Seriously Tuned Out

A friend reminded me of this story tonight. Seamas, our exchange student was very, very excited that we had a piano in the house. The 2nd day she lived with us she asked if she could play. I, being the pleaser that I am said, "Yes, of course". Day 3 we all wake up at 4am to the pounding on the piano. Apparently, I needed to be more specific about when she could play the piano. Day 4 she began at 8am after she ate a hot dog for breakfast. Things were not starting out well.

She had not taken lessons in a few years, and now that she was in America and only went to school for 7 1/2 hours a day versus her normal 12 hours, she had A LOT of free time. But none of this free time was spent with us, she spent her quality (word of the day) time playing Korean video games on her laptop or playing the piano. She had one particular song she played over and over. I later learned it was the theme song to a Chinese soap opera.

We interviewed 3 separate piano instructors and she finally settled on the instructor my MK uses. She paid for a one hour lesson a week, by the month in cash. We never saw where she stored her money in her room, she had no bank account, but in the end we think she brought $5K with her in cash in her suitcase with her sports socks.

Back to the piano, once she started lessons she wanted to practice every.single.day. And, at first, this was either during homework time or during dinner and I was close to combustion. My piano is in my front room, my house is not large, there is a front room and a back room (kitchen) on the main floor. That is it. There was no escaping the pounding of the ivories. And while some of the music was lovely, most of it was scales and more scales over and over. And, she played for 3 hours at a time. Did I mention every.single.day? So, by day 9, I had to devise a plan.

I created her a piano schedule. This piano schedule directly correlated with my kids other activities when we were out of the house. It went something like this - Monday 3-4 (Car basketball), Tuesday 3-4 (MK's piano lesson), Wednesday 5-6 (Car ballet), Thursday 4-5 (MK ballet) Friday 3-4 (to get it over with) Saturday - Off (she had her lesson, isn't that enough) Sunday - when we are at church.  She was not happy that I only gave her one hour a day. So I added in, any time we are out of the house, feel free to play as long as you would like. Then I laminated it and put it on her bulletin board.