Hi there & welcome to the official blogspot of AnkiePianoMusic! Some of you may know me from work, school, volunteer organizations or other community related happenings.
In a number of ways this year I think that I've entered a new phase in my life, so I thought I'd share and write some of my experiences here. First of all I would say that I had gone through a pretty big career change this past summer in '10 and it has changed my perspective of the world - everything. Throughout my university years my dream was to work in corporate communications and public relations whether in music or sports entertainment (managing and arranging publicity and so forth). Over time I realized there were definitely similarities to both fields and it was nice to be able to identify them while I was involved in my work.
When I graduated from university I immediately found temporary work working in an office and events-related environment in the Toronto Islands area (so yes, I took the ferry and everything). It was a great first-hand experience of the food & beverage industry (although it wasn't a field I had planned to work in but I was grateful to my employers and I took the opportunity). Only a couple of months later a new PR position in community relations came calling with a local junior hockey team and hockey's my favourite - my high school community was all about Team Canada, TML & MLSE - and for me it runs pretty deep (imagine working for a hockey club! Every grad student's dream... Finding a real job was hard enough at the time) - so I formally applied and was lucky enough to get hired. None of this came easy... I packed my resume along with all writing material and everything I had to prove myself worthy of getting any job. I didn't have all the connections in the world to get hired (or for any position I've gotten over the years for that matter)... but there was just a bit of luck (and a positive attitude!) thrown in. At this point in time I do feel that PR dream of mine has been somewhat accomplished...I should keep moving forward no matter what obstacles I faced.
It has been about a year since that post after having worked there for about 2 years. My experience there will always be a part of me I'll never forget. So my first huge change was my career - but second is also the fact that I turned 25 this past September! It didn't feel like anything at first (just another day, another year, another number tagged on). But I realized I've reached a point where my uphill battle starts again and literally the second half of my life has just begun. This time - I have a different goal (a bit of a spinoff from my first in PR): I wanted to find myself again and the only way I could do that was to return to my musical roots and immerse myself in what I had grown up doing all along: playing the piano and love creating music.
It's funny how I had spent years and years (literally every summer) studying the piano since I was 8 years old and it had been the only thing that I wanted to run away from. Was it because I got really sick of it? Of playing? Of hearing my parents tell me everyday to practice, practice practice? Of making mistakes and feeling angered by not being able to play things right or perfectly? Or just having to stay in my home to study (memorizing history, theory, harmony etc) while all the other kids got to go outside in the sunshine and play in the parks. It was tough and I was one of those kids that had to work three times as hard as anyone else to be successful. But... I guess that hard work paid off and now I just get to simply ENJOY what I'm doing and I get to pass on my insight and knowledge to younger kids (and their families) I'm meeting through my work as a piano teacher, especially at the beginner-levels.
The music-teaching field has definitely undergone a huge change. Gone are the days when teachers would slap fingers, yell at kids and expect them to sit still at the pianos - which is completely positive! Today it is necessary to find as many activities as possible to make learning fun (lots of games!) to keep these younger kids engaged. Good thing this is where technology also comes into play (pun intended). But my analysis on this can be another post or else I'd go on forever and I actually need to go and prepare my lesson plans for this evening!
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