I've been spending a lot more money than I should be since coming to NYC. The problem is, going to the bar, going out to eat, all costs money . . . and those are good things to do with people. This weekend, for instance, I went to a bar last night with two friends, breakfast this morning with a friend going to school in Germany who's visiting a bunch of people here, and tonight I went to a Bohemian beer garden with Kimberly, and then a really different sort of bar that she read about in some guide book she has. All in all the beer garden was by far the most fun thing I've done here . . . the atmosphere was like there was a perpetual party there, the clientele was all our age, there was an acoustic band up on stage playing covers of 80's hair metal songs, and the beer was very, very good. For instance, I'd never had the chance to drink Hoegaarden on tap before, so that was a nice change. We went to a small bar afterwards because it said in the guide that they had deserts, so we went and got some taramisu, which was amazing. This bar was really strange in some ways, it had your traditional bar, but the rest of the room was filled with fluffy couches with big pillows on them, and there was even this small room with a couch in it up some stairs with a curtain you could pull down in front of it . . . kinda . . . iffy. These two places were in Queens, so I was in Queens for the first time tonight. At first glance, I like it a lot . . . much more interesting than my neighborhood, I think.

I've had a week of classes now, and I gotta say I'm not thrilled. Of the three classes, two have the most boring teachers on the face of the earth, and the third, graduate review counterpoint, I wouldn't care about if the most dynamic lecturer on earth were teaching it. But working with Eddy was amazing for my first lesson, and honestly, he's the reason I'm here, so all's good. Tomorrow the orchestra is reading the first movement of Bruchner 9, since we'll be working on it later this semester and I guess the conductor wanted to get a bit of a jump on it . . . which is funny, since the orchestra is always rotating anyways. They have roughly twice as many musicians as they need for the orchestra (23 cellos for 12 chairs), so I have a feeling I'll at least be out for 3 of the 8 concerts. Hopefully, anyways. Plus, for one concert a year, we can request a leave, so if I ever really need a cycle off, I can get it. SO yeah, I like a lot of things about this school. Sometime this week, Wayne and I will find out who our violinist is, so I'm excited (or maybe a little nervous) for that. Either way, I can't wait to start playing chamber music again.