I dont know the title yet...but this is my Personal Narrative.

Teacher 1: “Rachel Hollan.”

My eyes bolt to the door, am I in trouble, I don’t remember doing anything wrong, and why do I feel guilty?

Teacher 1: “Gather your things and then come down to the office. There’s a message for you from your mother.”

I drag my feet over to my chair, eyes fixed on the blue colored carpet that has bits and pieces of red and green, the same carpet that every school invests in… I wave goodbye to my friends as exit my choir room. I had been in directed study, one of my favorite classes because it was pretty much just a free study period, but my teacher, the choir director, let us do whatever we wanted. It was the time of the day that I got to spend with my 2 best friends and just talk, braid each other’s hair, make bracelets, and help Ms. Nugyen organize and put away sheet music.

I’m almost to the office by now, I stopped at my locker to put my books away, I didn’t wanna carry them, too heavy! I round the corner and glide through the office door as it swings open and hits the wall, “woops” I announced. I searched the office for a face that had the explanation for ruining my perfectly good girl time with my friends. I looked at Mrs. Wakefield, our middle school receptionist. The look on her face puzzled me, she looked worried and really sad. “What was going on” I thought.

“It’s time Rachel, I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Wakefield released.

My heart dropped and I felt like my stomach was going to burst through my throat, I started balling. My head fell to meet my shaking hands as I sat on a small, rickety chair against the wall to my right. She came over and put her arm around my shoulders, it was kind of awkward since I didn’t really know her to well, but it was nice having someone there. After gathering myself back together, she started walking me back to my locker to get all my school books and belongings.  As I was approaching my locker, I saw my two best friends, Sadie and Rachel walking down the hallway in a swift manner; they had come to see what was going on. They saw that my face was raw with tears and ran to my side.

“What’s wrong Rachel?” they both asked in unison, one on either side of me.

“I’m going to the Mayo Clinic.” I answered, only wishing those words hadn’t been true. Both the girls looked down to the floor with the feeling of agony in their eyes, they knew this day would come, they just didn’t know when. Sadie helped me pack up my backpack as Rachel stood close to me, keeping her hand on my shoulder, comforting me with the fact that she would always be there for me. Us three girls walked with linked arms together to the entrance doors of the school with Mrs. Wakefield tagging behind. I gave my friends a HUGE hug, not wanting to let go. Mrs. Wakefield opened the door for me, wished me luck, and gave me a nice huge goodbye. I waved behind me as I walked down the chalky colored sidewalk to my mom’s car. I hopped in the passenger seat and starred longingly out the window, wondering when I would return back to my friends, teachers, school, and my normal life.

“I started packing some stuff for you,” my mom said, breaking the silence.

“Mmmk, thanks” I puffed. We pulled into the driveway, I wobbled out of the car and went inside to get something to eat.

“Dr. Moir wants to see you today, so we need to leave in less than an hour. Do want to bring your things up to my room and then we can pack them together?” my mom sweetly asked.

“Ya that’s fine, what do I all need to bring?” I asked.

“Well, enough clothes to last you a couple weeks, comfy clothes, we can do laundry there. Your toiletries, homework, anything else you want to bring to work on” my mom stated.

“K, I’ll start bringing my stuff up then”, I replied. I went to my room, turned on some music and started emptying my closet; I tend to over pack, especially when I’m in a rush or stressed. We got the car packed up, my brothers and sisters came home from school, and my dad came home from work. We gathered in the living room and my dad gave me a Priesthood blessing. Everyone was in tears; the spirit was so strong that day. My mom and I walked down the stairs and out to the car.

“Everything is going to be fine, Rachel. I’ve been through it and I turned out alright didn’t I? Haha” Olivia smartly remarked. “I’ll miss you Rachy!” my little brother Matthew cried. “Everything is going to be alright Rachel” my older brother Michael reassured me. We all hugged each other goodbye as tears were still streaming down our faces. Even though I would be seeing my family in a couple days when they came up to Rochester Minnesota, I still didn’t want to leave without them.

On the road we went, it was silent in the car. Mom was driving speedily, and by speedily I mean she was speeding…. A LOT! I was staring out the window, watching the fields of corn and wheat flow with the wind as we whooshed by. About seven hours later, accompanied by lots of junk food, numerous Brian Regan CD’s, mother daughter chatting in the car, and singing along to the radio… we finally made it to Rochester Minnesota, and got checked into our hotel. “Hurry and change, we have to get over to the hospital as soon as we can, Moir wants to meet with you today!” My mom stressfully informed me. “K”, I replied.

Our hotel was right across from the hospital, so we just walked over. The hospital was breath taking, it was so elegantly decorated. I couldn’t stop turning my head back and forth finding new things to gaze at. We arrived at the elevators and headed to the 14 floor. We checked in and were in with Dr. Moir within about ten minutes.  

“Well hello! You guys made it!” Dr. Moir brightly exclaimed. “Why is he so dang happy”, I thought, I’m in a terrible mood.  “Yes, we did!” My mom sighed. The room chuckled. “So things aren’t going to well for you, are they Rachel?” Dr. Moir questioned. “Yaaaa…” I shortly responded. “Well I guess we knew this day would most likely come, we just didn’t think it would come so quickly compared to your sister. So tomorrow will be a prep day and then Friday we’ll do the surgery. I don’t know how much you will enjoy tomorrow, most patients don’t enjoy it, but maybe you will. You’re going to be drinking a lot of cleansing fluids to get you’re completely cleaned out. We don’t want any waste left in your body, so you will be in the bathroom for a good chunk of your day” he stated as the other attendants in the room gave off a little giggle. “One of the solutions you will be drinking from when you wake up till you go to bed tomorrow night is called ____________... it tastes like lemonade so it shouldn’t be too bad. Your nurses have medication prescribed by me that you will need to take throughout…”

Performing

I love to play the piano; it seriously is my whole life! I love when I get new repertoire from my professors because then I can just go practice piano for hours and hours. There is one problem though, that I tend to always avoid and make up excuses for… I get sooooo nervous when people ask me to play, or if I’m assigned to play in church or school for something. I just can’t play in front of people; the nerves are just too much for me to handle. I always make up excuses like, “Oh, I’m going be gone next Sunday”, or “I have to get to class”, or “I need to go do my homework” or something else that sounds pansy-ish. I always chicken out, I mean I wish I could play in front of a crowd because I know I would love it, but I just get to nervous and always cancel or chicken out. So I decided to set out on an adventure to refuse to get nervous and never let them over take my ability and desire to perform again. And what do you know, as soon as I made this decision, a little while later I was asked to play a musical number for ward prayer. Shoot! I didn’t think an opportunity would come up this soon. Maybe I’ll make my goal start in like a month or so when school is over, so I won’t have run into any possible opportunities of people asking me to play. But I knew I couldn’t keep putting off this fear, I needed to ever come it now! So I told my friend that I would play one song and one song only at ward prayer in two weeks.  After two weeks of over practicing for hours and hours a day, stressing, losing sleep, and getting many uplifting comments from my friends to boost my confidence… the day finally came. It was Sunday morning and I headed off to church. After church I ate lunch and went straight to the piano practice rooms. I was in there for hours and almost got kicked out. Before I knew it, it was 7:00pm; I had an hour till show time. I went and ran through my song one more time before heading to ward prayer. I said a prayer before I left and then walked over to ward prayer with my friends. I walked in silence as my friends chattered back and forth. We arrived. From this point on, it seemed like time was ticking at the speed of light.  After twenty minutes into ward prayer, which seemed like 30 seconds, it was time for the musical number, my musical number. I introduced my song, sat down at the piano, hands shaking. I couldn’t remember my starting note, my mind was going crazy and my heart was racing. I finally got myself together, and started playing. I finished the song, and stood up with a load of relief. I didn’t even realize that I had played the whole song perfectly. I turned around to face the crowd and they erupted with applause, some people were even jumping they were so excited about my performance. The biggest grin grew on my face and my group of friends ran up to give me a big hug. I can’t believe I did it, I finally did it. I was so happy that I couldn’t even sleep that night. That day truly changed my life for the better.

            This action was meaningful because it helped me accomplish a huge goal that I’ve been working on for a big part of my life. If I wouldn’t have accomplished this goal, I would still be unable to share my talents with those around me. I’m so glad I chose this action for my comfort zone assignment because since I accomplished this, I’ve played piano for so many people. I now love playing piano in front of anyone and it brings joy not only other people’s lives, but to mine also. 

Research Topic

Here is a very rough overview of what I’ve got done so far… my thesis is still under revision, but I have some concrete ideas.

Thesis = Does the involvement in music at an early age, help children to succeed more in their education and future? What characteristics of music are the most influential on the human mind.

I plan on writing about an experiment that tests to see who has succeeded more between: children with the involvement/influence of music in their lives, started at a young age… VS … children who were never involved/influenced through music in their lives.

First topic: Bringing up the children

How can we teach children effectively through and in music? “Music educators can make unique contributions to our understanding of how at-risk children can be reached if we look more carefully at their working processes and at how teachers can best plan for positive interaction with their students”. What are the guidelines for writing a well-articulated instructional lesson. There is a “need for the curriculum to have good scope and sequence for the development of concepts and skills”. Children engaged in active music making will understand more genuine musical concepts. We need to teach children in different units…"The unit brings a sense of cohesiveness and structure to student learning and avoids the piecemeal approach that might otherwise unfold" …we live in a time of ever-increasing accountability in education.

Second topic: What overall, does music influence/change?

Sounds of Learning: The Impact of Music Education is a research program designed to allow researchers to examine the roles of music education in the lives of school-aged children to expand the understanding of music’s role in a quality education. The NAMM Foundation, the sponsoring organization, has provided more than $1,000,000 to fund research on the impact of music education on student achievement and success in school; all aspects of a child’s growth and development; the uses and functions of music in daily life; and home, school, and community environments. There are proven strong links between choral participation and academic achievement. If defended, the idea that “children who sing in choruses get better grades than their counterparts who have never sung in a choir is true… studies suggests that students who sing have better self-confidence, self-discipline, and memory than those who do not.”

The Study: What are the results?

There are many factors that influence children’s success in school and life. A study was done in Eskisehir, Turkey on 4130 students between the ages of 10 and 15. “School success was measured as the total scores that students achieved in the following classes: cultural, social, science, foreign language, computer, picture, music and job-occupation.” Results on music = (I’ll expound on the data later in the paper) There is a relative importance of social-environmental factors during critical periods of children’s musical development. Another study was done which discusses findings from a follow-up of the most musically successful children 8 years later to determine which childhood factors predict differences in success.

Third Topic:

The continued development of higher-order thinking skills among prospective music educators can be cultivated within an undergraduate music education degree program. The affect of “teachers who use a constructivist approach associated with the use and teachings of higher-order thinking skills have often been characterized as effective. In addition, children who are taught with such an approach have been shown to improve their own higher-order thinking skill.”

There is a detailed importance of the relationship between literacy and music. The integration of music into literacy learning settings may aid in language development while promoting musical development at the same time. Music can be integrated into the early childhood setting to support development in literacy and music. Music instruction benefits children’s oral communication and development of sight vocabulary through immersion into a song-rich environment.

All-Nighter

Sooooo... last weekend was day light savings....wooo hoo. And since we had to move our clocks forward an hour, that means it gets lighter early and its starting to stay lighter later. So one night, I stayed at my friends apartment till 7 am... as they walked me home, it started to get light out... oh shoot! I got into bed and it was sunny in my room, awesome! So, I hung my blue BYU blanket over the window and tried to sleep. I slept for maybe 4 hours and then went to school. Don't ever try this at home. And sorry this was such a lame post, ha, I just thought it would be something to write about. The End.

One of my FAVORITE quotes - Elder Bruce R. McConkie

"I AM CALLED OF GOD. My authority is above that of the kings of the earth. By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He is my Master and He has chosen me to represent Him. To stand in His place. To say and do what He himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me. My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts. My words are His words and my doctrine is His doctrine. My commission is to do what He wants done. To say what He wants said. To be a living, modern witness in word and deed of the divinity of His great and marvelous latter-day work. HOW GREAT IS MY CALLING."

I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH!!!

I sing this song all day, every day! :D

Dream a Little Dream of Me <3

Sung By: Ella Fitzgerald and Doris Day

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper, "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me

Say nighty-night and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading, but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear
Just saying this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams, whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me