Triathlon Season

Next week is the Danskin Women's Triathlon and as of 5 minutes ago I am officially signed up :) I am doing two tris, possibly three this year. There's a tri in NB that I can't NOT do, it's right in my backyard!

I still suck at running, but I can bike and swim forever. My goal for next week is to run the entire 5K - last year I ran/walked. I'm super pumped :)

I am a biking fool.

No offense at all to my old bike. It got me through my first Danskin Women's Tri last year and we didn't even come in last! But, she was heavy and the wheels were a funky size, so I had a hard time finding and keeping tires and tubes for it. 

So, when graduation and me getting a job rolled around I figured I would get a new bike! Nothing fancy or carbon or anything, just a good bike on which I could both race and go to the grocery store.

So, I hit the Bike Mart website and lo and behold I found my little biker soulmate. I was so excited that first day that I got Azzi (short for Azucar) that I rode her 15.5 miles. Yeah. definitely paid for it later. 

Anyway, it's been about 3 days and I've already put more than 20 miles on it - I biked to go swimming yesterday (don't get me started on how much it makes me miss Austin and NB in the summertime) and then today I biked some errands. I'm getting more confident on busier streets, although sometimes I still hit the sidewalk when I'm not feeling confident enough in the drivers around me. 

It makes me wish that there were more fresh local markets in my 'hood. And rivers. But there's not too much I can do about that second one.

Turns out I just needed a little oomph to get my groove back. I'm stoked about the possibilities of having this bike, of the lower gasoline bill/emissions and adding a new element to my year of health!

*yawn*

verve [vurv] -noun:

1. enthusiasm or vigor; spirit.

2. vivaciousness; liveliness; animation

I currently have none of these. Perhaps it's because I'm coming down off the stressfulness of being in school and the brain-fuzz the allergy medicines cause.

Humbug.

I don't even know this girl...

but check out Maura's website, and please lift her and her family up in prayer. They need it today.

Camp El Tesoro

It's almost camp time! Check out the video here :o)

It'll be my third year and I'm soooo excited!

Barley?

Well...after many long hours of discussion and such, we decided to wait on getting a new puppy. Mostly because we've got a LOT of work to do with Jake...he's still sort of aggressive and still has a habit of nipping at children that we have to work on before adding another pooch to the mix. So, I'm calling the trainer today and signing Jake up for twice weekly training.  We'll let that go a couple weeks and then go from there.

I am definitely the spontaneous one and the hubs is not so much, so we've done a lot of talking and compromising on the arts of measured spontaneity and not over thinking things. It ultimately came down to being used to the whole "what's next?" mentality because that's how it's been for us as long as we've been together: I'll graduate and then move to Dallas and then he'll find a job in Dallas and move and then I'll go to school and then we'll get married and find an apartment and then there's this practicum or that new project or internship in Austin and then we have a new house and then graduation and then...and then....

We agreed that it was just time to take a breather and figure out what normal is for us now before adding another little bit of crazy into the mix.

GROSS!

Okay - this originally was going to be a cry for help. SOMETHING IS EATING MY PLANTS! More than frustrating, they're eating my tomato blooms! My lamb's ear! My sage! The horror! Here are some pics from the crime scene:

Now, in case you haven't noticed I've been a little preoccupied with such things as finishing my master's degree, and I've been a very bad Garden Mommy. But I'm back, and I'm ready to fight.

I've had some thoughts - maybe it's birds or worse, RATS snapping off my beautiful tomato flowers and dragging them off into the Great Beyond, so as a precautionary measure I encouraged my husband to pee on my plants. Hey, don't be ooged out, your grandparents did it. I also found out from the neighbor that rats are particularly bad around here and he's a sweet old wise man who has lived here awhile. No better place to get your gardening information.

I've had a sneaking suspicion that slugs were my nocturnal nemesis (nemeses?) because I saw their iridescent trails on the pavers a few weeks ago. 

Well, tonight the hubs and I were enjoying some Maredsous on the back porch after dinner and I thought "hey! My sweet sister over at thegerminatrix.com said that slugs were raging alcoholics..." so, I opened a less fancy beer and got out some plastic lids, poured about a half cm of beer in there and went inside. 

Folks, gratification has never been so swift. When the hubs went out 30 minutes later to let the dog out before bed, he exclaimed, "Dude, you are catching a sh*t ton of slugs with your beer." Thinking he was joking, I went outside and was giddy (and SUPER grossed out) at the sight of this:

Say it with me now: EEEEEWWWWWWWW!!!!

But much in the way that popping that pimple feels sooooo good, I'm glad to finally figure out what's going on. Folks, they were literally CRAWLING OUT OF THE LAMB'S EAR. Poor thing. I'll be sure and take pics of the dead slugs in the morning.

Aren't you excited.

Five Years Later...

Friday morning as I was getting ready for my defense and exam, I was stopped in my tracks by memories. I distinctly remember Mr. Richter's Business of Music class where I at once decided that a profession in the music industry was not my thing, and sometime during the semester wrote a paper and gave a presentation on music therapy. I found it the other day. It's terrible. I also remember actually giving the presentation, back when I was terrified of speaking in public.

More importantly, I remember telling my boyfriend Kyle about music therapy, and him saying "I think this would be a really good thing for you to do." See, because it was the Spring of my Junior year in college, and I was starting to freak out because I didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

The original idea had actually been there all along. I was to go to music school first for performance, then med school. I had always been fascinated with how music effected the brain/body because of my own experiences using the piano as my own punching bag to deal with my mom being sick and my parents' divorce. I was actually a dual music/premed major for awhile. Then I took chemistry *shudder.* I think if I had the maturity and the drive I have now, I could have done it, but I just wasn't ready.

So, halfway through that paper/presentation I was doing, I got two really important phone calls. First from Kyle. "Did you know that the national conference for the American Music Therapy Association is in Austin this year?"

Huh? Tell me that isn't Providence.

The next call was one I had with my sister. "Hey, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, you're going to the conference." I didn't even know what that meant, but I was really grateful and really excited. At that point I even had to go against an organization I had just joined in order to attend the conference. The decisions I now had to make were dealing with the rest of my life, way past the scope of band sorority business, and it was a huge paradigm shift for me. It no longer mattered that that was the beginning of the end of some friendships, that people would probably think I was crazy for changing my concentration to ethnomusicology when I originally HATED music history. I had finally FINALLY found my niche. Besides that, I had learned that I was fascinated by world music history, and filled my schedule with as many ethno classes as I could get my hands on. My mediocre grades also drastically improved over those last three semesters. What a difference finding my way made.

I cannot even tell you the...sigh of relief, the overwhelming, giddy sense of peace that I got when I walked through the doors of that conference. There was a band singing praise songs and so many presentations on music's effect on everything from Autism to learning and memory in the brain that I often found myself going to two presentations during the same hour. I was enchanted. Also super enchanting was the spreadsheet that Kyle made for me. I still have it. It's an exhaustive list of every music therapy school in the country, their audition requirements, tuition and fees, and length of music therapy equivalency programs. I think that was actually one of the first times that I thought, "I am going to marry this guy."

So yeah, all that came rushing back as I drove to Denton and set up my computer, prepared my notes, and started answering questions about my thesis and the last four years of my education.

The choice to become a therapist is not an easy one. It means developing a sense of self that others are often allowed to ignore. One has to constantly be in check with oneself...am I getting enough sleep? Am I responding therapeutically to every situation? Is there a reason there could be some kind of counter-transference here? Sometimes I feel like I am a pitcher and if I'm not careful I will pour too much of myself out and have nothing left. I'm not saying any of that like "Oh I'm so self-aware it's amazing." I actually describe myself as painfully self-aware because I tend to really overdo it.

I think all that said it really means that graduate school, especially as means for a therapy ends (any kind, OT/PT/Neuropsych) is a meat grinder. A fun one without any real homework. One with mirrors in a fun house that constantly reflect you back to yourself and then asks, "what are you going to do with this? how are you going to help others with the gifts you've been given?"

The whole process on Friday was nerve wracking. I didn't sleep soundly for three days, couldn't eat the day before, and had to pull out all my reinforcements including my power panties, the clinical strength antipersperant/deoderant and even yes, the belting and tucking in of a button-down shirt. The thesis defense was actually a breeze. Relatively speaking, I guess. The rest of it was really cool and tough at the same time - the whole purpose of a defense/exam is to make sure you have the vocabulary to hold your own as a Master of Arts in Music and also as a music therapist with a higher than entry level degree. So, we basically just had a big conversation on topics from score analysis to Debussy (why does my life always come back to Debussy? That's a whole other blog post.) and Ravel, symbolism, impressionism, exoticism, behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques in the psychiatric setting...everything.

Apparently I held my own.

By the way, after a national and regional presentation, I am no longer terrified of speaking in public. I have learned to play the guitar, to improvise (sort of), to conduct research, to do what I've always wanted to do: use music and help people.

omg done.

I have something more poignant to say, I promise, but that is going to have to wait 'cos I haven't really slept in 3 days and when I got home I was like yep. shower, then nap.

This is so surreal...it's like...okay...now what? I mean, I know now what - I do assessments next week and get rolling on the best career of my life but it's still kind of...wow.

and counting...

For your listening/learning pleasure

It's Almost Here...

Friday, May 8th I'll be doing my thesis defense and oral exam to complete my master's degree in music therapy. Here's an idea of what's going to take place so you can understand the sheer panic in my voice if you make the mistake of calling me in the next 10 days:

Section 1 - thesis

45 minutes of a formal presentation of my thesis. Just learned that today - I have to do a powerpoint presentation. 

Committee Makes Recommendations, Christina hastily jots them down.

Section 2 - oral exam

45 minutes of reviewing everything I've ever learned ever in:

Music History

Music Theory

Music Therapy

Bibliography (or, how to use a library)

The music theory & history stuff is all rolled up into a nice little ball of Armageddon where I will be "asked to identify scores of music - period (out of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic), possible composer, compositional techniques and style characteristics appropriate to that period...should be able to look at the music and tell which musical style period it belongs to and name a possible composer from that period along with other composers who used this style. Study the style characteristics from each of the major periods again in all the major areas - harmony, texture, instrumentation, dynamics, tonality vs. atonality or multitonality, compositional techniques, forms, etc."

That comes straight from my study guide and yes it continues but it makes me queasy to think about. The other sections will be a breeze. I'm just nervous about that first part.

Okay, gotta get back to studying. See you on the 9th!

ACL FEST!

So, the lineup is out today and LOTS of people are complaining that the big acts aren't big enough but the smaller acts are good blah blah blah. Newsflash people: if you want to go to Lolla or Bonnaroo or Coachella, you'll be paying at least $100 more, and yes, the acts will be bigger. For what Austin is offering, I think it's a good deal. Also, let's not forget where it started, in 2002, when the lineup included tons and tons of local acts like Bob Schneider, Grupo Fantasma, South Austin Jug Band, Patty Griffin, and Ryan Adams.

Ah, 2002. The first year of the festival, my cousin invited me to be his date, but I couldn't go because of a Symphony Band "tour" in Houston. I haven't ever had the funds to go, and am therefore excited beyond belief about this year. Wish Carlos was going to be there though.

frustrated!

I have since last week been trying to schedule my thesis committee meeting, hoping that I could do it either at the end of next week or the week after. It's Monday and the committee hasn't yet agreed on a date and when I try to be clear with one member, things get all jacked up. ARGH. The good news is that my thesis is now OUT of my hands Hallelujah and Amen and all I have to do is now study study study. 

I can't wait for this to be over.

I'm not saying I'm going totally vegan...

*I was going to post this as a comment to a friend's blog but it got too long. The gist of it was that her daughter won't drink milk. So here you go, Kel :) *

So, I read a book called The China Study, and it talks a LOT about how the protein in milk, casein (and lots of animal products) is implicated by the way of lots of scientific studies in childhood diabetes, autoimmune disease, cancer, high blood pressure, lots of stuff. I don't want to start a riot or anything, so anyone who's curious is going to have to check out the book, but I would like to have some conversation about it if anyone has read it, is vegetarian, or vegan...I'm always interested as to why people make the switch.

Because there are lots of compelling scientific studies and reports...like how the highest milk consuming societies also have the highest instance of osteoperosis and hip fractures...I have since tossed our milk (to the dismay of my hubs, who woke to make cereal and had no milk...oops) and have started playing with milk alternatives like almond and hemp...I just bought the hemp chocolate milk and it's super delicious and has lots of good Omega-3 and Omega-6.

The question that plagues me is what I'll do when I have children. I've never really understood the concept of drinking another animal's milk. In nature, no other animal does it, and in lots of Eastern cuisine, no milk is used. You don't order Pho with cheese, right?

So then what about the calcium bonanza we are inundated with? The whole Got Milk? campaign and such? What about calcium and bone strength? Where the heck am I going to get it? Well, as mentioned above, studies I've read point to milk & milk products being a detriment in bone health (I know, it sounds sooo weird) and that human bodies tend to react negatively to it. I know I was allergic when I was a kid, so what's to say that even though I'm not outwardly intolerant like, I don't break out in hives, that my intestines aren't hating me? Part of me thinks about Fast Food Nation and my experiences with my mom battling tobacco companies, because I tend to not trust the dairy council when they're putting so much money into marketing. Of course they're going to say that milk is good for you. Just like the orange growers saying there's sooooo much vitamin C in orange juice. Well, there is, but you don't hear as much about how much more vitamin C is in bell peppers.

Good news though! You get a lot of calcium in leafy green veggies - I googled "calcium in vegetables" and found this site, and look at all the delicious veggies! Broccoli! Kale! OKRA!

Like I said, I'm just going off of what I've read in a couple books and studies, and I'm still trying to figure it out, and I don't want to be some crazy activist, especially if I don't have the information to back it up. Any thoughts out there?

Hooray!

I think I've found a magazine to fill the Domino-mag-shaped hole in my heart: Do It Yourself Magazine! I LOVED Domino, but this mag is the one thing that I wanted more of in D. 

It's April 20th. Makes me think of this song:

Sneak Peak...

I'm working on a couple hand painted children's tables for a garage sale...

This is the before shot...

The blue table I think will have an underwater theme:

Not sure for the red yet. Both will be alphabet tables.

If I Were A Flower...

I'm pretty sure I'd be an Impatiens, because my picture is NOWHERE near the word "patient" in the dictionary.

I couldn't stand that my garden was bare while North Texas endured flip-floppy weather, and suddenly I found myself yet again at North Haven, picking out glorious herbs and a couple tomatoes. Because of the sunlight situation in the back garden, I've decided to focus my efforts back there on having a rock n roll kitchen herb garden, maybe some lettuces in the spring and fall. I feel like I'm even pushing it with two tomato plants in the sunniest spaces. 

My darling husband has pointed out that there is a huge sunny spot behind our garage that could be cultivated and used for some veggies. I've just got to get a handle on the herb garden first. I'm toying with the idea of just letting it go, letting the herbs go to seed, having things go a little crazy, see what happens. 

Last month I guess I planted a bunch of Nasturium and some Vioala's because I thought that the sunlight situation in the garden would be the same in the spring as it is in the fall.  Oh of course not.  But, one of my Nasturium made it and even flowered! The Violas were quite literally toast in a few short weeks. This Nasty seemed to have found the optimal mix of sun and shade. It's still doing lovely, and is now neighbors with some Lamb's Ear.

and SPEAKING of gardening, a HUGE shout out to my sweet cousin/sister The Germinatrix , seen here on the Bonnie Hunt Show recently (search for Ivette Soler). She's the proud owner of a wonderful gardening blog/community and you should totally check her out.

where my first paycheck is going...

Austin City Limits Music Festival

I can has jobs now?

Okay, I promised to write about the conference, but this past Thursday I met with my employer/supervisor and she BAM handed over like 13 referrals! I am so excited - I have about a month to get all my thesis junk finished, and then I'm off and running. Well, sort of - I actually have an assessment that needs to be done this week. It is so very refreshing to hear "I am so excited about music therapy! My son/daughter loves guitar/piano/percussion and I think it'll really help them out of their shell."

I think I wrote about this before but a friend asked what I would do if I wasn't doing music therapy. 

I mean, there are a lot of things I could do...I'm interested and pretty good at a lot of things...I could be a chef or photographer or stay at home momma or...ha, I just noticed that none of those really ally with the "conventional" way of thinking about jobs. I hope that I can be the same parent to my kid that my parents were to me in that they really gave me the best parts of them, and that ultimately led to me pursuing my dream, to use music and help people. From my mom I learned to accept people as they are, no matter what. Seriously, friends, she called me one night and was all, "I had dinner with someone who maybe I think you would know? Neville? I think? Was his last name? He was such a nice man..." Seriously. Rich or poor, famous or no, everyone has an equal footing.  We have an amazing family. Maybe I'll start writing about them more.  From my dad I got this crazy obstinate nature...my advisor even noticed it lately when I was having a conversation with her about the government doing a half-assed job with our education system. My idea is that if they're going to be in charge, then do it well. Tell the schools, "Second language learning? This is how everyone is going to do it." and then FUND the crap out of it, and if it doesn't work, then they'll tell you what to do. But don't just say you're in charge and then suck at it. Her response was, "That's really surprising coming from you. You don't let anyone tell you what to do." 

I'm going to pretend she means that as a compliment.

I'm also smiling, thinking of what my grandpa's face looks like up in Heaven, upon hearing that.

:) Anyway, I digress.

I couldn't do what Kyle does...too many things to remember. I could do a lot of things, but this...THIS is what my heart finds joy in. Part of the reason I am so looking forward to starting work is not that I finally get to indulge my shoe fetish but that in speaking with one mother of an individual with special needs, I get to go into their house and change lives with music! She spoke of a time that she played piano duets with her son and now he struggles with attention because he's deteriorated. 

Can you imagine? The possibilities that music therapy has to offer.

It is almost an overwhelming responsibility.