The time just before drinking I have noticed that sometimes, when I am in a bar hanging out with friends and I have ordered a beer; I like to wait before begining to drink it. I mean that my beer is just in front of me on the table, and I wait the right moment. I keep talking with my friends for a while, looking sometimes at my full glass without being really thinking of it. And at one point, I will feel it and start drinking. I like this short time and I think I appreciate more my beer that way than if I would drink it whenever I got it.

The rock Monday I found a rock. I was digging the soil of my little garden and I found a big piece of rock. I was not exactly digging, I was preparing the dirt in order to grow some vegetables later. It must be done now if I want the soil to be ready for the next spring. So I was working when, with a big noise, my spade met a rock. I had already met numbers of other little stones before, then I did not expected this one to be different. As I usually proceeded I searched for it through the dirt with my fingers, and when finally touched it I tried to find its bounds. But this time it was to be most complicated. I persevered, I used a smaller shovel, and eventually it took me twenty minutes to dig out a heavy rock, as large as my head, and I had no idea what to do with it.

Teaching I have been teaching saxophone since this summer. As it was holidays at that time, my first students were adults. But since the beginning of September, I have been giving lessons to chidren too, and I find it so different! I know it is an obvious remark, children are no adults. Here are just my simple observations and reflections. My adult students have rather precise wishes and goals they give to themselves. They began short time ago because they loved a song, or a kind of music, or the sound of the instrument... As they want to progress they really listen when I explain something to them. If I succed in making them understand why an exercise is important, they are willing to try it. With the children it is different. They don't really have a precise idea, they merely like learning music. They don't judge themselves and just enjoy the moment. But therefore I find it harder to keep their minds long enough on something. For example, in a recent lesson we played a tune in which all the F notes were sharp. The student played the tune quite well, except all the Fs that he always played F natural. I reminded him many and many times, without real success, and eventually I gave it up for this week. I wonder whether I should have been a bit more severe but I think it is not a solution. He is not at school, he can keep living happily without these sharp Fs and I want him to keep happy to play. Besides, I well know he will get better at reading, over time. On the contrary, I have noticed that when he asks a question he understands the answer far faster than an adult would do.

music studies When I was a child I began to play the saxophone. For years I went to the conservatoire and learned classical music. But when I got older I found out jazz music and it seduced me a lot. So I slowly abandoned my classical studies for jazz studies and for a while I have been happy that way. Now I almost have finished my studies and I belong to several bands with which I regularly play music I feel good with. and yet today, I strongly feel the desire to come back to classical music and go on where I stopped, some years ago. I don't really know why, it is curious. (and by the way, hello everyone, I am a newcomer in this community, willing to practice english!)