Attitude Adjustments

As any readers of my posts for the past few days have noticed, I've been in a more depressed, stressed, anxious, nervous, obsessive, worried, tired (shall I continue?) state. Well, I've been trying to take the words of my flute teacher L to heart...her basic message was incredibly simple and straightforward, but one I'd been ignoring for some time I guess: "Replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts!" Well, here are just some of the negative thoughts that I have been working to replace with more positive, encouraging ideals.

"ACK! Jury! ACK! I haven't prepared enough, I'm going to get nervous, it's so much of my grade, this is my 4th year jury, ACK!" (and so forth)

Replaced with: "I get a chance next week to perform for several very talented, dedicated and experienced musicians of different backgrounds who will give me comments to help further my musical development" When I think about it that way, it starts to become exciting.

"PAPERS!" Replaced with: "I have the opportunity to write about some interesting topics and develop the way my brain thinks. After all, Fluxus and Bernstein are quite interesting! Plus, I have done at least several dozen papers before, many of them quite a bit longer (remember, the Fluxus paper is only 3-5 pages!), and I have always done well (I don't think I've ever scored lower than a B on an essay, and usually an A or A+...this is going all the way back to when we first started writing essays in junior high). I truly enjoy writing, and many say that I have a natural skill for it. This is going to be okay! I have done it before, and I can do it now!"

"I lost a Sunbeams One student and I'm not sure what to do with the two students who are VERY much ready for Sunbeams Two and would not work to be side-stepped to either Sunshine Two or Moonbeams One classes where it would be-on either part-a lot of review" replaced with: "I don't have to worry about that at this moment, I will focus on that NEXT week after my Philosophy of Music paper is finished, and in consultation with those who have experience in these matters"

"Grades! Especially those two for first semester that still haven't been replaced yet!" replaced with: "Be patient, they will be updated. And, even if they aren't...it is not the be all and end all of your university career. You can always take more courses and score higher to help pull the grades up a bit further if you need to. There are options. This has been a difficult semester, you have been going through and dealing with a lot, and although you perhaps didn't do the best you could, you didn't do the worst either. This is all a learning experience, and you have learned a lot about how you think and react in situations from this"

And those are just a few! I'm not saying that I'm not still having some moments...but the past two days have been pretty good on all fronts...although I'm not finished the 20th century paper that is due tomorrow by 4:30. But I am going to relax and do some work on it, and remind myself that it is not that long, I have already done a presentation on the topic, so it will come back to me, and that I have done this before and I do have enough time to work on it.