So I spent a great deal of today trying to plan out my life; well, mostly the remainder of my college life, but the experience and qualifications I come out of school with will have the utmost effect on how the rest of my life goes. Wow, did that sound pretentious or what? Apologies.
Anyways, I'm sticking with a music education major, and I figured out today that with that major I should be able to graduate in February 2013, which means four years of classes and then a semester of student teaching (I know 4.5 years is still considered "graduating late" for most people, but since I was expecting to take 5 years like many other music ed majors, I was very happy to figure this out, and 4.5 years is pretty much "graduating on time" for music ed). For a while I was planning on minoring in Theology and Church Music-sounds right up my ally, right? However, a) adding this minor would definitely set me back a semester at least, and b) I took my first religion class this semester and detested it, mainly because my professor was ridiculous and treated us like we were already in seminary...and upon talking to other people about their various religion professors, I can't say I've heard of any exceptionally wonderful ones at Elmhurst. I've also learned of several other ways I can incorporate service and discipleship into my professional career and my life in general (I'm looking at internships, service trips, and the like).
So I'm not going to minor in Theology and Church Music anymore. Thankfully the one religion class I suffered through at least counts as a gen ed, so it wasn't a complete waste of time, even though I can't say I learned much. But after I assembled my plan for 4.5 years, I realized that a theater minor might fit nicely into that. I emailed Janice Pohl, the theater department head, and she said I might even be able to get a "theater endorsement" since I'm on the education path. I'm not 100% sure what that means, but maybe if I get it I'll be able to teach theater in addition to music? That would be awesome. I was actually seriously considering going into theater ed for a while, but Niles North Theater kind of scared me away from that. I really love directing though, so maybe I could be a middle or high school choir director who also directs the musicals or something. We'll see what happens, when I grow up...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
On Baking and Observations
So I came home for the first weekend of J-term. My main reason was so I could observe at Niles West on Friday, since my class is only Monday-Thursday. But since most of my Elmhurst friends are either in Rome, at ACTF, or also at their respective homes, I decided to just stay the whole weekend and spend some time with my friends who haven't gone back to school. Tonight I went with Becca and Kate to see The Pillowman at Redtwist: amazing production of a thoroughly disturbing script.
But let's back up to my observation today; it reminded me of how much I don't miss high school and how terribly structured and constricting the scheduling is, and how friggen early the days start (8 AM every day? I don't know how I did it...nowadays I can barely get up for my 9:15 class, which is a mere 5 minute walk from my dorm). On the other hand, I really think I want to direct high school choir. I like working with that age group in general, and I'd love to work on complex music with musicians who can sing it. The West kids have gotten really advanced with their music reading skills since the director has everyone work on music theory books as graded homework (starting with the entry level groups, which is a great idea). I also really want to start a vocal jazz and/or madrigal group; maybe have madrigals fall semester, then reaudition and have vocal jazz spring semester, so people who have sports or something can do one or the other and can pick which genre they prefer. Yeah, can you tell I've put a lot of thought into this?
Backing up even further to Thursday night, I made cupcakes with chocolate-coffee frosting from scratch. They were absolutely delicious. I love baking. It makes me sad that I don't really have the time or materials to do it at school, because it's really a major stress reliever for me. Basically, whenever I come home, I come up with some excuse to bake something; this time it was my outing with Becca and Kate, since, you know, theatergoers get hungry, and we definitely needed the sugar after that play. The three of us ate almost all of the cupcakes, with a little help from parents and siblings. Yay cupcakes.
But let's back up to my observation today; it reminded me of how much I don't miss high school and how terribly structured and constricting the scheduling is, and how friggen early the days start (8 AM every day? I don't know how I did it...nowadays I can barely get up for my 9:15 class, which is a mere 5 minute walk from my dorm). On the other hand, I really think I want to direct high school choir. I like working with that age group in general, and I'd love to work on complex music with musicians who can sing it. The West kids have gotten really advanced with their music reading skills since the director has everyone work on music theory books as graded homework (starting with the entry level groups, which is a great idea). I also really want to start a vocal jazz and/or madrigal group; maybe have madrigals fall semester, then reaudition and have vocal jazz spring semester, so people who have sports or something can do one or the other and can pick which genre they prefer. Yeah, can you tell I've put a lot of thought into this?
Backing up even further to Thursday night, I made cupcakes with chocolate-coffee frosting from scratch. They were absolutely delicious. I love baking. It makes me sad that I don't really have the time or materials to do it at school, because it's really a major stress reliever for me. Basically, whenever I come home, I come up with some excuse to bake something; this time it was my outing with Becca and Kate, since, you know, theatergoers get hungry, and we definitely needed the sugar after that play. The three of us ate almost all of the cupcakes, with a little help from parents and siblings. Yay cupcakes.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Blogitty Blog Blog Blogerson
Hello world. I'm Kenzie.
So I decided to finally start a blog, and I have no idea who (if anyone) will be following it, or how much they may or may not know about me....so I'm just going to dive in.
2009 is over, and while it contained some of the most difficult events in my life to date, it also had some of the best (my AFSP benefit recital, working at Lutherdale...there's more I can't think of). I'm excited for what 2010 will bring, and I made a few realistic resolutions that I WILL be keeping. One of them is to post in this blog semi-regularly, because I miss writing and so many times throughout my day when something happens I think to myself "darn, if I only had a blog, I could totally blog about this!" So if you're reading and you have a blogspot of your own, become my "follower" and maybe comment on my stuff! Then I can read your blog too. I love reading people's blogs =)
I set a goal to get healthy too...I don't want to say it's a weight loss goal, because ideally I'd like to just change my lifestyle in general and keep it up even after the pounds (hopefully) shed, but I still made small, realistic weight loss goals to hopefully keep me on track. My first one is ten pounds by spring break. I'm planning on going to the gym after writing this, but I also got an exercise ball and a resistance band for those times when the idea of walking across campus in the bitter cold or the time of day is keeping me from sticking to my resolution. I'm going to do it this time.
My third resolution is to write a song-music, lyrics, everything. I shared this with my jazz voice teacher, Gayle, and she's going to help me with this next semester since she has a ton of experience with songwriting. I'm really excited =)
So yeah, that's all for now. Maybe my next post will be more invigorating and riveting. I'll work on it.
So I decided to finally start a blog, and I have no idea who (if anyone) will be following it, or how much they may or may not know about me....so I'm just going to dive in.
2009 is over, and while it contained some of the most difficult events in my life to date, it also had some of the best (my AFSP benefit recital, working at Lutherdale...there's more I can't think of). I'm excited for what 2010 will bring, and I made a few realistic resolutions that I WILL be keeping. One of them is to post in this blog semi-regularly, because I miss writing and so many times throughout my day when something happens I think to myself "darn, if I only had a blog, I could totally blog about this!" So if you're reading and you have a blogspot of your own, become my "follower" and maybe comment on my stuff! Then I can read your blog too. I love reading people's blogs =)
I set a goal to get healthy too...I don't want to say it's a weight loss goal, because ideally I'd like to just change my lifestyle in general and keep it up even after the pounds (hopefully) shed, but I still made small, realistic weight loss goals to hopefully keep me on track. My first one is ten pounds by spring break. I'm planning on going to the gym after writing this, but I also got an exercise ball and a resistance band for those times when the idea of walking across campus in the bitter cold or the time of day is keeping me from sticking to my resolution. I'm going to do it this time.
My third resolution is to write a song-music, lyrics, everything. I shared this with my jazz voice teacher, Gayle, and she's going to help me with this next semester since she has a ton of experience with songwriting. I'm really excited =)
So yeah, that's all for now. Maybe my next post will be more invigorating and riveting. I'll work on it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
