Music.

*this is mostly a brainstorming for a potential essay topic for my Music History class.  But it's also an interesting point.  Feel free to comment, come up with your own examples. I'll re-visit and edit this thing as I continue to study.

There is a problem with the way we look at music.

We look at popular music differently than we do classical music.  Not only in the general mindset that popular music is awesome and classical music is old and stuffy, but in a deeper view than that. 

Popular music is about one person, one artist, one singer.  You single people out in the popular music group.

Like...Justin Beiber, or OneDirection, or Queen.  (ps- I love this meme).  You can say "I really like Freddie Mercury"  or "Adele is freaking awesome" and just mean Freddie Mercury or Adele.  You can take all of the One Direction people and individualize them.  "I like <insert name> more than I like <insert name>".

People don't do that for classical musicians. NSync may be my favorite band because of Justin Timberlake, but the Philadelphia Philharmonic is not my favorite orchestra because of the first chair, second violinist. 

**Cool sidenote, this post has a point.  I just googled the Philidelphia Philharmonic symphony orchestra and their webpage totally just supported my point.**

So go ahead, take a look. http://www.philorch.org/

The site will run a few adds.  One of them is advertising their performance of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" and Stokowski's Back Transcriptions.

The unfairness of this is rather striking.  Because no matter what Fun. plays, people are going to go and see it.   They may not play your favorite song, but you will pay 10s-100s of dollars to get to their concert where there is only standing room and there are drunk people everywhere.  But in order for the Symphony to get your support/attendance, they have to play something that you're familiar with.  And it doesn't matter if their soloist is the foremost Cellist in the world.  You won't go.  You don't care.

To bring this idea much closer to home:

I am part of the Brigham Young University Concert Choir.  And we went on tour to New Zealand and Australia.  And a lot of our concerts were ABSOLUTELY PACKED.  Some of them were not.  And you know what?  That's pretty typical for us.  

But you know what?  The 45 of us were the best choir that BYUH has ever seen.  We have the most talent, the most diversity, the strongest voices, the best percussionist, the most entertaining dancers, and we were united not only in unity and love, but in heart and sound.  There was ZERO drama on the entire 2-week tour.  Our Chaperons were game to continue on tour for an extra week.  (saying something)

And as downright good as the Concert Choir is, I have never been in a Choir Concert that had a full house. 

You know when the house was full? 

Last December when they, along with the Orchestra, performed Handle's Messiah.  I wasn't there, but...

You know why that is?  Because people know Handle's Messiah.

It performed for 2 nights in a row.  And the house, as far as I can tell, was full for both of those. (because I wasn't there and this is mostly hearsay from BOTH performers and audience members) (***which is pretty impressive because I rarely run into people who have been audience members at a choir concert, but this one I've run into quite a few).

Shall I use another example?  Yeah, because it's fun.

Our Show Choir performed a DISNEY Show after my first semester.  They couldn't sell tickets because of copyright law, but you had to get tickets to get in, and the house, every night, was standing room only.  It has not been that way since.  

I understand that if' it's a Disney show, community members will make an effort to bring their kids to it, and not otherwise because they're not sure that the kids will like it.  But that's somewhat the crux of the matter.

Another?

2 seasons ago, the school musical was "The Sound of Music".  If you did not buy your tickets 2 days before, you didn't get in because they were sold out.   They turned OVER 100 people away.  And they couldn't extend the performance (which is sad) because they needed to get the stage ready for some play (blah blah blah) which was ill-attended anyway.  Jack Johnson brought his family to that play.  Yeah, that was cool.

For how many classical musicians there are in this world, and how jam-packed orchestral  music libraries can be, being able to only play a certain amount of music that is profitable is absolutely laughable (because you have to have $$ to run a symphony, and to have $$ you have to have people come to the symphony).  We miss out on so much music.

All music is not created equally, neither are musicians.  And neither are our ears.

The college post

For Layn.

College tip ground ZERO

Mom's grocery list...with comments from me.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nM7qQyUaZCtM7lYgxoZ3_LxblqcgCWlXzVKzHhtaVfk/edit?usp=sharing


College tip number 1.

You will survive this.  Rats can be killed, so can cockroaches.  You don't always get to have chairs or a dining table in your apartment, and sometimes your power goes out, or your garbage attracts thousands of maggots.  And maybe the neighborhood floods and you've got to move your books off of the floor.

But seriously, it is all going to be okay.  It's life, stuff happens. Now, Layn, I don't really anticipate these issues for you.  You're going into a fully furnished, school provided, approved apartment.  Apples aren't going to be $2.23 a lb on a good day, but milk will probably still be around $4 a gallon.  You'll have other small things that could bug you.

Erase the assumptions that you've had about college life.  It's a brand new piece of paper, and you get to write whatever you want on it.  Analyze your habits, and only keep the good ones.  You'll form other ones as you come to those bridges. 

There won't be Strawberry yogurt in the fridge unless you buy it.

- it also won't disappear as quickly unless you have a roommate that shares your food. 

You'll make a habit of marking your food, and having specific days when you buy different grocery items. Those aren't things that others can plan for you, these are about you and your own personal survival.

College tip number 2. 

Can openers and canned fruit. 

Food goes bad.  You think you'll be home every day for lunch and then, all of the sudden, you have a study group on Monday, a few friends run to McDonnald's and bring you along on Tuesday, on Wednesday someone invites you to lunch, and by Thursday your ripe fruit is....not so ripe because it's been tossed and tumbled in your shared fridge.  

College fridges get a lot of traffic, stuff goes bad fast.

(except tortillas...still blows my mind)

Back to the tip.  Get those little plastic lids that fit on top of standard chilli/fruit cans.  Either that or have a designated rubber band that you use to secure your plasticwrap top.  

Don't eat a whole can of chili at once, and don't forget it once it's in the fridge.

You can freeze fruit when it is starting to go bad, and use it later.  You can also do that with veggies (specifically celery), and then when you make stir fry, or soups, whatever, you and put those in last and it will cook well WHILE it cools the soup a little bit.  Then you can eat it faster.

Go through your food in your fridge AT LEAST once a month.  All of your roommates.  Do it.  Get together and anything that is going bad gets thrown into a mystery Sunday dinner that everybody shares.  

Don't be afraid of innovative food.

College tip number 3.

I will now use a real life example on proper food planning. 

I have rice.  I have macaroni noodles.  I have potatoes. 

The potatoes will go bad first.  Use them first whenever possible.  The rice will keep for. ever.  Macaroni can get soggy if it's too humid.  Use things in the order of when they'll rot and beat the cycle of death!  If, however, I have 2 bottles of Prego pasta sauce and one of them is open in the fridge- it is important for you to use the pasta sauce within to weeks of when you opened it.  Otherwise it will go bad.  So, make LOTS of pasta in the morning and eat it throughout the day.  The next day, make LOTS of mashed/baked/casserole potatoes and eat it throughout the day. 

Sometimes this means that you have some really good stir fry (leftover from a RS activity), and when you don't have rice or plain noodles cooked and sitting in the fridge, this means you have the opportunity to use your potatoes.  

I might have fed the Scotsman stir-fry on mashed potatoes yesterday.  Was it an unusual mix of food cultures?  I'd like to call it bi-cultural syncretism.   But it was good, it was filling, and it didn't take very long.

College tip number 4.

Carrots last forever. You need veggies.  Buy carrots.  Buy the giant bag of carrots at Costco (20lbs, I'm serious) and you can have carrot sticks for the rest of the semester.  And then you can cook them in carrot pennies, or steam them with rice, or put them in soup.....

carrots are great.

and they're good for your eyes.

Celery is good...but it goes bad really fast.  All the ingredients for salad get expensive.  Cucumbers are also wonderful, but they don't last much longer than celery.  Buy baby tomatoes because they don't get so squishy.  Big tomatoes don't last long in a college fridge, they get moved around and squished.

College tip number 5.

Feed your Home Teachers...and the people you Visit Teach.

When you're very first assigned to Home Teachers, it's probably going to be a little bit awkward.  Think about it, these are the people that will be your first contact when you're having a bit of a crisis.  Give them the opportunity to be the caring, on top of it, home teachers that all men in the Church should be.  Start that by inviting them to lunch after church...or maybe on a weekday if they can swing it. You make the lunch at your apartment (if you're allowed to have male visitors....check with the rules on that....but you could picnic it), you all eat, and then they give their spiritual message and help you with the clean-up.  

THEY WILL get their home teaching done from then on. They'll like you, and have a better attitude about the whole thing.

The same goes to the people that you Visit Teach.  I like having breakfast with my VT Companion and 1-2 of my teachees before church on Sunday.  It's great.  Feed them physically and spiritual.  You'll love them more, you'll be more aware of their needs, and everybody likes pancakes and good company...even if they're not a huge fan of pancakes. 

College reality that we'll call tip 6.

It would be a lot cheaper to buy your food together with your entire house.  There would be more room in the fridge.  The food wouldn't go bad so fast.  You could have a wider variety.  You wouldn't have to deal with 3 egg cartons in the fridge at the same time.
As WONDERFUL as that would be...it's not going to happen.
Here is why.
You eat differently than your roommates.  Heck, you eat differently the ME.  You drink milk.  I don't like milk.  So if we go in on groceries together, I end up paying for some of the milk....that I'll never drink.
Not cool.
But, you know, I may eat more cheese than you do and you're splitting that too, so it all works out in the end, right?
It would, and it does, and that's totally the way I see it.   However, that is the long term.  This is the short-term.  You're in college, money is tight, you're in a new place and you don't absolutely unconditionally love these people yet.  Don't give yourselves anything to have contention over.

Now, when you can choose your roommates...
be. very. cautious.

Roommate Abbie and I share a lot of food.  She has a Costco card, and I don't, so we end up getting a lot of things together.  We buy eggs, cheese, meat, butter, fruit, beans, chili, macaroni....etc etc.
We also eat together a lot.  Whenever I cook something, I make sure I make enough for leftovers, and leave them in the fridge for her to eat when she can.  Then I tell her that there are leftovers in the fridge that she is welcome to.   Also- I cook a lot more than she does.  She doesn't have to cook as much, and still eats; as a result, I cook more-ish and our fridge is not as jam-packed as I've known it to be.

We tried to share milk and eggs with our entire house.  Everybody put in $5 per month into a jar and as we need eggs or milk, someone will go get it.  It didn't work.  Different cultures, different food habits, maybe a bit of mistrust and anxiety doesn't allow for that.

And this, Layn, is why people get married.  So that they can put whatever they want in the fridge.  And the fundamental unit of the Church is the Family because the refrigerator system works so much better than having unrelated people live together.


College tip number 7.

Establish a bedtime.  Period.  Set your alarm clock.  Do whatever you want in the morning, in whatever order you want.  My advice, no later than 6:30.
The library is open until midnight....does not mean you need to be there until it closes.  If you HAVE to, okay, the infrequent library lockdown is fine.  Don't make it a habit.  Do your homework efficiently and then go home, and go to bed.


College tip number 8.

Remember people's names.  Control the way you look at people.  They may seem a little odd.  They may be a little weird.  But we're all a little weird.  And that kid who is wearing a kilt, don't judge it, you may just fall in love with him someday.  So be nice.
Go through the halls and assume that 90% of the people walking around are having a hard day.  Uplift them with that assumption.  You'll be surprised at how correctly you've assumed.


College tip number 9.

Social media is a time sucker.
It is also a wonderful way to stay in contact.
It is also the go-to way to make study/meet up plans.

Limit your social media time.  Make a note of the people you need to contact or the questions you need to ask-- literally write them down-- as soon as you think of them; then, when you get to your facebook, take care of those things first.  It's fine to get distracted, but make sure there is a purpose for you getting onto facebook and that you complete it before you sign off.


College tip number 10.

When you find it hard to love someone, when you're nervous about this new person that you're living with, or the new person that is your home teacher, or the new person that is in your assigned study group, or the new person that shares a desk with you at work, serve them.
Small things like, when you make breakfast in the morning, make enough for your roommate and bring it to her occasionally (on mornings when she has an early class or something).  It doesn't have to be huge.
The quickest way to love someone is to serve them, and the happiest way to live is to love the people that you are around.


College tip number 11.

Make goals.  Write them down.  Post them on your wall.  Tell your 3 best friends about them.  AND THEN, don't envision yourself achieving your goal.  Instead, envision all of the little steps that will have to come to pass in order for you to achieve your goal.
Ex:  I want to read my textbook chapters before class so that I'm more prepared for the lecture.
~I need to own my textbook.
~I need to have a quiet study place to read the textbook.
~I need undisturbed time in which to read material that I don't fully understand.
~I will need a blanket because the library is cold, and nobody bothers you when you have a blanket.
~I need to make sure I have my blanket in my backpack before I leave my apartment.

See?  Like that.  With my blanket and my textbook in my bag, I'm far more likely to actually read before class.


College tip number 12

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, DO ANYTHING ON YOUR BED OTHER THAN SLEEP.
Do not study on your bed.
Do not watch movies/shows/youtube on your bed
Do not use you computer while you are on your bed.
Do not eat on your bed
Do not write in your journal, or write essays, while on your bed.

Occasionally breaking this rule is acceptable, but only slightly.  Like, have girl talk, paint your nails occasionally, play cardgames on your bed with roommate 1 when roommate 2 is on a date in the Kitchen.  When you are sick, skype mom from your bed.

BUT THIS MUST BE THE EXCEPTION.
ONLY SLEEPING shall happen WHILST ON YOUR BED.

Why?
Because if you eat, watch movies, do homework, read books, play games, scroll facebook....all of these things happening on your bed--
your brain will cease to associate your bed with sleeping.
What happens when you stop associating sleep with your bed?  You are restless, and it leads to MORE computer use, food consumption, reading and things while you are on your bed.
This leads to sleep problems.  You literally will not be able to fall asleep while you are on your bed.  I know girls (cough, Megan) who had to sleep on the couch in the front room because she did everything else on her bed.

Beds are for sleeping.

Bonus words of wisdom.

Keep a bag of chocolate chips.  When you have the ingredients to make a treat, you don't feel so poor. 

Motivation

I'm in this class called 'Motivation and Emotion' and I rather enjoy the material and we'll leave it at that.

Now, for this class we have to do a goal-setting activity.  We keep a goal, we find our motivations, all that jazz.

Mine is to wake up with my alarm.  I have this terrible habit of not doing that.  I need to be stopped.
We have to measure our goal by keeping a journal and so I'm going to start that here.  Mostly because it's maybe a funny story.

Yesterday I got to bed late.  It was my roommate Abbie's birthday.  I'd taken her and some friends to get some good food before I went off to Kahuku School's choir concert, because I've been hearing about that group for months and thought it would be fun.  It was.  I wish every high school was as involved with their choir as Kahuku is.

I came home, later than I'd expected because the choir is a *big deal*, and made Abbie a cake.  That takes a while.  I had some time before she got home; I made yogurt, I did the dishes, I finished a class reading, frosted the cake, and got ready for bed.

Now, we in the Paradise house, have a problem with our bathroom sink.  It doesn't drain.  And it kinda leaks, and I've been called upon in the past to kill a centipede there.  (I don't have very good associations with that bathroom.)  But I was sick of the sink being gross.  So in the midst of the birthday crew coming home and cake consuming and roommate chatting, I took the sink apart and cleaned it out.

*soapbox*

you know what needs to happen? dissolve-able toothpaste.

it won't get caught on all the hair that accumulates over the years in a female bathroom

and then it wont turn into slime that makes my stomach cringe a little bit as I clean it out.

because it won't clog the drains.  

drain clog-age would just be hair 

because soap leaves scum, not ooze.  

I got to bed late because I had nasty toothpaste/hair gunk on my pants and hands.  Therefore I did not wake up and start the day at 6:10am when my alarm went off.

I *have* been writing,

just not here. 

For the past few months I've been working and reworking my term paper.  "My Theory of the Nature of Man".  It was a really cool paper to research and an even cooler paper to write.  It made me think.  It made me write down what I think.  It made me decide what I was thinking and why that mattered.

I've been learning about people, and how philosophers think about people, and how we fit into the structures of these psychological theories.

I got a B in my Psychotherapy class!  I'm so stinking excited.  Coming into the class I was pretty prepared to fail (by 'fail' I was thinking C-/D).  And I do this thing where I don't look at my grades in a class during the semester because it is just a little bit demotivating.   Think about it, if you see that you're doing really well in the class, you tend not to try as hard or be as thorough when you do homework.

You probably think it's nepotism.  I probably would too if I was looking at it from your point of view.  I mean I never got the book (it went to the wrong address and disappeared), I'm not a psychology major, this was my 3rd Psychology class ever, and it was the first 400 level class I've ever taken, I had concerts and dress rehearsals that conflicted so I missed parts of some lectures. 
From my end?  I worked so much harder on this one because I knew that the material was going to be different than what I was used to.  I participated in class- a lot- because that's how I understand things, and sometimes that is hard.  I made sure I got the lecture portions I missed (by going to his house and doing dishes with him, that's a real thing).  I read the books that he suggested off-hand.  I watched the movies that he suggested off-hand.  I spent hours in the library with the reserve book.
Unfair advantage-  I know how my professor thinks.  I think I understood his lectures better because I was getting to know him a bit better.
Another unfair advantage- I was way more oriented to the way Spencer thinks, more prepared to date him, because I was taking his dad's class.

I'm going to share parts of my paper here.  Not all of it.  1) That's a  looooong post.  2) It wasn't written for you.  I wrote it for Dr O.  I used examples and made connections that were specific and relevant because of conversations that we have had or things about me that I knew he already was aware of.

And then, yes, I'll find a way to post pictures and tell you funny stories and give you a bit of a window into my happiness which I haven't really shared with you here.  My computer crashed a few days ago so that may take a little time, but sometimes life is too good not to share snippets of.

My theory on the Nature of Man: it has changed, on an almost daily basis. I’ve written this paper so many times in my head over the past month or so. I thought I knew how life worked, or at least how I work within the framework of existence, but it’s a constantly changing thing. Most of that is your fault, whether it is your class or your son (and a lot of times it’s both) I’ve been led to think in ways that I never have before. But I stand by what I thought on the first day of class: Man is naturally selfish.

I’ve tried to find a kinder word for that. The immediate connotation is that selfish is bad and
therefore Man is bad, and while “The natural man is an enemy to God” and selfishness would fit well in that paradigm, I’m far too optimistic to agree with those words (Book of Mormon). The best word I’ve been able to replace it with is Self-seeking. I think that humans exist to fill their own needs. I feel that the needs themselves aren’t as important as the motivations behind them. You understand a person far better by why they do instead of what. A person’s perception of themselves reflects their view on the world around them; having a healthy self-image allows for thriving interpersonal relationships. Through our chosen motivations and feelings, we build habits that help us exist.

KEY CONCEPTS

I think all basic needs of humans are the same, but there are secondary needs that are tailored by the individual. I have different needs than Pol Pot did. He fulfilled his, or tried to, and I fulfill mine. I think the self-actualization that early psychologists claim we seek, is attained as a person fulfills their needs. Glasser has five innate human needs: survival, love & belonging, power, freedom, and fun.  I think that our other needs stem from these five, but I think it can be simpler. I think every action is motivated by Responsibility and Joy. Glasser defines responsibility as “the ability to fulfill one’s needs, and to do so in a way that does not deprive others of the ability to fulfill their needs.” My definition of responsibility, as it applies here, is not so benevolent or narrow. Responsibility is to fulfill one’s needs through acquisition or maintaining and be the roles which you assign yourself. That can be a little bit dark; but you have a fair amount of control over what many of your needs are. As proof that being self- seeking is not bad: I have a strong need to be useful to others; service is a great thing, but I’m serving myself because I’m serving others. But take a thief, his responsibility is to ensure his comfort and survival above the interests of others. The other motivation is joy; joy is simple. “Men are that they might have joy”, this is something we’ve known for millennia (Book of Mormon). Because Joy and Responsibility form the base of what I think self-actualization is, I think that most emotional and mental distresses or disturbances stem from not being able to fulfill oneself. My statement that man is self-seeking should work for all types of people, the benevolent and the malicious. The difference between the two stems from where you prioritize responsibility to yourself in relation to social responsibility. However, people are more than their motivations; we have a feel of who we are by what we think of ourselves. I think the benevolent have a sense of beauty that the malicious don’t have.

I believe that beauty is the perfect combination of confidence and grace. And I think that beauty is something that people strive for. We want it in art, in landscape, in our homes, in ourselves, in those we surround ourselves with. “Beautiful” has always been a bit of a hard word to swallow. It wasn’t until I decided on this definition of it, that I became okay with its application to myself. I think the ideal mental health would be being able to find this kind of beauty in you. Knowing who you are and being comfortable with that person, that’s confidence. I have so many definitions of the word ‘Grace’. Grace is not being an idiot. Grace is recognizing that you are not any more important than any other individual. Grace encompasses doing the ‘right’ thing, once you have discovered or decided on what the ‘right’ thing is. Grace is prudence. Grace is not boastful, grace is meek. Think of Christ-like attributes, that’s what grace is. If confidence is knowing what you can do, grace is being okay with what you can’t.  Man is self-seeking, so he will choose to create habits and skills that help him live in his circumstances. Change occurs when the things you were doing to fulfill your needs no longer apply. Sometimes it may be that you lose interest in what you’re doing or maybe your needs change. It isn’t always that the needs themselves change, but the circumstances change. For instance, I developed a very odd eating pattern while I was in Cambodia. I ate two fresh baguettes, some fruit, and lots of water; that was basically all I needed in a day. I went home for Christmas and suddenly my skill of functioning rather well on very little food is completely unnecessary and makes my family really uncomfortable.  That’s a simple example, but the principle holds true. The details of my existence have changed and so I’m choosing to change with it. Aha! We’ve reached Reality Therapy. This case mirrors what Glasser says are the differences between Reality Therapy and Conventional Therapies. I’m responsible for my eating habits. I can choose to keep them or to change them and I have to accept the consequences that come with whichever choice, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t choose differently later on. Nobody can change the past eating patterns and those don’t determine what my eating patterns will be in the future. I recognize that those eating habits put me in the physical state that I’m in, but delving into those and dwelling on it makes absolutely no difference. With the life I’m living now, I need to create in myself better eating habits that will serve me better in this stage.

It surprises me that Choice Theory took so long to develop. I see some of the same ideas in the
some of the earlier theories. There is an underlying theme in all of the therapies that I’m drawn to. I’m going to say that these are the more benevolent of the therapies we’ve covered.

Existentialism: From your lecture, “given the urgency of life, what are you doing now to live as
fully as you can?” (sic).
Reality: given the person and surroundings that are, what are you choosing now to make your
living experience all it can be (Glasser)?
Adlerian: “Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the
meanings we give to situations” (Adler). So what are your personal meanings?

There is an idea that no matter what happens to you, you can live a happy and full life, you can
change the world around you for the better, and there is purpose in struggle. The therapies that
resonate most with me seem to have forward momentum. I believe that people need to be brought to an understanding of themselves. Once they gain that knowledge, they’ll be able to make more effective decisions. Glasser’s emphasis on Choice and Frankl’s "last human freedom" say that even when circumstances are beyond control, we have the freedom to choose our reaction. We find ourselves in a reality that isn’t always ideal, and the theory of Reality is that we choose our actions.

I like this idea from Viktor Frankl about the “will for meaning”. Existentialism is less concerned with retrospection and I like that. I feel that life does have a purpose and that you are dealt the cards in your life for a reason. Let’s go back to the non-emphasis on introspection with a lovely personal example. I probably would not be able to write a book on my semester in Cambodia.  My memories of that period are the things that I learned and the moments that brought me joy. The memories of the uncomfortable facts are sweetened by the things I learned. Even as I was there, I felt that there was a purpose. I knew that I was developing skills faster than I would have in any other way. Life lessons seemed to sweeten the pill while I was in the midst of what may have been a sea of woes. This is the idea that I get when I read Frankl. He talks about the attitude with which we face unavoidable trial as part of his three-pronged approach to the meaning of life. “[What] matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.” Making it through hard things with a sweeter attitude and a sense of purpose would be a big part of this therapy.

Frankl goes on to say that suffering is not absolutely imperative to find meaning; if you can avoid suffering, you should do so. I disagree. I think people should do hard things. I think that doing something outside of yourself and your comfort zone, to expand your experience in the world, is something that every human should take the opportunity to do. Soren Kierkegaard believed that individuals are related and ultimately dependent on God. I believe God gives us trials or experiences to teach us something that we’ll need later. I think pushing yourself and seeking after worthwhile difficulties brings us closer to what God wants for us.