What to do, what to do?

Just got out of the pool. I can never live in another place without a pool. I appreciate it so much on hot days and there's something about being submerged that does my soul good.

I love it when kids make breakthroughs. I have a wonderful little 10 year old violin student (with a very nice supportive family, yay!) who I know practices fairly regularly, but doesn't seem to pay attention to anything she plays when she practices. Last week, I told her (as gently as possible) that it appeared she hadn't practiced at all and she got tears in her eyes when she swore she did (and I believe her). I explained that you can't just play haphazardly and not pay attention to what you're playing. At today's lesson, she made more progress than I've seen her make in months and I was so proud of her, but most importantly, she was very proud of herself, because she could hear the difference! I love it when stuff like this happens!

So far my plan to revise book 1 is not going as well as I'd hoped. I think I'm going to have to re-write completely. Only the first 3 chapters or so are salvageable, then bits and pieces of the rest, but I find I'm doing more complete re-writing than tweaking.

This is the "other" guy. He's a good egg:

Christopher James O’Neil, 21
Started Suzuki violin at age 5.
Grew up in San Francisco – parents divorced at age 3; only child.
In close contact with his father, who is a businessman in San Francisco, but grew up with his mother. His dad never remarried, and Chris suspects he’s gay.
Mother is a math professor at Berkeley. She remarried once but only for about 1 year, when Chris was 12.
Jack's best friend. He admires Jack for his loyalty as a friend, his kindness and it also inflates his ego to be friends with the "superstar violinst". Also has a great admiration for Jack's musical prowess and learns a lot from him. Jack is a bit of a mentor to him. However, at times he is jealous of Jack.
Fairly immature. Loves to party and often gets in trouble for joking around too much.
Adores Lizzie like a best friend - they are kindred spirits and understand each other's senses of humor, idiosyncracies and they have a blast together. He admires Lizzie for her willingness to engage in unabashed mayhem, yet knows she will keep everything just enough in control to stay out of trouble.
Likes fat girls. Not very attracted to Lizzie (although he appreciates that she is gorgeous), but slightly attracted to Maggie.
Goes out with Lizzie because Avery, Ari, Stefano & Quinn all say they want her. He is friends with her and seizes his opportunity to be in the limelight.
Thinks he’s much better in bed than he actually is.
Likes to practice in the middle of the night. He will lock himself in a practice room at the end of the day and hide when security comes around, then stay in the building all night to practice. As a result, he is rarely in the practice rooms during the day with everyone else.
Works at the security desk in the student union.
Doesn’t have a car.
Smokes and is almost addicted to internet porn.