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I have been procrastinating this blog for a while because I wanted to write about the rest of our Vietnam trip.  I think it may have to wait a little while because it involves pictures and the names of places I don’t remember, so I’ll skip it for now and write a little update for December 2009!

John and I came back from Vietnam on October first and my tan has already gone away, boo hoo!

We moved into a nice little one bedroom apartment in Atlanta, close to John’s work.  This place is a total dream: our apartment community has a fitness center, a business center (with computers, fax/copy machine, and wifi) and a non-chlorinated salt water swimming pool.  The carpet, walls, doors, and cabinets are made of recycled materials.  And we have a valet trash service.  We have a nice view of the trees from the balcony and it’s quiet.  Oh—and we got about $300/month off the normal price because we came in the off season!  We also bought a car.  It is the first car that either of us has owned.  It is a ’99 Camry and we had all of the money saved up for it!

I decided back in October to finish and send in a rough draft of my dissertation to my advisor by the end of December.  I have been working on in every day like it’s my full time job.  Spending every day like this totally bums me out, but I have dedicated myself to one last stretch of hard work and before we fly home for Christmas, whatever I have on my computer I’m turning in no matter how bad it is.  I’ve been working on this thing for so many years and months that if I don’t finish it soon, I might give up! 

John is enjoying his job at the CDC and we are both enjoying having an income (although it doesn’t seem like much compared to our mountain of student loan debt—but thankfully John doesn’t have to begin repaying his for three years because of this job) and our Federal Employee Health Benefits.  He has also been playing tennis as much as possible and watching the TV show Better Off Ted with me. 

I have three piano students and one flute student!  This is quite astonishing to me.  John’s supervisor at work asked if I would teach her two daughters piano and flute, and our Vietnamese friends asked me to teach their little girl.  So we’ll see how this works out, especially since I’m not experienced on either of those instruments.  Someone did ask me for violin lessons and I had to draw the line there.  No bassoon students yet, ironically.   I have been getting lots of gigs lately however, including most recently the Atlanta Pops Orchestra. 

I am also excited about the recent release of a CD that I recorded with the Atlanta Chamber Winds last August.  The CD is titled Music from Paris, published by Albany records.  It features works by lesser-known French composers, and I only play on three of the six pieces.  This isn’t the first professional recording that I have contributed to, and I wasn’t initially very excited about it.  But I listened to it a few weeks ago and it’s actually really good! 

John and I are going home to Utah and Wyoming for our first Christmas as a married couple.  We are excited to see our families and the mountains again.  I hope we will be able to see everyone, but we will only be there for a few days so we’ll do our best!

Ok, that's all for now!