New Start

I haven't written on here for a while, mainly out of busyness. But I'm glad that at least for the next two weeks, I can relax, if only a little bit. This past semester proved to be very difficult, but I thank the Lord that I made it through. At the beginning of October, I had back spasms which sent me to the ER and made me miss half a week of classes. Then I got a really bad cold/flu deal right afterwards. Then I got a series of fevers, and nosebleeds, and I ended up missing another week of classes. Then when I came home for Thanksgiving, due to flight schedules, I missed two days of classes. Needless to say, in college, missing two weeks of classes in a semester REALLY puts you behind. There are the professors that understood and didn't count the absences against me since I still managed to get my homework done. Yet, I really started hating being forced to miss classes because I realized that even missing one day put me really far behind, and I had to try to digest the material on my own. On top of that (and partially because of that), I was living off of 2-6 hours of sleep every night. I can probably count on one hand how many days I got in bed (and stayed in bed without my roommie bringing in people or having friends come in and tell me, "It's only 1 a.m. What are you doing in bed already?!") before midnight. Then there was the stress towards the end of the semester of finals, and being asked out by two of the 4 available straight guys in freshman class and having a very difficult time saying no. Then there was the difficulty of being encouraged by Bible study, but having that encouragement slapped down by the way people lived their lives. And there was the stress of walking in on my roommate having drinking parties in our room and asking her to leave, even though I'd already discussed with her that I don't want any drinking in the room. There was the stress of feeling alone a lot, because as people got to know who I really am, they started dividing from me. At first, everyone was cool with me being "the quiet girl", but as I started to speak up based on conviction, people (including professors) got really irritated at me. One day, I had my English professor debate abortion with me in front of my entire writing class for 45 minutes. Then a few classes later, he proceeded to dissect my paper against abortion in front of the class (although since it was an opinionated research essay, he ended up being the one looking pretty silly because he could only debate that I didn't include anything about tax money spent on foster care and add that my thesis statement should be at the end of the paper, not the beginning). However, as fretful as I was about that, the Lord ended up turning that around as well, and I ended up doing really well in the course. Piano last semester was interesting though. I felt like I was every other major except for piano. The coursework kept me so busy that I hardly had any time to practice. I was really nervous about my jury, but thankfully it went alright. Despite all the trials this past semester, the Lord has really been good to me. He's granted me the ability to say "no" (I swear, that two-letter word is the hardest word to come out of my mouth. Saying it seriously makes me want to cry), and if I've learned nothing else this semester, I'm thankful for that.

This semester, things will be a bit different. I'm going to be getting a new roommate (who is also a Christian and has the same moral standards as me.... in fact, she seems even a bit more strict on some things than I am, which is totally cool).I am thinking of dropping one of my courses, since 17 credits last semester drove me insane. It's impossible to be expected to study and do well in the humanities courses and spend 4 to 5 hours a day practicing piano. Yet, I need 4 to 5 hours a day to practice piano, especially this semester considering that I have three competitions I'd like to enter (2 of which I am definitely entering) and my pieces this semester are a lot more difficult than they were last semester (although they still probably aren't as difficult as they could be). On top of possibly dropping a course, I plan to add a minor in arts administration. I figure that at least if I have a minor in administration, then if things go downhill with music and I can't get a job as a performer or an orchestral accompanist (although I really pray that doesn't happen), at least I'd be able to get a job with a decent paycheck. I've also decided against minoring in voice, because a minor won't mean anything but more coursework for me, and since I'm already singing in choir and voice class at least 7 hours a week, it really wouldn't add very much of a bonus. I'm also praying about what to do this upcoming summer. I really want to come back home, and so I'm looking for any performing opportunities (or accompanying opportunities) possible. I have 2 church pianist jobs set up so far if I do come back home. Yet it seems like all of the great music opportunities are on the East Coast, so part of me wants to stay in New Jersey. On top of that, I don't have a piano teacher here, and if I did get one, there's the whole deal of having to either drive to the U of Minnesota or MacPhail Center for the Arts every week of the summer for lessons. There's just so much to consider. Anyway, I really need to practice, but I will try to keep this blog updated much better this year (It's one of my resolutions, along with writing in my diary every day, regardless of how busy or tired I am :D)!

Later,
Rachel