In a Pickle

I know I haven't used this blog in ages but I just keep having lines of thought that have no where to go. Perhaps I shall jot them down here.

I'm sending off my boyfriend of 10 months to a mission in the Dominican Republic in a week and a half. It's kind of unreal that I'm going to be single in 2 weeks.


I've talked to Kyle either in person or on the phone every day of my life for 11 months. And now my best friend will be unavailable. You can't date a missionary. And yet I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm so proud of his decision to go, I know it's a hard sacrifice to make but it's one that will be worth it in the end. And I know in retrospect 2 years isn't all that long. As of right now though it looks quite beastly. Especially since I don't know where my life is going.

I'm going to be graduating with a Music Theory degree next semester. Why music theory? Well because I was interested in becoming a composer but I had a professor shoot me down from those hopes so I settled on Music Theory (so that I wouldn't have to take a language for the Music BA). This means that I will be virtually jobless when I graduate, yaaaay. Last November I started to consider a career path in being a Piano Teacher.


I teach now, I have about 15 students. In many aspects I really enjoy it. I'm my own boss, I make my own schedule, I work with kids who never judge me and believe what I say.. However I don't know how confident I am in my skills as a teacher. I'm a poor sight reader, and can sometimes not even pick my way through the pieces that I'm teaching. I have a poor music ideal so I don't know how the pieces should sound, and sometimes interpret pieces wrong.

Also. I don't want a career! I have never been a career centered woman. It's never been something I desired to have. And yet I find myself at a point in my life at a decision between furthering my education or establishing my career. Really, all I've ever wanted is to be a wife and a mother. I don't want either education or career.


My education has been great. I love learning all that I have. I've learned great things about music history, and music theory. I've learned important skills like how to play in a duet, and how to react musically to the other instrumentalist within a piece. I've learned how music is phrased, and how to travel through from one section to another. I hit this point this semester, in my senior year, when I realized that I got it. Everything my piano teachers have been trying to tell me makes sense. I understand what they were trying to teach now. Music is natural. Phrases in music are like sentences, and sighs, and each are one gesture and one movement. Learning to use your hands on the keyboard is like learning to walk. At some point you don't have to think about it and it feels natural and fluid. Emotional passion does not mean tension, tension begets poor musicality. Everything is and should feel natural and relaxed. My education has also taught me great things about composition, and how you should construct a piece. Things like how if you use a germ of an idea you have to use it from the beginning or it doesn't make sense. I've learned how to create even when I don't feel creative. This was a struggle for me. Everything has been great.


However, I am quite burnt out with school. Not burnt out in the sense that I have stopped working hard. I'm working hard, but my heart just isn't in it. This is why I'm having a hard time motivating myself to apply for graduate school. It's weird how being in an intense program like the one I've been in changes you. (I think only in the Music program have I ever heard anyone say that 7 classes is just right... I have to say I agree.) I feel like in a sense I've been put through a refiner's fire with school. There have been times when I've been so stressed I couldn't think straight and got anxiety and tension headaches. Because of having to go through that, I changed my study habits. I've become a hard working, self motivated, get homework done ahead of time and plan ahead kind of student. I find myself making daily and weekly goals with my workload. I know how to be busy at all waking hours of the day and still function as a normal human being. This is a huuuge change. Huge.

But I'm tired of always being busy. I'm tired of my schedule. I have no time to enjoy life, I feel like I've missed out on a lot. And have also let friendships go by the wayside. I regret that terribly. There's so many wonderful people I wish I could spend time with. I'm just at that point that I just want to enjoy things for a bit.

So I'm left at this point in my life where I'm kind of direction-less. I think the only goal I have for the next 2 years is to get out of credit card debt. Which isn't bad. I just need a little something more for the direction of my life.