the modern bluestocking

I really should be sleeping right now, but I have a hard time remembering how tired I am in the mornings come night time. What can I say? I’m a night owl! OvO

Anyway, I have an intense couple of weeks coming up, so I’d appreciate prayers! My days will pretty much be filled with classes, practicing, homework, eating, and sleeping. Good times :D.

Unfortunately, there are lots of other things I’d like to be doing too. Like:

• Going through Beth Moore’s Daniel Bible study
• Making awesome jewelry (I’m envisioning a cross between this and this)
• Doing this to a pair of jeans I just bought
• Other minor mending projects (buttons, adjusting, etc)
• Sorting through my clothes and donating unwanted items here
• Going “thrifting”
• Watching this
• Working out (biking on my cyclops trainer and doing yoga)
• Finish reading Dumas’ Three Musketeers (go d’Artagnan!)
• Slowing down and enjoying more simple pleasures like: a walk in the woods, a cup of tea, a comfy chair and warm blanket…….

*sigh*

Oh, by the way, I am very torn about this new Emma movie. A) It was the 1996 version which first got me hooked on Austen and  led me to explore other 19th century women authors. Obviously, as far as movies go, it holds a special place in my heart. B) The actor portraying Mr. Knightly also portrayed Edmund (my most beloved Austen hero!) in Mansfield Park. So while this new Emma promises to bring some very good things to Masterpiece Theater’s collection of Austen dramatizations, I can’t help but feel it’s taking away some things as well….. : /

Well, it’s past my bedtime. I guess that means this owl needs to turn in for the night……. Whooo, whooo!

I turn 19 tomorrow.

Wow.

I know that New Years was just a couple of days ago, and that is the typical time to reflect on the past year, but I often find myself more contemplative when nearing my birthday. A lot happened in my 18th year. I graduated from high school, I gave a senior recital, my brother got married, I was a cabin counselor at a children’s camp, I spent 2 weeks at a harp camp in Georgia where I won student of the year, I started college, I played Mahler’s 5th Symphony with the Waterloo Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra….

I’m expecting my 19th year to be full of new and exciting things as well. I am auditioning for several orchestra festivals this summer (orchestra festivals are basically longer, more intense, grown up versions of music camps). I am performing 2 more shows with the Waterloo Symphony this spring, as well as performing Chichester Psalms with Coe’s Concert Choir, and Debussy’s Danses with Coe’s Orchestra.

I, of course, will still be taking classes – Music Theory II, German II, Human Relations, Crimson and Gold (a vocal ensemble), Orchestra, Hour Harp Lessons, and Half-Hour Piano Lessons. I am also adding one more student to my piano studio, for a total of 6 students. I anticipate this next semester to be busy, to put it mildly.

But as for now, I’m pretty much being a lazy bones (it’s past 10:00 in the morning and I still haven’t gotten out of bed) :D. But that’s because I wrote an essay last night and didn’t get to sleep until after 1 am.

Anyway, I’m going to try to enjoy my last day of being 18…

19, here I come!

…. jury duty tomorrow. That’s right, jury duty :D. On the one hand, this could be pretty-cool-and-educational-experience! On the other hand, it could get in the way of my wonderful-yet-busy-last-week-of-break. Hopefully the jury-selecting-people will recognize my 18-year-oldness and deem me a bad-choice. That way I can experience at least part of the jury-selection-process without having to deal with any of the responsibility of deciding someone’s fate. Well, I’m going to go lay out my court-house-appropriate-outfit, remove all offensive-and-or-possibly-dangerous-materials from my purse, pack various-forms-of-reading-material and a healthy-yet-hunger-fighting-snack. Then I will go to bed. ‘Night all.

My priorities have been a little messed up lately. Ok, a lot messed up. I feel like my life verse has been Romans 7:19, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.” I have been living unhealthily both physically and spiritually, and have been turning blessings from God into idols. I want to get my priorities straight. In other words, I want to align them with scripture:

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YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. – Matthew 22:37

God needs to be first and foremost in my life. He is to be my One and Only.

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YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. – Matthew 22:39

Everything I do should be done out of love. I should consider everyone else and their needs to be just as important as me and my needs.

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Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. – Matthew 5:16

My lifestyle should be a witness to unbelievers. Everything I do should glorify God.

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Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. – Psalm 32:2

I need to remember to praise God with my music-making. After all, He was the one who gave me the ability and passion to play.

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For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

I should bring glory to God in the way I treat my body – healthily and with purity.

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Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. – Hebrews 12:1-3

I should lay aside things which entangle me, keeping me from running the race well. I have a long list of things which need to go. “Simplify, simplify.”

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