in my Monday night class secretly all got together and bought us the huge 6’x4′ whiteboard that we had been planning to invest in to replace the tiny 3’x2′ board we’ve been using in class. Now, that’s special.

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More thoughts on editing:

It occurs to me that if I were being paid the going rate for all the editing I’ve been doing this past week, I’d be making money.

Hmm.

First Rehearsal, New Conductor

8,900 visitors! Goodness. We’re about a week away from a year of the Owlyblog. That’s a lot of people. (Can’t fool me, I know that it’s a couple of you at work, checking several times throughout the day in desperation, seeking something, anything to fill the void…)

Last night was our first rehearsal with our new conductor, Douglas Knight. Our principal cellist was away on a business trip, so last night of all nights Walter made me fulfill my promise to him and join him at the first stand. For those of you who don’t know, the principal chair of a section sits (a) closest to the conductor, and (b) closest to the audience. Theoretically it’s because they’re so talented and experienced, and they lead the rest of the section.

So there I was last night, sitting right next to the new conductor. “This will be much better,” Walter told him. “She’s good.”

Now, as much as that boosted the ego and probably had a positive effect on how I played, it didn’t change the fact that I hadn’t been at rehearsal in two weeks, and had played only once at home (shame, shame!). And what I played in my living room had nothing to do with what we’re preparing at orchestra, and everything to do with Bach solo cello suites.

I didn’t embarrass myself, which is good. I proved to myself that I can play musically even with wrong notes. I also proved to myself that two weeks of not looking at Mendelssohn is suicide, especially in that dratted second movement with those wretched sixteenth notes and the celli solo in tenor clef. Grr.

All in all, it was a good night. We’re all feeling each other out, finding new footing, new ways to communicate, learning each other’s style. He really put us through our paces, working most of the Mendelssohn: the minuet and trio movement (which was quite beautiful once we found our rhythm as a unit), the final Allegro Con Fuoco movement (also known as the Movement That Never Ends), then back to the evil second movement. And then, joy of joys, the nice, dramatic, Don Giovanni overture. My fingers were swollen and throbbing when I got home, but that’s what you get when you don’t practice for two weeks, right?

Can’t practice today, though; I’m off to the store, then home this afernoon to work on the newsletter, then back to teach at the store tonight. (Yes, astonishing, I know; the first workshop this year that has enough students to merit not cancelling it!) So, tomorrow I will attack the looming threat of the Stretto section of the final Mendelssohn movement (actually, the entire last page), and rework the second movement yet again.

It’s a good thing that I want to practice, I think. It’s nice to feel positive about my cellistic abilities once again.