intellectual overload

There's just too much stuff going on in my head. I'm stressed about not getting my chapter done, and I'm worried about rehearsal tonight because the conductor threatened to make every member of my section play a particular problem spot in front of the entire orchestra solo. I can play that spot, but there's no way I can play it solo. I get nervous and choke--that's why I am an orchestral player and not a soloist: safety in numbers. I don't want the entire orchestra, especially a certain someone, to think that I suck. But what else will they think when I crack publicly. My only consolation is a faint glimmer of hope that the conductor will give us a shot to play it together first, and that we nail it 'cause then I'm fine. no humiliation.

UPDATE: faint glimmers of hope sometimes can be realized! we didn't suck :)
Now if this strategy could only work in other areas of my life . . .

I'm also still messed up by a post on another blog that really upset me yesterday, and the more i think about it, more more messed up I get. I forget sometimes that there are people in the world who have different opinions and viewpoints than I do. I mean, of course, not everyone thinks the same way, but living in california, going to grad school, playing in an orchestra . . . all of these factors combine to make my world a particularly liberal place. Add to that a few years in the school of hard knocks and a deeply sworn vow not to judge other people because being judged can suck pretty hard. . . I don't know--I guess I try to learn something for everyone I encounter, in the real world or in blogspace. It's just difficult for me to read things that seem close-minded or judgmental or just logically unsound, especially when they come from people whom I kinda like. . . That said, I do appreciate different vantage points and try to be as open to them as I can. It's just hard sometimes, but I guess that's life; it's easy to accept difference when it's slight. It's much harder to swallow when it's fundamental--but I'm realizing that this is perhaps the whole point of acceptance.

I'm also really irritated at my job right now. I actually have three jobs: one as a graduae student to write my dissertation, another as a teaching assistant where I mentor and supervisor students doing internships for course credit, and three as a test-prep instructor. The internship job is really weighing on me right now because although I'm done with the in-office part of that job for the week, my colleagues keep calling me asking me to take on one more student. This has happened three times in 24 hours. Never mind that I've said that I don't want to be called unless it's an EMERGENCY; nevermind that enrollment for the course closed last week; nevermind that these students are not English majors or doing internships that have even the slightest tangential relationship to English, literary studies or the humanities. . .
I need to turn off my phone and just ignore it all because that's the only way that I'll get left alone to do any of my own work.

Of course, that hasn't happened today because my head is spinning like a three ring circus, or something that actually spins in too many directions at the same time resulting in utter chaos, but nothing like that actually comes to mind so the circus will have to do for now.

This is why I need to go back to yoga class or at least run somewhere and clear out all of this noise.