The Greatest Compliment

Over the years, many parents of students I have taught or still teach have paid me very nice compliments. It's reaffirming to know parents appreciate me for my knowledge and talents. One parent wrote me a note when her son was stopping lessons saying she wished she had found me earlier as a teacher for him. 

Despite these wonderful praises, I don't think I knew what the greatest compliment I could receive as a teacher could be until this summer. In late May this year, I received a text from a former student:

I was wondering if you are doing any summer lessons? I don’t have a summer class this year and have some extra free time 😊 

Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've had a former student restart lessons with me. I have had students in the past leave piano for various reasons and a few were able to resume them with me after a period of time. This was the first time a graduated student in college wanted to return for lessons during the summer. 

We found Hook Hand at Disney 1.5 years ago

 
I was so excited. We had eight weeks of lessons together over the summer and it was so good to be able to see this student again. I loved that we were able to pick up right back where we left off as student and teacher. I loved how we could adapt to both being adults and it was apparent what a few more years of maturity could add to the learning process. 

This student wasn't a stellar performer or prize winner by any means. This student wasn't even someone who excelled for their age. But what this student has is something I did not have when I was the same age. This student has a love of the instrument, a desire to continue learning, and an open mind. And it's the cherry on top that I get to be the teacher who helps make it possible.

I remember all the seniors I've graduated from lessons and still make an effort to send a birthday email every year just to wish him or her well. Most of them write back to me, and it makes me smile to read their short reply.  

This student, by taking lessons with me this summer, paid me the greatest compliment without even knowing it. It is an honor to be remembered. 

My Newest Student

I started a new student about six weeks ago. She was very excited to start learning with me. She'd done some previous beginner theory studies at home, but it was her first real time playing on a piano. I was nervous at first. I wasn't sure how our lessons were going to go. I didn't know if she could sit still during our lesson. Would she take them seriously or did she just want to play? 

Our first lesson was so much fun. I set myself a timer because it was earlier in the day than I normally taught. As she walked in, I went to greet her at the front door and walked her into my studio. I showed her the bathroom where she could wash her hands and which towel to use and where to put them after she dried her hands. 

The view from my "desk"

She did a great job curving her fingers and playing all the notes very carefully. I wrote her homework in a little notebook for her to have during the week and practice with at home. But the best part was watching her enjoy her piano lesson so much. I don't know if she enjoyed her lesson so much because she was playing piano or if she enjoyed having me as her teacher. Either way, it was a lot of fun for me, too. 

I hope she remembers this first piano lesson of hers. She might not, and chances are, she won't, but I hope to share these thoughts with her one day. This lesson reminded me of why I love teaching and why I love playing the piano myself. When our lesson was over, I handed her her books and told her I'd see her at our next lesson. She bounced off the bench and left my studio.

I tidied up my studio a bit and then walked over to the next room. I saw my daughter grinning at me, smiled back at her, and asked, "Did you have fun at your piano lesson with Mrs. Cathy?"

***

She calls me Mrs. Cathy just like all my other students. I only speak English with her during our lessons. And I remind myself not to have extra standards for her just because she is the child of a piano teacher. I intentionally do not practice with her during the week because these roles need to be clear and separate. So far, they are working out very nicely. I'm sure there will come a day when a lesson will be more stressful than it is productive. And I may need to readjust my perspective in order to keep my priorities straight. But these last two months have been filled with a lot of joy. I hope to keep it that way as long as I can. 

This last week, she was talking to one of my student's moms and sharing about how she was taking piano lessons with me. In her conversation, she told the mom, "My mommy is magic. In her studio she is Mrs. Cathy. And then when she walks out of her studio she's my mommy!"

💗

The Hare's Real Problem

One of my teaching analogies I use is retelling the story of the tortoise and the hare. I don't need to retell the story because by the time my students are old enough to understand this analogy, they know the story. When I ask my students what the purpose of this story is, they typically respond with, "slow and steady wins the race."

And that's what we were taught growing up. However, over the years, I've begun to question this proverb. Is it true that if you work slowly and steadily, you will eventually finish your project or reach your goal? Yes, absolutely. Progress, however slow, is still progress. But this proverb fails to take into account some other facts of the story.

The hare is faster than the tortoise. That was, is, and always will be a fact. By sheer ability, the hare is faster. The hare was created that way, and he is faster than a tortoise. In most retellings of the story, the hare gets a great lead in the beginning because of how fast he is. He looks behind him and notices the tortoise is nowhere to be seen. He is obviously ahead of the tortoise and has an easy lead. 

Then, the story goes to say the hare takes a nap and falls asleep under the tree. Most renditions of the story paint the picture that the hare taking a nap means he is lazy and not hard-working. This is where the tortoise keeps going at his slow pace, overtakes the hare, and wins the race.

bye bye, hare

Is the hare actually lazy though? I'm sure it was work for the hare to reach where he was along the race path when he decided to take a nap under the tree. Even if it may have been "easy" for him, it took energy and effort to get that far in the race. Could he have made the decision to rest a while and take a nap? Sure. Was he in the lead and ahead? Yes. Therefore, you cannot attribute the hare's decision to take a nap as being lazy.

You know where the hare went wrong? His nap was too long! He fell asleep for so long that the tortoise was able to catch up and slowly amble to the finish line. Although let's be honest, however slow the tortoise was moving, in reference to his ability, it wasn't ambling. He was probably moving at his fastest pace possible.

Taking a break is not a bad thing. Relaxing is not wrong. Sometimes, loafing is necessary. But the problem is, so many of us do not know when to resume. Could the hare have just run the race, finished it, and won without stopping in the middle? Yes. Could the hare have still won the race with a shorter nap in the middle? I believe so, yes. But sadly, the hare did not win the race when he took a nap, lost track of time, and did not finish the race in time. 

I don't think we should be told to be like the tortoise. Sometimes, for things we struggle with, we do need to be like the tortoise and trudge on through it, even if it's something we don't like. But I also think we should learn a lot from the hare. Take advantage of your big leads when you have one. Use your talents and gifts in your favor. And don't be afraid to take breaks or rest when you want to. 

But, you must know when to resume.

Vintage Valentine's

I recently rediscovered my collection of Valentine's Day cards over the years. Believe it or not, the oldest cards in my collection are from my pre-kindergarten class! That's.... about 28-29 years ago 😱 As an adult (with my own pre-k age child!) it's easy to wonder why in the world I kept these. I actually know why in the world I kept these. Each of these cards stood out to me for a reason and that's precisely why I saved them.

1. Barbie

This first collection is comprised of Barbie valentine's. I was a huge Barbie fan once upon a time. Loved the clothes, accessories, and play sets, but was never a fan of the actual doll herself. I preferred stuffed animals. These three cards I kept precisely because I liked Barbie. 

Barbie cards surprisingly have not gone out of style. They are still handed out in classrooms today in the year 2023. But these three? Vintage. Definitely vintage. The one on the left was my favorite. 

2. Cute

The second category I saved was the cute category. Bears were my thing back in the day 🧸. They still kind of are, but I've been mostly converted to penguins 🐧. 

The two cards on the bottom are from preschool! They both have names on the back and I even know exactly who those people are. One was from a boy. After preschool, we didn't go to school together but our schools were in the same district. We ended up at the same college and hanging out with the same friend circle. One was from a girl. We actually ended up going to high school together and graduated in the same class. Both of these people are still friends with me on Facebook so they have potential to read this blog 😝 although I have a feeling they won't remember. 

3. Sparkly

I couldn't resist a sparkly card. And clearly, that is the only reason I kept these cards. 

The top center was a power ranger card. If I turned it over, the card itself is very blasé. Literally the only reason I kept that card was for the pink power ranger sparkly heart sticker on the back. I don't remember who Todd is at all. Sorry. 

On the bottom, we have N'Sync, Britney Spears, and someone doing an extreme sport. The actual sport is called skysurfing. I didn't even know that until I just looked it up...now...decades after receiving that card. Britney Spears was never my thing. I knew her by name but that was about it. Of all my mix CDs and music tracks, I had one song she wrote. I didn't even recognize her face in 5th grade when my bus driver showed me a picture. 🤷🏻‍♀️ N'Sync was also not my thing. Knew a couple of their songs...but never had one on any of my CDs. 

4. Repeats

The only reason I kept these is because I had so many of the same/similar designs from multiple years. I guess the dogs are kind of cute, but I think I kept the duplicates from sheer chance of receiving so many of the same design.

These are in fact from five different people. 

5. Magic Eye

Magic Eye was a big fad when I was in school. I used to love checking out the books from the library and holding them really close to my face (and smelling all that library-book-weird-smell that some books from the library have) and then moving them further away until my eyes saw the 3-D image bulging from the page. It took me a long time to finally see my first one. You had to really master the eye focus as well as the speed to back the page from your face. But when you saw it, they were the coolest thing ever.

Turning these into Valentine's Day cards was pretty genius. I will say that the little ones on the cards never worked as well as the ones in the books. 

6. Glow-in-the-Dark

Who doesn't love a cool glow-in-the-dark card? These just happen to be planets, which I don't particularly care for, but the glow-in-the-dark texture and feature was what captivated me. Luckily, these planets are still planets according to today's science. 

Sadly, nobody's memorizing "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" anymore.  Nine pizzas has just turned into nachos. Or if you're into Dr. Seuss, Mallory Valerie Emily Mickels Just Saved Up Nine Hundred Ninety Nine Nickels. 

7. Teachers

Very rarely did we ever get cards from our teachers. I only saved three anyway from the 20+ teachers I had from pre-k until 5th grade. 

The top card was from my 4th grade homeroom teacher. I wonder if she picked that card on purpose for me because she knew I excelled at math. I'll never know, but her handwriting was beautiful. 

8. Friends

These three cards I actually kept because of the people who gave them to me. Nothing particular about the cards really appealed to me. I guess they do all have dogs in common, but that technically wasn't the reason why I kept them. 

These three cards were given to me by three friends who meant a lot to me in my elementary school days. One of these girls was my "first friend." I don't remember how we met or became friends, but I remember being friends with her by 2nd grade. The second girl and I became friends in 2nd grade because we were in the same grade. She had skipped 1st grade so we ended up classmates. She moved the same year I did, except she moved out of state completely and I just transferred schools within the district. We reconnected in middle school/high school periodically but our lives had moved on to different places. I remember being friends with the third girl but I don't remember specific details of our friendship. I know we were on the same Destination Imagination team for at least one year. There may have been two but those memories are foggy. 

9.

I honestly can't remember why I saved this card. The only reason I can think of is that it was one of the extras I had from one year. My mother wrote my name on this card so I'm assuming she must've written it on my other cards that year. As a parent now, my initial reaction would be, "Why in the world is the parent writing the child's name on her Valentine's Day cards?" And that reaction would be completely reasonable and expected. My four-year-old can write her name. I'm pretty sure I should have been able to write my own name 24+ times on little slips of paper.

But the reason why I will choose to keep this card now and forever is because it has my mother's handwriting on it. I'm glad she wrote my name on it instead of writing my name myself. As weird as it is, you don't think about these things until you think about these things. Had I been the child who had signed my own Valentine's Day cards, I wouldn't have this memento today. 

Mortified

15 years ago, I wrote an embarrassing note on Facebook asking my friends to vote for me in a piano competition. This competition had a voting aspect in addition to the live performance, and let's be honest, you have to play the game to even have a chance at winning it. 

"hey you guys. vote for me to win this piano competition my teacher submitted my cd to :D:D:D:D:D please please please omg.

go to krld.com

scroll down on the left and click on the section that says something about a young artist's competition
and then vote for me :D

and tell all your friends at college/school/work to vote for me too :]
(i had a late start on this, my teacher submitted my cd late...-.-")

if you have questions IM me/comment and i'll help you (i'm at the library writing this and i can't open multiple windows to show you guys....)

omggg pleasee vote for me thanks so much :D

and if you're friends with jason wang...well, our friendship is questionable then.

just kidding. but don't vote him, vote me :[
thanks."

The link doesn't exist anymore and the recording of my performance is long gone. I have a master copy of the audio on a CD, but that CD doesn't play anymore so there is no actual remaining version of my performance from 2007. 

18 tracks...and none play

This post was from October 10 of 2007. Just over a month later, I stopped taking piano lessons. I was still arguably at the peak of my piano career, and potentially the start of something greater. But why? A lot changes when you're a teenager, and I acknowledge my portion of responsibility for why I chose to stop. My interests were changing. I wanted to see my friends on the weekend instead of spending them at a piano lesson. But that wasn't the breaking point. 

At the awards ceremony for the same competition this voting was for, my dad and I sat in the auditorium and waited for the ceremony to begin. My teacher was not present as he was on a trip overseas. As I flipped through the program and read the different bios for the other competitors and judges, I noticed that my teacher was listed as a judge for this competition. I was in shock. He had told me he was involved in the competition but reassured me he was not a judge. And yet, here he was, his photo, his bio, on the judges page. Moments later, I heard a parent comment from the row behind me: this girl's teacher is a judge. 

I was mortified. 

How could he do this to me? I didn't care I wasn't a winner that evening. All I wanted was to leave and not have anyone notice me or see my face or recognize me from that horrid program book. 

When he returned from his trip he told me we could resume lessons at our normal time. I told my dad to tell him I was quitting and not having anymore lessons. My dad sent him an email and received the angriest reply filled with bitterness and hate. My dad forwarded me the email.

I would like to know exactly why Cathy wants to quit her piano lesson? Something has to do with my teaching?  To just thank me for all the years and say nothing else are completely unconscionable!

 

It's a waste that she quits piano altogether before she finishes her high school years.  She has such a great potential, but I guess her priority has changed.  To be honest with you, she could have won the first prize with The DALLAS SOLO PIANO COMPETITION if she had tried a little bit more harder [sic].  I didn't think she was focused on the competition because all she talked about was her birthday party, her friends, her homework, etc........

For the past three months, the only other piece that I asked her to work on is a movement of a Schumann's piano concerto.  She absolutely refused to work on it, and regarded that piece of music as a piece of shit.  I couldn't believe thay kind of disrespect exhibited to a revered Classical composer by any piano student.  I could have given her another piece to work on, because I thought she would change her mind if she tried a little bit harder.  But no chance! 
  
Cathy, all I want to say to you is that if your mother were alive, she would be very disappointed that you quit studying piano with me because if she knew I wasn't the teacher meant for you, she could have told me to stop teaching you long ago!

Before closing this e-mail, I just want to make it clear that I accept Cathy's termination of piano lessons, and with such an acceptance she will also no longer be my student in the near or distant future. 

For more than 10 years after he sent this email, I've held onto this forced guilt because I've always felt like I did something wrong. It's only been in the last five or so years when I've been able to understand that I was not at fault at all. In fact, 99% of what he wrote about in the email is just an angry rant with no truth basis to it. 

1. He said I could have won 1st prize at that piano competition (different one from the voting submission) instead of the 3rd prize I was awarded. That is incorrect. He was not a judge. He did not hear how the other competitors played. He didn't even hear how I played. He wasn't there! To make that statement is an assumption and completely wrong. I actually met the young man who won 1st prize a year after that competition completely by chance. He had moved from California the year before, and he was very talented. We are friends on Facebook.    

The other thing my teacher never knew was I drove myself to that competition. Having an awkward relationship with my father, I did not tell him I had a competition until the morning of. He told me he had a conflict and couldn't drive me to the competition. My dad just shrugged and told me not to compete. I told him I'd drive myself. I'd never driven into the city before, but I set my mind to drive myself and take local roads all the way down. Because I had practiced and worked hard for the competition. If I was going to lose, I was going to lose honorably and take my chances instead of skip out. My teacher never knew. 

2. He said I wasn't focused on the competition because I was too focused on my birthday party, my friends, and homework. Can I not prioritize my birthday? Is that so wrong? Should I not value my friends as important? I don't want to be friends with someone who doesn't! I valued my homework and thought it should have a priority to get done! Wow! Blasphemy! 😑

3. He said I regarded the Shumann concerto as a piece of shit. Those words he made up and said himself. I never said anything to slam the Schumann concerto. All I did was not practice and make 0 progress on the piece. Now you have to understand, I was working on other pieces. I had other competitions with other pieces to continue practicing. I just did not learn that new piece. I was still practicing and playing other pieces. Those are two very different issues at hand. He said he could give me another piece to work on but he never offered. I never got offered another concerto. He was focused on me learning the Shumann, and when it didn't happen, he kept pushing. If I thought this concerto was a piece of shit, I would have burned it a long time ago. I didn't. I still have the music on my shelf in my studio. A part of me wants to learn it, but I haven't been able to bring myself to because of the memory it holds. What a shame...the one person who was supposed to foster and encourage has destroyed and uglified. 

Irony - if I had told my teacher I didn't want to learn it, he would have given me some response as to why I should learn it and me not wanting to learn it was my problem. How do I know he would have said this? At one of my piano competitions when I was around 14 or 15, he asked me if I was ready. I actually decided to answer honestly and shook my head "no". His response? He scowled at me and told me that was the wrong answer! That's the kind of person he was. 

4. He said if my mother were alive, she would have been very disappointed that I quit studying with him because if she knew he wasn't the teacher meant for me, she could have told him to stop teaching me a long time ago. Well this one takes the cake. He doesn't know that before she died, she asked my brother and me if we were progressing with our teacher. She asked us if we wanted to switch teachers. We said no because switching teachers and getting to know someone else is hard and takes work. My mother did not believe he was the teacher meant for me and she would not be very disappointed that I quit studying with him. In fact, I truly believe my mother would be so proud of me today for everything I am and everything I've done. If she were alive, she'd probably have given me an earful about quitting piano at the time. But I would have told her the truth. I would have told her everything. And she would have understood. 

She definitely isn't disappointed in me if she could see me now.

You know what I hate the most about him? This was 2007 when he said this about my mother. My mother died in 2004. He didn't go to her funeral. 

He didn't go to the funeral of the mother of two of his very best students. My orchestra director was at her funeral. My 7th grade science teacher was at her funeral. My algebra teacher was at her funeral. My English teacher had already told me she couldn't make it but she had shown me her condolences in other ways. My school principal was at her funeral. These four women took a day of their own PTO to come. My piano teacher could not rearrange his schedule to come.

Let's let that sink in. 

And to think he has the nerve to say what he did to me in 2007?

5. As if I want to be his student in the near and distant future. I'm ashamed to even tell people I was his student at all. 

What kind of a heartless jerk was teaching me piano for 12 years? 

There were a lot of red flags over those 12 years. I just missed them all or didn't notice them the way an adult would have. After all, I was 17 when I quit. How many 17 year olds have great intuition? How many 17 year olds are perceptive enough to read people? Not to mention, my own father did not defend me. It took almost another 17 years to begin to see everything clearly for what it was. For how abused I was in this student-teacher relationship. 

I still cry thinking about this and reliving these memories. I cry because I was once this excited little teenager wanting to get votes for a music competition who is now filled with anger and hate at these memories. I still cry because I know I will never be separated from these memories or from him unless I cut music and piano out of my life completely. And I know I will never do that. But I don't give him any credit for anything beyond textbook knowledge. I went from someone who swore off music at 17 for the rest of her life to someone who made it into a career.

He didn't create any of that. 

For Them

I remember the first time stepping into the showroom and playing on their pianos. I was shy. I didn't know what "trying out pianos" really meant. I just walked from one instrument to the next and played a little tidbit of a piece I could remember at the time. My teacher didn't give me any guidelines to go off. We just played and arbitrarily said if we liked or didn't like it. 

We didn't end up buying a Steinway. A new baby grand 20 years ago was already $40,000+. The fact that my parents were even considering it is a little absurd for me to wrap my head around as an adult, but they prioritized our music education. That they did. I remember making a deal with my mother: if we didn't buy a Steinway, I wanted it to be a mahogany grand piano with a glossy finish. She said okay, but we didn't end up getting one with those aesthetic specifications either. We ended up buying one with a glossy black finish instead. 

That was the first time I stepped foot in their store. Since then, I've been to a different location multiple times but never to purchase an instrument. This year on Mother's Day, I came back again to this location. I drove myself and somehow miraculously found a parking spot in their tiny lot behind the store. I walked into the crowded showroom and found my student's parents. We sat together and excitedly waited.

They'd told me the night before already, but I was still slightly dumbfounded. Was my student really receiving the 1st prize in her division for her performance of a college-level piece? Going into this competition, we had prepared and worked hard, but the expectation was to have fun and enjoy performing a very challenging piece. I couldn't believe it when I heard she had placed, and not only had she placed, but she had been awarded 1st place within her division. 

I thought back to all the times when I had won my own piano competitions years ago as a student. Looking back as an adult now, it's very bittersweet because these memories are all tainted. I remember my teacher being proud when I won. I remember him being excited when I won. But I don't remember him being proud of me. I don't remember him being excited for me. He was proud of himself as a teacher and he was excited for his own reputation.

As a teacher, I don't focus on the competition. My students participate in festivals and take theory tests for their own personal growth. I've had lots of students do very well in these areas for many years. 

It makes me happy to be able to hand these out every time a festival concludes.
This year I handed out  24 total!

Theory medals!

It both surprises me and doesn't surprise me that my student won an award for her performance in a highly competitive competition. She's talented. I've known from the first day I met her five years ago. But more than that, I see her enthusiasm for music. I see her personality blossom in her music. These are things I can grow, but I cannot create. This credit goes to her.

It's bittersweet ending another school year of teaching. But I love getting to applaud their accomplishments and hand out awards. I know I play an important role in imparting knowledge, encouraging, and fostering their musical ability. But I also know I only see my students for no more than an hour a week. The other 167 hours in a week, they spend the way they wish. And it's their own dedication, motivation, and determination that fuels the rest of their learning.

I am proud of them. I am excited for them. 

An Encounter with God

I had a God moment Tuesday morning. I went to drop off food for a friend that morning because Wednesday and Thursday were going to be snowy and cold. So I was going to make sure she had enough food to make it through a few days without having to go anywhere. I texted her and told her my ETA. 

When I arrived, I got out of the car and knocked on the door. I didn't let my kids out of the car yet because I wasn't sure she had time for us to hang out for a while. My friend came to the door shortly after and I asked her if she had time for a visit. She said sure, so I unloaded the kids and went inside.

Right after we went inside, her son was on the phone scheduling a consultation. The only available time was at 11 am that very same day. It was already past 10 am. So he was basically saying yes, we have to meet ASAP at this time, and his mother was telling him she wasn't ready because she hadn't taken her shower and changed her clothes, put on makeup, etc. Well, I offered to leave the kids with her to babysit and I'd go with her son to the consultation. My friend said sure, she'd watch the kids, and then I'd go with him. 

I was all set to leave my kids and go on the consultation until I remembered that I’d rescheduled my lessons for the day. With the upcoming bad weather and PISD’s school holiday on Tuesday, I had rescheduled kids to come as early as 2 pm and I was teaching nonstop until 7. So, then, I told my friend I probably couldn’t go to the consultation because I wasn’t sure how long it’d last and I wasn’t sure I’d make it home in time. I was running numbers through my head and I landed on 2:30 pm. That wasn't going to work because I needed to be home before 2 pm. She said okay and went to go get ready. I stayed with my kids for a while as they roamed around the living room. 

As I was sitting around with them, the thought occurred to me that I wasn’t sure I had locked my car. I figured, oh well, it wasn’t that big of a deal, there was nothing valuable in the car to steal anyway. Finally around 10:30, my friend was ready and I bundled up the kids to load them back up in the car to go home. Sure enough, the car was unlocked as I’d thought. Well, it just made my job easier to load them in because I didn’t have to dig for keys to unlock the car before opening the door. I loaded my kids up, got them strapped into their car seats, and then opened the driver’s side to get in the car myself.

And then I saw my keys. In the ignition of the car. The entire time we were at my friend's house. I had turned off the car engine before bringing the kids inside so the car wasn’t running the entire time, but my keys were definitely in the car. I said a quick thank you to God that nobody had stolen my car and started driving.

As I was driving, I kept thinking to myself and doing some math. I had miscalculated my time. The consultation was at 11 am. I took a guess it would be 90 minutes so that would bring the time to 12:30 pm. 30 minutes to get back to my friend's, 1:00 pm. And then 30 minutes for me to drive home. 1:30 pm. So technically, I could have still made it home in time to teach. Ideal? Most definitely not, especially not for teaching 5 hours straight and not eating a proper lunch. 

But then I realized that had I actually went to the consultation, my keys would have been sitting inside my car for three and a half hours, I think someone definitely would have stolen it. So by God’s grace I miscalculated my time, left my friend's early, and found my car still intact.

I think sometimes, this is how God works. He knows I have a lot going on right now, and He knows I'm trying to take care of other people out there who need it. I think He's also reminding me, Hey, you need to take care of your own stuff, too, and if you can't think straight because you have so much going on, I'm going to help you, even if it means making you do your math wrong.

Punished for Promptness: Part 2

I originally wrote on this last year and shared three instances where my timeliness backfired due to events outside of my control. There was one instance I forgot to include which I remembered later, so I'll share this story now.

When I was a freshman in college, I started taking classes toward my teaching certification my second semester. It was my very first teaching class with a student teaching component. Being the studious person I was, I checked my schedule early and wrote down room assignments so I'd be ready for the first day of classes.

My introduction to teaching class was my first class of the day. On my first day, I went to the building, sat outside the classroom, and waited. There was one other student waiting with me. We were nervously watching the clock. Class started. Nobody else was there. Five minutes passed. We started anxiously looking at each other. Then one of us (I remember it being me) looked online at the class schedule posting again only to find that the room listed was not the room we were sitting outside of. 

Frantically, we rushed to the other building and found the correct classroom where this class was being held. The two of us walked in about 10 minutes late and the professor glared at us. We meekly explained the situation, but I don't think she bought it. After all, 90% of the class made it on time, why didn't we? 

The correct answer to that is I believe we were the special 10% of our kind who had good intentions of being prompt, prepared, and ready. Unfortunately in this situation, it backfired. I do believe I was able to prove myself in the next two and a half years as I had this same professor again the year I graduated. She was one of a few teachers of the first class in sequence and she was the teacher who taught the third class. I was lucky enough to have her for both. We made teaching binders with all of our lesson plans, reflections, and teaching materials neatly catalogued. Each semester, I turned mine in early if not first. 

I've told my professor this story before. I don't remember what she said, but I don't think she remembered it happening. I don't blame her. There's a lot of kids to teach and two late ones for one class don't mean much. 

I still like being prompt. Even if it backfires.

Fancy Stickers

This past Christmas, I discovered something I wish had been invented 15 years ago: nail polish stickers! I had taken my daughter Christmas shopping and found them while browsing. I decided to buy one to try and really fell in love with them once I tried it. Why did I wish they'd been invented 15 years ago? They would have saved me a lot of headache and trouble as a teenager.

I'm a secret girly-girl at heart. As I've aged, I've acquired better style and taste, but sparkles, glitter, and all things shiny still have a place in my heart. When I was a junior in high school, I really wanted to try fake nails for homecoming. This was a big problem: I played piano. I'd been trained for the previous 12 years to cut my nails short and keep them short. The most I'd ever done was paint them with normal nail polish and no fancy designs, but my right hand always looked worse than my left, and it would chip, scratch, and look unkempt within 24 hours. 

Junior year. I told my piano teacher I wanted to try fake nails for homecoming and he glared at me and asked me why. I didn't really have a great answer...besides, "I just want them." He told me they had to come off by the next week. Great, I thought. I'll finally get the fake nails I always wanted. 

Of course, I wasn't going to pay money to go to a salon and get them done knowing they'd have to come off in a week. Instead, I went to the store, bought a pack of DIY ones, sat on my bathroom floor, and got to work. 

These nails are no joke to put on. The glue was like super glue, and these fake nails really added a layer of stuff to the top of your nails. I got them on, and marveled them, and liked the way they looked. Except I overlooked one crucial detail. After having short nails for nearly my entire life, I couldn't stand the way these felt on my fingers. They'd only been on for about 30 minutes when I couldn't take it anymore and wanted them removed.

If I had fully read the instructions before I started gluing them, I may not have gone through with it completely. These things didn't just pry off the tops of your fingers. You needed nail polish remover to soak them off. My inexperienced teenage self felt horror flow through my body as I realized the amount of nail polish remover I had left in the bottle: not nearly as much as I needed.

I don't remember how long it was, but that night, I painstakingly removed the nails by soaking them ever so carefully in the cap of the nail polish bottle. Somehow, I removed all 10 with about 2-3 capfuls of nail polish remover. I never ended up going to homecoming with beautifully done nails. 

15 years later, I discovered the wonders of nail polish stickers. They were really easy to apply.

Fancy stickers.

I'm typically not big on doing my nails or paying to have them done because I'm so rough on my hands, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well the stickers held on. Yes, I can feel them on my nail, but they feel like a thick layer of nail polish, not an extra layer of "stuff" sitting on top of your nail. As you can see from the picture, I still keep my nails trimmed short. They'll never be Instagram-worthy nails, but I also didn't pay over $10 for them. 

I ended up keeping them on for 17 days! They would have lasted longer except my nail started to grow out so having the gap at the back of my nail started to look funny. 

Day 17. One fell off but that one
potentially had a user error when I put it on.

Jamberry was the first company to come out with nail wraps and it wasn't until after 2010 when nail stickers actually started hitting the markets. This was still a few years before that, so unfortunately, I wouldn't have any other options. I never told my teacher about what really happened, but it wouldn't have mattered to him. I went back the week after for a lesson and the fake nails were gone.

He would never have been able to say anything about fancy stickers. Oh well.

Punished for Promptness

I’ve been someone who likes to get things done on time. My English teacher during my junior year of high school had a wonderful system where if we turned in our essays before the due date, we would earn five extra points because it allowed her to spread out her grading instead of receiving and grading 30 papers all at once.  You bet I capitalized on those bonus five points every time. I didn’t always write phenomenal papers, but those five points occasionally meant the difference between a B and an A. 

However, there've been three distinct times in my life when being prompt did not work in my favor. 

1. When I was in high school, we wrote essays for orchestra. Each year we got assigned our orchestra essay in the beginning of the year, and each year, most people would wait until about April to actually write them and turn them in before they were due. In April. The first year, that's kind of what I did. I was a freshman and I didn't really know what I was doing my entire freshman year. Sophomore year, I knew better. I planned the concert I'd attend and would write about and had everything done early. On the first day the teacher was accepting essays, I turned mine in. There was no special recognition or anything for being the first, and that's okay because I didn't expect anything. I was simply glad it was completed.

About a week later, my teacher had some candy and she randomly made the announcement that if anyone turned in their orchestra essay, they'd receive a piece. Nobody had their essay ready right at that moment, but I'd already handed mine in, and I did not receive a complimentary piece of candy for having already turned it in. I didn’t care about the candy. It was never about the candy. But why make a random statement a week later AND forget about the essay which had already been turned in? Maybe she didn't want to single me out. But if you're going to offer candy aren't you trying to single someone out?

2. Years later when I was at a conference, the director emailed about sending him rooming requests for the hotel. I sent him a reply with my roommate request that very same day. I never received a confirmation email from him saying he'd received my email, but confirmation emails get lost these days. So, fine. I didn't think about sending a follow up one to see if he'd received it because he was a busy person with lots to do. 

At the conference, I saw my room assignment and it was not rooming with the person I had requested. I didn't complain about it or tell anyone, but my friend and I knew something went wrong and it wasn't on our end. 

3. I purchased an item from a newly launched website to support a business. I received my item and was generally pleased with it. After a few months, I noticed the prices had lowered. Now these weren't temporarily lower prices. These were permanently lowered prices as far as I could see on the store's website. Including the special promo discounts which were still valid, I could have saved over $20 had I been lazier about supporting this business. That's a huge disappointment from a customer perspective because my fervent support upon the initial launch meant I paid more money. Shouldn't it be the other way around? 

It's a shame because I was going to buy more products, but after this happened, I haven't because I don't feel valued as a customer. My early loyalty was actually penalized. 

**

My memory is probably better than most to remember these seemingly minute details about life, but even the "insignificant" events shape me to be who I am today. Have these affected my perception of being prompt and timely? In some ways, yes, they have.

Chasing a Dream I Never Knew I Wanted

It's hard to deny I have raw talent at music. I'm not a child prodigy, and I'm far from terrible, but I was the kid who didn't practice very hard and still did fairly well. I got to ride this wave for about 8-9 years until I was a teenager. Then there were advanced placement classes, my social life, dating, and everything else which I placed a higher priority than music. The thing was, I didn't love music. My teacher didn't teach me to love it. He taught me how to compete. How to play notes and rhythms on paper. And by the time high school reached its peak, competing lost its gleam. 

Instead of shifting paths to maintain the ability and talent I had already achieved, he pushed me to compete more and learn more challenging pieces. Around 10th grade, he was asking me what I wanted to major in college. I mentioned something about psychology, and he would always come back with a comment about majoring in music, or minoring at least. I had no interest. By the end of it all, I didn't even care. One of my very last competitions, I completely bombed the performance and skipped the middle of the piece. My teacher missed all the signs and kept pushing and pushing. 

And then I quit. 

He sent me a very nasty email, one that still makes me cry to even think about the words he wrote. And that was it. I told myself from then on I never wanted to play piano again.

***

I didn't touch a piano for about six months. But then solo and ensemble was coming up and my friends asked if I would accompany them again. And I did because I wanted to. So I played again. This was fun for me. I liked making music with my friends. (And I liked earning money.) And that's how I played for the next five years. I liked accompanying so much that I would drive the 3.5 hours back on weekends during college, multiple weekends consecutively, to rehearse and perform. Between paying for gas and the money I earned, I probably netted half what I was actually making.

Occasionally when I was back at my dad's house with my piano, I would sit down and just play random pieces from my past. I'd pick a sonata here, or a piece there, and just sit and play. Most of it was rough sight-reading at best. It wasn't good playing, but I liked it. I found it fun. And when I was done, I stopped  and resumed the rest of my day. 

That's when I started to fall in love with music. 

There was one student I accompanied who had amazing talent. Playing with him was like getting to relax and enjoy the music. I'd never played with someone so talented that I myself could begin to listen to the music instead of listening to follow. You have to understand, as an accompanist, you have to follow the soloist no matter how much they're crashing and burning. You crash and burn with them. If they're counting and suddenly skip 3 beats, you skip 3 beats with them. It's a very thankless and under appreciated job actually. The easiest jobs are the ones for the talented kids who play flawlessly. That's about less than 10% of the kids I've played for. The other 90%, I'm constantly on edge waiting to see if they make a mistake and then improvising on the spot to follow them. You can't enjoy the music when your mind is on tenterhooks to be prepared for anything.

I could enjoy the music when I played with him.

Accompanying was my side job for 16 years. I accompanied all the way until 2020 when the pandemic hit and I had a newborn. 

***

When I think back, I'm quite thankful I didn't major in music. (I didn't major in psychology either, haha.) If I did, I would have realized how ill-prepared I actually was. My teacher taught me virtually nothing besides reading music and playing piano. My senior year in high school, I took AP Music Theory. After the first few days in class, I was so intimidated because I felt like I knew nothing despite my 12 years of piano studies. I had one friend in the class who helped me through the entire year. The problem was, although I had played all of the concepts we were learning in music theory in my various piano experiences, I didn't know what they were called in music theory. I knew CEG and EGC and GCE chords, but I couldn't explain to you what a root chord, first inversion, or second inversion was. My friend would patiently explain these things to me and demonstrate on the piano keys during class to help me understand everything from a theory perspective. 

Before the real AP exam, we had a practice test in Irving. The night before, I stupidly stayed awake on the phone talking to a friend until 4 a.m.. I woke up at 6 a.m. to get ready and drive to the school by 7 a.m. for the test. A four hour test. I took that test on two hours of sleep and still somehow managed to get a 5. (Yes, I got a 5 on the real test as well and did not stupidly stay awake all night talking on the phone the night before.)

***

The piano ability I have now as an adult is only about 70-80% of what it used to be. But my musical ability and appreciation is 150% of what it used to be. A lot of it can be attributed to age. I understand and know things now which I could not with the maturity of a 17-year-old. I understand what it means to listen and hear nuances in touch, tone, articulation, which I could not as a talented teenager. Looking back, I wish someone could have spoken some real truth to me before I decided to quit. I wish someone could have told me how talented I was and how gifted I was and how well I played. I wish they could have explained to me ways I could have maintained my talent and pursued things I wanted to do with it instead of pushing me to keep competing. I wish someone had encouraged me to record myself playing more at my peak because those audios would be invaluable for the future. And I wish they would have told me to record it anyway even if it wasn't perfect. Because there was no guarantee I would be able to play it again.

When I passed my music teacher certification exam, I could finally tell myself despite what my teacher did not develop within me, and perhaps even ruined a desire for, I was able to find it myself. 

I had a piano teacher in my adult life for a very brief amount of time. In our conversation, I implied I felt I didn't learn very much from my teacher. He told me, "[Your teacher] taught you everything you know." I just gave him a sad smile and didn't respond. 

My teacher passed on a lot of information to me. I won't deny that. However, I don't give him credit for everything I know today. What I know today is how to listen to sound, how to create it, and how to fall in love with it. 

I didn't learn that from him.

Mamalogues: Reminiscing

All the snow this week in Texas has brought back memories of a time when I lived in one of the coldest cities in the world. I didn't choose to live there, but being assigned to a school in northeast China was a chance happening. In 1st grade, I remember reading an article about the ice hotel in Sweden, and I thought it would be really cool to sleep on a bed made out of ice.

Well, I didn't actually sleep on a bed of ice, but I was practically walking on ice for six months of the year.

Visiting the ice festival back in 2013.
I wanted to hug some ice.

Getting this much snow in Texas has been a first for everyone in my family. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed herself and spent at least 1-2 hours outside playing everyday. Yes, even when it was 6 degrees outside. I reluctantly went outside as well to play with her and actually had a little bit of fun myself. Although I consider myself a true adult and have fully immersed myself in the world of adulting, I did gain a new insight on snow: true powdery snow has the consistency of damp sand. It doesn't pack well which makes building snowmen very difficult, but has a therapeutic feel to it when picked up and fluffed between the hands. 

The snow, however, inspired me to revisit my memoir I wrote about my year living overseas. I haven't read it myself in many years and decided to take some time and reread it. 

Once upon a time, I had time to write, edit, and self-publish my own book.
Now I just read picture books to my kids. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Reading it this time was a little different because the memories felt more faraway and distanced. If I didn't know any better, it was like I was reading someone else's retelling of their experience overseas. Many of the memories, had I not written them down at the time they happened, I would never remember. Some of the memories bring back clear mental images after reading. I can still remember the faces and names of certain students. I can still remember my apartment number, the floor plan, and the layout of my furniture. 

But a lot has changed.

For starters, I found a lot more grammatical and writing errors. A little background information. When I wrote my books, I would write it, create the book, and order one copy. After that copy arrived, I would reread it and mark corrections in the book. Then, I would go back into the program and make all these changes before bulk orders to share. As I read, I found a lot of errors I still missed as well as some stylistic changes I would change if I were to write it again. I'd like to say despite not utilizing my English potential to its fullest, my writing today is still better than it was eight years ago. 

Secondly, the person I am has changed. I think that's to be expected and beneficial. I'm almost eight years older than I was when I completed the book and my roles as a person have changed. I am now a wife, mother, and still a teacher, although not of English. I read a lot of anecdotes where I wanted to react differently to the situation. But alas, I was not that person eight years ago and reacted the way I did. 

Ironically, I'd like to say my Chinese has gotten better, especially in regards to speaking. True, I am not immersed in the language and do not see Chinese on street signs or store labels, but by speaking Chinese to my daughter and reading Chinese children's books, I am using it almost 100% of the day. I did not do this in China as I had American teammates as well as English classes to teach. 

Reading my old memories made me realize more clearly the extent of what I experienced.

1. There are a lot of creeps out there, and I encountered quite a few. I didn't realize how many awkward moments I actually experienced until I reread the stories I wrote. And these are only the ones I wrote down. 

2. I experienced a lot of cultural confusion. I was neither fully American nor fully Chinese, and being in China exposed a lot of it. There were many times when it made me confused or angry. 

3. Chinese people didn't know how to treat me - they couldn't treat me as fully American and they couldn't treat me as fully Chinese. This put them in a sort of limbo, caught in the middle. And if it wasn't that, they'd flirt with me because I was a special kind of "exotic."

4. I had more culture shock in Thailand than China.

If you were one of the lucky few to receive a copy of this book, thank you for showing interest in a very special year of my life. I hope it was able to provide a fresh perspective and some interesting memories for you to partake in. I do miss writing the way I used to, but I know this time of my life brings me other responsibilities and tasks. Perhaps someday, I will get to bind my writing between covers again. For now, you can read about my life happenings here on the blog. 

Dear Mommy, ; Love, Mommy

My 7th grade English teacher gave me a journal and a locket when my mother died. She told me to write my memories of my mother so they could be remembered. I'm not sure I wrote down memories of her, but I ended up writing letters to her. I started each one with "Dear Mommy,". In the first ten years or so, they were frequent. I would write almost monthly. In a way, I felt forced to because I wanted to somehow keep her in my life and feel like she was still there. But then, the letters became less frequent. After getting married, I didn't write any letters to her until I got pregnant. I think in a way it's symbolic of the grieving process I experienced represented by the frequency of the letters. Life became more normal without her and slowly her presence faded. Doesn't mean she mattered any less to me, but it was a new normal.

She kept a diary in the last few years of her life. Most of it was written in Chinese. She would write down the happenings of the day, the progression of her prognoses, and include tidbits about what was happening in our lives as well. She never shared it with me or anything, and I didn't think much about it. After she died, my grandfather requested to have her diary. I never asked him about what was written in it and he never shared. Perhaps it was more sentimental just to keep the diary than actually reading through her logs. He died less than a year later and the diary moved along with my grandmother because she could not live alone. When I spent summers with my grandmother during the last few years of her life, I'd occasionally look for the diary, but I never found it. Even if I did, I doubt I would have been able to translate most of it.

I don't really have anything in writing left from my mother. That's something I wish I had more of. The most I have in writing from her is a newsletter journal from the first grade. Throughout the school year, about six times total, we would write letters to our parents about what we were learning or what events were happening at school. Then, we would take the journal home and our parents would read our letters and write one back to us. My reply letters were written by my mother.

About two months ago, I went out and bought a journal. If you've known me a while, you'll know that I've journaled and written diaries for years and years. But what you may not know is that I have always journaled in the cheap spiral notebooks you used to be able to find on sale for 10 cents each during the school supply sales. I wasn't into the fancy notebooks with designs or bound in leather because I felt like you couldn't neatly shelf them - it wouldn't be consistent. So I figured the simple spiral notebooks were easier to keep organized. Ironically, they're all boxed away sitting on a shelf somewhere. I don't know what I will do with them. Perhaps when my daughter goes through her teenage rebellious phase, I'll bring out the journals and let her read about my own teenage rebellious phase.

Anyway, the journal I bought is for her. I started writing letters in them before she was born, and whenever I get a chance or have something worth noting, I write it down in a letter to her. Jonathan writes in it occasionally, too.  Every letter in there I write ends the same way: Love, Mommy.

I'll probably still write letters to my mother. Perhaps not as often or as frequent, but now, I am also Mommy.