Friday, 06 October 2006

"Who said today had to be horrible?"
Today (well, yesterday technically) was supposed to be my "crap day." I said it would be so many times. A Bib Lit exam had me scared to death, I didn't understand anything we were doing in Conducting, and the second big project for Secondary Methods was due tonight.

This Bib Lit exam was ridiculous. There's some weird character trait that many college professors seem to be afflicted with, which is the tendency to exaggerate the difficulty/importance of things. Every single classmate and I as well all went into this exam absolutely terrified. Not only was the professor not even there to begin with, one component was writing a 3-4 page paper. Receiving the prompt 48 hours before the paper is due is not exactly what I'd call helpful or reasonable.

Regardless, I managed to get the paper done somehow, although I'm still not exactly sure how. The exam went for the most part like clockwork. Exegesis is still a skill I'm not great at, or maybe how the prof wants us to do it.

I've written this before, but I'll say it again: Dr. Richmond is an awesome teacher. I read the text for gestures of syncopation in conducting, and I was lost. Thankfully, my teacher knows his stuff and made it pretty simple with a quick explanation and a demonstration with the cows constantly walking into an electric fence. I also learned that my teacher is very proud of his puppy. Apparently Cuthbert might run into the fence once but then learn not to do it again. I guess the learning curve's higher for dogs than for cows.

With those two major parts of the day finished successfully, I looked ahead to my conducting project due tonight in Secondary Methods. Conducting projects this early bother me. I don't personally see why I should be forced to conduct stuff like a choral teacher in a classroom when I haven't even been taught the basics unique to choral conducting. Nevertheless, I went work practicing again, forcing my poor roommate to listen to Giovanni Croce's "O Vos Omnes" looped over and over again as I waved my arms around, wrote stuff on the score, and having a usually frustrated expression on my face. But, having been taught the basics of gestures of syncopation just today, I now had all the tools necessary to conduct this piece at least half-competently. I went into the class, watched my friends conduct their pieces, conducted mine, and left satisfied. The professor said that I did "really well" with a "really difficult" piece. Leave it to me to select a challenging piece, but I guess this goes to show that I can conduct Renaissance polyphony.

Today (well, yesterday technically) was supposed to be a crap day. I said it would be so many times. But it wasn't, and I can only explain it with my Heavenly Father giving me inspiration when I needed, the right teachers and the right lessons at the right times, and a couple reminders that He'd get me through it. I think He told me, "Who said today had to be horrible?"

Forever God is faithful,
Forever God is strong,
Forever God is with us,
Forever!

Comments(1)

AWesomeness
TheGoofyKnight