contractual obligation

I've been purposely trying to spice up my life by trying new activities.

Like the tennis lessons I took over the summer.

Like the Photoshop class I took before that.

Like this, something different in terms of volunteering. (Which, by the way, was a blast! Trying to find bargains for the little girl I shopped with was awesome.)

Now I've signed up for guitar lessons. I took guitar a mere 18 years ago (!) -- I don't feel like I'm old enough to say I did anything 18 years ago. At any rate, I already own a guitar, it was simply signing up for lessons that was required.

It's much harder than I remember it being, and after the first class I was more than a bit frustrated that my fingers didn't remember the chord positions. But music is a "use it or lose it" skill and I definitely lost it. (The skill, that is. I quite nicely held my composure, thankyouverymuch.)

We were sent home after the first class with instructions to learn a simple song in our course book. Much to my surprise, I was anxious to get home after work the next day to be able to practice the song we were assigned. I'm sure my neighbors are already tired of my practicing, but once I started to really get the song down, I didn't want to stop playing. I sat there for over two hours (!) playing the three-fourths of the same song over again, making sure I got it right before tackling the last measure that was the toughest. It pains me a bit to say that I still have not gotten that down completely, but I'm getting there.

Slowly.