My 2015

Most bloggers, I realize, write blog posts on what they have been doing weekly, or monthly, but, more or less, they do it as the things happen. Most of you probably realize at this point that I am not most bloggers. I will instead don the cap of a traditional Christmas letter writer, squishing everything that has happened this year into but one intrusion on your time and reading comprehension. However, as most Christmas letter writers write on their grandchildren, and what trips they have taken, and who came over for the holidays, I am afraid I do not fit that bill particularly well either. I write almost completely of myself and my own doings, and they are not exciting doings, as I neither was born, got married, died, or traveled to Timbuktu to convert the Swahilis or have Thanksgiving with them. So I guess you will just have to read this post as A Rather Dry Report, Consisting Primarily Of Information On Why Margaret Was So Busy That She Had No Time For Anything And Was Always Tired And Wielding A Textbook Or Piano Score, Depending Upon Whichever Was The Sooner Deadline, Followed By A Mostly Unrelated Rabbit-Trail On Changing My Philosophy Of Life For The New Year.

So it has been a really crazy year. Again. But right now, in the lull of my forced Christmas break, when I actually have a little time to pause and contemplate how busy it was, I am feeling more rested and unstressed than I have since... the Bible Bee was over last year? No, then I had Music Olympics that was bearing down upon me in a little under three weeks, so before the Bible Bee started last year? Oh yeah, my Masters concert was two weeks before that... but wait! There was that two week lull between my Masters Concert finishing and the Bible Bee starting, so, anyway, I am feeling about as rested and unstressed as I was in the last half of May 2014. If you call wheezing on the side of the running track —knowing that you will start back in sometime after that moment when you could survive running again but well before that moment you want to start running again— resting and not stressful. But it's all comparative, guys, and I am sometimes afraid that if I stop long enough to get comfortable I may never be able to muster the willpower to start again.

This was the first (2014) Melodia group

In January through June 2015, I played for four age divisions of a local homeschool choir called Melodia. This was my second year of accompanying Melodia, but this year it consisted of about eighty kids — roughly twice the number we had last year— and there were four, instead of two, choirs. We practiced for about three and a half hours each week (collectively, not each group), performed at several retirement homes, and had one big concert at the end in which we performed fifteen pieces or so. This was fun, and a good experience, as a lot of what pianists end up doing in the "real world" is accompanying. It did contribute to a very busy spring season, though!

In February 2015, I started college. I already had accumulated twenty-four semester credits from casually CLEPing since I was fourteen, but since I signed up for CollegePlus in February I have much more systematically and efficiently earned sixty more. This means that right now I am over two-thirds done with my Bachelors in Music. I hope to finish by September 2016, though it will mean another very packed spring and summer, as this is my last year of piano competitions as well. I am looking forward to it, though. With all the general education requirements out of the way, I now get to work completely on the music part of my degree (I find this prospect significantly more appealing than studying more subjects like Ethics in America, Social Sciences and History, and Introduction to Entrepreneurship).

In June 2015, I did not do the Bible Bee. I am now too old, but, as it has gone through a lot of changes since last year (and we all know how much I love change), I was fine with being done, even though I missed it. During the summer I was working on College Algebra as well as a Leadership Theory and Practice course, and memorized twenty Psalms. This means that I did not have much time to even think about it much, which helped, but come October and November, when most of my Bible Bee acquaintances were preparing for a trip to Nationals, I sporadically got the urge to go somewhere on a plane. I became pretty good at suppressing the urge by studying for college a lot. This was a good thing, as it helped me meet my goal of eight courses (30 semester credits) from September to November.

On top of all the college stuff I have been teaching several piano students, and, in September, I became a member of the Gig Harbor chapter of the Washington Music Teachers' Association and the National Music Teachers' Association. This means that my students can participate in competitions, adjudications, and other events with the students of other teachers in the area. In November, six of my students participated in Music Olympics along with almost two hundred other students for the first time, they all improved a lot, and one got first place in her division, which was really exciting! I got to judge one of the music categories for all the morning and evening divisions, which was a lot of fun as well. Judging is something that I enjoy a lot (this is usually an unfortunate strength), especially when there is not a ton of subjectivity in how to award or detract points. For Rhythm, the subject I was judging, this was thankfully the case. Music Olympics was probably the most organized volunteer run event I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of. This, along with having competed for several years prior, significantly lessened the stress of the unfamiliar and unknown that usually puts a damper on my "first time" of doing something. The best part, though, was getting to know some of the other more experienced teachers who were volunteering and had students participating a bit better. Teaching, if you think about it, is perhaps the best profession to be in if you would like to glean knowledge and insight from those who know their business. The teachers who truly belong in the profession love to learn and cannot help but teach, so they are not particularly surprised when you appear interested in learning what they know, and they will teach you, often with great skill, what they have learned about teaching without thinking twice about it. I am really looking forward to further tapping into these great resources to improve my own teaching in the years to come.

In November 2015, I got my drivers' license. (I honestly do not know where to put that possessive apostrophe. Is "driver" singular, since it is only my license I am talking about, or is it plural, because most drivers have them?) I had just a permit for two years because I did not really have to go anywhere except piano lessons, I had no money for insurance, and because I do not find the burden of responsibility that goes along with taking multiple people's lives in my hands on a semi-regular basis particularly appealing in the first place. However, neither did I want to renew my permit twice, so took the driving test, passed it, and got my license.

Throughout 2015, I have continued taking classical lessons, performing in recitals, competitions, and adjudications, and practicing more or less faithfully. I broke a personal record this year by practicing one hundred hours in four weeks, which made it pretty easy for me to meet my goal of five hundred hours of practice in 2015. While faithful practice and performance has been difficult to maintain with everything else going on, it has challenged me to stay focused, keep learning, and helps me sympathize with and advise my students when they have a hard time fitting in their practice time. Many people have asked me why I am still taking lessons, even though I am done with my senior recital, and am very busy. The best reason I can come up with is that God has given me the gift of ability and enjoyment in learning music. Not everyone has this gift, and I may not have it forever, so, in an attempt to steward the gifts I have right now, I will keep doing music lessons while I am still able and enjoying them. The second reason is related. I have found that the learner and teacher inside of me are inextricably linked. The day that I do not learn something is the day that my joy and execution in teaching becomes slightly weaker. Therefore, to maintain and even build passion and excellence in my profession, I must keep learning. Perhaps someday I will find an alternative to weekly lessons and daily practice to become a better teacher, but at the moment, this is what works, so this is what I am doing.


I look forward to 2016, but I do not expect it to be any less busy. I will, Lord willing, play for Melodia again, perform in my last year of competitions, will hopefully graduate from college in September, and will continue growing my studio. I would like to finish memorizing Proverbs, but I may need to spread this project over 2017 as well.

I would also like to be more caring toward people this coming year. I have a tendency to think of day to day life as a list of checkboxes to mark off, rather than a story that is building and developing its characters and their relationships with each other and the story itself. This influences what I perceive and act upon as priorities. But the story of God, and what He's done for us —through Creation, His unfailing love and patience exhibited between Creation and Christ's first coming, Christ's birth, life, and death, His gift of His Spirit and Word to work and move in our hearts, the growth of His body (the church) into the unity we strive for in Christ, and the victory and homecoming that will occur, followed by final and true fulfillment of the beautiful words "And they lived happily ever after. The End."— the story of God was something more beautiful, and more messy, than a checklist He was systematically marking off, for, in a checklist, there is no love. Not inherently, anyway. There is a great deal of efficiency and excellence in checklists, but without love, they will not be truly effective. So this year, I want my priorities to be driven by love and consideration for those around me, rather than simply reaching my quota of tasks each day. This does not mean I will not have a list of tasks I will shoot for accomplishing, it just means my reasons and processes for reaching them will probably be different. I can reach and accomplish the items on a checklist with love, but I cannot reach and accomplish love through following a checklist. Believe me, I've tried. I need God's divine intervention. But if God, in ages past, was willing to take the risks of loving with the knowledge that He would be rejected, hurt, and killed, He will not be stingy in shining that love through a willing, though broken, vessel. The problem usually is that I am not willing. I am hesitant to "waste" love on undeserving people, or to risk the vulnerableness that comes with love. However, since God Himself demonstrated both those things freely toward mankind in general, and myself in specific, and since it is actually God's love I am giving to others (which is not in danger of running out if I am too generous with it), I am left with no excuse to be stingy and guarded with love and compassion for people. This goes for the awesome people that I tend to think are so close to God that they don't need to feel His love through me. This goes for the average people that check out my groceries, don't understand how I can do college online, and sit in the third to back row at church. And this even goes for those really annoying people who always manage to either drive me up the wall, or whom I always seem to drive up the wall.

So my challenge for myself, as well as for you, is to live this next year as part of a story. Specifically, part of the story of God's love touching earth, touching people, touching individuals.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.