Cheers to a New Year!

Happy New year! In many ways, I can't believe it's already 2014. I couldn't wait for this year to start! 2013 was a hard year for me, yet, extremely rewarding. So with the start of the this brand new year, I have finally accepted who I am in life (I know, in my 27 years, I probably should have accepted myself sooner, but I'm a late bloomer!) and I have set some goals for myself. Not resolutions, I mean, basically everyone gives up on resolutions anyway, right? No, these goals are realistic and actually affect my life as it is going right now!
So here they are:
1. get all C.E's (continuing education credits for those who don't know) finished before my C.PhT certification renewal in Nov. 2014 (I am a certified pharmacy technician)
2. Attend Church EVERY WEEK
3. Read more, challenge my comprehension!
4. Don't die during the spring 2014 semester of graduate school.
5. Be happy.

Number 1 is pretty self explanatory. If you want to see what kinds of C.E's I can get, head on over to powerpak. They are not easy, but most are offered to me for free. I must confess that I am behind where I should be credit wise, but having a national certification for pharmacy technician means I can get a license in any state (and some states require national certification) if I ever have to move from Reno, NV.

Number 2 is also self explanatory. I love my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He shows me unconditional love every moment of every day and I personally feel that I have not done my part as a follower of Christ. I desire to continue to learn about his love for me and all humankind and the major way I can step that up is by following through on my commitment to go to church.

Number 3 is a funny one. I love music. I am grateful that I have taken the steps that I needed to take to complete m Master's in Music. It truly is a dream come true, however, in random curiosity mode, I wondered what questions on the LSAT are like. So, I googled some and boy, they are not easy. First of all, how do people do well on this test?? :-) Well, they study and read the questions carefully. I discovered that I am not a careful reader. Ouch! Not something I ever wanted to know! Now that I do know, I want to take steps to change that. So I will challenge myself. I will challenge my reading ability. Young adult novels are incredibly fun, but they are very misleading. I cannot mistake my "comprehension" for young adult novels as true comprehension.

Number 4 is the the first step: Admitting powerlessness. Admitting that I am officially overloaded this semester. Normally, at the University of Nevada, Reno, the graduate students in the music department take ONE graduate seminar a semester. This is a great set up for us. We have ONE class where we write, present projects, discuss readings. They rest of our time is spent in ensemble: for me that is Opera Theater Workshop and Symphonic Choir, and in classes dealing with our instruments on a one-on-one level: Advanced Repertoire coaching and private lessons. Due to the growing size of our graduate program (whoo-hoo!) the graduate music theory professor is offering music theory once a year instead of once every two years. This is great news for me since I was going to have to wait until 2015 to take it. I also have to take graduate music history this semester. This means TWO seminars for me. Oh boy...

Last of all, I just want to be happy. This requires work but, I am capable and I deserve to have happiness in my life.