Saturday, November 29, 2008

Christmas at Luther made everything make sense.

Monday, November 24, 2008

the holidays, and christmas at luther, are right around the corner.

it's a strange thought, how quickly the last 14 weeks have gone. In 3 weeks, i'll be half done with my freshman year of college. how weird is that?!?

a lot of things my voice teacher has been saying all semester are finally making sense. I'm comfortable here, this is normal now.

I'm incredibly excited for J.Term. I'm taking one class, Stubborn Light, and we're rehearsing the Mendelssohn and Sheherazade for our spring break tour! YEAHHH!

p.s. this is the class description for Stubborn Light:
" What is to give light must endure burning." -- Victor Frankl. An off-campus, rural Decorah based course. Students will travel to on-sight location for informal discussions which will culminate in a collection of visual and written creative works. Cooking and eating meals together will be part of the discussion/creation series. The course promises to encourage honesty of reflection; spirit, compassion, truthfulness; a shaking-up of our comfortable world view; looking at life from a different perspective; and to obey little and resist much. Transportation provided.Prerequisites: Open only to first-year students who are self-motivated individuals with a desire to cultivate creative thinking and actions.


i'm so excited to be home simply for all of fun time i'm going to spend in a real, high functioning, kitchen. i'm making chex mix, pies, pretzle buttons, bulgar .... salad?, puppy chow, and triple chip chocolate cookies. and too much love, and kimya dawson, and new retainers, and decorating for christmas with my family, and seeing my ridiculous extended family, and just about everything. i'm ready for a break.

this year, i'm thankful for t.gives.

Monday, November 17, 2008

There's a difference between control and stability, but they're often thought of together.

I learned this in my voice lesson today, that I provide a stable environment for singing, and the breath moves through my environment, making things happen that I can now deal with. For me, that was really weird to think about because when playing the violin, I am consciously deciding every motion, stroke, and idea. It made me think about HOW i live my life. I try so dilligently to keep track and control everything by saying no, writing things down, holding people accountable, and using far too much technology. What if I was just so prepared and stable, having my ideas and routines rock hard, that nothing phased me. My existence was mearly a means for executing something perfectly without stress. My brain gets so in the way of achieving so much. Maybe this doesn't make any sense to anyone else, and that's okay with me, because it barely makes sense to me. I am an instrument and life is coursing through me. I believe I'm capable of this. I believe that life would be better and quite possibly richer if I lived my life through that idea.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Who?

Who decides what is acceptable?

what are the limits that i hold myself to? why do i have them?

right now, i'm just really puzzled as to why I feel guilty about something that I really don't have any issue with. Yes, I did something possibly not respectable, but I think I'm no less of a person for it. Why is there such this idea of right and wrong? Did I create it in my brain at some point in my life? I'm just confused.

I used to say "go big or go home", then started to believe in limiting myself, and i'm kind of done with it.

I would like for someone to say, "emmalee, that is too much." too much practicing, too much studying, too much happiness, too much expressiveness, too much responsibility, too much thought, too much open mindedness. I just... want to stretch.

a lot.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

It's been a while

I used to blog a lot more when I didn't have this idea that it had to mean something. In my old blog it was just me talking about whatever, but this one is a little more challenging. I designed it to challenge myself, so I'm going to. I tend to avoid things that challenge me, I really like taking the easy way, which really sucks. This really wasn't the point of this post so I'm going to move on.

This week I sang for seminar. No big d, right? mmmm... about that.
I really dislike memorizing music simply because I'm afraid I'll forget it in performance. Just solo stuff. Choir music I had NO problem with. So, it was my turn. I did reallly well introducing my piece, I even impressed myself. My voice did fine, but my brain was kinda just sitting there going "ehhh emmalee? what are we doing right now? is this italian?" yeah good thing, brain. thanks.
I ended up really disappointed in myself, not for my performance, but for my attitude, approach, and preparation. I totally saw this as a scary thing that i just wanted to be over.

I'm going to work on seeing everything as a challenge that I have the opportunity to work towards overcoming. Not something I HAVE to do. Something that I would like to succeed at and work on.