would wearing a mandolin on my back and playing it once in a while in public at high school be a good way of peacocking and throwing in some dhv's, it wouldn't seem too unordinary cause other kids bring there guitars and they all suck at it. i write on guitar too but mandolin is damn easier to carry around, i'd probably have to shred a piece on it for her so she didn't think of it as a little joke instrument. and i know how to make people understand that i don't just play around on the guitar and mandolin, I stopped playing on instruments about two years ago, and I started writing on them, which in my mind would be a better dhv than saying i'm a guitar player.

I'm gonna go ahead and say no. It seems like more of a gimmick than a peacock and just seems like you'll come off as the sensitive emotional type that is very clingy and minstrel-y. Unless you can come up with a REALLY good line after someone asks why you have a mandolin, I would just say no to that idea.

if an instrument doesn't do it, i'd like some other way to plug in the dhv that my life is in the creation of music, and that during the summer i'm going to be traveling the US playing music for a bus of folks and than i'll settle in california(i'm from oregon) as a free teacher teaching kids how to create music at a non-profit alternative learning school. if that's a good move.