tomorrow really IS the first day of the rest of my life.

So, this'll be quick so I can get back to reviewing, but tomorrow from 9am - 12pm I'm taking my music therapy certification board exam. Yes, it's three hours. Yes, every time I think about it I want to throw up.

It was in the Spring of my Junior year, 5 years ago, when I (re)discovered music therapy and decided to shift my entire life path in pursuit of another degree. I could've transferred, could've gotten a second bachelor's degree, but you know me. Never one for the path of least resistance.

Being less than 12 hours away from an exam that holds my professional life in its hands is giving me a weird, tingly feeling. It's really totally crazy to be so close to something I've wanted so badly not just these last 5 years but really over my entire life. All I've ever wanted to do is play music and help people. Even when music was thrown in my face as a "blowoff major" and all the times I was discouraged in studio class playing soul-crushing symphony excerpts for auditions to orchestras I would never even think about wanting to be a part of and blundering through undergrad, trying to find something that suited me.

I'll never forget that semester that I decided after writing a paper, skipping a TBS meeting that ultimately got me thrown out of it to attend my very first national music therapy conference...I walked into my advisor's office and, looking at my grades (which had previously been so subpar I'd had to repeat theory. Yeah.) said, "you kicked ASS this semester!" The 4.0 was a result in me finally finding what I wanted to do. That was when I decided to concentrate on ethnomusicology, because I had unexpectedly and dorkily fell in love with the role music and culture play with each other.

So you can understand that it's really, really strange feeling for me to be nominated for a graduate research award for original scholarship for my thesis, which researches bilingual music therapy, which I had a blast researching and buying Latin American songbooks off Amazon for. I also got to integrate my love of neuroscience into the project, and found neurological rationale for teaching students, especially special needs early second language learners in their native language AND in English.

It's strange to read the recommendation letters for the job I pretty much had been hoping to find and found me. I guess I'm finally the student I had always wanted to be...I've run with a bunch of smarty pantses and I feel like I can hold my own now.

Anyway, enough procrastinating. I'm going to go get a good night's sleep and hopefully next time I blog I'll be MT-BC! :)