How did I get here?

I was late. Half a cup of homemade latte sat on my desk (still hot) as I jogged down the street. We couldn’t find the bus. That was okay. The subway it is. 90 minutes later we climbed the stairs and and stepped into the sun. The hike began. It wasn’t the hike I was expecting, more of a walk really. I felt silly with my pack. But my pack came in handy to hold the wine and snacks.

Up and down some hills, sitting by a lighthouse, photos on the rocks, wandering to the beach, photos on the sand. With the sun in my face and a drink in my hand I wondered: How did I get here?

What an EPIK Opportunity!

Busan, here I come!

It’s official: by this time next month I will be living in Busan, South Korea, teaching English to a bunch of Korean students, and having the time of my life! This is such an amazing opportunity and I am very excited to be taking this step forward. In a world that is so closely connected thanks to the Internet and other technologies, it is extremely important that we take the time to really understand and appreciate other cultures and ways of life. This year abroad in Korea is going to help me do just that. I hope to gain a new understanding of different educational systems and learning styles while simultaneously immersing myself if a completely foreign way of life.

I am excited about the students, the culture, and the location. I can’t wait to meet other teachers like myself, make new friends, and grow as a person. I am thrilled to be able to see new sites, live on the ocean, and to eat a wildly different type of food for a year.

At the same time I am nervous: I have never been so far away from my family, I have never taught English as a second language in such an in depth and important way. I am worried that I will struggle with the new alphabet, language, and way of life.

But if we never step out of our comfort zone we will never grow! So I will take these fears and trepidations and use the energy they develop for good: I will prepare as best I can, spend as much time with my family and friends as possible, and be ready to leap into the unknown!

If you are interested, I have recently published a new website devoted to my career, teaching philosophy, studio, and a blog devoted specifically to music, musical careers, and musical opportunities available to musicians today. You might notice that the blog post “Black Note Syndrome” has been taken down from this site and moved to that one. If you want to see more posts similar to that, make sure to check up on my new site (krystlejane.weebly.com) under the page “Pedagogy Corner.”

Thanks from the wandering musician,

KrystleJane  

Black Note Syndrome. UPDATE

THIS BLOGPOST HAS RELOCATED.

Please check out my Pedagogy Corner on my new website for this blogpost as well as others related to flute pedagogy, music careers, and musical opportunities for modern musicians here:
http://krystlejane.weebly.com/pedagogy-corner.

Thanks from the wandering musician,
KrystleJane

Some thoughts.

I know it's been a while since I have posted, but lots of things have happened in the last few months. Here is a little taste of some of the things I am going through right now.

After devoting six years of my life to the study of music and philosophy, achieving a Bachelors degree, philosophy minor, and Masters degree in flute performance, and now attempting to enter the professional world I have encountered many a raised eyebrow. Most people simply ask how I, a semi-professional musician, expect to be able to repay my student loans. They wonder why I would waste six years of my life on degrees that are unmarketable except to very specific positions: orchestral musician, collegiate music educator, freelancing musician, or private teacher. They argue that none of these positions have job security, high pay rates, or the potential to support me, my student loans, and on top of it all a car payment, insurance, rent, a phone bill, and food. What a mess I have placed myself in, they exclaim.

And lately I can’t say I haven’t had moments where I agree with them. Everyone suffers from moments of self-doubt, uncertainty, and to be completely frank fear. As a classically trained musician who is questioning whether that is the future she wants, I have definitely experienced many new doubts and worries in the last few weeks. But through this turbulence I can feel myself getting closer to my destination.

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I have recently started hiking and “climbing” at Vedauwoo, an awesome rock formation near Laramie. I put climbing in quotes because I haven’t been throwing on a harness and climbing up sheer rock faces, but I also haven’t simply been walking around the awesome rocky outcrops. Instead I have been hiking up them, climbing over and under massive boulders, and fighting to reach the tops of the formations.

This is extremely rewarding both physically and mentally. Knowing that I’m capable of pulling myself up and over a giant boulder, climbing up a tiny crack and crevice, crawling under a huge rock, and essentially just exploring and having a good time at 8000 feet above sea level is a rewarding physical activity. But the mental rewards almost outweigh these physical ones. In my time at Vedauwoo I have learned that sometimes to reach the top you need to descend down the mountain, in order to get from point A to point B you have to walk in a roundabout manner and land at point C first. I have learned that you need to creatively assess the situation in front of you and sometimes, often in fact, take what looks like the more difficult path in order to reach the top. Sure the easy looking line might make it to the top, but it often hits a dead end at a cliff or sheer rock face, so rather than take that path, one might need to take the scary and impossible looking route instead.

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I didn’t start climbing (yes we will call what I’m doing climbing despite the linguistic complications of the word) with the intention of finding some cliched sensation of inner peace, but this is exactly what I have found. I have realized that, despite taking one path up until this point there is exactly nothing holding me onto this path. I’m not saying music is a dead end, or a fatal drop to the rocks below, but I have realized that I can stray from this path and still make it to the final destination at the top.

My studies of music and philosophy have made me a complex and unique person with many different marketable skill sets. My 8+ years in the fields of customer service as a cashier at Fleet Farm, a cook, a server, and ultimately a bartender have given me invaluable insights and life skills that are essential for every field. All of the work I have devoted in the last quarter of my life has brought me to an interesting new place and I can go many places from here.

I have no regrets with what I have done with my life so far and I am definitely not limiting myself in any way to this field. I will continue to pursue music because I love it and maybe someday this will take me somewhere extraordinary and unexpected. But I will also start to pursue my passions in other fields: humanitarian efforts, cultural exchange and discovery, and environmental concerns are all things that I have been passionate about my whole life, so perhaps now is the time to tap into that passion and try to find a career where I can have an impact on these elements of the world.

Being a musician, a bartender, a teacher, and a student of philosophy all have one main thing in common: the desire to alter the experiences of others in a positive and impactful way. I have always wanted to make others happy whether through my music, my service, or my educational approach to students, and this desire is going to continue to mold my approach to the world.

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So for now I’m going to make a list of what I have to offer potential employers. This is a first draft and will continue to grow as I reflect on my experiences so far, but it has been an intellectual exercise that has helped me find peace with my current situation. I have been blessed to be given the opportunities in life that I have and it is time to recognize what I have to offer the world.

Here it is:

·      Minor in Philosophy

o   critical thinking and the ability to take complex texts and reduce them down to easily understandable, less complex increments

o   openness to different ideas especially ones that conflict with my own, to analyze and understand them in order to either agree or find specific elements with which to disagree

§  creative and flexible mentality: able to suspend my own beliefs for a period of time as I attempt to first understand the other ideology and second to incorporate elements that I agree with into my own and to have clear, explicit reasons for disagreeing with the other elements

o   writing and editing skills: the study of complex texts, unique philosophical discourses, and other elements of philosophy such as the study of logic all combine to give me a unique voice informed by many different styles

§  also the ability to edit comes from writing dozens of large scale papers that need to be cohesive and clear while simultaneously expounding upon often complex philosophical ideas

§  the ability to point out inconsistencies and lack of clarity in my own papers is directly applicable to the editing and revision of other texts

o   the drive to understand different cultures and the willingness to acknowledge that my own perspectives and beliefs may be flawed

§  in our global world we are consistently confronted with differing cultural beliefs and ideas and it is essential for us to be able to not only understand and listen to others, but really make an effort to understand their viewpoints and question our own

§  to avoid narcissistic and ignorant conceptions of the world I think it is necessary to be able to question ourselves as well as others

·      Major in Flute Performance

o   Studying music has many benefits in terms of creativity, teamwork, organization, time management, cooperation, communication, and the ability to take a large complex task and break it down into doable smaller increments

o   The self-discipline required to succeed in music, working for hours behind the scenes for one brief moment of acknowledgement in a recital/concert situation, is directly applicable to the type of work that one needs to do in different facets of life

§  having the ability to see the future benefits of the hard work your putting in now—often work isn’t instantly rewarding so one needs to be able to look to the future where the hard work being put in now will pay off

§  the individual self-discipline to hold yourself to an extremely high standard in the music world has obvious applications to ones work environment

·      the advanced musician can’t simply expect their teacher and colleagues to hold them to a higher musical standard, instead she needs to force herself to continue to work hard in order to obtain her goals.

o   Teamwork is essential for all facets of music performance, except for the occasional solo instrument/voice piece

§  The construction of an orchestra or large ensemble piece is really a unique and extraordinary social phenomenon: taking dozens of individually talented and focused musicians and molding them all to the pursuit of one specific interpretation and task, which many of them may not agree with or have personally sought after, is an interesting social phenomenon

·      we are trained to have our own musical interpretations, we all have different musical experiences and goals, and yet when we are in an ensemble setting we are not only able but also willing to set our personal inclinations aside for the work of the whole shows a level of teamwork and emotional maturity that isn’t often awarded to such individually focused people

·      this teamwork is also present on the small ensemble (2-5 players) level and requires clarity of communication and willingness to listen and understand the perspective of the other musicians

o   Passion. Musicians are extremely passionate about what they do and what they are pursuing- this passion can be applied to many different facets of life, not simply music, and makes a musician an excellent employee for organizations with causes that the musician can resonate with and feel strongly about

§  this might also be why I, as a musician, am loathe to enter a workplace that doesn’t have a mission that I believe in or agree with. Working for a bank or something of that nature does not appeal to me nearly as much as working for a humanitarian organization such as the UN or UNESCO.

o   Education! As a student of music I have been effectively studying how to educate future generations of musicians while also studying music as a student myself. Music pedagogy courses, understanding creativity, and writing my Plan B paper for my masters degree on education and the ways in which to teach young students of flute have all enabled me to understand the complexities of music education

·      Working in customer service

o   I have spent the last 8 years of my life in the food service industry, thanks to my wonderful family and the purchase of a resort and the construction of a bar and restaurant. This means I have been in a semi-public eye for most of my life and have had to represent the family business in front of customers and strangers

o   Working as a cook, server, and bartender instills customer service skills of epic proportions: one must do the best that one can do in order to keep the customer happy and satisfied.

§  not only do we have to, but after so many years in the industry, we want to. Seeing a customer satisfied, making sure that they are happier when they leave than when they arrive, and doing your best to have a positive impact on the lives of strangers are all personal characteristics that are cultivated in the food service industry

o   Multi-tasking! One simply does not cut it as a server/bartender or as a cook without the ability to multi-task.

§  A cook needs to understand how different foods cook in different ways and balance out the timing, assembly, and presentation of many different meals in order to have them reach the customer at the same time and in a satisfying way

§  A server needs to be able to gauge each customer and be able to anticipate who will need something at certain times. The efficient server will make herself available when the customer needs her but leave him alone when he doesn’t need anything. When balancing multiple different tables at once this requires complex multi-tasking abilities: understanding who exactly was given what at what time from each table and making sure that each table has exactly what they needs is a complex process

§  A bartender often needs to balance all of these things, making sure each customer has the drink they want, mixing it to their specifications and to a high quality, being aware of all of the customers present as well as the new ones that come in. There is nothing worse than a bartender who is unaware of her surroundings and who doesn’t acknowledge you when you are a new customer at the bar: effective bartenders are extremely aware of their surroundings and capable of balancing the needs of everyone present.

the run

This morning I made a strange life choice. I woke up and ate a brownie and then decided to cook up an artichoke. After eating the artichoke I had another brownie. It was at this point that I decided to act upon the urge I've been having for a while: it was time to go for a run. 

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Now last night I went out to the bar with a few friends of mine. I spent the majority of the night chatting with a buddy of mine about things like my future, how school is going, and all of the regular things that people talk about on friday night at the bar. And I felt myself growing increasingly restless. I ignored the feeling and chalked it up to being tired and wanting to go home. But when I got home I realized how badly I wanted to run. The weather was perfect, a little windy but what do you expect in Wyoming, and I was in the mood to just let my legs take me somewhere.

I knew that this wasn't the greatest idea so I put the feeling aside. But as I stared at my ceiling trying to sleep I realized that this desire was not just literal. The need to run was figurative as well. I suddenly realized that I needed to run away from what I've been doing and from the destination I had previously had in mind. I needed to run away from the commitments and expectations of my life right now. I need to run somewhere new and different, not back to the same place I've been before.

I'm not ready to go home but where do I go from here?

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After throwing on some cold weather running gear and lacing up my sneakers I jogged out my door. When I hit the street I let it go and ran. No destination in mind with the only goal of feeling my body work and placing one foot in front of the other I ran my fastest time. Sure I felt slightly nauseated from the choices I had made earlier (brownies and artichokes are not the best pre-run meal) but the feelings of freedom, confidence, and physical ability outweighed the discomfort from my previous decisions.

Perhaps this a good reminder that if I trust myself, place one foot in front of the other, and run away I'll land in the place that i'm meant to. 

a weekend in the life of a pool hall junkie

It’s not uncommon for me to leave town for days at a time to pool. Whether to play myself or watch others, I will often run away for an extended weekend to satisfy my inner pool hall junkie. But my friends are always asking me what I’m doing while I’m there. Not explicitly, I have never had a conversation beginning with “So Krystle, what exactly do you do with your time at these pool tournaments” but I have received countless texts every few hours when I’m out of town to the tune of:

Friend: “Hey, what are you doing.” 1pm

Me: “Playing pool.” 1:03

Friend: “Wanna get dinner?” 6 pm

Me: “Still shooting.” 6:25 pm

Friend: “Wanna go get a beer?” 10:45 pm

Me: “At the pool hall.” 10:49 pm

Friend: “Still!?” 10:54 pm

Yes, the same person has sent me these texts in one day during a tournament (the Rocky Mountain open, in case you were wondering which one). She was completely flabbergasted that I was playing pool all. day. long. But my first impulse was to respond with my own question: What do you think I’m going to do when I leave town for a pool tournament? Go swimming?

But lately I have been thinking about it and I’ve realized that I am not quite the norm when it comes to these tournaments so I have decided to outline what happens in a typical tournament for me.

First things first, I play a lot of pool. I’ll be warming up with friends, playing matches, running drills, or just breaking racks and working on my pattern play by myself. I can sit in a pool hall for hours at a time and just play pool with no break, especially when green fees have been included in the entry fee for the tournament. I’ll warm up for hours before my first match and in between matches I’ll hop in on any free table I can find.

I’ll win matches and perhaps I’ll lose some, but until I’m out of the tournament my first priority is getting in some table time. However, when my matches are done for the day (perhaps I made finals and won’t play again until the next evening or I finally lost my second match and am out of the tournament) I am still not done with the hall. At this point I start scoping out the tables, seeing who is playing whom and on which table, and then I’ll shamelessly get the best seat to watch that match.

But how can I sit and watch pool for so long? It’s quite simple, really. If I’ve scope out a match between pro’s, AAA’s, or even AA’s I’m not just passively watching pool. I’m actively participating. I’m running the rack a split second before they do, comparing my shot choices to theirs. I’m learning the game. I’m picking up on creative solutions to problem balls. I’m focusing on the English they are using, the speed, and their approach to every ball and every rack. I’m engrossed in it. I am playing pool vicariously through other people.

I came to this hypothetical tournament with the goal of playing pool and potentially winning some money. But even when I’m out of the tournament I’m still there to pool. Whether to play pool, to watch pool, or to just be around pool, I am constantly learning more about the game.

Between the hours of playing, the hours of watching, the hours of discussing, and the future tournaments being planned, it’s not surprising that I’m always busy at these tournaments. I am not one to lose my matches and then spend the rest of my evening at the bar simply because this is my time for pool. As a masters student studying music the week days are my time for flute, so leaving time for a tournament means a lot to me: it means I will shamelessly ignore everything else—even my hunger—for the sake of the game. It means that I will play countless games, spend dozens of hours in the hall, and meet tons of new people equally infatuated with the game as myself.

Pool tournaments are not simply times for me to play a dozen matches and try to win money, they are times for me to spend every waking hour around a game that I love.

So the next time I’m at a tournament don’t bother asking me what I’m doing or if I want to go out because I am there for one thing: pool.

Reflections

I have fallen back into a phase where I find myself constantly craving social interaction and wanting to be surrounded by friends. I can’t decide if this is fortunate or unfortunate but it is what it is, I suppose. The only thing that’s really problematic about is would be the fact that, in order to appease my restlessness, I have been going out drinking with friends a lot more. I have always been a people person and this is undeniably a byproduct of growing up on a resort and in a bar with my family back in Minnesota, but sometimes I need to look at where I am taking myself in order to interact with these people. However, a lot of people don't take one element of that statement seriously and that is the fact that I grew up in a bar. Look at that sentence. Take it literally. A bar, being a place where alcohol and food is served, was my home during the time of my life in which I grew. There. 

Every since I was a young kid I was surrounded by the bar atmosphere: the sometimes jolly, sometimes terrifying, often confusing environment of alcohol and bad choices; and it wasn’t until recently that I found myself wanting to join in on the “fun.” I think growing up around a strong drinking culture is the biggest thing that kept me away from the bottle. I started cooking in the kitchen at the bar in my mid-teens and was immediately swayed into bartending when I turned eighteen. At this time I hated everything to do with alcohol, I hated the way men treated women, the way women treated men, and the way everyone treated themselves. I didn’t appreciate the lewd, rude, and crude comments that were often directed my way and frankly I gave no fucks about what I could do to change myself to fit into that environment. I never felt the need to change who I was to make the Saturday night partiers appreciate me more. I just did my thing: I cooked in the kitchen, owned the pool table, and then went home to play my flute.

And yet my mom convinced me to start bartending when I turned eighteen despite the fact that she knew I was not fond of the environment. I think she knew that my dislike of the majority of the people was a brief stage and that I would get over it quickly. Perhaps she didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did. My first shift would have been hell for most other people: the woman that was supposed to train me in showed up three, count them, three hours late, the power went out, the bar was packed, and I was not only the bartender but also the cook. The only reason I made it through the shift was because I already had an intimate understanding of the bar set-up, the prices, and the majority of the people. How do you cook in a kitchen with no power, you may ask? A gas stove! Burgers, sandwiches, chicken, and everything like that was still available, and nobody had any qualms about ordering them. Some kind young gentlemen went into his truck to find a light contraption that hooked onto hats (because, imagine this, I wear hats; always have and always will, although lately I’m more of a trucker hat kind of gal), so I snapped that baby onto my baseball hat and went to town. I balanced the cooking, serving, and bartending quite well and managed to keep everyone happy until the “real” bartender arrived.

And I loved it.

You see, growing up in a bar and on a resort gives you the strange desire to see people happy. Cooking food for paying customers doesn’t just force you to do a good job because they are paying you and will have no worries about complaining; but it also instills a sense of pride that grows each time you step out of the kitchen and people applaud the meal you just served. There’s just something about making something yourself, with your own two hands, and seeing someone enjoy it.

That’s what bartending is to me. It is not a scene where I can be objectified and flirt with every man (or woman) in the hopes of getting more tips, it really is just a space where I can make something for someone and make sure they enjoy it. It's a socially acceptable position for me to talk to strangers about their lives, their days, and how they are doing. It's a place where I can turn on my sense of humor, my serious and contemplative side, and my happy-go-lucky nature in an attempt to interact with a wide variety of people. When you’re serving you want to make damn sure the people that you are helping have a good experience, you want to be prompt, you want to be kind, and you want them to leave happier than when they came in. I think this is a human instinct that everyone has, but that many are capable of ignoring. Even on the days when I have already worked six days in a row, where I’m nine hours into my thirteen hour shift because I picked up a double and my feet feel like they’re going to fall off, I find myself smiling when someone walks in that door.

But where did my drinking come in? Despite my love of people and my desire to see people happy I never partook in the after-hours shenanigans at bonfires where young men tried to pick up young women and feed them alcohol and good times. Instead I always went home to either finish up homework or go to bed. Why, I always asked myself (and still do, to be honest) would I want to join these drunk guys at their bonfire to drink with them when I’m stone cold sober and have no desire to become inebriated? This is what kept me away from drinking to begin with.

But like everybody I hit a phase in college, my junior year (what can I say, I’m a late bloomer), where I found myself in with the drinking crowd. And man did my genetics not fail me. I found myself out every weekend getting completely sloshed for about three months. But eventually I realized that the hangover just wasn’t worth it, why drink so hard on Saturday that you can’t function on Sunday and then are behind all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, just too speed through Thursday and Friday to do it again ghd next week? As a student of philosophy and logic I found that this train of thought was headed nowhere, so I stopped. Not to say that I went sober, I still drank occasionally, but not with such frequency as before.

Drinking is a family pastime for me. When I go home on breaks I often find myself shooting pool all night long with my mom, dad, and brothers (my sister does not live in the same town and rarely drives the three hours to come hang out at the bar with us, boxing is her passion). We play each game for a beer and if you’re shooting good you play for free and drink for free all night. So of course I get in on that action. Family, pool, and social drinking: boom, happiness. 

But over the last few weeks I have found myself going out on Friday with the desire to hang out with friends and meet new people, then waking up on Saturday morning and thinking that the previous night wasn’t as much fun as it should have been and trying again Saturday night. More often than not my short attention span kicks in while out at the bar or at the "club" where my friends want to dance, and I want to get out of that bar after a few hours of being there. But I have been sticking around simply because I think it might get more fun later on. I ignore the fact that if I was in a place with a pool table I would be way happier and having much more fun that was actually relatable to what I want to do with my life and just sit around with some buddies and get bored while they dance with random guys. 

What’s the point of that?

Sure, I have always felt more comfortable in the bar and in the pool hall than I have on the concert stage or in the classroom. But that doesn’t mean I should spend all of my money acquiring beverages that fuck with my body and leave me feeling sluggish and slow the next day. I would so much rather hit up the gym on a Friday night with friends and then go to someone’s house to listen to music and watch movies. This way I am getting out of the house, a place that, for me, is really just meant for baking, eating, and sleeping, and am also getting my gym time and friend time in.  But this blog post is not meant to be some sore of manifesto of sobriety, I just needed to write this down to remind myself of what it is that I do. 

Who it is that I am.

I am a musician and a pool player, an athlete and a scholar. I am a graduate student pursuing a Masters degree and also a member of team str8-shots. Being strong and healthy is just as important to me as being social and outgoing. Having the ability to let myself relax with a drink, a snack, or a lazy day is just as important as having the dedication to health, exercise, and meditation. My skills on the pool table and my skills on the concert stage are of the upmost importance to me, both equally so; and therefore my time needs to be spent focusing on the things that will enable me to progress in both of these fields.

If I go out every night of the week that is totally fine. If I only go out on weekends that is fine. If one night I decide to let it all loose and indulge a bit much, that is fine as long as I am conscious about it. And lately I haven’t been, I’ve just been mindlessly partaking in these adventures without really thinking about them. Sometimes sleep is more important than the possibility of meeting new friends and going new places. Sometimes it’s just not. Who knows.

But from now on I’m going to be more aware of my choices and more honest with myself about why I am making them. If I’m only going out because I’m hoping to see some boy that I have a crush on, that’s a stupid reason and I’m going to hit the gym or the practice room instead. If I’m going out because I haven’t seen my friends in a while and I want to spend time with them, then that is totally legitimate.

I'm not fond of the New Years Resolution tradition; instead, I think one should always work towards self improvement, not just once a year. This is one of those moments for me: a moment of honesty and self-criticism.

Come at me, world.