A Post from Sofia

Went to my friend's daughter's school program today in Sofia. The kids performed a nice bulgarian folk dance along with poetry readings, patriotic songs, choreographed pop tunes, kung fu exhibition, american idol style solos, and a rock band.

Vocal Mimicry and Rhythm.

I've been trying to teach rhythm to a student.  What finally seemed to work was having the student sing the tune with words before attempting to play.  I was telling my husband about my success when he showed me an article about Snowball. Seems that vocal mimicry and rhythm are neurally connected.  Now if I can somehow apply this to my cello playing :)

Chinese Overdose

Finished up the refresher Chinese course at the local community college this week. Unfortunately, as a farewell gift, the professor gave me 1,375 basic chinese character flash cards.  I pulled out about 300 characters that I recognize and will work on trying to be able to write them before worrying about the other 1075 characters! Another friend took the time to translate my entire blog's "About Me" section into Chinese so now I'll have to copy and learn all the new words to that as well. 

关于我  
一九五九年圣诞节前夕，我在韩国汉城被家人遗弃，送进一所孤儿院。当时我才是一个刚断了奶还包著尿布的婴儿。所以哪天是我的生日只可猜测了。后来我像邮件一样给寄到美国，被一个多元化的家庭收养；自小就在匈牙利、爱尔兰、犹太人和天主教的影响下成长。我父亲从事热带鱼生意，他往往会消失在秘鲁、哥伦比亚和亚马逊等充满异国情调的偏远地方。我是跟猴子、野猫和其它珍贵宠物，还有传统的狗、猫、仓鼠和鹦鹉一起养大的。虽然我在北卡罗莱纳、维吉尼亚、马里兰州和华盛顿特区住了很久，但大部分时间是住在佛罗里达州的南部。我还没有去过澳大利亚、新西兰、南太平洋或印度，可是我会讲一些西班牙文、汉语、法文以及保加利亚文。由于我计划在今年秋天前往南美的秘鲁旅行，目前正加紧学好西班牙文。我跟我的丈夫厄尔住在迈阿密市中心仅有一个睡房的杂屋里。我的丈夫是一位家庭律师，他几乎从我出生以来就爱玩小提琴。我们家里还有八个鱼缸，两个degus（？）, 两只鹦鹉和一只可爱的小鸟。