Follow the Sound of the Water

Your journey is unfolding exactly as it should be.

My, it has been a crazy week! The Symphony concerts concluded this evening, and both went extremely well. It felt so great to make beautiful music with an orchestra again. I am sore but not in any pain, so I am grateful for that! Now that the late-night rehearsals are over, I am left with work to catch up on before another week starts. So because of that, this may be my shortest blog post. ;)

Highlights from the week:
Being asked to share what I have been doing in Alaska with DePaul so that they can do a spotlight on me in the next School of Music e-newsletter! I’ll definitely share the link as soon as I get it. :)

Receiving a wonderful care package from my amazing twin in the mail with beautiful works of art she spent a lot of time making for me. They definitely help me get through the hard times.

My amazing gifts from Rachel are already hanging on my wall. :)

Helping put on a fantastic kids’ concert called “Music in Schools” on Friday with my fellow quartet members. All fifth graders in the district gather together every year to hear the Symphony play and to learn more about music, and this year was special because our JAMM kids were invited to play “Simple Gifts” and Dvorak’s “Going Home” theme from New World Symphony. The concert was during the school day, so Lorrie helped us load up the four cars with 40 instruments and stands to take to Thunder Mountain and then headed back to teach at Glacier Valley. The quartet members stayed and set all the instruments out for the kids and tuned them and handled the logistics of their performance. And it went beautifully! I got to play with the Symphony and conduct my cellists and bassists. It was fulfilling to be able to help run a big, successful musical event. :) Sunlight also appeared this weekend! It was a gorgeous weekend. And I got outside yesterday! If you haven’t seen my latest Facebook photo album, you should check it out here. The quartet and I went out to a place called Dredge Lake, which has a great view of the Mendenhall Glacier and some beautiful mountains in Juneau. We took advantage of the beautiful sights and had a grand photoshoot with our instruments! It was wonderful! And I needed a headshot for my SmartMusic post (which I am going to work on as soon as I publish this post!), so it was perfect timing. :) It was a little terrifying walking through streams while holding onto my cello, but I gave a whole new meaning to the “death grip”. And I definitely think it was all worth it!

I walked three miles from UAS to Thunder Mountain the other day- it was a gorgeous day!
The blisters were so worth it. :P

Another week of teaching Spanish and orchestra begins, and a new JAMM session starts tomorrow! The JAMM informance went incredibly well, and I am already looking forward to the next one. This session, I am co-teaching an improvisation class with Lindsay and a songwriting one with Sophia! We will be working with my chamber kids and other 4th and 5th graders in both of those classes. :) I also magically got three more students over the weekend- praise the Lord! I am looking forward to getting more teaching experience and being in a more stable place, financially, because of those lessons!

Although it was another great week with awesome teaching moments and great music, I need a sense of “normal” again. I am hoping to have time this week to slow down and be able to process some things. I would appreciate any prayers for all that is included with that!

I just want to sign off by thanking all of you wonderful readers who are walking through this journey with me. It means so much to me to hear that you are by my side, cheering me on. :)