Life Update // Piano and Splintered

Hello humans.  Did you miss me?  Did you miss me did you miss me did you miss me?

So my life has been a stressful, crazy mess.  *shakes fist at life*


Naturally, I assumed you lovely potatoes would like to hear allllllll about it. 


Exciting thing that happened #1:


Okay, so as many of y'all know, I love piano.  Love being a massive understatement.  Playing the piano is my biggest passion, even bigger than drawing or writing or even reading.  I could happily spend all day on my little piano or in a music store on THEIR piano or just at ANY PIANO I STUMBLE ACROSS just doing this:

All day.  Very happily.

One of my big, unrealistic dreams is to someday become a concert pianist or something.  Probably not gonna happen, but then my piano teacher told me some very exciting and surprising news.


ARE YOU READY FOR THE BIG NEWS???


I'm going to be 18 in a few days, and I'm at the right level, so I can become a certified Suzuki piano teacher!!!!! 

GUYS.  I'M GOING TO BE A CERTIFIED PIANO TEACHER.  OHMAGOSH I CAN'T EVEN. 


First of all, I had no idea I was even that good enough to teach.  Second of all, ME??  A TEACHER??  Never woulda crossed my mind.  I hate teaching.  I cannot teach people.  I end up just trying to not to strangle them because they aren't doing what I want them to do.


So during this summer, I am going to be crazy stressfully busy working on learning and recording the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata in G Major and Bach's Minuets I and II in B-flat Major before August.  GAHHHH. 


And then......I can enter the program!  Or whatever it is.  I'm not really sure of any details right now.  I'm kind of just freaking out over this massive change in my life.


This will be my first paying job.  I will be part of a teacher's association.  I feel so grown up and it SCARES ME.  Part of me wants to scream to the world and the other part wants to crawl into a hole somewhere and continue living on books and chocolate. 

Just hide me..please

So in the fall, I shall be certified.  This is a God-send, because it the Book 1 program only comes around every 7 years and it just HAPPENS to be this year.  It's as if God is handing me this on a platter.  But at first I wasn't excited.  It was the opposite; when I first heard about this, I just thought, no, I don't feel like this is for me. 


My dad took me to Vespers to pray and discern about it.  Nothing changed.  God didn't move my heart to feel any different about it.  I spent the entire Vespers begging for God to tell me if this was what He wanted me to do with my life and didn't receive an answer. 


So I came to the conclusion that God wanted me to choose this on my own.  I imagine He was probably exasperated with me.  He had sent me so many signs, so many perfectly aligned situations, and here I was, asking for MORE signs. 


Lesson learned: God doesn't always do things with a flash and a bang.  Sometimes you don't get a clear, divine answer.  God works in many, many different ways and some of them require more logical thinking and decisions. 


Exciting thing that happened #2:


I'M GOING TO BE AN ADULT IN A FEW DAYS IF THAT WASN'T CLEAR. 

AN ADULT.  I DON'T KNOW HOW TO ADULT.  HOW DOES ONE EVEN ADULT??


But while I'm extremely nervous about being an adult, I'm mostly excited. 


It's gonna be fun.  I'm gonna rock this adulthood thing.  I'll be the funnest and most insane adult you've ever seen. 


#LifeGoals





Exciting thing that happened #3:


I started got addicted to a new series!!!!  The "Splintered" series by A. G. Howard.

I've seen reviews and ravings about these books all over the internets for a while now....so I finally just thought, hey why not.  They looked interesting.  Also I had just found out that the author was writing a spin-off series of PotO sooo......


I was seriously not prepared in any way for how mindboggling amazing these books are. 


OH MY WORD.  I literally could not put them down!!!!!!!!!  I stayed up late last night, despite my eyes and brain screaming at me for sleep, to finish "Unhinged". 


Okay let me back up.  I love Lewis Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass".  The Disney movie however.....it terrified me.  The cartoon.  That thing is something from my nightmares.  I just never liked it at all.


Well, these books make the cartoon look like a field of flowers.  I am now traumatized of anything Alice in Wonderland, because NOW I have everything ruined for me in a more worse way. 


I almost couldn't get into "Splintered" because of how ghastly morbid it was, but once I got deeper into it, I couldn't stop reading it.  The writing is so good, the setting is the most terrifying and magical place (also Texas!!  Whoop whoop!), and the characters. 


I LOVE the family relationship in these books.  Alyssa Gardner's family is the sweetest and most amazing family I've ever read in a book.  I love her family so much.  So.  Much.  I have never read about a more perfect family.  Even besides all the messed up netherling insanity stuff, their family bonds are so strong and fierce that it makes my heart glad.  Despite her messed up life, Alyssa loves her parents and is a good daughter. 

Morpheus.  He's like Howl Pendragon on steroids.  Jeepers.  Talk about an anti-hero....He's basically the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, the Red King, and many other characters all rolled into one, blue-haired, black-winged, sensual, broody netherling.  I hate him, yet I love him. 


Then there's Jeb.  D'awwwwww.  He's an adorable chipmunk.  But I honestly don't like him thaaaat much.  I ship Alyssa and Morpheus all the way.  Except that one part in "Splintered" when he took Ivory's place in the box.....okay, I'll admit, I loved him a lot then.  Jeb is my brave pseudo-elf knight and I do like the fellow quite a lot.  Not as much as Morpheus though.  Somehow I feel like Morpheus is playing with  my mind by my feelings, so I can't really tell who I like more.

Alyssa.  She's the most unique protagonist I've read about in a long time.  I love her!!  She's the perfect mix of independent and relying, tough and soft, brave and cowardly.  The best female main character I've ever read, I think.  


I'm not very fond of the love triangle though.  I just don't do love triangles.  Like.  Why. 


These books were such a dark, mad, delicious read, to quote one of the reviews on the back of the book.  They really felt insane and wonderfully mad; the perfect spin-off of Alice in Wonderland.  Taking Wonderland to another level.  A darker, more sinister level. 


So good.  I recommend them very much.  Go read them.  Shoo.


Well, that's what's been happening in my life recently.


I won't be posting much because of catching up on school and piano stuff.  Stay amazing, you lovely people!
 Have you read the "Splintered" series?  Can you explain to me the secrets of adulting?