Category: Life

Life

2022 Goal

Yu-Ting

My only goal this year is to get my blood pressure under control without any medication. This means:

  1. Sleep
    I got a lot of sleep in 2021 but most of it wasn’t continuous. I’d wake up after 3 hours of sleep and then often had a hard time getting back to sleep because my brain kept on thinking about all the things I needed to do. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m sleeping 6 hours continuously now. My goal is to sleep 8 hours continuously and wake up refreshed. I really have to make sure I’m in bed by 8PM since I’m up at 4AM.
  2. Exercise
    My goal is to get at least 10,000 steps each day. I plan on doing this by taking short walking breaks whenever I can. I’ve also signed up for the half marathon in October so I’ll probably get back into running daily to train for that. I’ve also bought this book ’24 Ways to Move More’ when we went on our road trip to pick up my cello. I want to go through each activity in this book if possible.
  3. Eat Well
    I haven’t been super good about eating well. I need to make time to cook and if not, I need to somehow make eating healthy more convenient. I’ve looked at subscribing to a meal delivery plan, but I don’t like the idea of all the packaging waste. Come to think of it, I haven’t gone to the grocery store since COVID first happened. Although more people are vaccinated and it is safer to shop in person, I still haven’t really put time to visit the grocery store since I’ve been rushing to get home to find a parking spot. Either ways, I need to eat well.
  4. Treat Myself and Work Less
    This means allowing myself to move a slower pace in life. Take longer showers, go get that haircut, spend time lazing around playing puzzles with complete leisure. Spend less time thinking about work. I grew up in a household where you were praised for working outside of work hours. Tommy probably was the only person who knew how to draw the line between personal time and school out of us kids. I often feel bad for not being productive – I need to stop doing that to myself. Being stressed out isn’t a badge of honor and it isn’t doing my blood pressure any good. I’m amazed how much my BP fluctuates according to if I’m relaxed or if I am not.

I wasn’t super stressed in 2021–but I was and still am very tired. I’ve got 7 students lined up today and the first one starts in 15 minutes. Better get going!

Life

4 hours of sleep

Yu-Ting

4 hours of sleep.

That is the average amount of sleep that I’ve gotten daily for the last 2 months. It was a little bit better when I was part time at school because I could spend Tuesday and Thursday getting additional sleep. Looking back on it now, it was also pretty bad even when I was part time because I just was a bit shy of averaging 6 hours of sleep.

In December, I was just an occasional drowsy driver. Now I’m feeling suddenly drowsy throughout random points in the day. Even when I’m being active like taking a walk or chopping veggies. It was a total struggle to stay awake while driving. None of my tactics like eating, buzzing my lips, pounding my leg with my fists, or screaming at myself would work. I’ve been pulling myself over to take short naps during my morning commute–hoping that it would be enough to make it to school on time.

Then I got sick last week and was totally miserable. It was bad enough that I was drowsy–now my mood was totally down and I felt so irritated all the time. I needed to do less and commit to a real curfew and bedtime. This week, I decided to cut my private studio down massively. No more traveling students and no more non-cello students. It was really hard for me to let these students go since I get so attached and teaching is something I love to do… but I need to put myself first.

This week I averaged about 5.5 hours of sleep. I could feel a huge difference. Sounds obvious, but I feel more awake. I was really happy yesterday when I got to work without needing to pull over for a nap.

My goal is to average 8 hours of sleep daily. I plan on being in bed by 7:30pm. I won’t be able to reach there immediately–but eventually I’ll get there.

I hope my mood improves and I achieve some clarity of mind as I pay off my massive sleep debt.

I hope I don’t ever have to deal with this situation again in the future. I already been through this whole ordeal 4 years ago and you would think I had learned my lesson about sleep deprivation. But old habits are hard to break…

Life

The Way Out

Yu-Ting

By releasing condemnation and resentment, we free ourselves. This does not mean we do not set boundaries, or have to be in a relationship with those who harm and manipulate us. It does not excuse or condone any abuse, but it is only by letting ourselves off the hook, could we free energy up into writing our authentic life script.

If we could accept our own anger, of our parents’ limitations, and of the trauma embedded in our collective humanity across history — we are liberating not just ourselves, but we are also doing something of transpersonal meaning. Like a ripple that will evolve into a wave, you could be contributing to a universal healing force in the world.

Our history is a part of us, but it does not represent or define us.

At any given moment, we could give ourselves the permission to be a free, autonomous being, not weighed down by our past or baggage we have carried for our family of origin.

It is never too late to give yourselves the freedom that you deserve.

from Invisible Wounds of the Sensitive, Empathic and Emotionally Intense Child

Life · Sheet Music

Drawing Parallels

Yu-Ting

After teaching two lessons yesterday, I went up to the city to get a lesson with David. What did I bring in? I brought in Feuillard and started looking at it from the very beginning. I learned that you can learn and teach the fundamental principles from just the first lesson. Things like…
– Committing to the tempo and rhythm.
– Playing with an anacrusis. When you start from silence and when you change notes.
– Keeping all fingers on the bow.
– Keeping your bow glued to the string.
– Legato really means cresendo on the down bow and decresendo on the up bow.
– Making sure your fingers can tap all the way down to make a louder pizzicato sound.

I have a lot of etude books with varying degrees of difficulty and I’m discovering that the things I need to work on the most are the basic principles regardless if the content is difficult or easy. If I were to master these principles in the easy pieces, playing the difficult pieces will be a lot easier. This draws parallel to the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People book that I’m reading. When it comes down to it, we become better people by following the principles discussed in the book. Instead of saying “guiding principles”–Covey calls them habits. Why? Because people who live by principles live according to their habits.

Now I’m off to following the principles that we discussed about in the Feuillard. I plan on practicing until it becomes habit–which in turn will make me a better teacher and cellist.

Life · Vacation

The last week of summer

Yu-Ting

This week is essentially my last week of summer vacation. Next week I’ll be taking one week for the Orff Masterclass in San Francisco followed by another 2 weeks of Orff for Level 3. I’m super excited for that!

Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is milage. I’ve been thinking about the term in every aspect of my life.. playing the cello, teaching, running, etc. Such as cello for instance. During my first 4 years, I put a lot of hours into cello while being ineffective. These last 4 years have been only effectiveness–but I didn’t put a lot of hours at all. It is like the first four years I’ve traveled to multiple destinations but didn’t get the point. The next four years I was taking time to smell the roses but I don’t get to a destination at all.

Now that I’ve reached my 9th year of my musician/teacher career track.. I think a healthy combination of milage and effectiveness is in my future. Perhaps then I’ll reach my destination in life!

So how will I spend my last week of summer? I’m planning go do what I’ve been doing the last few weeks… eating, sleeping, practicing all my instruments, running. I should clean up today though since I don’t think I’ll prioritize that once the school year starts.