Dreams, etc.

I cringe every time someone asks me what my major is, because I know what question is coming next....what are you going to do with that? The truth is I have absolutely no idea what I want to do when I graduate. Choosing a major was hard enough, I bounced through a lot of departments at Lewis and Clark before I came crawling back to music. At first I wanted to change the world, the best way to do this seemed to be politics, then I quickly realized how boring it was to read hundreds of pages of convoluted legal doctrine. Then I thought Sociology might fit me better, but while sociologists tend to be better writers than political scientist, they tend to be extremely pessimistic. All this time I was in and out of the music building, masquerading as a music minor while jealously eying the theory textbooks and conducting patterns of the majors.

It seems like music should have been the easiest choice from the get-go, but declaring music as your major, your calling, is something that was very scary for me. By my sophomore year I had outgrown my obsession with musical theater, but I hadn't had enough classical training to take myself seriously as a classical singer (see: opera diva). I was afraid of making music my major, declaring it my passion and then not doing anything with it...

Obviously I have declared this major, passion, live goal etc, what now? I practice basic skills and repertoire for hours a day and have absolutely no idea what I am preparing for. When I think about this, it scares the crap out of me, so instead of thinking about specifics I came up with a few basic things I want out of life, and what I am willing to do for them. Here they are:

1) I want to have an intellectually and creatively stimulating career, but I am willing to do other crappy jobs before I get this

2) I want to be somewhat financially stable, but not necessarily wealthy

3) I want to have a life outside of work, but I am willing to try to make my work as productive as possible in order to achieve this

4) I want to travel and experience other artistic passions besides music BUT

5) I also want to become the best musician (see: artist) that I can be

Ok, I know these are vague, but they're all I've got right now. Maybe in a year (come graduation) I'll have a real plan.