To be completely honest, I actually feel slightly guilty about not being more involved in my CIP this semester. One of the reasons (and a big reason, I think) for my minimal involvement was, of course, the amount of homework that I received from my classes, especially from the afternoon classes taught in English. Go figure. A constant barrage of field trips, coupled with random illnesses also didn’t help.

Part of the blame lies with me, though, and my lack of confidence in my abilities to become a full-fledged member of a music circle and its attached social group (in which much of the “community involvement” no doubt happens). I love music, and I love playing the guitar, but I’m still not very skilled, whereas many of the guitarists in the group have been playing for at least four years (I’ve been playing for almost three years now, off and on). I hope to work on this problem next semester, and will try to devote more time to practicing and going to group events. EMBG is a very laid back circle, which did make it somewhat easier to just go up to people and talk to them, but the language barrier is still a big, well, barrier.

Another problem for me has been the sporadic nature of the group. Different people show up on different days, sometimes the group isn’t allowed to make loud noises, and sometimes instead of a group meeting there’s a live performance. For all these reasons I was unable to establish a regular rhythm with my involvement in the group. Like I said before, though, I hope to become more involved next semester as I intend to stick with the group. A lot of the members seem like really cool people and I think it would be fun to hang out with them.  I just need to get to know them better. One of the two live shows that I went to was incredibly fun, and the students performing were intimidatingly proficient with their instruments, which I didn’t expect at first from such a casual circle. On the whole, groups like this don’t exist in the U.S., so next semester I want to get as much out of it as possible.