Sometimes life throws you curves

Well the new semester has started, and I’m already stressed.  I’m good at being stressed.  It’s one of my talents. 

18th century English lit is neither 18th century (it’s actually 1660-1860) nor English (it’s mostly Anglo-American and British) nor lit (it’s interdisciplinary).  It’s all about the question “What is nature?”  Which left me with a cacophony of emotions, from annoyed to stressed to bummed to everything in between.  There are weekly seminars which are mandatory which take the place of class, but are an hour AFTER class, which means I can’t attend any of the Thursday seminars because of my other class, and of course most of the seminars are on Thursdays.  So.  I’ll be spending many hours watching the seminars online.  Why, you may ask, do I not drop the class?  Well I was actually going to.  But then I went to class, and the teacher seems really good, and it seems mondo informative and good for my brain.  Plus we don’t have to read ALL of Moby Dick.   Heh.  Besides, I already talked to my professor about my creative project and she loves my idea (I’m going to do a presentation at the Discovery Center, where I volunteer). 

Then my intermediate fiction writing class is NOT being taught by my teacher from last semester as originally planned, which bums me excessively.  He just had some major opportunities come up that are going to be taking him all around the world, so he’s passing up teaching for 1 semester.  I’m happy for him but bummed for me.  The young lady they have replacing him is supposed to be good, but she’s requiring a ton of outside things, like readings and poetry slams and service learning.  Which I would love if I weren’t so busy this semester already and if I didn’t live so far away.  She seems SUPER nice though (almost too nice) and she’s open to different writing projects, so it’ll be good. 

The other thing that is stressing me out is barbershop.  My perfectionism really hurts me here, because there is SO MUCH to do to sing well — breathing/supporting properly, controlling your throat and keeping your voice in the right place, staying on pitch, keeping the right tempo, enunciating properly, on top of memorizing the music and the words and the choreography.  ET CETERA.  And I don’t practice as much as I should, so every time Andy (our director) says anything I get stressed because I take it all so personally.  ARGH.  Next weekend we have retreat where we will be intensely cleaning up the choreo and music, February I’m in a quartet doing singing valentines, and we go to Spokane for competition in March, right at the beginning of Spring Break.  It’s crazy. 

So basically, I’m doing the same things I did last semester — 2 classes and barbershop.  But all of them involve so much more than they did before that I am scared, because I don’t believe in myself, that I can do it.  I think Heavenly Father is trying to help me grow and teach me that I CAN do it.  I just need to have faith and stop being such a lily-livered chicken.  And pace myself, prioritize, do my homework and my practicing, and I can do it.  baby steps baby steps baby steps.