Winter Break Is Here

Well, another semester has come and gone, and I am now at the threshold of basically a two month break. It is always relieving to know that the semester is over, no more quizzes or exams, no more papers and projects, nor more juries and recitals, it is all over a couple of months. I like the feeling of having next to no pressure on me to get things done, and to know that I have time to pick books that I would like to read, and projects I want to pursue.

I have a list of books I want to read this winter ranging from books on Christian living, to systematic theology, to poetry, to novels.

The latter is a bit unusual for me, I am not usually someone who will read novels, but I am trying to grow in my appreciation for literature. I've been inspired this semester more than any other to really make an effort to wean myself off of the television and onto reading good books. I am going to be spending time reading George Herbert poetry, which I have already been doing. He has been a great inspiration to me so far in my reading of his work; it is very rich, you really have to read carefully to truly get what he is saying. His work has a unique ability to stretch my mind and my heart as I read and understand it.

I also have decided that I finally want to record some of my songs. You may or may not know that I write songs, mainly for myself and they are usually just tunes that I write to old hymn texts. I have written a couple of dozen of them by now and I want to try and record them this winter, or at least some of them. I need to go through and rediscover some of them and decide whether I still like them or not. Inevitably I will play them again and I will say to myself, "Why did I write this." It has happened before I trust it will happen again.

Out of curiosity, would there be any interest from you blog readers in recordings of said songs? I found out that I can put music on noisetrade.com for free, and then you could download them for free from there. Or you could leave me a tip if you so desired, although I am not doing this to make money, just to have a recording of these songs and see if they would be helpful to anyone else but myself.

On top of these fun projects, I still have work to do. Of course I've got a job, but beyond that I desperately need to practice both guitar and piano this winter break so that I can be prepared to have both a proficiency exam and senior recital next semester. I am not so excited for this part of my break, but I must do it. This is the part of my break that I will greatly appreciate prayer for, that I would be diligent to work hard at practicing, not just doing my reading for fun or my recording project.

This post has just been an update on my life and a shameless attempt to feel out the possible interest in an album. I don't think there is anything in this post that could possibly be helpful to you at all, but it does give you an idea of what's going on in my life and ways to pray for me, and hopefully it was at least a little entertaining.