Making the cut

I've started taking a guitar class. Several summers ago, I bought a guitar. A nice one, at that. Made in Canada. But I never learned to play it. Fate or what have you steered me towards the class catalog of the Sequoia Adult School and there it was, a Beginning Guitar class, from 7 to 9 on Tuesday nights. Perfect!

It's an interesting class. We had our second one tonight. There's about 15 people in there, and it's quite an international bunch. One woman sounds like she's German, and another is definitely British.

Our class is a quasi-sitcom. Sometimes we really test our instructor's (Leone; he's Fijian) patience. Witness the woman of stern bearing who, thankfully, has yet to turn her steely gaze squarely upon me. At the start of every class we tune our guitars and our instructor points to each of us to pluck the string of the day to see if we're in tune. She plucks her string so hard. So very, very hard. Leone implores her to pluck it more gently, but she just stares at him and pulls it back with gusto once more. The English woman constantly blurts out, "Where are we? Where are we?" as she somehow continuously forgets which measures we're playing. Then there's the guy who has come to both classes but WITHOUT a guitar. "I forgot to bring my guitar," he said to Leone. How can you forget to bring your guitar? It's a guitar class!

Leone surprised us all by revealing that he would be splitting the class into two groups and two sessions. The first hour would be for the folks who need a lot of help and support, and the second hour would be for those who can move a little faster. After my performance in class (I have to admit, I didn't do much practicing), I felt sure he'd stick me in the "slow" class. My heart started to pound as I prepared for the embarrassment, and he went around the room publicly telling each of us which class we would be in. The violent string plucker woman made it into the fast (aka "smart") group. The English woman made it into the fast group. And *I* made it into the fast group. Whew!