Yeah, yeah, I'm busy!

It was Harry Potter Day at the Suzuki Institute 2012!

These past few months have been extremely full of activity.  Between making an audition CD to send in to the Suzuki Association of America so I could qualify to become an accredited violin teacher through them, finishing up my final classes to earn my Bachelor of Science degree - including the time-consuming capstone - a trip to Hawaii with my husband to celebrate our 15th anniversary, commencement, a ten-day-long Suzuki Institute, and moving into a new home, I'm pretty tired.  But as I look back, I'm sort of impressed.  That's a lot of stuff that's gone on, not to include keeping the kids fed, the house clean, the schedule straight, and other responsibilities and activities that have come up during that time.  And I'm still standing!

So today, a month after the Suzuki Institute, I decided to gather together all of the materials I needed and teach my first private lessons.  You must understand that I have played the violin for 26 years, but knowledge of my own skills at playing hasn't made me a great teacher.  The Institute was an amazing experience and I learned exactly what I need to do in order to teach a two-year-old how to play the violin.  Since my kids are significantly older than two, and they are to be my guinea pigs so that I can figure out how to take what I learned at Institute and transform it into the skills for me to become the greatest violin teacher this world has ever known (besides Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, of course), I made my first experiment today.  Some of the lessons were shorter than others, some of the kids had better attitudes than others.  Two of the kids even went so far as to say that they never agreed to take violin lessons from me.

Basically, I gave all five kids the same lesson.  One of the kids didn't get past the first skill (respectfully bowing) before he was done.  His feelings were hurt.  I asked him if he wanted to end the lesson, and he did, so he bowed and left.  The two girls were eager to learn and happy to obey.  The youngest and eldest boys came in with the same grumpy attitude, and I made them each the deal that if they would try it out once, we would discuss whether they wanted to continue.  Each of them individually said by the end that they were super surprised at how fun it was and that they would love to continue lessons.

Now, this success rate is incredibly promising to me.  If I can get my own kids to learn to play using this method and to become respectful, loving, positive people, I may influence other children in the community!  And since the Grande Ronde Symphony Association has asked me to take charge of a class beginning in October that will teach kids in the community (grades 5-8) in an after-school program, I am feeling confident that I can do this.  I have always wanted to be a teacher, ever since I can remember.  And music is a wonderful way to beautify the world - and I like things to be beautiful.

So this post is mostly for myself, to encourage me when I'm feeling doubtful or insignificant, so that I can remember that I can accomplish things - hard things.  Life isn't always fun or easy.  Things don't always turn out the way I plan, and people aren't always nice.  There's not always enough money or time for me to accomplish everything I wish I could.  But I can accomplish those things I set out to accomplish, and there's nothing and nobody to be afraid of.  Heavenly Father watches out for me, and I know He has a plan for me that I'm often too oblivious to recognize.  And He's happy when I succeed.