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maristuFirst off, sorry if I sounded sour in my last post. I was having a bad day, but really, I have nothing to complain about, I'm happy and studying and playing my heart out, and am exactly where I'm supposed to be. Which is actually my new philosophy in life. No matter how much you plan everything out, if your plan doesn't take you to where you're supposed to be, it just won't work. Something will happen to take you down your proper path, and that something might be subtle or might feel like a big huge anvil on your head (which has been the case these past few years). But really, it's been an amazing and interesting ride so far, and I'm pretty sure it's just getting started! :)
If you want to check out the band, here's the web site: http://www.batalawashington.com/
And if you're passing through, come and watch us!
Edit: Remembered how to use lj-cut. Yay for me!
Anyway, I have a band. It's a way cool band, big drums, women only. It's been a challenge, really, just coming out here and starting it up from practically nothing. Do you know how difficult it is to teach 20 girls that have never beaten anything other than a pan and get them all to play together as a group? With *rhythm* and *style*? Actually, it's not as hard as you might think. I was very pleasantly surprised. And am truly proud of all the girls. They're amazing!
And to think that less than 2 years ago *I'd* never picked up a drum in my life... Which is what I mean about life taking some weird turns, and not necessarily for the worse. I just kind of bumped into the band in Brazil a little more than a year ago, and suddenly it took over my life. Beating a drum made a crappy day feel pretty good, made me get up at 8am on a Saturday morning with the biggest hangover of my life and still be happy to be up and to have a cool place to go. I got to ride on a bus for 26 hours with 30 other women (actually there were 2 buses, 30 women in each, you can imagine how the stops went!) and live for a week with the same women in a house with 3 bathrooms (quite an adventure!). I got to walk through the streets of Salvador, which is a beautiful city all by itself, and play my drum for 4 hours and 8km, with literally hundreds of thousands of people following us. I got to be in a recording studio for the first time in my life, and I can actually tell my children (in the distant future, of course) that their mamma's one of the girls playing on the CD. So yeah, these past few years have been crazy, and way cool.
And then one day I'm sitting in a bar with the guy who invented the band, and he's telling me and some other girls how there's an idea of starting up a band over in Washington, DC. He's complaining about what a pain in the ass it is to get a visa, and I just say, "Hey, I have a visa!". He asks me if I know how to speak english. I tell him, well, yeah, pretty much. *Then* he asks me when can I go. And I go, "Huh?". I was just kidding, you know. But they took it seriously, and after a million other coincidences, I ended up here. Coincidences, I said? More like those anvils that I mentioned... The woman that was trying to start up the band here worked in the same place as I do, although we'd never met. She managed to get me to get me out of my department, which is something I've been trying to do for the past 2 years, and into hers. She managed to get me out here on a study leave. She works with two cousins of mine, and one of them lives here in Washington, and co-signed the lease for my apartment. And now she's going to get me to come study here in Washington, DC, all expenses covered. Oh, plus did I mention that the band's really cool? :)
So I figure, why fight the currents? It's definitely not taking me on the track I'd pictured (which includes living in my new apartment back in my hometown, marrying and having children before I hit 40), but still, it's a very cool ride. So maybe it'll take me another two years to get to where I thought I should be when I was 30, but maybe my darn plan was just wrong to begin with. This feels too good to not be right...
And to think that less than 2 years ago *I'd* never picked up a drum in my life... Which is what I mean about life taking some weird turns, and not necessarily for the worse. I just kind of bumped into the band in Brazil a little more than a year ago, and suddenly it took over my life. Beating a drum made a crappy day feel pretty good, made me get up at 8am on a Saturday morning with the biggest hangover of my life and still be happy to be up and to have a cool place to go. I got to ride on a bus for 26 hours with 30 other women (actually there were 2 buses, 30 women in each, you can imagine how the stops went!) and live for a week with the same women in a house with 3 bathrooms (quite an adventure!). I got to walk through the streets of Salvador, which is a beautiful city all by itself, and play my drum for 4 hours and 8km, with literally hundreds of thousands of people following us. I got to be in a recording studio for the first time in my life, and I can actually tell my children (in the distant future, of course) that their mamma's one of the girls playing on the CD. So yeah, these past few years have been crazy, and way cool.
And then one day I'm sitting in a bar with the guy who invented the band, and he's telling me and some other girls how there's an idea of starting up a band over in Washington, DC. He's complaining about what a pain in the ass it is to get a visa, and I just say, "Hey, I have a visa!". He asks me if I know how to speak english. I tell him, well, yeah, pretty much. *Then* he asks me when can I go. And I go, "Huh?". I was just kidding, you know. But they took it seriously, and after a million other coincidences, I ended up here. Coincidences, I said? More like those anvils that I mentioned... The woman that was trying to start up the band here worked in the same place as I do, although we'd never met. She managed to get me to get me out of my department, which is something I've been trying to do for the past 2 years, and into hers. She managed to get me out here on a study leave. She works with two cousins of mine, and one of them lives here in Washington, and co-signed the lease for my apartment. And now she's going to get me to come study here in Washington, DC, all expenses covered. Oh, plus did I mention that the band's really cool? :)
So I figure, why fight the currents? It's definitely not taking me on the track I'd pictured (which includes living in my new apartment back in my hometown, marrying and having children before I hit 40), but still, it's a very cool ride. So maybe it'll take me another two years to get to where I thought I should be when I was 30, but maybe my darn plan was just wrong to begin with. This feels too good to not be right...
If you want to check out the band, here's the web site: http://www.batalawashington.com/
And if you're passing through, come and watch us!
Edit: Remembered how to use lj-cut. Yay for me!
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on 2007-10-06 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-10-06 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-10-11 03:46 am (UTC)How about you? Your girl should be *huge* by now! It's been, what, 2 or 3 years since I was last online? How is everything?