Response to Meg Irvine: First Sick Week Back at MCC, Harry Potter, Gym Goals, and a Vegan Restaurant

Meg Irvine asked how we were doing. This is my response with a few minor additions:

Sarah is doing well. She's working this morning too. She has the goal of going to the gym at least two times each week, and we've completed each week since the new year. We're happy about that.~ in fact, instead of going to the gym we did the first day of a thirty day yoga challenge with Yoga with Adriene. Besides the toughness of the routine and the stiffness of my muscles and joints, I really enjoyed myself. We would adjust the routine to make it fit with ourselves and our bodies. I really enjoy feeling the Zen of working out with Adriene and her calming voice and her sometimes napping dog, Benji.

We've started watching the Harry Potter movies in order, because earlier this week Sarah found Harry Potter's DVD 2-5 on the Buy Nothing Group on Facebook. We're in the middle of Harry Potter and the Prisoner's of Azkaban~ having watched some of it last night. We got into a minor disputation as to whether or not Harry was actually using a Lumos spell outside of the school as written in the books. He wasn't, he was using a flashlight, haha. Sarah also made mention of how it's really interesting how many things you remember and how many things you block out, whether from the movies or from the books, but are reminded when you watch it over again.

Before watching Harry Potter, we started watching all 7 seasons of The Good Witch, which is a Hallmark Channel produced show, so, despite it's  name it isn't a creepy dark magic-y show. It's all about a woman named Cassy Nightingale who lives in Greyhouse in the small town of Middleton with her daughter, Grace. She follows her intuition so well. We enjoyed the show immensely.~ We also started watching the movies, which actually came out before the show. It was interesting to see the pre-story.

We went to a Vegan restaurant yesterday for date night, and the food was actually really good. However, we are most definitely not Vegan. We wanted to support Michelle, our use-to-be roommate prior to the New Year. She works there~ and it was cool to see her in her element. The restaurant was decorated rather nicely, Michelle saying that the owner is also a interior designer. There were inspirational quotes on the wall as well as little facts about Veganism that were interesting.

As for school, the first week of MCC was a bit of a let down being sick and all. All my classes that were in person (the choirs) were just not that fun online, and another class (vocal pedagogy) didn't even have an online option, so I missed out on that one. But I look forward to going next week. I get to start my composition class next week, of which I have three pieces in the works (Étude in F# minor, My Julia, and an unnamed Opus 12 for woodwind instruments). And one on one voice lessons starts next week.~ I talked with Tommy this week on zoom about prospective pieces to work on and we came up with a whole slate. Funny thing about jazz choir on Thursday, I totally missed it because Dr. Peterson forgot to do the whole zoom thing. So instead I went on a walk with Sarah. That was the nice thing about having class at home and skipping out on work, I was home with Sarah all week.

My Ottawa classes have been feeling overwhelming, but yesterday I was able to buckle down and tackle all of the rest of this week's homework and get it done.~ This includes reaching out to many choir teachers to do observations. I took the list that I had from Choral Methods a year ago and reached out to those teachers on that list. One had already reached back to me saying she'll check with the school (since it's covid times).

So, it's been a good week, sickness excluded.