Thank God it's Thursday.

...and that I don't have school tomorrow. I was planning on sleeping in until I honestly felt like getting out of bed, which, in all truthfulness, would probably be sometime around noon. But I have to get up around 10 and drive my sister to the school for a rehearsal, because my mom's working tonight and she gets back and goes to bed at about 8 in the morning, and my dad's going to be at work. I know, I know, 10 is plently late, but I love the feeling of being able to get up WHENEVER I want.

So, for this Goals Essay thing, we have to do research on some kind of college-related thing and put it in our paper. Yesterday our class went to the career center to do the research... I spent most of the time looking at University of Michigan, which I've heard has a really good music program. Do I want to go all the way to Michigan? I don't know. I think I want to get out of Washington. I LOVE Washington, but I've lived here my whole life, and I just think it would be really interesting and a great experience to live somewhere else. Plus, a good music program is a good music program. Anyway, I was looking at their website.

"All composition applicants must perform an audition on their principal instrument or voice."

Requirements for pianists applying to degrees other than performance:

Prepare:
a baroque work
a quick tempo movement of a classical sonata
19th- or 20th-Century solo of your choice
Memorization is preferred.

Ok, not so bad.

"In addition, submit up to seven scores of your musical compositions with recordings of each work on indexed compact disc."

Recordings?? Like, recordings of actual people playing them? SEVEN? I'll be lucky if I can manage ONE recording of an actual group of people acutally playing a piece I've composed.

Then, I checked out the Admissions FAQ.

"I would like to recieve a brochure. How can I be placed on your mailing list?"

"How do I sign up for an audition or interview?"

"Can I send a recorded audition?"

Too bad there were no answers to the questions I'd most like to ask.

AM I GOOD ENOUGH TO DO THIS?

WILL I GO CRAZY STUDYING MUSIC FOR 4 YEARS? WILL IT NOT BE FUN ANYMORE?


I'm not THAT good. But that is what I want to go to college for. And I really think I have potential, even if there are some days where I doubt that.

Looking at this stuff, thinking about it, is just stressing me out. I know that is normal. But right now, most people I know are like, "I have NO idea what I want to do." Well I have an idea, an idea that's actually been cemented in my head since around middle school. But what if I'm wrong?? When I went to All-State a few weeks ago, there was a time when we got to ask our conductor (he was AMAZING) questions. Someone asked him what his favorite age group to work with was, and he said that honestly, it was our age. He said that older musicians have sometimes become... I believe the word he used was "jaded." He basically said that some of them have lost the passion and enthusiasm that we still have. Well, what if that happens to me? Who's to say it won't?

That's the hard thing about making these decisions NOW. I'm pretty sure NOW that this is the right decision, but what if it isn't??

Oh well. We'll just have to see.

On the bright side, my sister just told me she's not going, so I can get up whenever I want tomorrow. Well-deservedly.