Memory 1

There is an organization that was a huge part of my life in my college days. That would be “Concert Choir.” At the time of my presidency, our choir took an international tour. Off to Ireland we went!

We had found ourselves at Kylemore Abbey. Have you been there before? I strongly suggest you go. A group of 50 people recuperating from jetlag is…quite a sight to see. Some friends and I were meandering around the gardens, taking in the sights, the concept of being across an ocean, and the green. We were in the midst of posing for a picture when we were approached by a couple. “Would you like someone to take the picture for you so you can all be together?” Their accent told us they were from England. We graciously accepted the offer and took this picture…

…the couple struck up a conversation with us and told us about their time in Ireland. We had a pleasant conversation about how they were simply on vacation and were heading back to London in the morning, the things they loved most about the country, and what they had done on their vacation. We told them that we were on day two of our journey, so they gave us a few pointers and sights to see. We explained that we were a part of a choir and that we were going to have a casual concert in the chapel of Kylemore Abbey. The couple was more than interested and they followed us to the chapel, sat through our ‘dress rehearsal’, and then proceeded to sit through our short 15-minute concert in the chapel. The man was taking pictures the whole time, the woman simply basking in the atmosphere of music.

After we finished we thanked them for coming to hear our music. They were truly blessed by what they had experienced. We explained to them that we were having a full concert in Galway later that night {they too were staying in Galway} and invited them to come to our concert if they so happened to be free.

Our concert came. Upon getting into position, we spotted our new English friends in the second row.

I don’t know if you’re a singer.

The little chapel at Kylemore Abbey. Trust me, it's little

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Europe. Let me tell you, they have some beautiful churches, cathedrals, and ancient things. Every day people see these things and have their jaws drop at the majesty and beauty of it all. As a musician, factoring in the acoustical value of these venues, you can’t help but shiver with happiness and bliss. That evening was the first time I was ever to sing in a venue such as that, it was super beautiful. The concert was lovely, the sounds were lovely, the Irish people were lovely, so much…loveliness.

After our concert, the English woman friend that we had made approached a small group of us with tears in her eyes. “Thank you so much for letting us know about this. This is the greatest birthday I’ve had in years.” I was super shocked. What a super blessing to be able to meet this woman and assisting in the enjoyment of her birthday.

The power of music, people.

Memory 3

My senior year of college I was dubbed with a new title. The official title is “Senior Resident Assistant”, some call it ‘srah’, while others enjoy its full title of ‘sexy RA’. Now even though it has ‘senior’ in the official title doesn’t necessarily mean that only seniors are ‘SRA’s’…it just so happened that I was a senior, and an SRA. Okay, well what does an SRA do? Well, my rookie year of being an RA, I had a fantabulous SRA paint this picture for me. “It’s like we’re all a soccer team working together. An SRA is like the captain of the team: still completely a part of the team, just with a little more responsibility.” 

Anyways, the best part of anyone’s year [besides Christmas] was ResLife training, hands down. It was a glorious time of year to come together with strangers that you also called co-workers, begin to learn how ridiculously crazy you are, do some crazy skits, learn and re-learn how to use a fire extinguisher, and simply prepare the halls and dorms for the incoming students. Glorious.

Even though training was a solid two weeks, it still didn’t give us enough time to prepare. Every year things were rushed, schedules were crazy, and someone somewhere pulled an all-nighter before the school year even started. As an SRA, there was one thing that I wanted to be sure that we had time for as a staff: a prayer walk through our facilities.

I don’t know about you, but the first time someone ever told me about a prayer walk, I thought they were absolutely nuts, freaky, and super touchy-feely Holy-spirity kinda stuff… but I went along with it and realized woah, they’re not so crazy afterall. A prayer walk is just that: you walk and you pray, at the same time, praying for whatever comes to mind as you go, and physically putting yourself in the presence of the things/concepts you’re praying for.

I wanted to present this opportunity to my fellow workers and insisted that we, as a team, accomplish this task before students moved in. We made time for it. We gathered, and we walked. We prayed, we talked, we shared our hearts, we shared our fears, we encouraged one another, and we asked for protection and growth among the halls that we would be working, and we asked for relationships to be built among the people that would reside in them. Why is this memory so important? It’s the first memory of community being built between the Bittner-Mellinger Reslife staff, and what is life, what is purpose without a community to be a part of in the midst of it?

Memory 5

When you’re a music education major at a small private college, your graduating class is not going to be massive. Lucky for me, I got to complete my education with 13 other talented, special, and gifted individuals. By the time we had reached our senior year, we were with each other all day, every day, as every one of our classes was a music class of some kind. In these music classes we would watch each other perform day after day routines of “my turn, your turn”, watching one another be put on the spot, and struggling with those instruments that we had learned 6 semesters prior. It was an incredible feeling of teamwork and support… all egos aside and realizing that we were preparing ourselves for the fast approaching real world. It was a great era of life.

Students are students, no matter how old they may be. It was announced that there was a potential for class being canceled. These are dangerous words for any teacher to even think of uttering. They were uttered by one of my professors. The class was Elementary Methods and the dilemma was that we needed the class hours, but the teacher couldn’t be present. Now, I realize that musicians receive a lot of flack for being dim-witted, egotistical, crazy, lunatic, and a whole bunch of other adjectives of negative nature that are right the majority of the time. However, this one special day we came up with a brilliant plan…

If you do not reside or know anything about the culture of central Pennsylvania, let me tell you something important: diners are not just a place to eat, they are a way of life. For as strange as that sounded to this New York chick a whole 5 years ago, it was a part of the central Pennsylvanian culture that was quickly adapted into my lifestyle…and it was oh, so good.

The plan was this: we were still going to hold class as needed. We would just take class on a field trip. Our class was an 8am anyways, so we met in our classroom and piled in our cars and departed to Bakers, the local famous diner joint for all Messiah students. If you’re going to have class without a professor, you might as well have it with a plate of pancakes and bacon to keep you company and to make the learning process a little more pleasant. 

And that’s exactly what happened.

We also spent that time remembering, reflecting, and laughing over our journey together over the previous 4 years. 

Oh glorious day.

Memory 7

There was a precious area of my life entitled “ResLife”. When you work for ResLife, you work for a family. Simply, you don’t have a choice.

We worked for a Resident Director who was [simply] the cream of the crop, who was [and is] loved and adored by everyone and who played a [huge and significant] role in the people’s lives who worked for her. And although tests have been run as to whether or not she was genetically mutated to be SuperWoman, results have concluded that she is in fact, human. That means that she was also birthed into his world, just like everyone else. That means that one day a year we celebrate what is known as a “birthday” for her. We wanted to make it special.

My co-workers and I were trying to put our heads together. Time was running short. As some of us were standing in a circle, it was as if God dropped down a scroll of “brilliant” between us. We piled in the car to the closest Giant Supermarket. We picked up the most addictive snack in the world {party mix} and scoured the aisles for the other crucial ingredient to make “Operation Birthday” a complete success.  Unfortunately, Giant let us down, not having the needed materials. So into the car we piled again to take the longer trip to WalMart. We bought all the materials and gathered up the rest of our staff in secret location #1. At this location we gave our lungs a workout in blowing up approximately 200 balloons.

Quickly and quietly we piled these 200 balloons into garbage bags and transferred them to their final destination: the office. Now, one of the special things about being a resident director is that you get to live across the hall from your office [meaning, we had to be as quiet and sneaky as possible]. With several rounds of garbage bags and some miracle tape, we were able to completely cover the office in balloons. In the middle of the sea of color we placed the tub of addiction {party mix} along with some personal birthday gifts. We took a quick few moments to pose for pictures, proof of the brilliance, and then we scattered, as to not draw attention to ourselves.

We were happy. She was happy.

And the office smelled like latex for the next seven months.

The end.

Memory 10

A whopping four years ago there was a group of music students from Messiah College who ventured down to Oklahoma City for the annual ACDA conference. [American Choral Directors Association]. Of these students, there were four girls, and this trip would come to define their friendship over the reminder of their college careers. They did crazy things, played crazy games, and most importantly, were exposed to crazy awesome music.

I was one of these girls.

Throughout the following years we referred to ourselves as “Oklahoma Girls” frankly because we were the only girls and because Oklahoma was an awesome state {who knew?}

There was then a time in 2010 in which I was able to take a course from one of my favorite people ever birthed. Her name is Elaine. The course was vocal pedagogy, a class in which you learn about how to teach voice lessons. Mechanics, methodologies, muscles, and most importantly, your very own “trial student”. The course: spectacular, as I don’t know that I have ever laughed harder in any classroom (well…maybe…that music department…). Towards the end of the semester there was extra time for chatter at which we talked about all sorts of things, of which one topic was Harry Potter. It was expressed that some had seen the newest movie at the time (HP7 Part 1), and some hadn’t. The Oklahoma girls were sitting on the side that had not yet seen the movie. As was Elaine. As an avid Harry Potter fan, it was basically inexcusable that so much time had passed without seeing the movie, but that was soon to be rectified. Chatter continued to happen and from someone’s brilliant mouth {it could have been mine, it could have been someone else’s, I don’t remember} the idea was set forth that we as a class (10 people) go see Harry Potter together during finals week. Did I mention brilliant?

Finals week came. Things came up, people had to work, to study to clean, but there was still a glimmer of hope in seeing Harry Potter. Movie times were scoped out, times were arranged, and on that day the Oklahoma Girls & Elaine piled in one car  and made their adventure to the Camp Hill Movie Theatre.

…I mean really, how many people can say that they went to see Harry Potter with their college professor?

I win!

Vacation

Not going to lie, while living in China it's hard to remember what living “real life” is like. By “real life”, I mean life in America, the days in college where it was easy to order a pizza or hop in the car to go pick up some Micky D’s (or even ground beef for that matter). We’ve hit a wall in China where everything is surreal. Yes, we’ve been living here for 5 months. We’ve been doing this for quite some time, now we’re really doing it. We’re about to spend the holidays away form our families. We’ve finished teaching an entire semester of college. What the…?

Despite the packing limitations I was able to squeeze in the journal from my senior year of college. {yes, I’m a girl, I journal…quite frequently} At the time I thought “it would be wise to bring this in case I lose sight of why I’m in China. This journal tells the awesome story and clearly shows all the intricate pieces of my going, my journey." This is absolute truth.  Recently when pouring through my own written words I was astounded by the details, the foreshadowing, the beautiful flow of how everything perfectly came together {it must have been by some Majestic Design or something}. What I didn’t realize at the time is that it would also serve as a reminder to many a forgotten memory, some sad, some difficult, but many wonderful and unfortunately misplaced in the intricacies of my brain. They serve as a reminder of the life that I have lived; that life is a crucial part of who I am. Over the course of these past 5 months, that life that I have lived has been all too easily forgotten.

Luckily for me, I’m brilliant.

There was a time last January where I compiled a list of the “Top 10 Memories of 2010”. At the time, I had thought that these would be memories that would forever stick and freely flow out of me. As I looked upon the list the other night, I found great joy and rediscovery in all of them as they had [unfortunately] been forgotten.

My team and I are about to embark on a several week vacation together, but before we do so I think that I need to take a vacation of my own…a vacation from China, a vacation from analyzing and absorbing everything around me and spending time to reflect on where I was, who that was, and take joy in the memories and moments that were created then. I have been so absorbed in life here as every day is a new lesson or eye-opening experience, the learning curve is exponential. I need a vacation.

Throughout the next several days I hope to share these stories, these pieces of life to be elaborated by words. It’s like digging through your closet and finding an entirely new outfit you forgot you owned… you know that feeling, right?

…it’s just a metaphor.

..I’m such a girl.

Assignments

Just in case you needed some entertaining afternoon reading...

The assignment was to write a story using the following vocabulary words

sit ups, jumping jacks, running, jogging, aerobics, swimming

The following is what spewed forth from the imaginations of my students.

"Once upon a time there was a princess in a big palace, but there was no one else in this palace 

because the princess was very fat and she was always angry with others. No one wanted to live with 

her. She wanted to marry someone who is very talented and handsome. One day, a worm stretched 

itself into the princesses garden. It was founded by the princess. She was so boring at the time so she 

asked the worm to do some jumping jacks, sit ups, jogging. The worm cried at last “I suggest you set me

free!” The princess was confused. She said, “why?” It said, “I would help you become slim and find a 

good guy!” She was so happy and she agreed it. The worm said “maybe you should try some aerobics

like running and jogging every day?” The princess frowned but she do so, and she also swam every 

day. At last, she became very slim and very beautiful. One day, a prince passed by. He saw the 

princess, he was so happy and asked the princess “have you thought about to have a boyfriend?” She 

said, “yes of course!” Then they are a couple!"

"Once upon a time there was a fat rabbit who wanted to get in shape. She wanted to be the

most beautiful bride when marry Mr. Rabbit, so she set out to look for advice. She met

the elephant and asked “Mr. Elephant, can you give me some advice about getting in

shape?”

The elephant said “Yes. I suggest you do jumping jacks and sit ups”

The, she met Mrs. Tiger and Mrs. Tiger told her “maybe you should try doing aerobics

and lifting weights” Finally, she met miss monkey and miss monkey answered “have you

thought about going swimming or going running?” The fat rabbit was so happy because

of these useful advice. She made efforts to get in shape according to these suggestions.

Fortunately, she was successful! There is no doubt she and Mr.

Rabbit lived happily ever after."

"Long, Long ago there was a peaceful kingdom. A fat princess was living in there. The

princess was very lazy and she didn’t like to do exercise. One day she was going to her

grandmothers house. On the was home, she found a handsome man was swimming in the

pool. The man saw the fat princess, he laughed at her and said “what a fat girl!” The

princess was very angry. The man continued saying “Don’t be angry I will help you! I am

a strong man, I go swim and do sit ups everyday, it is so great. I suppose you do exercise

with me and lose weight. Maybe you should try to do jumping jacks, running and so on.

Aerobics is very helpful to lose weight. I often lift weights, it makes me so strong as you

can see!” The princess listened to the man’s advice even though she didn’t like to. After

doing exercise, the princess became a slim girl. The man came again, he was a prince! He

told to the princess “have you thought about dancing with me?” The princess was

surprised and they fell in love."

 

“Arthur's happy life” {written by Alan}

Many years ago, Arthur was a very fat boy and he walked so slowly. There is a very famous doctor in 

the world. That is Alan. One day, Arthur went to Alan's office.

Arthur: “Doctor, I have a serious problem.”

Alan: “Whats the problem?”

Arthur:“I’m so fat. I want to lose weight. Could you help me?”

Alan:“Sure! I suggest you do some jumping jacks, sit up and aerobics every day. It may be helpful!” 

Arthur followed Alan's suggestions, but he get fatter than before. Then he came to Alan's office again.

Arthur: "Doctor, I think your suggestions are useless. I’m much fatter."

Alan: "Maybe you should try to go swimming, go running and go jogging."

Arthur: "Are you sure?"

Alan: "I'm not sure. Have you thought about stretching?"

What a foolish patient! What a terrible doctor!