It's all downhill from here ...

So now here we are, finished with classes as an undergraduate. Ready for the last flurry of rehearsals, recitals, and exams. I've finished 3/6 of my senior projects, two of those being biger than the rest of them put together.
I've carried off a 35 minute piano recital, and a 45 minute composition recital, things people told me I could never do. I thought I would feel accomplished when I finished, but all I really feel is drained.

What's next? I'm not really sure. I'm hoping to find a job (aren't we all?) and to do some great volunteer work, as well as train to run three 5K's before Christmas this year. I hope to be more involved with my church, spend quality time with my family, and to not lose contact with great friends.

This point of life sort of feels like a precipice, I'm standing on it, and graduation is the pushing off part.

Everyone's so ready to memorialize "my last day of classes", "my last rehearsal", "my last performance". I'm not so ready because as burned out as I feel, I'm not so ready to get rid of the last four years of memories.

Stay tuned, job hunt coming soon.

Let's switch subjects

After such a long and rather depressing post on Sachsenhausen, I thought perhaps we should change it up a little. Okay, maybe a lot in actuality.

Here's ten things that are on the ground right now for me:

1. Americorps finally contacted me. Now granted, it was about a new program I had applied for, but it's still super exciting to be going through a formal application process. This particular program requested more material from me, a sample of my writing style, two more references, a resume with cover letter, etc. I'm really excited, and already have my new references lined up, so life is looking good for the next few days. Maybe I'll have plans within a couple of months!

2. My internship is going awesome. It's lot of data, and number crunching right now, but I'm just loving the logistics of everything. I also love the fact that what I'm doing could have a lasting effect on the way things work at William Jewell. That may be the most exciting thing for me.

3. My piano recital is in T-six weeks! I'm faltering a little on some of the line up in repertoire, we're just the slightest bit short right now, but I may have figured out a solution to this problem, so check back in. I'll be announcing the date formally in three weeks, but the unofficial date is March 10th, at 5:30 pm.

4. If the piano recital is six weeks away, this means I only have 13 more weeks in which to write, assign, and rehearse everything for my composition recital. On that front, things are coming together slowly, but surely. My quartet has been assembled (yay, thanks Peter for agreeing to be my tenor!) and I have high hopes for the choir to come together soon. I have a reading for my strings piece two (three?) weeks from now, and we're *this* close to being ready to turn things in! I think my next composition lesson should take place over coffee. I plan to suggest this to him. No more stuffy classroom. :)

5. At the end of the second week of classes, I've switched my art history to pass/fail, which has lightened my homework load. The professor for this class tends to uncommunicative on my research topic choices, but that's okay, there's not as much pressure.

6. Speaking of that homework load, I think I've settled into the rhythm. Most of my classes have a fair amount of homework, which is slightly worrisome for my sanity, but if I just don't fall behind, ever, at all, with no exceptions, then I should be fine. Uh-oh, I think I'm already behind....

I think that's all for now, but it's enough. I'm still muddling through. Check back soon for final plans on the recitals and further travel updates!

Americorps Essay

Part of my application to Americorps requires an essay, or "personal statement". Most of the time I hate that  sort of a thing, but after mulling it over and talking it through with several "academic" types of people, I think I'm ready to write the statement. 


"We would like to understand more about you and your reasons for applying to AmeriCorps. Take a few minutes and consider those experiences that have made you the person you are today. Please share with us one of these experiences and how it sparked your interest in community service."

Right before my nineteenth birthday I chose to take what is referred to as a gap year and put off pursuing a university degree for this period of time. I was working as a nanny at the time and the mother of the family was pleased enough at the prospect of having me work for her for another year, that she was willing to give me time off throughout the year so I would have the ability to travel. The first trip I took was the biggest, I went to Italy and France for two months to couch surf at my sisters and at my brothers. While I was traveling through Southern Italy, my eyes were opened in a whole new way to the poverty of the world. I had grown up in a comfortable middle-class family and I had not  seen face to face the needs that are out in bigger world. I had always been involved in community service, with my parents, from a very young age, but for the first time I was confronted with true absolute poverty, people begging to have one more piece of bread. I felt my heart break inside of me. I would continue to labor under the misconception that this was simply a European problem until I came home and began traveling in my own country. For the first time I saw all around me people who were in a far worse place than myself, and I was astonished. When I did pursue a university degree I found myself wishing there was a way to be purposeful and organized in service work, and I ended up pursuing, and founding, a university-based Rotaract International chapter. That organization is the true pride of my undergraduate career, not my grades, honors, performances. What the organization now does is reach into the international community, where my eyes were first opened, raising funds, and serving as much as possible in the local community. 

Why must I conform?

I told a group of people last night that I wanted to travel the world and get too many degrees. It may not be the most practical plan, but I was entirely serious. They took me seriously all for a moment, and then most laughed and said variations of this sentence: "well only until that special someone comes along, then it's all marriage and babies".

Hm, why is that always the answer in a girls life? If I want to have the aspirations to not get married and have babies, why is that considered odd, and something to be laughed at?

Now I'm sure the people who made these remarks did not mean them in a mean-spirited way, but I was slightly confounded for a moment. I'm not saying I'm trying to close my life off from what God has in store for me (please don't misinterpret it to mean that!) I'm merely saying, at this point in my life, I think God wants me to travel and study. I don't think I should be viewing my life plans through the filter of "eventually" getting married and having lots of babies. Right now I'm not looking for that special someone, I'm looking for what God's plan for me is, and right now, I think that plan has nothing to do with a special someone. Or babies. Because one assumes one requires the other.

What if: there is no special someone? Then I make all of my life plans based on the idea of eventually settling down only to be bitter and disappointed at a later date? What if: there is a special someone, but there's no babies? What if we spend the rest of our lives together traveling and working and having adventures? Why is there this idea of one path? We all think that way, the American Dream a mythical ideal is alive and well it would appear.

Remembering...

I have a really bad habit of getting caught up in everyday life. Letting the little things get to me. The little frustrations. Okay, in the moment, they're big frustrations. A friend reminded me of this verse the other day:
"Restore to me the joy of your salvation,and uphold me with a willing spirit."Psalm 51:12 ESV

Who am I to forget that the center of my world should rightly be God? His salvation is the only thing that truly matters.

"Jehovah liveth; and blessed be my rock; And exalted be the God of my salvation"
Psalm 18:46, ASV

I've really been struggling though this last two months. The recital, work, homework, class schedule, emotional turmoil, all of it has really been waying me down. And now I have this solo artist competition on Saturday. I have really been losing sight of my true focus in life. And the piano work wasn't going so smoothly. In late September I was given a 19 page Bach concerto to memorize for the competition. Up until last night, I was still unsure whether or not I would have everything ready and secure.
Then last night in the middle of practice, I remembered...

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
- Phillipians 4:13 NKJV

God is my strength. My strength is not my own.
And right there I prayed. I spent 15 minutes just sitting in my practice room praying quietly.
And the music?
Beautiful. I saw that concerto in a new light last night. Up until last night it was the technically difficult, slightly flashy little piece that fit my personality that was good for the competition.
But last night I saw God in my music. I saw the long way my memorization skills have come in the last two months, how my patience (against my will) has developed, and I experienced a joy that few understand. The joy that comes from a truly beautiful piece of music, and the ability to share it with yourself, and to share yourself through your music with God. I thank God so deeply, for the gift he's given to me, and for giving me a gift that is so easily shared with others. I don't know where my gifts will take me in life, I don't know how much longer my hands will work, but I hope that while they do still work, I remember to thank God for them every day.

No matter the outcome of my competition on Saturday, whether I win the spot with LSO or not, I feel I've won. I've had a great challenge, and have met it, not through my own strength, but by learning to depend more fully on God. It seems it's a lesson God has to teach me over and over again. I can only hope someday it gets through my thick head.

"I will sing of Your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy"
-The Valley Song, Jars of Clay

What the future holds - Part 1

Not that I have necessarily on this,  but I'm really beginning to hope for it now.

AmeriCorps was suggested to me as I was looking for plans that would involve... non-academics for next year. It's a US federal program (think Peace Corps, but for America!) created by former President Bill Clinton in 1993. The work accomplished ranges from environmental outreach and cleanup, to community development. I've looked and looked and looked through the programs, and found one called: VolunteerMaine VISTA. Being picked for this program would be awesome, I'd be working with establishing a Service Learning program in Maine, especially focusing on schools.

So ducks in a row: Basic profile created.
Still to do: Oh so much.

Brand New Thoughts

I've been reflecting recently on where life is sending me next year. Americorps, Oxford, graduate school and programs galor, I have no idea how to get where I want to go in the next few years. I've discovered some fresh thoughts, perspectives, outlooks may be in need. These are the musings of a girl deciding to hunt for the new perspective, the untrodden viewpoint. Join me while I keep things fresh, and try to figure out what life after Jewell looks like, or what it doesn't look like.