Think the thoughts, feel the feels...write it down

Lately, I've been feeling like what I do, teach general elementary music, doesn't matter.  It's not that I don't think music, Art, doesn't matter, and it's not that I don't think education doesn't matter.  I am a strong believer that music education does good for everyone...but I'm, somehow, not feeling like what I'm doing is really contributing well to the world.  That's a problem because all I've ever wanted to do is have a positive footprint on this world (so vague).  Last Sunday I was out to lunch with a couple friends and I asked them if they ever feel like what they do doesn't matter?  Like it's superfluous, maybe selfish.  They both said yes and that if I'm feeling that way at a job that I do find to be important, then I'm probably not at the right job.  Then she said something that her roommate had told her: make a list of the things I love and that are important to me, then find a job that incorporates that list....

So I technically work for a major book store chain.  The frozen yogurt shop at which I work is attached to said book store, so I'm considered an employee of the store.  One of the perks of being an employee of the book store is that I get a 20% discount, but this month is Employee Appreciation Month; this means, amongst other things, I now get a 30% discount on most things in the bookstore (instead of just getting 30% off on paydays).  This is pretty great, but I haven't been taking advantage of it, until yesterday.  Yesterday, I finally cashed in the $60 dollars worth of book store gift cards I've gotten from different things at work.  I ended up paying only $32 for $130 worth of books with my discount and gift cards.  It was glorious.  Here are the books I got and why I chose them. 1) A Thousand Splendid Suns.   I read Khaled Mosseni 's first book, The Kite Runner, in University in some English class or something.   The K...

It's 3am.  I was asleep, but then I woke up as I usually do.  Since I don't have to get up early, I decided to peruse Twitter for a little bit and came across this little opinion piece  that will serve as my weekly list post.  Sex trafficking isn't news to me, but it's presence in the USA  was made known to me in college when I learned about it's large presence in Greensboro , where I went to school, and other places in North Carolina, when I attended some kind of informational meeting(s) or something.  Reading the piece made me sad so I tried to get my mind off of it by doing a little Facebooking.  But that didn't work because suddenly my mind was racing with nightmarish thoughts about all the evil and pain and sadness and fear and hate in the World.  Suddenly, I was back to being my 13-14 year old self crying myself in and out of sleep in the middle of the night, crying out to God, because I saw, I see, all this ho...