When A Good Day Is Great.

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accommodation, Acoustic Guitar, application, art, Art study, beautiful, church, college, Competition, creative, English, Essay, faith, God, guitar, hard work, Higher, life, love, music, Music Department, Music Practical, Music Program, Music theory, painting, Perfoming, personal, Personal Statement, Perth College, practice, Reflective, school, Scotland, singing, Stage, student, Student Union, Studying, train, travel, UHI, UK, university, Voice, youth group

Today was going to be a good day. I am excited for the Perth College Open Day tomorrow (like how I slipped that in there? More later.) and my Orthodontist appointment was over so I no longer had to worry about it. But a few things made my day even better… Firstly, in music I finally understood how to play a song that I had been struggling with. For me, this is ace because I want to do well in this subject and it stresses me out a lot when I just can’t grasp something. Then, in English I got my Personal/Reflective essay back and passed it at Higher Standard. Woop! I think it might have been a NAB because we didn’t get grades. Just a pass or a fail. So I am so thankful for that..! English is flipping hard. Then… then… in Art I have been working on a piece and it was seriously going horrifically. We had our reviews and the standard of my work was not at all Higher level. Then, I started this piece again, I have been going to the Art Department in my free periods and now its competing with one of the best Higher Art pieces in the department. Oh yeeea! I don’t usually brag about stuff like this but I am kinda proud of it because I really was struggling. It shows though that extra time and hard work pays off. A picture of it will be at the bottom of this blog post.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering where this sudden Perth College Open Day came from. Well, basically, I am planning on applying for German at a couple of universities and Music at some colleges. I mean, I’m applying for German because thats ‘my subject’ if you know what I mean. Like, some people are associated with being good at sciences or maths or English or art but I am good at German. However, it isn’t exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life. I enjoy it (most of the time) and I’m good at it but I actually want to study Music much, much more. So, I am going to Perth College Open Day because they have one of the best Music programs in the UK and I am hoping I will fall in love with it so that I will have even more motivation for it. I spend a lot of my free periods in the music department. I love going into a practice room and being able to just play and sing between classes. Sometimes I don’t feel particularly productive but I always want to go to the music department. That’s the thing about music. There isn’t a lot I can do in any mood I’m in but with music, I can be happy, sad, disappointed or confused but I’ll still always go back to my little practice room. I am gradually gaining confidence though, so this is good. Yesterday at youth group I sat, played guitar and sang for ages. People were walking past and around me and singing with me and I didn’t seem to mind. So we are getting somewhere. I would never have been able to do that a few months ago. Slowly but surely 😉 Anyway, back to Perth. Tomorrow I have the day off school to take a train down to the college. I have a tun of homework to do on the train or if I get there early (which I most likely will because I gave myself 2 hours to get from the train station to the college. It takes half an hour to walk to the college. Lol!) I am so excited and nervous! I will also post some pictures of the college so you can see! 🙂 

Challenging Myself.

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A change in me, Acoustic Guitar, Beauty and the beast, broadway, challenge, Challenging myself, confidence, encouragement, friends, German, Germany, God, guitar, life, love, lyrics, Maths, Modern Studies, moral, music, Music theory, Musical, patience, philosophical, piano, practice, Prayer, Religious, school, senior, singing, subjects, Summer, Voice

It feels strange, being in my last year of high school. I remember when my brother was in sixth year. I thought he was so old and much like an adult. I don’t feel old.. in fact, because of my height, I feel like I could pass as I first year. Last week, I was buddying for the Primary sevens that are coming to secondary school after the summer and I kid you not, many of them were taller than me. I mean, it is slightly worrying but at the same time I do actually love being small. I just had to laugh because I doubt they realized that I’m actually a sixth year. Anyway, this is my last year of school so I wanted to challenge myself a bit.

This year I chose Higher Modern Studies (because I’m so bad at English so I need some literacy subjects) Intermediate 2 maths (bad idea!), Advanced Higher German (Currently trying to convince Edinburgh College to make an acceptation and let me do open learning because apparently our school don’t have the syllabus for this level) and Higher Music. Maths is just not my thing. I mean really… I am literally incapable. But I’m trying. I will stay at least until I receive my exam results because if I didn’t get a good grade in Higher RMPS then I will re-take that and drop Maths. Anyway, Music. I have missed a year of music and therefore I’m pretty out of practice with the theory side of things so this alone is a challenge for me. However, my music teacher is so so patient and does anything he can to help me. On top of this, I chose acoustic guitar and voice as my two instruments. Acoustic guitar? no problemo. Voice? totally out of my comfort zone. I mean 1, this means singing solo infront of people. 2, this means singing without my guitar. 3, this means being tested on my vocal range. As you can imagine, voice is really testing my confidence. Which I don’t have a lot of, to be honest. But this is part of the reason I chose voice. All I want to do is be able to sing without shaking like a leaf. Its actually extremely annoying and I really want to have more confidence because music is something that I love.

My friend is helping me in music because he is also doing voice and plays piano so we don’t need the teacher all of the time. However, yesterday I went into my own practice room and practiced ‘ A Change In Me’ which is from Beauty and The Beast. My teacher gave me the CD so I could practice and it was going really well singing with no one there. Then my friend came in and asked ‘Are you winning?’ and I replied ‘I am actually’… bad idea.. this meant he wanted to hear it. I always sang really quietly so both the teacher and my friend could barely hear me but yesterday I just had to try harder. I asked him to stand where I couldn’t see him so I would be less nervous. But I sang. And I sang louder and it was so nerve racking. I could hit the high notes but I stopped because I was scared I’d mess up but it was ok,he helped me because he knew I could do them.But that was enough for one day. The thing is, I will get more confident and eventually I’ll be able to sing it all with people watching but that was quite an achievement for one day to be honest haha! I’m just trying to challenge myself and praying that I’ll get more confident because music is something that I love.

above, I linked ‘A Change In Me’ so if your interested you can listen to the song I’m practicing 🙂 But I realized that I think the version I’m doing at school is bit higher so its actually easier to sing with this video. Maybe I’ll ask if I can sing in a little bit of a lower key. Failing that, I can cope with the higher notes if I have to haha!

You Have Won Me – Cover

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Acoustic Guitar, Bethel, education, God, guitar, instrument, life, love, lyrics, music, Musical, practice, praise, relax, school, Scotland, singing, song, weather, worship, You have won me

Here is a cover of You Have Won Me by Bethel. I spent my free period in the music department at school practicing. I really love to go there to relax. At home there is always someone in the house. I like having my own space where I can just play and sing. However, I recorded this when I came home. I know the quality isn’t good and my face looks like a beetroot because it was literally 26 degrees today which is quite warm for Scotland.
Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Japanese – I’ve started!

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City, Hiragana, Japan, Japanese, Kanju, Language, Learning, motivation, practice, quiz

After a long read of I don’t know how many pages last night on http://www.textfugu.com I am finally ready to start learning Hiragana. I have an app on my phone with Kanji quizes on it.. and I am litrally addicted! 😀 You should probably learn Hiragana first. Which I am. But, at the same time Kanji. In between classes at school I just click onto it and do a quiz and am over-joyed when I get 100%. I really have to learn Hiragana now though. It looks really easy but there are A LOT of ‘letters’ to learn, but you’ve got to start somewhere right? I just think about how much fun it’s going to be being able to speak it to my friends and going to Japan :)! So now, I am waiting for an email and then I will go and learn! I will keep you up to date! I mean… imagine going here:

WOW!!!!