Updates?

Ok....so after seeing my viola instructor (from USC) for the gig over the weekend (By the way it's confirmed that he is out of LA phil now....I wonder if what I heard was true...oh well...), I am getting reconnected with more faculties + friends from my high school....and yes....thanks to facebook.....it's amazing....amazing how small the world really is....

1st of all I recognized the name of this concert master from IAA when I was a freshman there. Last time when I was eating with Taejia and Noriko they were talking about how he was married to someone also from IAA. He used to date this Japanese violinist when he was still at IAA, and then I think his current wife was a voice major back in IAA. He looks much older than his age now I think. I guess white people do turn older sooner. It looked like he is expecting his 2nd kid, but I didn't really ask anything since we were never that close back in school...with the age difference and all....even though we were in the same studio studying with Julia...I think...

2ndly I saw some of my friends adding Susan (used to be my accompanist for my performances back at IAA) on their facebooks. I hesitated a little on adding her cuz she actually married my violin teacher's now ex-husband. Later on I found out Julia and her current husband both added Susan so I was like...ok...fine....I would add her too. It turned out that Susan is now living happily with Michael (My teacher's ex-husband) and they have three foster sons with 6 cats. They are still at Interlochen and she is still busy playing for people. She reminded me of many things that happened when I was there, and even told me that the postcard I gave her with cats is now still on her wall in the studio. I really have no recollection of ever giving her a cat postcard...and didn't remember much of what she mentioned until I was reading stuff she wrote. I guess I was one sweet kid back then...for her to remember that much...lol...

3rd person was a Korean guy called Jerry. He was actually in the same grade with me and played Clarinet. He used to date my roommate at the time, and it was like a big thing in the Korean circle at school. I think the reason was because my roommate was dating this composer guy before, and started dating Jerry (who was several years younger) when Jerry came to school. I am not even sure what exactly the reason was now....but I remember seeing Jerry a lot. I had no idea that he went to Julliard after IAA either. I guess he was actually a good clarinet player? He told me he was in LA up till past March. It's amazing how we got reconnected only after he left.

4th encounter on facebook, which entertained me the most, was with this guy called Christian. He not only accompanied but also taught theory at IAA. I was obviously one of his good students, and hung out with him quite a bit cuz he was at 1st dating my Eng teacher Tracy when we 1st met. Tracy was my ESL 1 teacher who forced me to jump to ESL 2 one month after I arrived the states. She was also the person who covered for me for not having 4 years of Eng when the board of teachers nominated me for the young scholar award when I was graduating. (of course I knew nothing about it when they were having the board meeting.) Tracy really had her favorite students, and I guess I was sure one of them.

Tracy's dad was the vice president of IAA, and later on turned out to be gay. I am not sure if it was a public thing or not, but then her parents got a divorce because of that I think. (By the way they had three kids in the family....I think Tracy was the middle kid). I used to have no place to go when we were having winter or spring breaks, and Tracy would either take me in at her place or just let me live at her dad's place. I think we had a lot of fun cuz hanging out with Tracy and Christian was kinda cool. Christian had a little house (cabin) right next to a lake and reading, watching movies there at night with food in front of us + snow outside was real nice.

Christian told me he is now working in U of M. I was really surprised that he actually went to USC for his degrees. He said he told me about it before I came, but again I had no memory of that whatsoever. His hometown is actually LA and he moved to Michigan when he started working in IAA. It's just amazing how he is now in Michigan and me in LA. He wished he never left LA and wants to come back to the west coast in the future. Well....he is now married to someone at Michigan...so we will see how that goes. He also told me Tracy now has a 4 year old daughter + live in Detroit....and we will see if she ever gets on facebook someday.

So...a lot of information to digest in one day....I wonder why musician circle always has tons of stories to be discovered....I think I should get going and deal with my students now. Maybe 10 years from now I will be getting weird updates from them or something...