I'm stupidly excited to be organizing a chamber ensemble. I'm excited about the venues in Toronto that are available, I'm excited about researching repertoire, I'm excited about playing the repertoire, I'm excited about my instrument, I'm excited about my reeds. 

It's almost an unbearable amount of excitement. 

I'm back to scheduling my practice time, which is great, and scheduling my downtime (with help from a certain person in my life) which is even better. I've noticed that I work well with ...
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Since I moved to Toronto, I've felt like I was sometimes at war with my oboe. I questioned if I could make reeds, play music, play the oboe well enough to even continue, let alone improve. And yet I kept playing, kept accepting more opportunities to play, forced my reeds to squeeze themselves into pitch, because I love playing the oboe...but I wasn't loving it.

I was hating myself after each performance, even when things went acceptably, because I felt it shouldn't be this painful just to play...
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