Back in Moorhead...for now

Winter break has ended and I've been back at school since Saturday. Then, I'm leaving again on Wednesday for Atlanta! I've been alternating between long periods of packing for the trip, organizing everything for the school year, taking walks in the freakishly warm weather, sleeping, and watching "Throw Down Your Heart" on Hulu.
And hasn't it been loverly! Being back that early means that campus is rather quiet, and the time by myself is helping me start the semester off all confident and organized.


I really didn't want to come back at first, but now that I am back, I'm feeling optimistic about the semester. Last fall I had a huge learning curve, and now I've pretty much got my bearings. There are little things I'm doing to keep myself sane this semester: growing a pot of marigolds, keeping my desk clean enough to actually use, drawing (I specialize in hedgehogs and Hobbes-like tigers) and jotting down little thoughts on index cards, going to bed earlier, and doing pseudo-yoga stretches (because I'm not disciplined enough for real yoga). If I keep up with these things, I will be alright.

Arpeggios

My piano students are working on arpeggios this month. I've shown this video clip about 36 times this week. I'm surprised at how many of the 12 and under crowd have never seen The Aristocats! Enjoy.

Interfaithy Things and Christmas Break

Hello, Christmas break. Hello, home. It's been quite the first semester of college, with lots of ups and downs, but I'm proud to say that I'm still alive, I don't feel like dropping out, and that even with all the stress, I've had some really good experiences. Victory! Now I'm just focusing on relaxing(though I still have to practice),until my next great adventure to Atlanta in January. What brings me there, exactly? Well... At Concordia, I got involved with a student group called Better Together. It's objective is to promote interfaith dialogue on campus and in the Fargo-Moorhead community. Now, you might think that both these places are heavily populated by white, Christian Lutherans, but they are actually more diverse than you might think. So we try to figure out ways to reach out to people of different backgrounds and beliefs and do service projects. Like this, for example. One of the things that binds us together in the midst of differences is our faith calling us to serve our neighbors. I wish that more people acknowledged this! Hundreds of Better Together groups are being started at colleges all across the country, and they are all part of the outreach campaign started by Interfaith Youth Core, which seeks to create a international and interfaith movement to bring about social justice. Every year, IFYC hosts a conference for us college-age youth, where we get trained on how to organize interfaith dialogue and action at our schools and in the world. This year it's in Atlanta. GUESS WHO"S GOING TO IT. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. I feel honored and fortunate to be able to go. Not only will it be an extraordinary learning opportunity, but I'll be going with a super great bunch of fellow Better Together-ers as well. I'm hoping to learn from them and their life and faith (or no faith) experiences just as much as from the conference.

Thanksgiving

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving Break--just three more days and I'll be home! But, just like Mid-Sem break in October, it's probably going to be over before I know it (how's that for pessimistic? WHAT HAS COLLEGE DONE TO ME?). This semester has had its peaks and valleys, and I'm still trying to figure out how to operate within this new world. That sounds like an exaggeration, but that's really what it feels like. And not the happy Aladdin kind, either. It's been rough, dealing with the stress of classes and not having the luxury of free/dreaming/guitar-playing/journal-and-blog-writing time. It's freakin' hard interesting being a college student, when I'm coming from a very different philosophy of learning and living. A lot of times I feel like a square peg being forced into a round hole. But along with that, there have been good things as well, like being in choir, playing on the Quidditch team, learning to speak German, and meeting lots of cool friends and mentors. I'll get used to things eventually...

Failure and success

Sometimes I am just amazed at how close the distance between failure and success is. As a pianist, a C chord is millimeters away from a B chord. Drop your hand a quarter inch to the left and there's dissonance and a cringing panic in the chest as you try to adjust.

You've played this piece a hundred times, probably more, at various tempos, in so many different ways, taking apart the voicing and the nuances, studying in such detail the way your piano part fits with the voice parts, and still, when you put it all together, there is a surprise. "How fascinating!" one of my mentors advises me to think when the unthinkable occurs in performances. "OMG!" or "what the F#ck" is what really goes through my head when the unexpected happens.

Yes, those of us who know the piece in such great detail know exactly where we have fallen short, while those listening may only hear a momentary pause, a slight hesitation, or a moment of awkwardness. Sometimes the failure is barely noticeable, sometimes not.

But we who perform know.

And we care outrageously.

It's a good thing, in that the knowing and the caring spurs us on to greater practice, greater precision, greater efforts that eventually produce greater results.

But at the moment of failure, and the remembrance of it, even with many many many successes on its heels, it still feels like *shit*. We go home, we cry, we kick ourselves, we replay the failure many times more than we replay the success.

And we ask ourselves [again, and again, and again], am I going to give up or am I going to go on?

And we take a nap, and then we go on.

Coming home

I've been enjoying a weekend home from school, and man it feels good. The reason I came down after only a month away is because the music director at my church needed an accordion player. Of all things. Naturally I jumped at the chance, and had a fun time playing with a polka band in church as part of an Oktoberfest worship celebration. Yes, my life is awesome.
It was really fun today seeing all my friends at church. I love it at school, and I'm weathering the challenges well, but there's no place like home. Actually, I spent so much of my time in high school at church, that a lot of people were not surprised at all to see me around this morning. Aside from jamming out on the accordion, I've spent my time finishing a research paper, which I'm glad to be done with, and practicing piano with my snazzy new metronome (which looks like a miniature beige coffin, which is why I associate metronomes with DEATH).

Today I've just been hanging out, knitting, and watching football. I miss this idea of free time!

My home-schooled background has helped me in a lot of ways; I get stuff done promptly, and I'm not burned out from years of being in school already, so I'm curious as to how things all work. Doesn't mean I like all the deadlines and creating annotated bibliographies, the late nights, and general fast pace of everything, but I roll with the punches. Even though I'm in college, I still identify myself as a home-schooler-–four years of college won't change that.

Irish Fair!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the Irish Fair. It was so cool! And of course the best part for me was the Irish musicians, performing all types of traditional music all day. The Fair was held at Harriet Island, which looks over the beautiful Mississippi River in St. Paul, and honestly, we couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous day. I went with a few friends, and we just set up our chairs under a big shady tree by the main music stage, then we'd go off and explore. There was a big merch tent with tons of cool/expensive stuff, from jewelry to Irish rugby jerseys to Celtic instruments and swords.

Oh, and kilts. Lots and lots of kilts. I would say the vast majority of men I saw were sporting them. It was quite the fashion parade: some of them were the traditional plaid tartan patterns in green, blue, black or red, but there were also lots of modern and/or unusual kilts, like blaze orange, Yield sign yellow, camouflage and denim. I would have loved to get good pictures, but it's just the tiniest bit awkward, you see.
Although I got this one, because I loved his socks.


(I made the mistake of wearing a black t-shirt amongst all of the green. Totally anti-festive. I don't even have a U2 t-shirt)

There was a sheep herding demonstration...



and a hurling match.

alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641460260060675218" />

First of all, it's not THAT type of hurling.

I didn't get there in time to hear the exact rules of the game, but from what I could tell it looked similar to lacrosse. Instead of sticks with nets, though, they were wooden sticks with a flat, paddle-like end, which they used to scoop up the ball and whack it to their teammates. It was fun to watch, but I have no idea who won.

I didn't get a picture, but the Irish wolfhounds came out in droves. They are so huge! If they stood on their hind legs I'm sure they'd be taller than me. Want.


After all our exploring, we ended up sitting under the shady tree, listening to the great music as the afternoon cooled into the evening. It was a great time...I hope I can go again next year.