Orange

I just graduated with my Masters of Music degree last weekend, and now I'm enjoying a stage of "freedom". No school, no job, just my own life. My husband, my apartment, my music, my food, my sleep... It's not bad at all. I just need to find some kind of "stable" job, and earn enough income so that Larry can get his Masters or whatever next level of education he chooses, and then find a suitable apartment which might fit raising a family in. 

Today is shopping day. I discovered the "shop kick" app and have managed putting ridiculous spans of time into figuring the thing out and earning enough kicks to get a "free" target gift card which is what I'm currently going for. The offer of free gift cards, headphones, movies and things has attracted me enough to go to stores with only the intention of gaining kicks. 

Journaling and writing is of great interest to me at the moment. I hope that this blog post will get me out of the "writers block" I've been stuck in, being too busy for it, since last summer, and I might even begin writing stories again. 

To be continued soon...

Jesus and Schnittke

I'm starting to look at the Schnittke Viola Concerto (1938), and wondering about what I would be able to perform it for, since it's a concerto and I probably won't be able to play it for recitals or in the park or subways. The only possibility is preparing it for the concerto competition at school a year from now and possibly auditioning with it for other things. I want to learn the piece with deeper intentions than that. How I'll find those intentions is a question at this point, but for now I'm directing my solution to be found through obscure thought processes that come about from day to day. Perhaps my obscurity will reflect the obscurity in Schnittke's style. Because this is a piece of music that I feel particularly moved by, even though it doesn't really fit into my life as easily as another Bach suite or viola sonata would. 
Today I had one of those obscure thought tangents from reading Mosiah Chapter 4 in the Book of Mormon. It follows:
I'm curious about what the universe would be like without the atonement. If I were to paint an abstract painting right now, I would paint one themed about Earth without the atonement of Christ. 
The atonement is like the Christian version of yin-yang, or karma. Everything that is evil will be paid justice by good and vice-versa.  It's like science and gravity- anything that looses balance will indeed fall, and it will take something of equal or greater value to stand up again. Spiritual principles are equally true. I can't imagine not having a spiritual law, whether or not people actually believe it. Because without spiritual law, that would be just as abstract a world as it would be without mathematical and scientific law, right? People would be all confused about morals and ethics, which are actually laws that came from prophets of God. 
In fact, we are living in a world that is constantly at war with itself around spiritual law, which is creating a lot of confusion and abstractions. 
I guess the key distinction about the atonement is the fact that faults don't necessarily have to be met with negative  consequence because God can make those faults moot with the atonement, as long as the laws of forgiveness and humility are also included. They are like cooking ingredients. Without the atonement, I bet the food wouldn't be edible. 
Yin-yang and karma, as far as my knowledge goes, are both fixed outcomes that don't allow any other ingredients to be involved.

What would the world look like without the atonement, and if there weren't a constant tension between good and oppression? Would we still have our agency to choose? Probably not.  I'm not sure what else there is to make of this. 

Fly!

I dream. I become something that I'm not- a greater, more perfect like Christ version of myself. I can become someone who thinks faster and clearer, creating settling conclusions for any worldly problem, or creating more complicated equations for solving the puzzles of life- like a game of chess. I can become an animal of any sort and have both the attributes of human intellect and inhuman strength and speed, seeing life from a perspective that I could never possibly have in reality. I can become someone who dances for the preservation of beauty, but throughout the occasions of certain events rather than for a performance: I make dance-like movements in harmony with people around me, sometimes bonding, sometimes in hostility- sometimes dancing, sometimes playing music, sometimes making dialogue. I become stronger, quicker in reacting to anything, and I can even sometimes fly. 

But usually I'm running away from something when I fly. Something begins to chase me down and my dream moves into an atmosphere of survival of the fittest. I always find myself enjoying the flight, whether it involves actual flying through the air or not. In almost every situation of chasing dreams, I have some kind of inhuman attribute that enables me to prevent my chaser from reaching me.

Really, in reality- I know I'm being chased. We're all being chased, but not very many of us know how or when we're being chased. What are we being chased by? There's only one possibility: Satan, the disrupter of perfection, the great Adversary, the source of all opposition. 

Satan is very important, because without opposition there would be no way to develop ourselves to grow as children of God. Trial is necessary- the chase is necessary. God, our Heavenly Father, gives us inhuman, supernatural tools to stay free from the devouring mouth of the Adversary. It's our choice to use these tools or to not use these tools. Or to simply fly and go with at least the openness to hearing the whisperings of the Spirit. Sometimes there's no time to study and apply the tools that we're given in instances of oppositional challenge. 

I don't know if my dreams can mean anything to anyone other than myself, but I do know that there is great wisdom and knowledge that I gain from my dreams. This is wisdom that more people could make good use of in this world at this time, whether or not they want to accept the idea that Satan is real. The reality of adversity is as real as the earth we walk on. The best advise I can ever give to anyone is this: hold fast to the Spirit and never stop flying. 

Dive

Here I am, in a blog. My intention in creating a blog is for myself- to be committed to writing consistently as it's a necessary aspect of my life that has helped me to stay on the right path, and it is healthier so as to be more clear of the important things going on in my head; and for the people who will be reading this- that I might better stay in touch with family and friends on a deeper level and share with them a more complete and self-expressive perspective of my life. I'm not always the best at communicating over the phone, and often in person as well for that matter, but I do feel rather confident that my ability to communicate through writing has always been one worth practicing.

I've almost completed 3 journals as of 2009, and I figured that it would be more exciting and maybe even beneficial if I try sharing with people what's been going on. I'M excited about my life- I hope to imbibe excitement or at least enjoyment for my readers as well...
So these are my intentions of beginning a blog. Since it is public, I probably will go back and edit things. But I will write as plainly and clearly as I can.

As for what's actually going on in my life, I'll share a few things:
1- I'm enrolled in a conservatory masters program while financially supporting myself 100% for the first time in my life. I'm doing this by taking 2 jobs (performance library helper and elementary school tutor), teaching and gigging as much as I can, and making my private viola lessons a priority over anything else next to my health. My classes fall rather low in priority, but I seem to be handling that well enough. I got an A on a theory midterm and a C on my history midterm- which I will be able to bring up because of a paper and a class performance. And of course I'll get an A on the final... It's extremely important to me right now that I develop my style as a violist and perform concerts where I will expose that style. I have two private teachers helping me with that- Larry Dutton and Karen Dreyfus.

2- I'm a recent convert in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as of September 2010. In the interest of time, I plan to write a separate blog about how that happened and how it's been going. It's important that I include spirituality in my 1st blog because it is an aspect of my life that I don't easily forget to include in my journaling. So I'm not going to concern myself with what people think about my religious choices or what people care about religion in general, because this blog is primarily for me to share who I am in the perspective of a journalist and I want to express whatever I need to express without feeling restrained by judgement. This, by the way, is something I sometimes struggle with, especially in situations where I'm surrounded by people who I know oppose my religious lifestyle, and the feeling is almost like I'm being discriminated against (this might be over-exaggerating slightly) while I know that the issue is simply one of communication. However, I suppose through writing this blog, I'm realizing that another good intention for the blog is to free myself of that restraint.
Spirituality is extremely important to me- it has influenced me in every aspect of my life, has given me strength through difficult times, and essentially gives me direction in my life.
The question is: what is spirituality?
This is different for everyone, even within a religious community. For me, spirituality is access to God. God is 3 beings: Our heavenly, spiritual Father; Jesus Christ, our Messiah who gave us the Atonement; and the Holy Spirit, who lives within each of us.
The next question is: how do we access God?
That's the part where it's different for everyone. I find it through good music, dance, dreams, walking (or biking) through parks or experiencing the beauty of the Earth, bonding with people, cooking, studying, writing, and various forms of prayer (personal, group, hymns, journaling, meditation, etc). This basically encompasses everything that I do. If anyone notices me not doing at least 5 of those things at any point down the road, I personlly and seriously request that you find a way to knock me back into shape. I will pay you back for it somehow!

I want to continue writing, but unfortunately I need to sleep. I've made a recent conviction to get into bed by 10 every night, and do whatever it takes to sleep at least 7.5 hours every night. Ideally, I want to get to the point where I will wake up without an alarm clock. I'll keep you updated on how that's going as well.

Isn't this exciting?