Many of my 30 before 30 resolutions (so to speak) do not actually require further explanation. However, some of them are worth briefly expanding upon.
Ok. So...
#3-finish my PhD (hence my dissertation) before I am 30
This seems like quite a lofty goal and also possibly insane, although given how much I love school and research it might be doable. At this point I can not even envision my dissertation defense, probably because I really have no idea what I will be writing 500 or more pages about. Apparently this is not a problem. I will be starting a PhD program, but the first two years of coursework are intended to push students out of their comfort zones and encourage them to explore new interests. This sounds quite exciting and makes me feel less unprepared for the intellectual journey I am about to embark upon. I know the essense of what I want to study, but I can't pinpoint a specific composer, genre, event/movement that I would want to focus on exclusively. Yeah, I may talk a lot about Barbara Strozzi, but I actually know very little about her. I have only touched on the surface of Strozzi scholarship, because while she is not completely obscure, there are only a few Strozzi authorities and very little has been written about her, in English at least. Also, it is quite unfortunate that so little of her music has been recorded. There are actually quite a plethora of Strozzi cd's but most of them recycle the songs from previous recordings meaning a bulk of her repertoire is left untouched. However, this might be because the music is floating around somewhere in a black hole/was not preserved for posterity, rather than a reflection on the quality of some of her music. Anyway...Before I started to ramble endlessly about my love of all things Strozzi, despite my lack of knowlege of all things Strozzi, my point was that I don't have a very focused research topic at this point that I could someday consider myself to be an authority of. Perhaps someday is the key word! Basically what I do know right now is that I want to examine the role of performance in identity formation, specifically as it relates to gender, both from the perspective of a scholar and an avocational performer. I guess this is completely acceptable for this stage in my academic career, I haven't even started working toward my PhD and I am already afraid I will be ABD (all but dissertation) until I am too old and decrepid (or is it decrepit? apparently I am too lazy to look it up) to function.* Come to think of it, 7 years is a fairly long time, and hopefully, a perfectly adequate amount of time to become an expert, or atleast expert-ish on something within the expanding field of musicology.
* I am pretty sure the correct spelling is decrepit, although, at least the way I pronounce the word it sounds more like a final d than a final t...
Wow. Thanks for reading my incomprehensible stream of consciousness minor scale panic attack 2 months before I re-enter the academia universe, and this scary run-on sentence, although I threw in some commas to at least give the illusion of an organized expression of these thoughts. (Even I am reading this thinking, what does this even mean?)
#4 -Fall in love
This one probably is rather foolish to include in my 30 before 30 list...If I truly fall in love it will be completely out of my control, which is what terrifies me beyond belief. I don't do well with letting myself go and relinquishing control to fate. Not that I necessarily believe in Fate as in there is some greater plan for my life, but I do need to release my vice grip on my life and allow myself to live more. I do hope to someday fall head over heals in love because in some respects I do consider myself to be a romantic, but falling implies risk, which implies potential danger. I tend to play on the safe side, which I am gradually realizing could result in my life being boring and full of regrets. I am still a bit paranoid about failure and need to shed some of my layers of self-protection, but this year I finally took a plunge into my future and I didn't belly flop. (Lame metaphor, I know.) I applied to PhD programs straight out of undergrad., dealt with the multiple rejections/blows to my dignity, and after having resigned myself to the inevitable failures that accompany risk, I picked myself back up and brushed myself off, and shortly thereafter I was offered admission to my top choice program. Now I will be starting in just a few months. So, back to love. While it is true that it would be nice to fall in love before I am 30 and only have a few safe child-bearing years left, because I do hope to balance a career and a family, I mostly want to get over my fear of falling and risk. When I have come to terms with the fact that sometimes in life I will fall flat on my face and that it is not the end of the world, I will embrace love and the vulnerability that will inherently accompany the opening of my heart.
This is a really informal post, but it is my blog and I am not in grad. school yet, so I do not have to worry about sentence structure, organization, or making a point succinctly and compellingly. This blog is meant to be where I can bounce my ideas off of people (readers if I have any) or just myself, but it is also meant to be a safe outlet for my half-baked thoughts and emotional rants that may or may not have anything to do with my academic interests...And on that note, I am on vacation in Florida (at the house my parents will be moving to in about a month) and it is time to abandon my laptop and spend some time with my family, the humidity, and possibly some frighteningly large cockroaches and arachnids (ugh)...:)
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The obligatory 30 before 30 list
Ok. I suppose it is not imperative that I include a 30 before 30 list on my blog, but I do have several things I hope to do and accomplish before I reach that milestone in my life. Fortunately for me I still have just under 7 years to go. Ok...So here goes.
30 things to do before I turn 30
1) Learn how to sing for fun again
2) Backpack through Europe
3) Write my dissertation and get my PhD (as much as I love school I want to be out of school and looking for professorships by my third decade...maybe this is wishful thinking...)
4) Fall in love
5) Cook a gourmet multi-course meal
6) Learn how to knit (bufandas (scarves in Spanish) especially)
7) Commit to Pilates
8) Get a cat
9) Get a dog (make sure cat and dog get along and by that I mean don't try to kill each other)
10) Do research abroad (preferably in Venezia)
11) Learn Italian (maybe I should flip-flop numbers 10 and 11)
12) Learn to play either the oboe or the cello
13) Improve my piano skills so I can go beyond warming myself up :)
14) Visit my close friend Catrina in Vienna
15) Perform in the chorus of an opera
16) Learn an entire role for fun and insights into the character (at this point I am thinking Despina from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte)
17) Establish a daily exercise routine
18) Reach and maintain a healthy diet and weight (ideally between 115 and 120 lbs)
19) Fly a kite
20) Learn how to dance flamenco (at least the basics, my lack of coordination makes this a rather comical goal)
21) Perform a recital devoted to the works of Barbara Strozzi (if she has composed 30-60 mins. worth of mezzo repertoire...sadly the bulk of her works she composed for soprano-aka-herself)
22) Drink a grasshopper without having the worst hangover of my life
23) Sing duets with my sister (two unfachables* in one family)
24) Sing karaoke (as tastefully as possible...)
25) Go to the Met in NYC (there are many Mets in NYC, here I am referring to the famed Metropolitan Opera)
26) Go to Acadia National Park (born and bred in ME, I have no excuse for never having been)
27) Give a lecture/presentation at a noteworthy musicological conference (maybe one devoted to 17th-century music)
28) Participate in a bar crawl (I missed out on some key elements of an undergrad. experience, maybe this one was a good thing given my alcohol tolerance, or lack thereof)
29) Watch the"Monty Python" movies and become more culturally literate
30) Learn how to swallow pills
*unfachable : a made up word based on the German word for category (fach.) Classically trained singers are placed into a fach (voice category) that fits their timbre, range, and several other vocal qualities...The three basic categories for female singers are soprano, mezzo soprano, and contralto. My sister and I are both somewhere vaguely in between soprano and mezzo thus we are un-FACH-able. :)
OK. So in more detail I am going to thresh out my first five to do's in the next 7 years:
1) Learn how to sing for fun again
I have a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and I have a quality conservatory-level vocal training. This has done wonders for my vocal technique and musicality, however, it has been detrimental to me in other ways. Unfortunately I am quite a perfectionist. This is not inherently a negative quality because I always put forth a lot of effort into the things I do and this frequently pays off, but it has become an obstacle I need to overcome in my singing. All throughout high school I took voice lessons and performed in community and school musicals. I sang all the time, and I sang primarily for myself. Once I got to college I began to take music and singing more seriously and I ended up taking it too seriously. There were weeks when I would spend more time crying/cursing myself in the practice room than singing and sometimes I couldn't even get through a 3 minute song in an hour of practicing. I began to dread singing and I have lost my love of performing. Once I latched on to the idea of establishing a phenomenal technique I began to forget why I was singing in the first place. Every once in a while I sing musical theater songs that I performed in high school, I lose myelf in the music, and enjoy singing again, if even for just the duration of the song. I need to find these moments, cherish them, and infuse them in my singing as a whole. I need to sing with my heart again. (I admit that this is incredibly cheesy, but I am merely being honest.)
2) Backpack through Europe
I have been dying to make it across the Atlantic for several years now and unfortunately do not currently have the funds or time to devote to travelling. I had hoped to study abroad as an undergrad. but unfortunately could not fit it in to my 4.5 years without threatening my sanity. The curriculum for a music education degree is extremely intensive and leaves little room for exploration of outside interests, like, studying abroad. The $14 grand for 6 months living with other Americans and essentially being a glorified tourist was also extremely unappealing to me. I really shouldn't judge the quality of study abroad programs considering that I have never participated in one, but I would prefer to be completely immersed in another country's culture and customs even if this sometimes makes me uncomfortable. So anyway, backpacking through Europe...In an ideal world I would backpack for several months, or even a year, so I could tour several countries without sacrificing quality due to lack of time. I don't want to go to Venice, buy a Carnevale mask, take a gondola ride, and then book it to my next stop. I want to spend some quality time everywhere I go, meet people, and learn more about what makes them tick. I hope to have the opportunity to see women's engagement in various genres of music everywhere I go. Of all the places I travel to, Italy is highest on my list: Venice, Ferrara, Florence, Rome, Mantua, Milan, cities where court cultures once thrived, where the glories of the ancient world lie in protected ruin...Someday!
I would write more like I said I would, but, despite no longer having a job, I have a ton of stuff to do and I need to drag myself away from my computer...
30 things to do before I turn 30
1) Learn how to sing for fun again
2) Backpack through Europe
3) Write my dissertation and get my PhD (as much as I love school I want to be out of school and looking for professorships by my third decade...maybe this is wishful thinking...)
4) Fall in love
5) Cook a gourmet multi-course meal
6) Learn how to knit (bufandas (scarves in Spanish) especially)
7) Commit to Pilates
8) Get a cat
9) Get a dog (make sure cat and dog get along and by that I mean don't try to kill each other)
10) Do research abroad (preferably in Venezia)
11) Learn Italian (maybe I should flip-flop numbers 10 and 11)
12) Learn to play either the oboe or the cello
13) Improve my piano skills so I can go beyond warming myself up :)
14) Visit my close friend Catrina in Vienna
15) Perform in the chorus of an opera
16) Learn an entire role for fun and insights into the character (at this point I am thinking Despina from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte)
17) Establish a daily exercise routine
18) Reach and maintain a healthy diet and weight (ideally between 115 and 120 lbs)
19) Fly a kite
20) Learn how to dance flamenco (at least the basics, my lack of coordination makes this a rather comical goal)
21) Perform a recital devoted to the works of Barbara Strozzi (if she has composed 30-60 mins. worth of mezzo repertoire...sadly the bulk of her works she composed for soprano-aka-herself)
22) Drink a grasshopper without having the worst hangover of my life
23) Sing duets with my sister (two unfachables* in one family)
24) Sing karaoke (as tastefully as possible...)
25) Go to the Met in NYC (there are many Mets in NYC, here I am referring to the famed Metropolitan Opera)
26) Go to Acadia National Park (born and bred in ME, I have no excuse for never having been)
27) Give a lecture/presentation at a noteworthy musicological conference (maybe one devoted to 17th-century music)
28) Participate in a bar crawl (I missed out on some key elements of an undergrad. experience, maybe this one was a good thing given my alcohol tolerance, or lack thereof)
29) Watch the"Monty Python" movies and become more culturally literate
30) Learn how to swallow pills
*unfachable : a made up word based on the German word for category (fach.) Classically trained singers are placed into a fach (voice category) that fits their timbre, range, and several other vocal qualities...The three basic categories for female singers are soprano, mezzo soprano, and contralto. My sister and I are both somewhere vaguely in between soprano and mezzo thus we are un-FACH-able. :)
OK. So in more detail I am going to thresh out my first five to do's in the next 7 years:
1) Learn how to sing for fun again
I have a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and I have a quality conservatory-level vocal training. This has done wonders for my vocal technique and musicality, however, it has been detrimental to me in other ways. Unfortunately I am quite a perfectionist. This is not inherently a negative quality because I always put forth a lot of effort into the things I do and this frequently pays off, but it has become an obstacle I need to overcome in my singing. All throughout high school I took voice lessons and performed in community and school musicals. I sang all the time, and I sang primarily for myself. Once I got to college I began to take music and singing more seriously and I ended up taking it too seriously. There were weeks when I would spend more time crying/cursing myself in the practice room than singing and sometimes I couldn't even get through a 3 minute song in an hour of practicing. I began to dread singing and I have lost my love of performing. Once I latched on to the idea of establishing a phenomenal technique I began to forget why I was singing in the first place. Every once in a while I sing musical theater songs that I performed in high school, I lose myelf in the music, and enjoy singing again, if even for just the duration of the song. I need to find these moments, cherish them, and infuse them in my singing as a whole. I need to sing with my heart again. (I admit that this is incredibly cheesy, but I am merely being honest.)
2) Backpack through Europe
I have been dying to make it across the Atlantic for several years now and unfortunately do not currently have the funds or time to devote to travelling. I had hoped to study abroad as an undergrad. but unfortunately could not fit it in to my 4.5 years without threatening my sanity. The curriculum for a music education degree is extremely intensive and leaves little room for exploration of outside interests, like, studying abroad. The $14 grand for 6 months living with other Americans and essentially being a glorified tourist was also extremely unappealing to me. I really shouldn't judge the quality of study abroad programs considering that I have never participated in one, but I would prefer to be completely immersed in another country's culture and customs even if this sometimes makes me uncomfortable. So anyway, backpacking through Europe...In an ideal world I would backpack for several months, or even a year, so I could tour several countries without sacrificing quality due to lack of time. I don't want to go to Venice, buy a Carnevale mask, take a gondola ride, and then book it to my next stop. I want to spend some quality time everywhere I go, meet people, and learn more about what makes them tick. I hope to have the opportunity to see women's engagement in various genres of music everywhere I go. Of all the places I travel to, Italy is highest on my list: Venice, Ferrara, Florence, Rome, Mantua, Milan, cities where court cultures once thrived, where the glories of the ancient world lie in protected ruin...Someday!
I would write more like I said I would, but, despite no longer having a job, I have a ton of stuff to do and I need to drag myself away from my computer...
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
On love, lust, and Klimt...
I am hardly an expert on love considering that I have never been in love. At this point in my life I am not willing to make myself that vulnerable, although, I suppose one never chooses when is a good time to fall in love. It will hit me when it hits, and hopefully when it does it will not be of the unrequited variety.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, my lack of experience with love, and lust as well to a certain extent, I am obsessed with the work of the late 19th-century Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. While some, if not most, of his art captures women in sexual poses which tend to be objectifying and degrading, I find some of his art to be more sensual than sexual, which prevents it from being inherently insulting to any self-respecting woman.
I was initially exposed to Klimt through his renowned masterpiece "Le baiser." The fact that this particular painting can be found plastered in miniature on mugs, magnets, and other random trinkets is a testimony to its popularity. Although I am guilty of buying into this popularity in the form of a "Le baiser" magnet I am not obsessed with it merely because of said popularity. I am drawn to the painting because it makes me think, although I didn't like it at first. This is because the woman in the painting appears to be completely passive and it is unclear whether or not she has given her consent to being kissed by the man who could easily physically overpower her. However, upon a second glance (or rather careful perusal) of the painting I noticed many subtle nuances (yes redundant) which had initially escaped me. The woman is indeed kneeling on the edge of a cliff desperately hanging on with her toes, but this does not necessarily mean that the man has literally pushed her to her knees in order to take advantage of her. Is the man aggressive or even forceful or is the woman merely nervous about the falling part of falling in love? It could be interpreted either way, but I personally am more inclined toward the latter. While the fingers of the woman's right hand are nervously clenched they are also curled around her partner's neck, perhaps in order to draw his face closer to hers. With her other hand she is clutching the man's hand which appears to be gently cupping her face. Her eyes are closed which could mean one of at least two things: a) that she is pleasantly overwhelmed by the intoxicating sensations of his kiss or b) she is attempting to distance herself mentally from what is happening to her body because the man is violating her. (Interpretation b seems a bit extreme to me...Although the woman does appear to be passive I think it is quite a stretch of the imagination to claim that the man is attempting to violate her in any way.) My current reading of this painting is that it is a reflection of the woman's inner conflict: she is both pulling away from and leaning into the kiss, which is true of many a first kiss. Despite my self-proclaimed innocence, I have personally experienced the phenomenon of the "first kiss" and it is simultaneously scary and exciting. As much as I love reading sex politics into art, sometimes it is not really there. Maybe, on some level, the painting does promote a more traditional patriarchal image of love in which the man takes the lead and the woman is always on the receiving, aka passive end, but I think this painting is more about the internal confusion and excitement that ensues in a first kiss than about the relationship between gender and power.
I have no idea what inspired me to write about this particular topic tonight. However, I would love to hear other ideas and opinions about this painting and Klimt's work in general. I actually don't know much about the man or his other art, which may make this entire post a bit pretentious, but I have done a little bit of reading and it seems like he may have been a bit of a shady fellow who used his art as a means of expressing his sketchy sexual proclivities to the public. While some of the nude and very sexualized paintings/sketches of female models turn me off to his work, the insightful qualities of "Le baiser" indicate to me that Klimt was more than just a bohemian pimp...and if he was a pimp within the art world, he was at least a very interesting man.
Check out: http://www.iklimt.com/index.html.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Musings on success and failure...
Today I am struggling to come to terms with one of my greatest weaknesses, which is also, paradoxically, one of my greatest strengths. I am a very meticulous person. However, at times I can be overly fastidious which frequently gets in my way. This morning I drove to work unsuspecting that my job had been terminated. I was given my 90-day review for the part time teller job I have held for the past, well, 90 days, and was told that my work was unsatisfactory and unfortunately I could not continue with the job. On some level this came as a relief because I needed to give my two weeks notice anyway by this Friday, and for some reason that made me nervous. Since I was hired this past March there have been several management changes within the company, thus my new supervisor was unaware of my plans to attend graduate school and resign only four months after having accepted the position. This made me very anxious, possibly irrationally so, as I anticipated the confrontation I would be faced with upon informing the company of my plans. One good thing has come of being fired today, I was spared that awkward situation.
What I learned this morning was that I am a horrible bank teller. Horrible may be a slight exaggeration, but I am somewhat embarrassed that I was fired and at the moment can't silence the self-deprecating voices in my head. In many ways this revelation is not particularly surprising. As I mentioned before I am overly meticulous and handling large quantities of money made me very nervous from the start. As a teller it is important to be accurate, but speed is also a prized quality which I was never able to attain because I was constantly second guessing myself. I need to learn to develop more confidence in my work and suppress the feeling that I need to re-check everything that I do on the off-chance that I made an error. Outside of the realm of musicological research I have a tendency to be overly-analytical, and this tendency is more often than not detrimental to my success in practical matters. For example, while it is important to be careful when cashing a check for someone, it is not necessary to count back the cash two or three times and still feel paranoid afterwards that I have somehow misread a 5 dollar bill as a 50 and just made my customer's day while shortchanging the bank!
As embarrassed as I am about having been fired from a job for the first time in my life, I can certainly overcome this blow to my dignity and I can learn from it.
I need to learn to be less careful. I have never been one for taking risks, because I am absolutely terrified of the big F word: Failure. Failure at what exactly? I frequently use the phrase "I fail at life," more often than not jokingly/sarcastically, and I haven't ever really taken the meanings of those words into much consideration. I may not be the most optimistic person out there, but I don't truly believe that I am an "epic failure at life" despite how often I claim to be one. What exactly does it mean anyway to fail at life? The reason I struggle to come up with a definitive answer is because I have yet to determine what ultimately constitutes success for me. I say for me, because I am completely aware that success for one person can be strikingly different from someone else's version of success. Perhaps because success for me is still floating around in the great unknown I am terrified of failing in any endeavor.
I read over my post from yesterday about my aspirations as a musicologist and, although not explicitly stated, I see that at least one facet of success for me would mean writing compellingly and sensitively about issues of gender identity in music, and genuinely situating myself in my writing. I do not want my tone to come across as contrived and I tend to struggle with this in my writing. Sometimes I agonize over sentence structure and word choice to the point that I have nearly completely obscured my point. This is often most problematic when I am writing about myself. Beginning this blog is actually an enormous step for me. It is true that I used to journal when I was younger, but when I was ten years old I had less high expectations for my writing than I do now, and at the time I was not as ridiculously self-critical as I am today. I should honor my capacity to be self-reflective, but need to learn how to budget (note the semi-bitter banking humor) my self-criticism. While saving files on my computer this past week I came across probably 15-20 drafts of my personal statement for my grad. school applications. I think I wrote more drafts of my personal statement than either of the two substantial papers I submitted as part of my applications. Maybe this is within the norm, maybe not, but that isn't really my concern. I need to learn how to put my self-reflection into writing without feeling a need to censor and edit everything to the point that I have sucked all the life out of my words. This is a long and redundant paragraph, but I needed to get it out onto paper. :) If I can learn to be less apprehensive about writing about myself, and making my research personal in appropriate contexts, I will be on the road to capturing my elusive version of success.
Outside of writing, I also need to be less careful in day-to-day life. I need to be less afraid of putting myself out there. What do I really have to lose? Today I lost my job. Yes it was unfortunate because my other job doesn't pay as well which means I have to be more frugal in order to continue to be able to afford my rent, and I may be forced to turn to my parents for a little financial aid. This minor setback has forced me to acknowledge that at 23 I am not completely independent and that is ok because this will change overtime as I acquire the means to become independent. Today's failure was a minor setback, and despite how embarrassed I am that I was fired from a part time job, I am not a failure at life. I have many more important things going for me, and I am gradually becoming more successful at taking risks. I can intelligently evaluate situations and avoid taking stupid risks, but I need to accept uncertainty and sometimes take a flying leap and hope for the best. I have done this once and, luckily, it worked out for the best. I decided to bypass a master's program and to instead apply to PhD programs straight out of undergrad. Admittedly this is not uncommon in my particular field, but it was still a huge risk on my part. I faced a lot of rejection this past year, but I have also been rewarded for overcoming my fear of failure and applying to several programs because I will be starting to work towards a PhD in a discipline that I am passionate about and also in the program that was probably the best fit for me from the start! Taking risks sometimes pays off, and even if I do not achieve success in everything I do, like banking among other things, as long as I start to take risks and live life instead of waiting on the sidelines hoping for something good to come my way, I will be able to say that I am a successful and happy person.
What I learned this morning was that I am a horrible bank teller. Horrible may be a slight exaggeration, but I am somewhat embarrassed that I was fired and at the moment can't silence the self-deprecating voices in my head. In many ways this revelation is not particularly surprising. As I mentioned before I am overly meticulous and handling large quantities of money made me very nervous from the start. As a teller it is important to be accurate, but speed is also a prized quality which I was never able to attain because I was constantly second guessing myself. I need to learn to develop more confidence in my work and suppress the feeling that I need to re-check everything that I do on the off-chance that I made an error. Outside of the realm of musicological research I have a tendency to be overly-analytical, and this tendency is more often than not detrimental to my success in practical matters. For example, while it is important to be careful when cashing a check for someone, it is not necessary to count back the cash two or three times and still feel paranoid afterwards that I have somehow misread a 5 dollar bill as a 50 and just made my customer's day while shortchanging the bank!
As embarrassed as I am about having been fired from a job for the first time in my life, I can certainly overcome this blow to my dignity and I can learn from it.
I need to learn to be less careful. I have never been one for taking risks, because I am absolutely terrified of the big F word: Failure. Failure at what exactly? I frequently use the phrase "I fail at life," more often than not jokingly/sarcastically, and I haven't ever really taken the meanings of those words into much consideration. I may not be the most optimistic person out there, but I don't truly believe that I am an "epic failure at life" despite how often I claim to be one. What exactly does it mean anyway to fail at life? The reason I struggle to come up with a definitive answer is because I have yet to determine what ultimately constitutes success for me. I say for me, because I am completely aware that success for one person can be strikingly different from someone else's version of success. Perhaps because success for me is still floating around in the great unknown I am terrified of failing in any endeavor.
I read over my post from yesterday about my aspirations as a musicologist and, although not explicitly stated, I see that at least one facet of success for me would mean writing compellingly and sensitively about issues of gender identity in music, and genuinely situating myself in my writing. I do not want my tone to come across as contrived and I tend to struggle with this in my writing. Sometimes I agonize over sentence structure and word choice to the point that I have nearly completely obscured my point. This is often most problematic when I am writing about myself. Beginning this blog is actually an enormous step for me. It is true that I used to journal when I was younger, but when I was ten years old I had less high expectations for my writing than I do now, and at the time I was not as ridiculously self-critical as I am today. I should honor my capacity to be self-reflective, but need to learn how to budget (note the semi-bitter banking humor) my self-criticism. While saving files on my computer this past week I came across probably 15-20 drafts of my personal statement for my grad. school applications. I think I wrote more drafts of my personal statement than either of the two substantial papers I submitted as part of my applications. Maybe this is within the norm, maybe not, but that isn't really my concern. I need to learn how to put my self-reflection into writing without feeling a need to censor and edit everything to the point that I have sucked all the life out of my words. This is a long and redundant paragraph, but I needed to get it out onto paper. :) If I can learn to be less apprehensive about writing about myself, and making my research personal in appropriate contexts, I will be on the road to capturing my elusive version of success.
Outside of writing, I also need to be less careful in day-to-day life. I need to be less afraid of putting myself out there. What do I really have to lose? Today I lost my job. Yes it was unfortunate because my other job doesn't pay as well which means I have to be more frugal in order to continue to be able to afford my rent, and I may be forced to turn to my parents for a little financial aid. This minor setback has forced me to acknowledge that at 23 I am not completely independent and that is ok because this will change overtime as I acquire the means to become independent. Today's failure was a minor setback, and despite how embarrassed I am that I was fired from a part time job, I am not a failure at life. I have many more important things going for me, and I am gradually becoming more successful at taking risks. I can intelligently evaluate situations and avoid taking stupid risks, but I need to accept uncertainty and sometimes take a flying leap and hope for the best. I have done this once and, luckily, it worked out for the best. I decided to bypass a master's program and to instead apply to PhD programs straight out of undergrad. Admittedly this is not uncommon in my particular field, but it was still a huge risk on my part. I faced a lot of rejection this past year, but I have also been rewarded for overcoming my fear of failure and applying to several programs because I will be starting to work towards a PhD in a discipline that I am passionate about and also in the program that was probably the best fit for me from the start! Taking risks sometimes pays off, and even if I do not achieve success in everything I do, like banking among other things, as long as I start to take risks and live life instead of waiting on the sidelines hoping for something good to come my way, I will be able to say that I am a successful and happy person.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Ramblings...(from high school naivete to gender identity)
Graduating from college is much scarier than I had thought it would be as a high school student eagerly anticipating moving 1,000 miles from home, despite being a bit of a daddy's girl, and refashioning myself out of sight and mind of my critical high school peers. Back then, I naively thought that upon graduation I would immediately land a job in my career of choice (not that I knew what that was at the time) and that I would instantaneously be on the road to success...Life, as it turns out, is not that easy. Although, come to think of it, instant gratification isn't necessarily a good thing. If my life had turned out as I had planned five years ago I would probably be in New York, slumming it and desperately trying to make my way as an actress on Broadway, despite the fact that my performance anxiety level has skyrocketed over the years and singing and dancing in front of thousands of people holds little appeal for me these days.
Instead of pursuing a career as the next Christine on Broadway, which is laughable considering that I am not a high soprano, I participated in Commencement with the rest of my class last spring, and received a blank diploma, which put a bit of a damper on my celebratory mood..." The case which would have held my diploma held a sheet of paper which was blank, with the exception of the following statement: "will receive degree upon completion of course requirements." Oh yeah, so I wasn't really graduating. I still had a semester of student teaching to go before I would officially receive my undergraduate degree a year later without any pomp and circumstance. But, in all reality, I was fine with that...Graduation ceremonies are incredibly dull, with the exception, of course, of my brief moment of glory on the stage shaking the hands of two people I have never seen before (the president and someone else high up on the totem pole) who are wearing ridiculous looking robes, and moving the tassel from one side to the other. Is it left to right, or right to left? Does it even really matter?
Speaking of student teaching, after halfheartedly convincing myself that I wanted to pursue a career as a high school choral director for a couple of years, I discovered my true passion by accident, in a gender studies intro. course I signed up for to fulfill a gen. ed. requirement. I never would have guessed that I would end up pursuing a career in musicology. Up until my sophomore year in college I had never even heard of such a thing! Who knew that after taking a gender studies class I would begin to consider what it means, and has meant, to be a woman. I had always taken this particular aspect of my identity for granted, and probably still do today in certain respects. Although many women around the world continue to be a marginalized group, several of them exploited and even abused as a result of their sex, I have never personally suffered due to my lack of a y chromosome. However, being the history geek that I am, after having taken this gender studies course I became fascinated by the history of women in music: as performers, composers, and muses. I began to realize that many of these women had to carefully negotiate their gender identities in order to survive in a male-dominated profession.
Last year, while preparing my senior recital, I had a rather emotional encounter with a certain song by Debussy. Its main appeal was is its otherwordly, sensual, and exotic harmonic language which I found, and to this day, find to be incredibly beautiful in a mysterious sort of way. I immediately fell in love with the song and decided after hearing it for the first time that I absolutely had to learn and sing it! However, upon reading the translation of the text and learning that the song was not merely about a young girl's sexual awakening, but also a woman's reflection on her rape, I was angry with myself for not being repulsed by the music. Then I began to consider how my engagement with the piece, both as a scholar and performer, could reclaim power and control for the female character whom I was portraying, and for women everwhere who have ever suffered as a result of their sex. Performing this song in my senior recital made both myself, and hopefully my audience, at least a little bit uncomfortable. I had very mixed feelings about this piece which strongly influenced my interpretation of it. How I felt about the piece mirrored the internal conflict of the character I was portraying: arousal, lust, fear, anger, and a whole litany of other emotions. By performing this song I hoped to draw people's attention to the loaded meanings that music, despite its ephemeral quality, manages to capture. I wanted people to come away from my recital feeling confused and perhaps even a bit disenchanted with music, upon acknowledging that it has more than a purely aesthetic purpose.
Despite my developing passion for the examinination of gender and identity in the rather esoteric sphere of musicological research, I still have not found my own gender identity to be of much significance in my daily life. How can I make valuable contributions to the increasingly popular feminist sub-field of musicology and should I even attempt to do so? I want my career to have a profound impact on myself and the world around me. I must admit that I feel rather conceited for having made that statement. It seems to me that people who truly wish to make a difference in the world can't be self-absorbed enough to make a claim like that! I think I am going to retract and rephrase that statement; I want my research to make a difference for me in how I conceive of myself and how I shape my gender identity for years to come. At this point my research has yet to become that personal, however, I hope that as I work towards my PhD my research will begin to hold a deeper meaning for me. At this point, I am merely intrigued by the role of sex politics in music, but cannot claim to have experienced or struggled with them myself. I hope that this changes, however, I do not mean to say by any means that I wish upon myself suffering because of my gender. I do not wish that on anyone, be they man, woman, or anything in between, but I do hope that through my research uncovering the complex life of a particular seventeenth-century Venetian singer-composer named Barbara Strozzi I will begin to understand what being a woman means for me.
Instead of pursuing a career as the next Christine on Broadway, which is laughable considering that I am not a high soprano, I participated in Commencement with the rest of my class last spring, and received a blank diploma, which put a bit of a damper on my celebratory mood..." The case which would have held my diploma held a sheet of paper which was blank, with the exception of the following statement: "will receive degree upon completion of course requirements." Oh yeah, so I wasn't really graduating. I still had a semester of student teaching to go before I would officially receive my undergraduate degree a year later without any pomp and circumstance. But, in all reality, I was fine with that...Graduation ceremonies are incredibly dull, with the exception, of course, of my brief moment of glory on the stage shaking the hands of two people I have never seen before (the president and someone else high up on the totem pole) who are wearing ridiculous looking robes, and moving the tassel from one side to the other. Is it left to right, or right to left? Does it even really matter?
Speaking of student teaching, after halfheartedly convincing myself that I wanted to pursue a career as a high school choral director for a couple of years, I discovered my true passion by accident, in a gender studies intro. course I signed up for to fulfill a gen. ed. requirement. I never would have guessed that I would end up pursuing a career in musicology. Up until my sophomore year in college I had never even heard of such a thing! Who knew that after taking a gender studies class I would begin to consider what it means, and has meant, to be a woman. I had always taken this particular aspect of my identity for granted, and probably still do today in certain respects. Although many women around the world continue to be a marginalized group, several of them exploited and even abused as a result of their sex, I have never personally suffered due to my lack of a y chromosome. However, being the history geek that I am, after having taken this gender studies course I became fascinated by the history of women in music: as performers, composers, and muses. I began to realize that many of these women had to carefully negotiate their gender identities in order to survive in a male-dominated profession.
Last year, while preparing my senior recital, I had a rather emotional encounter with a certain song by Debussy. Its main appeal was is its otherwordly, sensual, and exotic harmonic language which I found, and to this day, find to be incredibly beautiful in a mysterious sort of way. I immediately fell in love with the song and decided after hearing it for the first time that I absolutely had to learn and sing it! However, upon reading the translation of the text and learning that the song was not merely about a young girl's sexual awakening, but also a woman's reflection on her rape, I was angry with myself for not being repulsed by the music. Then I began to consider how my engagement with the piece, both as a scholar and performer, could reclaim power and control for the female character whom I was portraying, and for women everwhere who have ever suffered as a result of their sex. Performing this song in my senior recital made both myself, and hopefully my audience, at least a little bit uncomfortable. I had very mixed feelings about this piece which strongly influenced my interpretation of it. How I felt about the piece mirrored the internal conflict of the character I was portraying: arousal, lust, fear, anger, and a whole litany of other emotions. By performing this song I hoped to draw people's attention to the loaded meanings that music, despite its ephemeral quality, manages to capture. I wanted people to come away from my recital feeling confused and perhaps even a bit disenchanted with music, upon acknowledging that it has more than a purely aesthetic purpose.
Despite my developing passion for the examinination of gender and identity in the rather esoteric sphere of musicological research, I still have not found my own gender identity to be of much significance in my daily life. How can I make valuable contributions to the increasingly popular feminist sub-field of musicology and should I even attempt to do so? I want my career to have a profound impact on myself and the world around me. I must admit that I feel rather conceited for having made that statement. It seems to me that people who truly wish to make a difference in the world can't be self-absorbed enough to make a claim like that! I think I am going to retract and rephrase that statement; I want my research to make a difference for me in how I conceive of myself and how I shape my gender identity for years to come. At this point my research has yet to become that personal, however, I hope that as I work towards my PhD my research will begin to hold a deeper meaning for me. At this point, I am merely intrigued by the role of sex politics in music, but cannot claim to have experienced or struggled with them myself. I hope that this changes, however, I do not mean to say by any means that I wish upon myself suffering because of my gender. I do not wish that on anyone, be they man, woman, or anything in between, but I do hope that through my research uncovering the complex life of a particular seventeenth-century Venetian singer-composer named Barbara Strozzi I will begin to understand what being a woman means for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)