Introspection on Extroversion

Today demonstrated 3 ways that my piano teaching has changed recently: 1) I went to the Media Production Center on Campus to record a new video. I've been recording instructional videos on piano teaching so people can watch the contents of all my lessons online for a smaller fee than in-person lessons would be. Unfortunately, I didn't decide very well what to talk about in today's instructional video, and I've got plenty of stuff to do before instructional videos become very useful. So after about 20 minutes of meandering in my talking, I realized I had nothing ready to say today. I finally decided on something to say, but it would take half an hour to film and half an hour to transfer the files. As soon as that take started, a fire drill happened. By the time the fire drill ended, I didn't have the hour I needed, so I decided "I guess I wasn't supposed to say anything today." 2) During my piano practice today, I filmed a short video of what Hedwig...

I've been trying to overcome a particular sin, but half the time, I just don't care about it. While I know intellectually that it's wrong, it doesn't seem like a big deal right now, and it was enjoyable. So I kept doing it. Over the last few days, I've been remembering "I'm teaching in Church on Sunday, and I want to have the Spirit with me", or "I want to attract such-and-such girl, so I want to have the Spirit with me", or "I want to teach better, so I want to have the Spirit with me." So I've been deciding recently to do things that would invite the Holy Ghost into my life a little bit more - studying the Book of Mormon a little bit more and a little bit deeper, discussing a few more spiritual topics with friends, attending the temple a little bit more, and resisting temptation a little better. Today, I spent the time during the Sacrament Hymn to actually prepare for the Sacrament. I got to see the consequences today when I t...

I noticed a lot of change today, both in myself and in my friends. I started the day with a webinar, but because of technical difficulties, the webinar couldn't work. Though I was slightly frustrated at the inconvenience, oddly enough, I wasn't frustrated about my schedule. Then I had a student cancel and I still wasn't frustrated about my schedule being "violated". I finally focused on practice during piano practice (at least, more so than usual), and finally stuck with my schedule; at least, more so than usual. I took a blind date to the Yule Ball. It was frankly discouraging at first, because there was nothing for us to talk about in common except movies, and we even have totally differing tastes on movies. So I felt like we were just not the right people to be going on dates, but the conversation widened within me. The dance itself was kind of frustrating: Every song just reminded me that I used to know how to dance to this and I used to be a really good d...

It's hard to blog about something unique to that day that has a profound point when days get more and more similar to each other. Part of the theme of the movie Groundhog Day  is that people do experience times when they feel like every day is the same. Because of that, I've considered posting this exact blog post 3 times before. And it's been less than a month. But I haven't posted it, because each time, I've thought of something that was unique about that day that linked the events together. Today had the opposite problem. I did a lot of things that were out of the ordinary for me today - driving to Pleasant Grove to help out a guy from my Ward, getting free ice cream from Wendy's (although that's pretty normal), almost running out of battery on the way home leaving me to rely on my memory for navigation, filming a series of successful takes for an instructional video, taking about 25 minutes to transfer the footage onto Google Drive (that's actually ...

I spent most of my day listening to an audiobook of the Official TED Guide to Public Speaking while doing everything else - driving, walking, shaving, etc. That seemed to foreshadow the rest of the day, because everything else in the day was about presentations. One-to-one presentations to be sure, but presentations nonetheless. In the library, I ran across an acquaintance who was studying Economics. I mentioned that I enjoy the theory of economics, but haven't taken the class. She said she hated it. I related some stories from Freakonomics that have interesting conclusions - real estate agents tend to sell their own houses for more than their clients' houses, sumo wrestling has corruption, hot dog eating competitions are really weird, drug dealers don't make nearly as much money as we think they do - until I showed how economics drives each of those stories and each of our lives. She seemed more open to Economics afterwards, but maybe I'm just flattering myself that s...

During our Writing class, we talked quite a bit about narrowing topics down to sub-topics - narrowing from "Immigration" to "The DREAM Act", from "A.I." to "A.I. drones for military and medical purposes", and from "Film" to "Creative control for film directors". That narrowing turned out to be a theme throughout the rest of the day. Story time. On my way out of the Taco Bell on Campus, I picked up some mild sauce packets, the ones that have playful (sometimes flirtatious) messages on them. One of them said "I think you're pretty", so I took it with me, intending to give it to a girl. I saw a cute girl on my way out of lunch and opened the conversation by giving it to her and saying "This is for you." She really appreciated it and we started talking about our majors and our loves for music. I got her phone number and texted her later on in the day. Oddly enough, she actually responded. I was really sur...

I am learning so much right now and I love it! I was absolutely truthful when I told everyone today that my day is wonderful! I got to wake up super-early (for me at least, which is around 5:30), shift my schedule back earlier, finish everything I wanted to finish and even finish cleaning a difficult pan. But I digress. I took off for school with the knowledge that I would have no classes today, but I did get to attend the devotional, get answers to questions (like "How do I get the last discs from the DVDs of Seasons 1 & 2 of Community ?" and "Has my Pell Grant been sent out yet?"), and check in with the Research and Writing Center to figure out how to research a topic that's less scholarly than most Issue Paper topics. Got home just in time to be early for an awesome date with an awesome girl, where I got to learn a lot about her and some really interesting points about the things she likes. I really like her - to the point that I just felt grateful that...