J'ai un gros rhume

I am really, really sick right now.  My first bad cold of this year has caused me to miss two days of school already.  So what better thing to do than practice an instrument that doesn't require that you breathe?  I have had my ukulele for about a week now.  First thing:  tuning it was not easy.  I was so afraid I would break it, I had to ask a viola player to tune it for me.  After that, I went to the library and got every book that was there about learning ukulele, although so far youtube has been my best resource.  I have been told by more experienced people that it is easiest to learn chords first.  So, for now I am trying to learn some basic chords and strumming techniques.  Another thing, the day I got my ukulele people started warning me that sometimes you can get calluses from playing guitar and that it might happen with ukulele too.  This has not happened yet and I hope it never does, but my fingers do hurt after playing it.  You have to press down on the strings very hard.  Another example of my ignorance concerning string instruments:  I had to ask my mother if you put your fingers on the frets or between them.  No worries though, these little problems have been sorted out.  I will keep practicing chords for now, but I really want to be able to play just one song really well!

Le début

Hey there, my name is Sarah.  I have been playing the French Horn for almost six years.  This is the first day of our Google 20% projects.  It sounds pretty exciting.  I have chosen to learn the ukulele for my project.  Can't wait till tomorrow when I will actually get my ukulele.  I have heard about people playing these before, but I always thought it was just a really small guitar from hawaii.  Apparently I was never even saying it right.  I am really psyched to learn to play this instrument (completely different from anything else that I have ever done) and to learn more about the ukulele.  Since choosing this for my project I have looked up a few things about ukuleles.  The music is really pretty.  It does sound kind of like a guitar, I guess because it isn't bowed like a violin.  I hope I can find enough coordination for me to actually be good at the chords and play a few songs.  It will be interesting to see what kinds of songs are generally played on the ukulele.  I must also say that I am obsessed with where words come from and I will be researching the origin of this instrument.  Just in trying to find out, today, how it is pronounced I came across many good leads:  native hawaiian, portuguese, french, flying louse...  Hopefully these will all give rise to more interesting posts in the future, so that's all for now.