Saturday, 09 December 2006

Here's a happy face!

Once upon a time, I was a freshman, and I was in a class called Aural Skills I with Dr. Lewis. When we sang well (or not so well as the case may be), he would sometimes respond with a drawing on the board. If things sounded okay, he drew a happy face. If we sounded terrible (give us a break, it was an 8:30 class!), he drew a "wonky face." Prof. Strouf quickly learned how to recognize a wonky face and said, "Aural Skills was bad today?"

I think this whole week deserves a happy face, like this one. :-) Want to know why?

The Bible Studs, once again. I admired Ben's leadership, but the one thing I wished he would have done last year are the prayer circles. Well, we decided to bring this practice back, and it was UNBELIEVABLE. As we each shared and spent time in prayer, I learned things about my fellow Brothers that I couldn't have possibly have known, some that broke my heart to hear and others that were truly inspiring. As I've told several people, there's something unique and special about laying your hands along with other Brothers (or Sisters, as the case may be) on one person, and praying specifically for him (or her, for my female readers). It's powerful, and it's a reminder of how prayer is active. Being the recipient of this kind of prayer is an experience, too. I know I left encouraged for what would be a very difficult week academically.

Wednesday started to bog me down, between being late for my last class with Prof. Leach (he's a cool guy) and just being stressed by everything. Thankfully, God called in the reinforcements. Hanging in a practice room, making some music, just talking, and praying with Nik was also sweet. It was a well-timed "recharging" for a week that had already been hard enough by Wednesday.

The Music Lit paper is under control. This project had been a huge source of frustration for a few reasons, most of them fairly simple. For one, I had put this paper off because of other distractions constantly getting in the way. Second, although I had some sense of direction after meeting with Dr. Randel, I had no clue how it would turn out until I did all the analysis. Well, with the analysis finally complete, I turned into a writing machine and was very excited to have a reasonable six-page draft along with marked scores ready to finally turn in on Wednesday. Although it wasn't complete (and still isn't-next on the to do list...), I'm not afraid of this project anymore, which is an enormous relief.

Thursday morning was just plain scary. Vespers and a half-hearted cold had my voice in a right mess through Wednesday, and I didn't even see Dr. Richmond until I spotted him in the audience at the Departmental Recital. Simply put, I had to be ready without any final coaching from my voice teacher, and that's scary. Thankfully, God was faithful and my tenor voice finally came back sometime Thursday morning and I gave the first solo performance I've been happy with. It definitely wasn't perfect, but I was actually pleased with how things went. Dr. Richmond approved too, which was a good. It's been a bit of an exercise in frustration trying to please my voice teacher because I'm always told something I need to fix or improve. To be successful at doing that was enormously gratifying.

Checking out the Juried Art Show was pretty cool, too. I claim no expertise in the visual arts, but the stuff I looked at in the DePree Art Gallery was very interesting. I have an appreciation and respect for my colleagues in the visual arts. The time I spend in the practice room makes me appreciate the time they spend perfecting their art in the studio.

I also had my last major project in Secondary Choral Methods, which was to carry out a "typical" MSVMA District Choral Festival sight-reading exercise. The music kind of took me for a loop since it didn't really cover a lot of what I figured I'd have to attack, but Mr. Oonk seemed pleased with how I handled things.

And Friday-I really liked talking about Bach's Mass in B minor. It's really cool. You should listen to it. Oh, and my first exam is now over. Conducting has been really difficult for me, but all that practicing in my room paid off. The exam went well and I'd say it was a home run, for the most part.

Put a happy face on this week!