The Finals Stretch

an enlightened post from a blog entitled : "Music Majors: Survival of the Fittest"

You know it's finals (or midterms) week in the music building when...

There are people practically poking each other’s eyes out with batons, practicing for conducting.

Toes are tapping frantically.

People are humming to themselves looking panic stricken.

Intense muttering of intervals, scale degrees and rhythms.

Practice rooms are jammed with people cramming for piano finals.

People are actually practicing because juries are in a week

Music is being played from almost every single room.

People are having panic attacks, then beginning whatever they were doing all over again.

The right thing hurts

It's the right thing. It's the best thing. It's what you've known you would have to do all along.

That doesn't mean it's easy.

Ever since I was about 11 years old, I started hearing about dating guidelines. Since my sister is years old than me, I've gotten to see everything you're supposed to be attracted and the things you should run away from as fast as possible. If a guy doesn't pursue you don't give him the time of day. if he's anything but republican throw him out the door. If he drinks, has tattoos, piercings, and doesn't have a job, don't look at him twice. 

The unsaid rule was that you never consider dating someone who isn't a Christian. That was obvious. 

I always told myself that would never be a problem. That I would find a great Christian guy. 

Last semester all of that changed...
I saw him across the classroom on the first day...I found him surprisingly attractive, surprising because I've never thought a blonde was good looking before. I implemented being aloof and mysterious and whatever crap I told myself, honestly i was just to freaked out to talk to anybody at the time. 
Eventually though it couldn't be avoided anymore. I remember the first conversation like it was yesterday, he was talking about how he had all this candy at his dorm and i was like..um...you should bring me some. and a week later, he did. 

Then we were hanging out and texting. He loves his parents, he loves disney, he played percussion, he *tried* to teach me marimba, he was republican, he was willing to go see Wreck it Ralph on a 1st date. He didn't think I was an idiot. He decorated my parking spot in the middle of the night. he tried to convince me that vanilla is better than chocolate. he took me to froyo for my first time ever. he helped me with theory. he helped me not fail my psych test. he played hang man with me during concerts. we talked...about everything. legitimately everything. he respected my physical boundaries. we held hands. i *tried* to teach him piano. he complimented me at all the right times...but never too much. we tried learning to play Moonlight Sonata together. we laughed a lot...i made a fool of myself and didn't care...

sounds wonderful right?

right. except for one small thing...he wasn't a Christian. 
In the first couple of weeks that fact nagged at my mind, but I was able to shelve it and bask int he wonderful sun of being with him everyday.

My friends didn't like it. they told me to be careful. but they didn't realize that I was kind of past that point, maybe not physically, but definitely emotionally. Actually, nobody really knew how much time I spent with him, or how much we talked and "bonded". not my college friends, church friends, family...it was all just me. 

Long story made shorter, I eventually realized it wasn't right and we ended it. My heart hurts.  every time i see him. or see wreck it ralph posters, walk past Froyo, play hangman, eat skittles. 
Every couple minutes of the day I find myself wondering what would happen if i just went up to him and asked if we could forget what happened over winter break and just go back to the way things were. 

It's hard. Even though it's the right thing it's hard. and it hurts. don't take this and think, well if it ws that wonderful, and ending it was that awful...than I would've just kept it. the right thing is the right thing. 
Don't skirt around it just because it'll hurt. God can heal hurt. it might take time...but he will heal my hurt. 

I'm trying to fill my days with school, practicing, devotions, and other friends, but it's still hard. My friends know it hurt me, but they honestly don't know how much. I still wish something would change. I constantly wish i could let him know I miss him, I miss what we had. I wish i could tell if he misses it at all...but it would just make it worse. 

Life kind of sucks. yup. sucks has recently become a much used word in my vocabulary. hopefully it will go away soon...because I hate that word...

and so began my 2nd semester in college. 

3 freakin days!

3 days.


3. entire. days.


I've been put out of commission for 3 days because of how badly my shoulder is hurting.
In my head 3 days is beginning to sound like 3 weeks and that's the scariest thing I've heard in a long time.

3 days closer to competing, having to perform, etc.

It's just plain unsettling.

It's funny how I've had these past weeks to be constantly practicing however much I want to and now that I can't I'm dying to get into a practice room and get to work!

A bit melodramatic you might say?
yeah well not really, between this and seeing my friend, a voice major, with strep, I realize how extremely vital it is that we can do....well...what we do!!!

It's amazing how far a person's belief in you can push you. Coming into this major I don't think I truly understood the meaning of the word Performance.

per·for·mance

Noun:

An act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment.

So essentially one should grasp that a performance major will be doing a lot of performing. duh. I'm starting to think it's a gift from God that no one told me exactly how much performing; Rep classes, general student recitals, competition preliminaries, studio recital, pops concert, string festival, orchestra concerts, competition finals, chamber music concert, chamber music master classes, juries....all of these are happening before winter break. yeah. it's a little insane.

And I tend to be a nervous person...so...is this really what I'm supposed to be doing?! I'm NOT allowed to make mistakes...essentially not allowed to be nervous.  My life is in general freak out mode. I think I really need to practice giving it ALL to God.  Not just my life in general or my major...but ever single performance, every single note.  Because then it's not for all those people sitting in front of me anymore...it's for God..

is that more stressful....? haha

The Music Major

Constant music. Notes, pieces, pianos, flutes, tubas cellos, every single instrument unites to make a very strange and chaotic symphony in the music building.  Students share favorite jazz mixes or orchestras on laptops, and almost everyone has one earphone in -> listening to this semester's goals and dreams for heir instrument.  Everyone spends almost every hour of every day in this building and it is like a sanctuary.  There is always constant studying, constant listening, and constant practicing to be done, but it all makes sense.  There is always a possible and achievable goal to be accomplished and only the student can discover their personalized path to getting there, whether it is successfully playing and singing a scale in solfege backwards, or playing the Lalo violin concerto in GSR.  The Music Major is one of the hardest majors, and yet it is also the most satisfying.

already?!

That moment when procrastination is already hitting me like a train. oh boy

So much to do...and yet so little...motivation to do it!

and time. and strength. and energy.

In other news, tonight is the first youth group at which i'm leading worship, and I'm really excited about it! It'll be a great feeling remembering exactly why i do what i do.

Unreached People Group : ??

When you hear someone say "unreached people groups" what comes to mind?

Personally, I think of people living in the mountains in India, people in Afghanistan, kids in the ghetto...but never people that sit right next to me in orchestra. Sure, they're lost, and I want so badly for them to have the same kind of hope and love that I have thanks to God, but I've never grouped them together.

Imagine that list of unreached people groups in the book of life, the groups that need be crossed out one by one, as we share Jesus, so that He can come back.

Imagine that somewhere on that list it says:

Unreached people group: Classical Musicians.

It seems weird...surely they've heard...but I am positive that if they have, they did not understand, or it wasn't yet God's time. Because as a musician, I know that music is one of the biggest ways one can see God in today's culture, and anyone who has glimpsed and even partially understood what the creator has done for them will not be able to perform without constantly striving to glorify God.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1998/october5/8tb086.html?start=1

This article was what caused me to start thinking about my fellow musicians in this way, not as people who have rejected God, but maybe as individuals who haven't been cared for, haven't heard the truth, and haven't understood...just like any other unreached people group in this world.

Yeah...no pressure or anything but I'm totally in contact with an unreached people group every single day! It's a real and out there opportunity to be really out of my comfort zone.

sure, I've gone to Trinidad, Alabama and Urban Promise...but not one of those places for a week was half as hard to be in as the world that a music major has to live in...