Of orchestra to be precise. Music theory as well if it’s possible. I know I won’t make much money but I’ve chosen this because I love it and—if my students are to be believed—I’m good at it. I’ll have my Bachelors of Music Ed in a year and a half, then a Masters in Performance a few years after that. I won’t change my mind—can’t really change my mind. It’s what I love, so I’ll do it forever.

It’s been turned

It’s been twisted

Yet it is not it, but them and they and plural

Thoughts, questions, memories

They are jumbled

Plurally jumbled because they are not it

Not just one

But they are all confused

Everything I thought was plural

Everything I thought was numerous

All my thoughts were countless

Are countless

Countlessly more than one plural

Nothing is clear or remotely so

No skies or television controllers here

Not in this place, this...

Room?

I think

Or is it plurally rooms

That cannot be sanity speaking

Cannot be plurally sane

To question it and they-them-countless

Cannot and can’t

Neither is possible in this...

White room?

Where motion is inevitably ended

Thoughts are thoughtlessly discarded

Dreams are beautifully banished

And countless are the plurals I question

But is it I and not we in this case?

No plurals here

No multitudes here

I am not countless

Just mindless and formless

Yet endless

I think

I have gone insane.

I am currently a junior Music Ed Major, and today is Friday of our Spring Break week... but now there are two more weeks off of school (one with nothing and one with online courses, pending more time off). Sooo music online?

My violin professor is going to teach lessons through Face Time, my orchestra teacher (for full orchestra AND string orchestra) wants to hold rehearsal through a sort of group Skype thingy, my String Techniques class is performance/lesson based so who knows what’s happening there, Foundations of Music Ed has a practicum with required hours of teaching at an elementary school so how am I supposed to even do that, Instrumental Clinic is also performance based, Beginning Conducting class is also not viable online because for conducting we need people to conduct, Performance class obviously is also not doable, Quartet rehearsal is impossible, the Concerto/Aria Competition audition was supposed to be on Tuesday and may now be cancelled, but there is good news: Music History will be just fine online. Plus I have two online classes that will continue as normal. This is wonderful.

And how is your day?

Through your eyes there are only shadows,

Or perhaps there's nought at all;

It'd like to think there's something,

But the chance is rather small.

Imagining can only get

My mind to think so far,

For it's small and quite imprisoned

By memories turned to bars.

But still I try to wonder

At what it is you see,

When five is turned to four,

And five can never be.

For me where there are paintings

Of colors that sparkle and shine,

For you there might be ripples,

and impressionistic lines.

I'd like to think there's something,

But my arrogance implies

That I am trapped in seeing,

And will never know through your eyes.

He challenged her to a fight—and how could she even think about refusing? He was the best, at everything, and she finally had a chance to prove that she was better. That she was smarter and stronger and faster than he could ever be. And he couldn’t even imagine the possibility—the sheer incredible chance that she could ever surpass him.

Him. A boy. A man. She could never go beyond what he had achieved, because of a single simple truth: he was male and she was not. So to prove her own worth—her value and strength—she accepted. How could she even think about refusing?

The fight went as planned—for her at least—brutal and vicious and more intense than any battle he had fought before.

And in the end, she was victorious. She had won, triumphed, overcome the hurdle that was her underestimated gender.

She looked him in the eyes and gloated in her victory, relished the height she had achieved and the valor she had earned. She had proven him wrong— proven men wrong—for thinking she was weak, that she could never go beyond what he had achieved, simply because he was male and she was not.

But he did not look defeated.

He did not look disappointed or lessened or brought low by the shame of losing to her. He looked her in the eyes and acknowledged her strength—that it was as he suspected and she was greater than he was—that he had far more to learn. He did not look defeated.

He looked exhilarated, glad for the challenge, ready to grow stronger and take on the next.

She looked at him and knew then that she was the one who had lost—for feeling inferior and weaker and lesser than him when truly, he only thought of her as the best.

There’s this thing that lurks inside of us—a darkness black as pitch—and though it stays in hiding, we’re truly afraid of it. By day it waits in slumber, by night it’s a mare of a beast, and when we are alone, the monster begins its feast. He lives in every human, too terrible to behold—the twisted lurking serpent—turns everything to cold. Bones will shake and tremble, when the beast has come to play; blood will freeze and bubble, in a terror-ridden way. That monster is the darkness, that lurks in the human heart, and without careful choices, it will rip your heart apart.