Avoidance

I have realized a very unfortunate habit that I have developed:

I purposely don't mention AIESEC to people when  I don't feel like explaining it. 

At Easter, while being interrogated by several family members I hadn't seen in awhile, I found myself talking about everything else I'm involved in, everything but AIESEC. I was consistently asked how I was, what I was doing, what I'm involved in,  how I like school, what my plans for the summer are..... I only mentioned that I wanted to travel, but said nothing about how much time I put into @ and what it takes out of me. And that I want to go abroad on an international internship to promote cultural understanding. 

This is not a good mindset to have. It is every AIESECers job to promote the organization and constantly be involved in active lead generation. I know this, yet sometimes I just don't feel like talking about it. Maybe I'm just sick of people telling me I'm going to die when I go to Colombia, or I'm sick of all the pestering questions. I should be ecstatic when someone asks me about AIESEC, and I should ramble on until they're bored out of their minds. One of our main goals is to spread impact, and this can be done simply by telling someone about our organization. So why do I actively choose not to take these opportunities to teach more people about the beauty of @?

Maybe it will be easier to explain and talk about after I go on a traineeship. Telling someone about my job in Colombia, things I did, people I met, places I saw, will be a lot easier than explaining to someone what a Coach does or what ROKs is. 

Either way, this is something I need to think more about. 

Officially Guiltless

I no longer feel guilty for checking my e-mail, blogging, g chatting, doing homework, online shopping or completing various other forms of personal business at work.

Today my boss was watching General Hospital online off of the Wisc Web site. And she's getting paid a hell of a lot more than I am.

Score.

Snow Covered and Slippery

I'm not sure I can still claim winter as my favorite season. It has encroached on the first day of spring and prevented these girls from visiting me in my homeland. The snow best melt soon or I will take a space heater outside and do it myself. If it snows again this semester I may boycott going outside altogether.

On the bright side, I dyed Easter eggs today with my best friend and Dad. Carly always comes over to do it with us, and I was thinking today that this will probably be the last year that will happen. I'll be abroad next spring and the following year she'll have already graduated.

This is just one of a few realizations I've come to lately, all with the same general consensus: I'm old.

Octave Etudes

I played the piano today for about the fourth time in an entire year. My Baby Grand sat virtually untouched all of last summer and Christmas break, when I played it maybe once. I have a Grand in my house as school too (horribly out of tune) that I've played MAYBE three times.

These facts absolutely boggle my mind when I think about the fact that I played classical piano for 12 years. My parents bought me my Baby Grand in 6th grade, with the agreement that I would continue playing until I graduated from high school. I kept that promise and finished my piano career with a 45-minute Senior Recital for all my adoring fans (aka friends and family). The summer after that I played in my aunt's wedding, but that's the last time I performed for anyone.

I played with the same teacher for 11 of those 12 years, after my mom realized I was advancing too quickly for the grade school program. My studio (pretentiously called Crocus Hill Studios after a ritzy neighborhood in St. Paul that my teacher didn't really actually live in) was pretty serious. We had "Performance Classes" every month, where we played the pieces we were working on. They had to be memorized, but they could be under-tempo and incomplete. We also had three recitals a year, where we played only finished, fully-polished pieces. They were held at various college auditoriums in the area. Man did I get good at counting the tiles on the ceilings of those places during all the hours I spent there.....

I did a few competitions and even started taking two lessons a week until I realized I did not want piano to consume my life. I wanted it to be a part of my life, not my entire life. Because of this I always felt like my teacher was disappointed in me, since I had chosen not to pursue the aggressive career I perhaps could have had. I always felt a little shunned, since I had made it clear I was NOT willing to put in the time to be a Piano Superstar. I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if I hadn't made that decision.

Playing again today made me think of all this......and how I touched a piano nearly every day for 12 years, sometimes for hours at a time. My parents too can tell things have changed; at Christmas my Dad told me they were thinking about selling my piano. I immediately rejected the idea, saying "no no no no no no" possibly 20 times in a row. And then proceeded to start crying (I was 19, it's fine...) and refuse to listen to his arguments about how they could really use $10,000. Ever since they bought the piano, my Mom has talked about how I will someday take it to my house with me. This is the idea I've grown up with, and a suggestion to the contrary was deeply jarring for me. Yes, maybe I no longer live here, and yes, maybe I barely play when I'm home, and yes, maybe I never bought it in the first place. But I still can't seem to shake the attachment I have to it. I don't want it in someone else's house. All I can think is, "That's mine."

I forgot, though, how enjoyable it can be to watch your fingers flying across the keys, remembering notes they haven't touched in two years, the melody playing in your head before the notes actually sound. And realizing, oh yeah, those are my fingers. I'm making that sound. And realizing it makes me happy.

The Beginning

I have thought about starting a blog for quite some time now, since I started obsessively reading the thoughts of AIESEC Madison on Blogger. I decided today was an appropriate day, since I just finished officially applying to be an Exchange Participant. Most of the forms/surveys/tests seem to be generally useless...Someone should really get on fixing that, although I think they just changed to this new system... Now I just have to wait to be updated to full status by @ US and then I can officially search for traineeships!!

I've wanted to go to Colombia since before I joined AIESEC (I think it may be why I was let in in the first place...) While actually filling out the forms today though, going somewhere else crossed my mind for the first time. I have been set on Colombia for awhile, but would somewhere else in South America really be so bad? I DO know at least, that I have to go somewhere Spanish-speaking. Due to my impending failure of Spanish 223, lectured entirely in Spanish, I have realized I need to be chucked into the Spanish Speaking Sea and not be thrown an inner tube until I can function properly in the language. If I hope to major in Spanish, I'm going to need to start to know what the heck is happening in class.

I think this is one of the reasons my parents are starting to slightly-maybe-a little bit see the benefit of a traineeship. They don't comprehend @ too well, even after all the Web sites and YouTube videos I've sent them. To them, Colombia=death. During the Colombia-Venezuela-Ecuador situation a few weeks ago, my Dad sent me about 6 news articles a day detailing the situation. It was almost a "See, LOOK, YOU WILL DIE IF YOU GO HERE" sort of a move. I finally sent him this in response, feeling a bit smug. Fingers crossed, the situation will remain peaceful. Please, Chavez, don't screw up my life plan.

So, whether Colombia or other South American country, my parents see the value of developing my language skills. I want to study abroad as well, and telling them I'd do a lot better in those classes if I already had an immersion experience seemed to register. I'd still love to go to Colombia, but I suppose I'm willing to be a bit flexible. Who knows what I'll find in the database that will appeal to me!