Round hole, square peg

This post doesn't fit in any way in this blog, but I have no where else to post it, so I might as well publicize my thoughts to anyone who cares to read.

Today in church I got to thinking about something I sent in an e-mail. I said that I consider the best way to fulfill the first greatest command (love the Lord your God) by the second (love you neighbor). Now there are some serious caveats to this statement. Number one is that the love of God always is higher than the love of man, and that God-love informs every other love. In fact, without that higher love, no other love would exist; not only would it not have been created, but it cannot be sustained without the hand of God. In essence, we cannot love God by loving others if we do not love God. But if we do love God, we will love others. I mean truly love God.

Take the first logical step: church. If you are truly cherish that time with God in a corporate setting, you will most likely linger a while and share with the others you have just worshiped with. I however, was filled and inspired and changed this sunday...but I left close to immediately after the service. Already that inspiration is fading. This post is an attempt to find it again.

I felt nothing while we were practicing this morning (I'm the pianist for the church). I was wholly uninspired, and was considering leaving the church (as I will be graduating soon, and it's so complicated). I started the prelude music, and was captured by the original version of "Oh Love that Wilt not let me go." It is so true. The words and music resound in my soul in a way that little else does. And then I found "I Need Thee Every Hour." I used to sing/say "I need thee every minute" when I ran cross-country. Somehow an hour didn't seem descriptive enough.

Those two hymns spoke to me deeply. They humbled me, as they always do. I need Jesus and cannot stand on my own. At least, not in the way I would like to. I have been shown a better way of living, and cannot turn back on the Christian walk and into the darkness of self-centeredness I face without Christ. For me, I cannot think of others apart from my faith. I cannot truly love someone else if I do not recognize how small I am, and how needy I am. Conversely, I must recognize how needy others are, and how important they are as image-bearers of Christ.

Tim Jones, who I love dearly though I do not show it, gave a bit of his testimony today. It was deeply moving to me. He openly admitted his brokenness, and his obstinace and blindness to it. He did not even realize what kind of a man he was until he saw himself in his children. How do we see ourselves for who we really are, and not for who we think we are? Can we truly step inside another's shoes and look through their eyes, if even for a minute? Can we pretend to understand others when we cannot truly understand the impact that we have on the world? No assumptions must be made of ourselves or of others. Openness must be the end result of this line of query--for any conclusion must be that the world is a diverse place, and every moment is a chance for something different. Not that we should be on our guard every waking moment for a sin or mistake--that is folly and a miserable way of living. Instead, our action should be to stay alert and wakeful, lest we miss a moment to bless someone, to understand God, ourselves, or the world--not with tired and blind eyes, but with the eyes of the living Christ; with eyes that not only see, but inspire hope.

How? "I need thee every hour." We must ask; not demand. Paul, thank you for the sermon. I, like the little boy, like my chocolate. But there are greater things than the physical. And physical comfort must never take us away from the eternal. By leaving church today I took the easy way out. Truly you can fulfill the second command through the first, and perhaps even the first through the second. But the first command must not waver. Without grace we cannot stand. Without humility we become our entire existance. And when we fill our lives with nothing but ourselves--we are worse than dead. I am enjoying the season of easter--for I am dead in my sins: in myself. Only in removing myself from my life (in dying to myself) can I be risen from the dead and live--truly live. I have tasted moments of life, and am drunk with desire for true life, but wearied by everything I drag into it. When will I drop my burden and enter in? Truly, it is not up to me. I am not in control, no matter how much I'd like to be. I cannot run my own life anywhere but into the ground. "I need thee every minute." Remind me to let go of myself. Remind me to linger a while. Remind me why I am here. Remind me every moment is a gift.

Professionalism

I must say, I do not like the idea of professionalism. I get this image of a cold man in his mid-40's organizing papers from one pile into another. I get the image of a woman I care about deeply, yet all I can see is her life run by her job, and her warmth of heart seems robbed away by years of diligent work. It took years for me to figure if she really honestly cared for me or not.

I do not want to become part of academia. I do not want to lose touch with who I am and fade into my job title. I do not want to risk losing connection with another human being for the gain of a slightly larger pool of information. I do not want to cram in information--I want to teach. I want a positive environment--not just for my students, but for myself as well.

On the other spectrum, I do not want to be the "easy" teacher, I do not want to be the teacher who is the student's friend before they are the student's teacher, and I do not want to fail to teach over trying to be their bud. I suppose the question is how to make that balance work; how to be truly authoritative--to both discipline and care for the student.

I imagine one way to work towards this goal is to look at my priorities. FIRST: as a music teacher, I want to inspire students to become life-long lovers of music. This means a positive atmosphere is essential. I need to be a constant advocate for music. SECOND: I want to equip them, or teach them. Truthfully I don't know whether I care more about knowledge of music or the ability to perform it. They both add to each other in ways that I cannot explain. So I will leave that be. I am clear (and wish to remain clear) on my primary goal: that I wish to help people understand why music is so wonderful. I do not consider that a goal that can be done with cold professionalism in the midst of academia. In my eyes, the only good reason for professionalism is a fall-back, especially to be used dealing with the parents of my students. The education itself should not be approached with a gloved hand.

If overused, the whole charade of professionalism is no more than an encumberment to the goal of education. How can you really reach people when you aren't willing to step outside of yourself--by demanding that they come to you? That is not a lasting solution. I will only be as professional as I need to be; any more and I risk making myself look good at the expense of my students. I must choose potential embarrassment over potential isolation. Nothing can exist in a vacuum--so we must not place ourselves in a vacuum; neither should we deceive others into thinking we are strong enough to endure the vacuum--to be "professional." Make no mistake--teachers are just as human as anyone else. And for that matter, so are students.

Learning

Much to my chagrin, I come to the end of the semester and found that I learned again. I'm not sure how this happens. It seems I do my best to resist it, but I just can't help myself.

In particular, I've learned that Technology can be used in the classroom, supposing the resources are available for the students. That is highly unlikely for a choral director. Imagine 200 students (the size of Bearden middle's choir) cramming into a computer lab. Besides, there just isn't time to integrate technology skills into my class.

However little I believe it may be integrated into my student's lives, I can integrate it into mine. Some of the things I've learned help with designing assessments, and may be a valid bridge to online assessments or homework. I will continue to look into these options, especially since I have a father who is a computer programmer for TVA.

I also am thankful for this class that we have done a website. I may change everything, but it is a good start for my personal website. I have been meaning to design one, but now I have that process started. I'm excited to get to the finished product and see just what that will look like.

Mono

Having mono has been very interesting. I've missed 1-2 weeks of class (depending on the class) and am having to catch up in a very short amount of time. I will finish it all, it's just going to be a push to get it all done.

However, while I was sick, I really didn't have it too bad. Ok, so I was feverish, nauseous, and slept a lot--but all in all I'm thankful. It could have been much worse. Below is a picture describing some of the symptoms:But, I'm all better now, so it's back to work! I'm just having to do things in my own order, so forgive the lateness of everything, and the ensuing disorder. To be honest, I probably would have done it with this level of disorder anyway. I tend to enjoy doing things out of order--just so long as they get done, and done on time (or close). Onwards!

Image play

As I've been working with Google Docs and with image resizing, I've been wondering about all the possibilities that are open with this technology. So I played around with adobe for a good half-hour and came up with a pretty interesting emo look for me:



You can do SO much with photoshop! I can't wait to have the TIME and FREEDOM to use these tools in a creative way. I just like to play with it and see what I can make sometimes. Hopefully I can apply some of this to my class work and website. One thing at a time! Quality work takes time and care, so I hope I've given enough of both to the things I'm actually given a grade on. But grades aren't much of a motivator for me. Curiosity is FAR stronger.

For instance, can anyone tell what this is:

Value of Wiki and GoogleDocs

I have been rather negative recently about some of these tools, but in all honesty I am so happy to have learned about Wikis and GoogleDocs. Both of these tools are incredibly valuable to the teaching profession as they help us to be more efficient. I hear it said all the time that as a musician one of the utmost personal goals should be to become more efficient, as almost everybody is going to want you to do something. The same is true of an educator. How do you balance doing so many things at once? Partly I'm sure it's due to some sort of neurosis, but I am happy that the other half is in strategizing your work. These tools help tremendously.

Wiki working

Now that I have worked and helped complete a webquest on Pbwiki, I feel confident in this new technology. However easy this service is to use, it is also severely limited and not very powerful of a publishing tool. While the actual page has limitless potential for the experienced programmer (as there is opportunity for open source--there are a few publishing tools that do not allow open-source editing), the format around the page seems unalterable. Perhaps there are tools in templates that I haven't looked at, but it was very frustrating to be limited in this way.

Uploading a Web Page

Today I uploaded my webpage for the second time. It is amazing how much easier it is to work with this program than working directly with HTML and FTP servers. My dad spent so much time "training" me to work with all that stuff, and I couldn't tell you the first thing right now. After much poking around, it all made sense, but this is so much faster and easier.

How can I twist words?

I hope to somehow manage to twist this discussion into something to say about technology. We shall see...

I just listened to La Boheme. It's been quite some time since I heard all of it with the libretto. I was a Freshman in college and a very young one at that (even for a Freshman). I love how real it is. What may look like a foul attempt at juxtaposition is no more than showing what rare way of life is the Bohemian. I have friends who live like that. I never pretend to understand them; just allowing them to fill my day with something new and exciting. I think they like it that way.

La Boheme deals with love, loss; love with levity (and levity leaves Marcalo cuckolded...at least for a time), and love with depth unknown. Breif love, long loves; distant loves; loves ended, loves about to end are all filled in by friendships and fun. What a twisted story! Nothing wrong or horrible happens, but certainly there is an element of amorality and complete non-judgement.

As with all Puccini, there is no surprise at the subject material. All his operas are about a heroin that *tragically* dies. It's never a secret. Sometimes it's so overt that it's a little gruesome. La Traviata hits that nerve for me. Yet listening to Mimi die was different. It's so gentle, so unexpected in its timing. And ever so quiet. Like most of the opera, it's the timing that twists things more than anything. As one love is being doomed, another falls apart. There is no balance. The foils are not typical opposites. The other love is left open at the end--no one knows if they will be together again. And that is what makes this so special. It's the timing. It's always the timing.

Perhaps that is what we do as teachers. As a student I have had plently of badly timed and well timed classes. Life goes on around subject material, oblivious to the frivolities of learning. Philosophy, music, history, literature--that is deep learning. Even science has a depth beyond the details. Details are cumbersome, but fascinating; and also the greater part of our lives is nothing more but the day-to-day. I have been told I'm not a day-to-day person. I do not know whether that is a compliment, a put-down, or a great warning. I fear for the day to day and do not know how to traverse the untrod ground of a new day. I enjoy the fresh snow and wonder what travesty it is to spoil it with my footprints.

But I have no romantic notions of being the first. All of this is done before. Nothing new under the sun and all that. Blog, wiki--it's all a repeat, and a bad one at that. And, even knowing that it is fresh for me, I cannot help but feel like my life is all the more mundane in some way. In good conscience can I truly repeat what someone else did simply for the novelty of the experience?

And again--it goes back to the day-to-day. I rebel against the day-to-day. And each morning when the sun rises as it did the last thousand mornings, the force of nature wins. And I am reduced again to subordinate. I may create, but I shall NEVER surpass the creator for the splendor and the completeness of what He has made. If all my rebellion does nothing but point me stronger to the surpassing greatness of my God--then it has all been worth it.

The devil is in the details indeed.

File Organization

Today we took pictures of our file organization system. Here's the 486 folder with all the trimmings:

If you think that looks organized, you should look at my music. It's organized into genres, composers (with dates attached), and divided there into the works and groups that perform the works. Then, it's cross referenced into artists (in a separate section--all with shortcuts) and all the albums with more than one work are represented on all the composer's in the album's folders (with shortcuts again). You'd think I've got too much time on my hands, but it really wasn't hard, and really saves on time if you're looking for something. I just need to do that for the other half of my music.

Getting started with Blogs

I have never created a blog before. I hope that this will prove useful in the future. I am a bit of a tech nut, as my dad is a computer programmer. I went through a time in middle school where I wanted to be just like him, so I feel fairly comfortable with technology.

Right now I am finished with a major milestone--my recital. As a music education major, I only have to give one recital. It only has to be a half hour, but I decided I might as well make it an hour. So it was just me for an hour of solo piano music, with 70 of my friends, family and professors watching the culmination of my four years study of piano at UT.