Jonathan Coulton, anyone? I’d have that song playing right now if I weren’t in class, because I feel wonderful this morning. Not sure why, though.

It could be the four taiko sets we performed this weekend at the Houston Japan Festival. I spent two whole days outdoors hanging out in the lovely Japanese gardens, playing drums, moving drums on and off and on and off and on and off the stage, eating yummy food, drinking tapioca tea, and perfecting my sunburn.

It could also be that I’ve switched from taking my Lexapro in the evening to taking it in the morning. The doctor said it might make me sleepy and recommended that I take it before bed, which I’ve always done, but lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping through the night. Every night I wake up at least two or three times, and sometimes it takes me up to an hour to go back to sleep. If I lie down in the morning after I get back from walking Sam, I will fall asleep within five minutes and sleep through noon. I’ve missed many a morning class this way, and even a few in the afternoon.

(more…)

The Tennessee trip was FANTASTIC. The bus gave us its fair share of problems, and we lost a little sleep, but both shows went great and we had a blast. High point of the trip: getting to stay in the same hotel three nights in a row, or maybe the professional massages we got on our day off. Low point: no hot tub in the hotel. Who doesn’t have a hot tub?

I’ll be editing together a video or two about the trip. I hope I can get it all done in the next few days, before finals swallow me up and memories of the trip start to fade into the fog of the recent past.

I also got my brief turned in thanks to my partner from class, who printed out the pdf I emailed her from Memphis at 3:00 Monday morning and turned it in for me. (Thanks Elizabeth!) It’s hard to believe that LRW is practically over, maybe because this semester I spent the last few days before the due date rocking out with taiko instead of going OMGBRIEFBRIEFBRIEF non-stop.

And there’s more rocking out to be done: This weekend is the Houston Japan Fest at Hermann Park*, and then the next Saturday we’re playing at the Dragonboat Festival at Allen’s Landing. Come see us? You should.

Sigh, I’m on such a taiko high right now. I love practicing, I love performing, I love travelling, and I love my taiko family. I’m afraid I might explode from all the happy-making…maybe I should tone it down a bit so I don’t crash hard once all the big shows are over. Hmmm…nah, gonna keep living it up. Taiko on!

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* I’ll be there for all the Kaminari shows, 1:00 and 4:40 on Saturday and 11:15 and 4:15 on Sunday.

I interrupt this hiatus in my blog posting to let you know that I’ll likely be posting even LESS often for the next two weeks. My appellate brief, worth eighty percent of my Legal Research and Writing grade, is due next Thursday*, and all I have so far is a sketch of an outline and a list of cases to read more closely.

I have a conference with my professor tomorrow afternoon, so I figure today is a fantastic time to start putting some serious effort into this thing. With only one weekend between now and the due date and 20 pages to conjure up out of this thick stack of cases, I’ll barely have time to eat, sleep, read blogs, check Facebook, keep up with my YouTube subscriptions, and update my Twitter feed.

I’ve just removed Solitaire from my computer, so who knows, maybe I’ll post MORE here for lack of a more absorbing way to procrastinate. It’s a crazy world.

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* The actual due date is the Monday after next, but that weekend I’ll be on a taiko road trip (squee!) to perform at the Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival. What better reward for finishing a brief, eh?

Guess what guess what? NBC, Lifetime and the [producers? owners?] of Project Runway have FINALLY settled their lawsuit (in NBC’s favor), and Season 6 will air on Lifetime this summer!

Not much else to say, except that I can. not. wait.

Y’all won’t believe this, but my phone started working properly again yesterday afternoon. It seems that T-Mobile ACTUALLY SENT A CREW OUT to my area within two days and FIXED THE PROBLEM. I’m shocked, absolutely shocked.

The (assumed) fact that T-Mobile was able to fix it so quickly suggests the problem was with their own equipment. Or at least I think so. John thinks they could just as easily have used some nifty gadget to home in on an illegal interferer and threatened him with massive FCC fines.

I guess we’ll never know. I was thinking of calling to ask, but I’m sure the first-tier rep I get on the phone will have no idea what the service crew found. My mom’s coming over tonight, so I was hoping to see if her Sprint phone would have the same issues, but I’ll have to suspend that investigation. Not that I’m complaining.

I think I might stay on until the end of my contract after all…

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P.S. Upon reading this, I realize it sounds like an April Fool’s joke. It happened, I swear. I couldn’t lie this well.