when's the next?

Just finished playing in the Singapore Bible College concert and it was most hilarious. After the end of one movement, my desk partner's bow bumped into my peg and I heard the most awful sound ever, the sound of a slipping peg/unravelling string. And not one but two strings. So there was this awkward silence when I was deciding whether on not to go off stage and tune, but there was no 'off stage' because the venue was a hall, and there were only 2 cellists, and the conductor was waiting patiently (or so I hoped). So I began the slow process of tuning up, and thankfully it was tuned pretty fast.

Halfway through next movement, I heard the sound of a loosened peg again, and I did mental somersaults wondering which string it was. It wasn't the A and the D string, because I was playing on those and they sounded fine. Then when I hopped onto the G string I was keeping my mental fingers crossed that it wasn't the G string that went out of tune, and thankfully the culprit was the C string which I later found was two tones off.

I was so glad that my first three strings were in tune that I played harmonics incessantly just so I could hear the nice ringing sound of an in-tune string.

Something tells me that was retribution for making funny faces during one movement where everything unravelled.

Well it wasn't that bad, actually it was quite a cool concert, because the music was pretty nice, I had a chatty desk partner, and it was the first time I felt I could play the cello. Recently I have been plagued by the greatest insecurities about my playing, so much so that I try not to play the cello when I teach, and I was outed by my student.

"You never play the cello during lesson!"
"No I do! " I vehemently protested.
"See, I play studies"
"That doesn't count."

See, what nice students I have.