Besides my fundamental desire to become the “best” there is in blogging, a lot’s been going on lately. UIL was Saturday and for lack of better terms – we sucked. The judges apparently thought so as well. In both sight reading and contest prepared music we made 2-2-3s. 3 is the lowest score, 2 is in the middle, and 1 in the best. We made no 1s. I’m rather disappointed, but it’s more of a bruised ego than anything. Only one out of our four different string orchestras at school made sweepstakes (1-1-1) and it wasn’t even the top group – they made a 1-1-1 in contest music but a 1-1-2 in sight reading. Oh well. Today we were supposed to get audition music for the next year of orchestra, but our conductor hadn’t run all of it off, so we shall receive it tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.

My greatest bit of news to share with the world: I have a job! I had an interview to day in response to an e-mail I had written, and I was accepted for the job. I start work tomorrow, and luckily it’s only after school and on Saturday. They’re closed Sunday. Anyway, the place is called World Music, and it’s a local music store right next to my AA meeting. How convenient is that? Quite literally, my AA home group is a few stores down from World Music. Both are within walking distance from the house. Tomorrow, I go in and I’ll be filing, organizing, and cleaning. I’m allowed to teach, but first I must get my own clients and refer them to the music shop. I’ll probably wait for the summer to start teaching again simply because… What’s the point of teaching middle school kids who’ve already had a year of teaching under another instructor? I like the fresh out of elementary school, just picked out their instruments kids. They’re much more fun! Anyway, I think the point I’m trying to make is that I’m VERY excited!

TAKS is coming up as well, and I’m not looking forward to it at all. I had a tutorial to go to this Saturday, but I had to go to UIL instead. Luckily, there’s one more this weekend. TAKS starts next Tuesday and I have testing Thursday and Friday as well. Joy! I plan to spend much of the weekend studying, preparing, and getting LOTS of sleep! I hope to score well on the TAKS tests. I’m also trying to get prepared (or at least start the process) of taking the ACTs and SATs. I need as many shots as I can get at those tests so I can take my best score and apply to a college that I really want to go to. Like Rice University in downtown Houston! That’s been my dream college for a while now, but I’ll probably have to transfer in after I go to University of Texas or North Texas State University for a while. I’ve decided not to go to community/junior college to start out simply because it’s too many transfers and I if I didn’t go to a major university before Rice, that’d be a HUGE leap from community college to a big prestigious school.

Although I have lots of college plans, I must first graduate high school, which is what I’m working on now. I’m taking two college dual credit courses next year – English and U.S. History. Aside from that, I also have to maintain a steady job (World Music, hopefully), eventually get a car, and be able to support myself financially. So, it’s a long process that will most likely take a couple of years, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s nice to be free and to grow and make my own decisions, which is definitely not something I was able to do a year ago.

I celebrated 11 months on the seventeenth of April, so that was really exciting. God’s definitely given me more than enough blessings in life, and I pray I continue! Until next time!

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***

I’ve hurt so bad in life.
All I knew before was the knife.
I now know better ways to cope,
When before I thought there was no hope.
The rape and the abuse,
The feeling of being so used.
I got through it all and now I can see,
God has something great in store for me.
I used to scream and cry,
Always asking, “God, why?”
But it wasn’t God’s doing, it was Hell on Earth,
Now I stand proud and say I fight on His turf.
I’m a soldier for God today,
And nothing will bring me down, nope, not this day.
I used to write sad rhymes,
Always thinking about the bad times.
But now I think about what’s good,
Instead of dwelling on life in the hood.
I was blind but now I see:
God has something great in store for me.

***

One of the hardest things for me to have done so far is to change the way I think. In that poem, I wrote about how I used to always dwell in the past. Basically, I never dealt with any of my feelings. Needless to say, my latest aphorism is: Deal, not dwell. In other words, I have to learn that my feelings are indeed valid and that it’s perfectly okay to feel them.

There’s a book out there called Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. It’s about a man and his old sociology professor, Morrie, whom he goes to see when he gets sick with Lou Gherig’s disease, also known as ASL. The book is basically their last several meetings every Tuesday and speak on several different topics such as Death, Fear, Love, Marriage, and so on and so forth.

In Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie talks about “detaching” from our feelings. I believe this can be summarized as this: Feel your feeling, envelop yourself in it, drown yourself in it, feel all the different aspects of it, and then just let it go. One of the aphorisms of AA is “Let Go And Let God.” I strongly believe that what must do with my feelings is feel them, get used to them, and then give it to God and don’t worry about it anymore.

I recently had a very personal surgical procedure and I was (for lack of better terms) scared shitless. This was less than a week ago. I found the surgery would take place about four or five days before it was to happen. That four or five day wait, I was an anxious, nervous, scared wreck. However, I felt my fear and did my best to give it to God. In AA, I was told several acronyms for ‘FEAR.’

Fuck Everything And Run
Face Everything And Recover

False Evidence Appearing Real

As the days went by, I decided I had to face my fears rather than running away from them. Finally, the day of my surgery arrived. Every time I sat in the hospital bed with my little gown on and got scared, I said a little prayer: “Okay God, I don’t want to feel afraid. Take it away from me. Amen” And it worked! I waited six hours until I could finally go into the surgery room and once they scooted me onto the surgery table, I said a prayer. The next thing I new I was waking up from my anesthetic sleep. Granted I was sore, the point is that they put me to sleep before I even had a chance to really feel afraid or anxious, which is indefinitely a blessing.

It just so happens that I’m actually a lot more blessed than I think I am. Go figure… He’s watching out for me.

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