Shifting Focus

Thanks to everyone who's been reading and supporting my blogging efforts over the past few months.  Lately I haven't been very committed to keeping up with this blog but I want to give it another shot.  However, I think I need a fresh start and a new technique.
So, I'm going to try a 365 day photo project.

You can keep up with my attempts here:
http://aperturepriority365.wordpress.com/

Best,
E.

Children and the Arts

So here's a post that was meant to go up Thursday night (June 21, 2012) BUT my poor computer went kaput.  So, here it is now, by way of the library computer lab...

This week Interlochen hosted their High School Institutes and this evening the Bassoon and Cello Institutes wrapped up their runs with a little night music.  Since today was my day off, I was able to attend both concerts as a regular audience member and am so thankful I did because they were the perfect happy ending to a kind of up and down day.  Both concerts were full of children, campers and their usually much younger siblings, and both reminded me (on a day I needed reminding) why I want to work in the arts and why it's so important to get our children involved in the arts.  Now, it doesn't take much more than a performer to smile at the tone of a note or furrow their brow in concentration for my heart to swell and be reminded of how much I'm looking forward to getting to work with artists in the future so I'm not going to talk about that today.

What I want to talk about is why children should be exposed to the arts as early and as often as possible...even if it means bringing them to a concert you're not sure they can sit through.  This evening at the bassoon concert I sat in front of a father and his little two year old boy who were there to see the little boy's sister play.  The little boy was very excited and so, naturally, he was squirmy and talkative.  I love children very much, to the point that even a screaming baby on an airplane doesn't bother me, so I may be an exception here, but I absolutely adored having this little chatterbox behind me.  He came to that concert with the kind of energy producers and administrators want every audience member to have.  This little boy was so thrilled to get to hear music (especially since it was his sister playing it) that I don't think he wanted to be anywhere else in the world for those forty-five minutes.  Bassoons have a unique, gorgeous, and often hilarious sound and throughout the concert (which featured pieces that played up the humor of the instrument) this little boy laughed and laughed and laughed and exclaimed "Funny!" whenever the adults in the audience joined him.  He sat in his seat and buzzed his lips together to imitate the sounds when he liked them and would crawl and dance along the pew as well, much to his father's chagrin.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

A few weeks ago, I promised I'd share exciting news and then callously left you all hanging.  Such a tease.  But, I'm happy to share now that my the changes in my life have been made official.  So, without further ado, the changes are as follows...

1.  I've changed my major!  As much as I love studying Latin and as certain as I was that I wanted to pursue a related career, when I got back to campus after winter break I started realizing that that wasn't where my greatest passion was.  I was struggling to finish my Off Campus Studies application to study Latin in the United Kingdom and knew as I was writing it that it was weak and my heart wasn't in it.  So, two days before the OCS deadline, I scrapped my application, wrote a new application to a different program and drafted a proposal for a synoptic (self-created) major.  Now, after months spent rewriting proposals, creating my own curriculum, and going to meeting after meeting with my advisers and the associate provost, I've been granted a synoptic major in Performing Arts Administration and Rural Community Development.  My goal is to study how the arts affect rural communities and how such communities can benefit from strong arts initiatives as well as to prepare for a career in arts administration.  After spending the past two years working in the Front of House and Box Office departments for Kenyon and Interlochen, and having spent most of my life involved in music and theatre, it's become clear to me that I want to continue in a line of work that allows me to use my creative and administrative skill sets to promote the arts.  If you're interested in reading the proposal email me at myersblogs@gmail.com.

Annnnd, We're Back...

After my last post, I took an unexpected hiatus from the blog.  It wasn't because I was bored or because nothing was happening, I just found myself making a lot of decisions and changes and not wanting to share them until they were more definite.  While not all the way there, things are more settled than they were a few weeks ago so I'll be sharing these changes with you all very soon!  

Winter Break Bucket List: Wrap Up

So, in my last week at home...I slept a lot, went to more basketball games, worked on my OCS Proposal, and didn't really do a whole lot else.  And then I got on a plane, flew back to Kenyon, and dove into the first week of class.  It was a pretty productive break and has been a very productive (and exhausting) first week back.  Things are hopefully going to start moving forward with my application for study abroad, the deadline is coming up on the eighth so when I'm not in class, doing homework, working, or watching Downton Abbey, I'll be putting in the hours on my proposal...which is actually what I should be doing now.  Have a good weekend!

Winter Break Bucket List: Week Three

A good week.

This week I...

-Read Incendiary by Chris Cleave.

-Read The Hours by Michael Cunningham.

-Got hooked on the show Outnumbered.

-Went to another basketball game.

-Kept working out and threw in a little yoga.

-Did a little Latin.

-Worked on the Proposal.
-Played more piano.

This week I attempted to...

-Find something to cook for my family.
-Read more of the Hobbit.

This week I failed at...

-Getting to the Figge.

Only one week left of break, I've got pretty mixed feelings about it too.  I'd like to just stay home, but I'm also looking forward to actually having a schedule again.  Hopefully this next week will be the most productive of them all!

Growing Pains and Practice Rounds

This was probably my favorite Christmas and New Years to date, it was just so good to be home and see family and go through the familiar rituals of the holidays.  It's always nice to be home but when you've had a roller coaster year there's something very comforting about Christmas and something very reassuring about ringing in a brand New Year.  The only remotely jarring part of this Holiday Season was the sudden realization that if I got the okay to go abroad for a full year, I wouldn't be home the next Christmas.  After a few minutes I was okay with not being home for Christmas 2012 because I'd be home for the next one!  But then I realized that the next one would be the Christmas of my senior year and the one after that I would have a job, be living who knows where, and have little to no break to come home and see my family because I would be an actual adult.  Then the tears started.

I wish someone could've video taped me sobbing about growing up and sent back in time to my nine-to-eighteen-year-old selves and said, "Look, look at this sobbing, wretched little creature!  This is what you're going to look like when you realize you only have two years of any kind of childhood left so CHILL OUT and stop wishing your youth away."  Even with that proof in front of them, I doubt my nine-to-eighteen-year-old selves, who always tried so hard to make themselves seem older, would have believed that the moment they truly realized how close they were to being a grown up would be filled with tears rather than gleeful jumping and shouting and clapping of hands.

Thankfully, two years is still a lot of time and I've got a lot to keep me busy during it, like going abroad.  Yes, it means one less Christmas with my family, but going abroad will be really good practice for being an adult.  I'll still have that nice little cushion of childhood around me but I'll have to make my own decisions about what I do and how I respond to things and I'll be held absolutely accountable for those actions by myself and others.  And then I'll come home and be safe in my Kenyon Bubble for one more year and then I'll graduate, get a job, and move out of the house.

And then I'll be an adult?  Sort of.  Graduating from college, turning twenty-two, and getting a job won't magically flip a switch that will make me act and think more maturely, instead, the experiences that accompany those actions will gradually shape me into an adult.  That's where having gone abroad will come in handy, it'll be like having a practice round.  If I've already got experience being independent, having to make my own choices, and holding myself accountable, then when it comes time to apply that in the real world, making tough choices and responding to tricky situations appropriately will come a little easier.  I think...