• I have had to complete units which I have done equivalent units for in my last degree.
• I have to learn high level music analysis which I would not have much use for as a singer
• I have to participate in group assignments which are pitched at much younger, inexperienced students

In short I am having to do a lot of stuff which leaves me questioning “Why am I doing this?”

I know that in any degree you invariably learn things that have no real application in the real world. You will always have to learn things that you will never use again, mostly because you have no idea what the future has in store. take for example my last degree. I did two units on teaching TEE level English units (these are the units high level year 11 and 12 students take). On all of my practicals and even when I graduated I never taught TEE English. I found that I had more interest in teaching low ability and learning difficulty students. When I did my degree, however, I didn’t know I was never going to use those units so I completed them anyway.

I guess one of the main differences this time around is that I have much more of an idea of what I want to do with my life so I am able to look at what I am studying with more understanding of how it is going to contribute to my musical life. I just wish I had more say in why I am doing the things I am doing.

I guess this post all came about because last night I had to take part in a production of the Mikado. It was dreadful. I have never been more embarrassed to be a part of a show before. It was highly unprofessional, under directed, under rehearsed and not well organised. I learned a lot about what shouldn’t be done in a production but at the same time I already knew a lot of those things. I have participated in dance concerts and amateur musicals which were more of a professional standard. The most embarrassing thing about it though is that these students (including myself) are hoping to be professionals one day and should be acting like professionals while studying.

I just don’t know why I am doing it, other than to get a tick for that part of the unit.

Image by Bas. K (Flickr)

This has been bugging me a lot lately and I guess I am writing this post more as a way to vent than anything else. Okay so get to the point! The story goes like this:

I work in a theatre (a real life theatre with actors on a stage not a movie theatre). Currently we have a production running which is determined by the producers to be “child and family friendly”. It is a family show, I’ve seen it twenty three times already and it is suitable for children, let me correct that – some children. The show carries a recommendation that it is suitable for children over the age of six as it contains scenes which may frighten young children. It also runs at nearly two and a half hours with only one twenty minute interval. I have trouble sitting still for that long and children seem to have even more difficulty. What has been bugging me about all of this is the amount of people who have been bringing very young children, I’m talking two to five year olds, and then proceed to:

• complain about how unsuitable the show is for their children
  
• they complain that their child can’t sit still for the whole show so they end up missing the majority of it by constantly taking their child in and out of the theatre
• disrupt the rest of the theatre by allowing their child to carry on, dance around, talk and sing while the show is on then use the excuse of “they are just children” to cover the bad behaviour
• get verbally abusive to other people in the theatre or the staff who politely ask them to control their children

The main thing that is bugging me about all of this is that these people (and they are not always parents but well meaning aunts, uncles, grandparents or family friends) have paid no regard at all to the recommendation of the show. The recommendation is there for a reason. Which brings me to my next annoyance:

A friend recently posted on Facebook asking people for their opinion on whether the Avengers movie would be suitable for his five year son to attend with the side note that “he saw Captain America last year”.

My immediate reaction was “WTF!!!”. Why would anyone take a five year old to see a M rated movie. I’ve seen the Avengers. It has a huge amount of violence in it (You see people beat the absolute crap out of each other, in one scene a guy dies on screen, and then there is the terrifying aliens that are seen destroying the city). I’m not sure about you but I would be taking my five year old to go see the Muppets or Sesame Street. Just because you stupidly took your four year old to go see a movie last year that was, again, completely unsuitable for him, why would you want to make the same mistake again by taking them to another unsuitable movie?

I don’t get it. Ratings are there for a reason. Why would any parent want to subject their child to material which is unsuitable for them? It does nothing for the well being of the child, if anything you are going to do damage to your child. The child that has been taken to the theatre before they are old enough is going to relate their experience with boredom and getting yelled at by an increasingly less patient parent, rather than remembering the experience as the magical entertainment it should be. The child which is subjected to graphic violence in a movie as a child is not going to understand the context of that violence but rather remember that violence equates to entertainment.

But of course my opinion counts for nothing. Why?

“You don’t have children. You wouldn’t understand.”

I can’t wait for the day that I have children and get endowed with all the earthly knowledge of child raising which comes with it. I’m guessing a magical parenting fairy descends upon me as I give birth and my brain is suddenly filled with all the knowledge of the universe on children and child raising. I guess I will just have to wait and find out.

Image by teruhn (flickr)

This got me thinking. What do I want to achieve before I die? We get a limited time on this earth so I want to make sure I do everything that I want to. I decided I should write a list of my own. It includes some massively big and outrageous ideas alongside some very plain and boring ones. This list doesn’t include everything. I’m sure as I tick one item off the list another thing will take its place. They are also in no particular order, other than the order of which I thought of them and wrote them down.

1. Sing on the Burswood stage in a professional show
2. Go watch an Olympic Games live in person
3. Learn to speak another language with some proficiency
4. Record an album
5. Perform in the West End
6. Perform on Broadway
7. Meet Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga
8. Be the voice of a Disney character
9. Raise a happy family
10. Live in another country
11. Decorate my entire house with Christmas lights
12. Have a white Christmas
13. Go to every Disney theme park in the world
14. Sing the national anthem at an AFL Grand Final
15. Travel the world
16. Play the role of Eponine or Fantine in Les Miserables
17. Go to Rottnest
18. Travel on a ship
19. Perform in a professional opera
20. Perform in a professional musical
21. Go to an opening night VIP party
22. Write a book
23. Visit Broadway
24. Visit the West End
25. Attend the Tony awards
26. Build my own home
27. Stay in the penthouse of a five star hotel
28. Go camping under the stars with Ben
29. Swim with dolphins
30. Take a roadtrip with no plans
31. Have a dog named Wilbur
32. Walk through town in a costume for no reason at all
33. Sew my own gown
34. Stand on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
35. Spend a Summer backpacking
36. Volunteer in another country
37. Visit Africa and see the African animals
38. Write a song
39. Get a standing ovation
40. Visit Rome and see the Pope
41. Have a hobby farm which we can live off
42. See an Opera in the Sydney Opera House
43. See an Opera in the Paris Opera House
44. Sing in public for no reason at all
45. Change someones life for the better
46. Believe in myself and my own talents
47. Leave a scholarship in my name
48. Make a best friend who I can grow old with
49. Sing on the stage of His Majesty’s Theatre
50. Attend a concert in Carneige Hall

• being a professional singer
• learn to speak a foreign language with proficiency
• have a family
• travel the world
• be happy

Whether these things come about though is dependant on my choices, determination, commitment and dedication. If I keep these dreams at the forefront of my mind and apply myself without excuse then there is no reason why I should look back in ten years and be disappointed with the life that I have chosen to live.

“I will run every morning before breakfast”
“I will study French every day”
“I will lose five kilos by March”

I set goals for myself all the time. Sometimes they are wild crazy goals. Sometimes they are quite simple. They do have one thing in common though and that is that I set them and then fail to see them through to their complete extent. Take this for example:

When I was younger I used to do race walking. It’s that weird sport which looks like a mix between running and wiggling your bum a lot. When I was fourteen I set the goal of winning a state medal that year. I didn’t care what medal I just wanted to win one. That year I trained harder than I ever had before. My times improved dramatically over the season. I even tracked the rankings throughout the year and saw that I had the second fastest time and the most consistent time out of my age group. I was going to go to the state championships and win my medal!

So what happened?

I went to the zone qualifier and nearly got disqualified after being given two cautions for contact and a warning for knees. I never got cautions. I was one of the cleanest walkers in the competition. This really shook me up and I finished with a time that was nearly double my personal best.

I then went to the states so worried that I would be disqualified that I performed terribly. On my final lap all I remember is crying because I knew I had stuffed it so badly. In the end I finished fourth.

So what is the point of this story? The point is I have a habit when it comes to goal setting, a habit stretching back to childhood. The example above is just one of many that I can think of off the top of my head. My habit is that when I want something so badly that I set a goal to achieve it I then go about self sabotaging myself so that it is near impossible for me to achieve it.

I want to stop this. One step is to break the goal up into smaller more achievable steps. Another is to do some preparation before setting the goal so I know what I am getting myself in for and are prepared for the hard work to come. The most important thing though is to break the habit.

That in itself though has got me thinking. I can’t recreate what I was at any time in my past. I can try and I can probably come close but time is always flowing on and the changes, however small they may be, will always have an impact on what I am now.

A friend recently posted about where she was and what she was doing at various intervals in her life. Just last week I was talking to Ben about how when I was eleven I wanted to be a vet. I constantly look at my present and insist that I am not moving anywhere, that I feel “stuck”. So today I thought I would take some time to look back on particular times and places and what I was doing and expected for my future.

23 years ago:

I was five years old. I was attending primary school. My best friends were a boy who lived down the road, Samuel, and two girls Kathy and Tanya. I had just been to see the Little Mermaid and would occupy my time singing and swimming with my legs tied together pretending I was Ariel. My ambition in life was to grow up to be a mermaid. I remember praying every night “When I die can I please come back as a mermaid?”

20 years ago:

It was an Olympic year and our class at school were doing lots of Olympic themed activities including a diary writing exercise on “Where will we be during the 2000 Olympics?” At that stage I was going to Little Athletics and was sure that by the year 2000 I would be representing Australia in race walking or driving my car across the Nullabor to go watch my first Olympic Games.

15 years ago:

In my early years of high school I went a little strange. I still loved my athletics and Disney was still setting my sights on finding a prince but I was also becoming more and more interested in magic, fairies and dragons. I would dress in long skirts, burn incense in my room and spend my weekends in Fremantle. It was about this stage that I started getting interested in sewing. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life which didn’t help with all the pressure of choosing subjects coming up. I was vaguely interested in the idea of becoming a nurse, a doctor or a paramedic.

10 years ago:

Out of high school finally with still no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I had always wanted to learn how to sing and dance so I enrolled myself in a singing class and a dance class. The classes clashed with athletics training so I made the difficult decision to quit athletics. I loved dancing and felt a freedom that had been missing from me for some time. I had a tiny little voice when I tried to sing and I shook with stagefright but all I could think of was how much joy singing was bringing to me.

7 years ago:

I decided it was about time that I went to university and got a degree in something! I was vaguely interested in writing so I enrolled in a double degree of English and Education. I found something that I enjoyed and I was good at it. I studied hard and finished my degree shortly after with three job offers before graduation. I accepted a position as a English teacher and taught for two years.

3 years ago:

I was offered a position at a school in Singapore to study Musical Theatre. I hadn’t really sung or danced much since starting work as a full time teacher. The audition had awakened something in me and I realised that while I enjoyed teaching and I was good at it, I wasn’t really in love with the idea of being a teacher the rest of my life. I took the position but shortly after I suffered from incredibly depressive home sickness. I came home feeling like I had failed at being a musical theatre performer. I also had no job and I had put my house up for rent so I had no where to live. I had also invested all my savings into the course so I was flat broke. It was one of the worst times in my life. I eventually found a job singing on wine tour boats which was not very fulfilling and moved in with a friend from school. She helped me a lot!

2 years ago:

I found another job teaching. I loved the kids but as a whole I was not happy. The school was a long way away from where I lived and had a very different culture to what I was used to. I felt very lonely. I also celebrated a wonderful moment that year in marrying Ben and going on our honeymoon to Singapore where I was finally able to work through some of the sadness I had felt while I had tried to study there. I was beginning to feel whole again. With Ben’s encouragement I applied to study music.

1 year ago:

I was studying Classical music full time. It was a big change from the musical theatre I had made my main interest for the past ten years. I was learning so many new things and meeting new people. I was also beginning to feel like I was on the right path again. I wanted to sing and to make a career out of singing.

Now:

Today I am at home relaxing with Ben. We have spent the morning in the garden and cooking soup. I feel content and happy. I have school tomorrow starting with an opera rehearsal and followed by Italian classes. I am very happy with where I am. My goals at the moment are to do well at university and improve my technique, audition for more professional work as a singer, and to put on a concert by the end of the year.

Looking back at only a few moments in my life I can see how far I have come and I can also see how I have changed the direction I am headed. The change isn’t bad. Some things ran their course and changed into something else. Other things didn’t work out the way I had hoped. The change has been good for me and I hope I continue to change. For the moment though I need to sing.

Image by Tommy Klumker (Flickr)

So far it has been the best decision I have ever made. I’ve only been doing it for two days, I know, but I feel a lot more positive not only about what I am eating and how I look but also my ability to cook good healthy meals. In the past I have only really eaten what was easy, usually meat and two veg!

This is what we had for dinner last night:

Three bean mix, herbed chicken strips and mixed steamed vegetables. In all it took about ten minutes preparation and about ten minutes cooking time. Not only was it easy to make and stuck to the diet but it was delicious and I enjoyed cooking it!

I am proud of what I have done in just two days.

1. I have committed myself to changing my lifestyle to make myself a happier and healthier human being.

2. I haven’t given in to stupid excuses or given up before I started. Instead I made it so it was impossible for me to fail (removing temptation and practising before committing)

3. I have learnt new skills

4. I have found long lost energy and put it to good use

In short I am really proud of my turnaround. I have made a commitment and I am sticking to it.

I want to sing.

I want to study.

I want to have a life this year.

I need to keep the small things in mind and not be scared to start on my huge scary and ultimately exciting new life. This year is going to be amazing. I have made that decision, now I need to put it into action!

So this year I would like to write my own review:

Work on my singing and treat myself as a professional singer.

What does this mean?

It means I have to put in the effort if I want to turn out to be a successful singer of any kind. That means I will have to practice every day and practice in a meaningful way.
What will it look like?

Every day you will see me practising my singing. I will also work on my music theory and keyboard skills so I can improve as a musician. It will also mean that I will be working professionally as a singer. This year I will get my first professional contract.
Continue to work on my language studies, with a bit more focus than in the past.

What does this mean?

In the past I have gone to my French lessons and completed the bare minimum to stay up with the class. This year I want to study harder. I want to become more proficient as a speaker of French. I would also like to start Italian lessons during the year.
What will it look like?

Every day I will complete activities in French. I will also continue to attend classes at the Alliance Francais. If I have the opportunity to interact with French speakers I will speak French to them and not resort to English first.

Save money for the future, whether that be babies, moving house, travel or singing expenses.

What does this mean?

I would like to build up a small amount of money so that if we want to go travelling or I need to go to Melbourne for an audition than I don’t have to worry about it. I would also like to have some money saved to help support us in the event that we finally start having babies.
What will it look like?

I have opened a new account specifically for saving. It rewards me with extra interest each month that I don’t take money out but I do deposit money. I am going to aim to deposit $100 every Friday morning into the account.

Look after my body.

What does this mean?

I don’t always do the best things for my body. I eat junk including a lot of sugar. I would like to improve my health through watching what I eat. I would also like to lose some of my unwanted weight, some of which will be lost through change of diet the rest I hope to lose through exercising more efficiently.
What will it look like?

You will see me eating healthier food and exercising. I am going to try and follow the diet Ben went on last year. It wasn’t really a diet but more a change in the food I eat and when. It isn’t a difficult thing to follow if I truly want to look after my body.

Travel more.

What does this mean?

Without a doubt one of the best parts of 2011 was travelling with Ben to France. This year we already have a trip planned for Bali at the end of January and a trip to Japan for around April / May. I would love to travel as much as possible with Ben this year and maybe even by myself.
What will it look like?

I would love to do another big trip this year with Ben in addition to the two short trips of Bali and Japan. I will need to save money and look out for flight specials but I would hope that at the end of this year Ben and I will be experiencing our third trip of the year.

Spend meaningful time with Ben.

What does this mean?

Ben and I spend a lot of time together but I want to spend more meaningful time with Ben. I want to do things that are active and leave us both feeling better for it.
What will it look like?

We will continue to do the things we already do together like eating our meals together and watching silly shows on iView but we will also spend time out of the house, spending time with friends and family. Being kind to each other and enjoying each other’s company.