Take Time for the Small Things

Over the past couple of weeks I have seen so many students and teachers so strongly affected by the death of Dr. Hettinger. I did not know her personally, but my sister was in one of her classes and always spoke kindly of her and was also very sad to hear of her passing. I cannot know how they must feel for having lost, from what I hear, such a wonderful, kind person. I can, however, relate in a way to how they come to the realization that they must take a step back and make time for the small things. This past spring break, my older sister got in a terrible car accident. She and my six-year-old sister had been shopping and where on their way home. A man, who had been visiting from Corpus Christi, had been looking at his GPS, swerved out of his lane and rammed into the driver's side of my sister's car.  The car was totaled and completely crushed in on my sister's side, but thank God, neither of them had a single scratch on them! By looking at the car, you would never see how they made it out alive and virtually unharmed when you think of what might have been. My mom and I had been away from home when this happened, and came home finding them alive and well. They told us what happened and the thoughts rushed over me that if it had not been for the grace of God, I would not have two sisters today. I'm literally crying right now just remembering it. This was definitely a shock for my whole family. The next day, not just us, but all of my aunts, uncles and cousins living nearby decided to take the day and just be together. We went to the park and just hung out the whole day, because we had been awakened to the reality that life is just too short to forget about the small things. We got ice cream, we rode the train and got on the paddle boats and just enjoyed being together, because we knew that now. I have never looked at my family the same way ever again. Although I do forget sometimes and yell at my brother, or get angry at my sister sometimes, I always try and just cherish the short time I have here on earth with them. I blow bubbles for my baby cousin, I read a bedtime story and snuggle with my little sister, my brother and I blast our favorite music on my mp3 player (low-tech, I know : P), I paint with my older sister, say I love you to everyone before bed, and always give hugs because I remember that fact. Life is to short to not take the time for the small things.



Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome. 

Confidence in Talking to Myself

In Virgil's Aenid, he writes "Possunt quia posse videntur" or "they can because they think they can" (17). This is very true in any type of performance situation, whether sports, your job, school or in my case music. In this past week, God has blessed me with three performance opportunities. As a performance major, this is a BIG deal, since this is all great work experience and music resume material. 

I was invited last minute this past Saturday to play at an old friend's (who had been in the same guitar studio when I started taking lessons) wedding. Since we had just talked about this blog post in class the day before I was invited, this was a great opportunity to see my confidence- or lack of it- in action. I took careful note of what kept going through my head as I prepared. When I was first asked to play at his wedding, my first immediate mental reaction was"No! I can't do that! There's no way I can have those songs performance ready in one school day!" I had failed at the very beginning. However, I remembered that we had also been talking about goals in Comp class to prepare for the "Write to Serve" project. One of my goals had been to take advantage of every performance opportunity that came my way. This snapped my mind into "Yes man" mode and I agreed to the performance. Over the course of the next day again and again my mind kept freaking out. How was I going to do this? I didn't want to ruin my friend's wedding! The one thing I had to keep repeating to myself was that I had performed the main piece for all of my scholarship performances last spring. I had to keep telling myself "If I could do it then, I can do it now!" 

Also, a few weeks back, I had been invited by the music teacher at Paten Elementary to play for her fourth and fifth graders this past Thursday  With the wedding performance, I had completely forgotten about it until my mom reminded me a few days before. This time, I was prepared. Yes, I did struggle some at first when I saw that I didn't have much time to prepare, but I was able to bring it all under control by remembering how much of a success that the wedding had been. That got me through, and this performance was a success as well.

Finally, this past Friday evening, another friend called and told me that because of the cold weather we have been having lately, she had to drop the band that she had hired and find someone who could play indoors that night. With the success of the past two performances behind me, I had the confidence that I could do it, and said no without any hesitation other than some minor details about repertoire length, but that was soon sorted out. That performance was a success as well. Thus, I know very well first-hand how much of a difference confidence can make in a performance situation. 

Work Cited
Nettleship, Henry, et. al. "Liber Quintus." Trans. Henry Nettleship. Virgil's Aeneid. 
     London: George Bell and Sons, 1898. 1-59. Print. 

(Originally wrote this last week, but forgot to publish it. Found it today and decided to revise :D)




Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.