Andy Abroad: A Preface

Here I am, going abroad and doing the cliche blog thing, and inviting you to follow along. While away, I will probably not have the opportunity to email/facebook my friends semi-regularly, and a blog seems like an ideal way for me to let all of you know what is going on. I'm sure I will love to get your emails and updates, but please to do not be upset if I am unable to respond individually to these.

Why am I studying in England the fall of my senior year? Let me share with an you an email (revised here so it will make more sense out of context) that I sent a couple months ago to my professor, friend, and mentor, and you can see where I am coming from:



What I'm really trying to get out of this London trip is direction, for I feel like my focus has always been in too many directions. I've always wanted to do a million things, and on top of that, I like to do things to my fullest ability, not just halfway. This is an impossibility I am forced to face more and more each day. I'm not going on this trip just because it's study away, or because its London, but because I am hoping to get some sort of direction out of this internship. I want to figure out what I really want to do, more than all the other stuff.

In January I was sitting in a practice room, working on Debussy or something like that, definitely not thinking about traveling away, and my professor came in out of nowhere and started telling me all these crazy things about a semester-long internship in London. Now I'm going on this trip, which I figured was impossible due to my major and the timing. Plus it's in a city that I never even considered. Sure, I thought of Paris, Berlin, Prague, and Vienna, but never even considered London. But this really seems like the perfect city for me--I already know the language, the culture will probably be less foreign than something like France, (or China), the city has so much going on, and I have a multitude of resources available fore me there already, not to mention the most art scene in the world! It really is the perfect city, one of I've never considered.

So I'm gonna go, and find out what crazy direction my life decides to make, and then see where the heck I am by December. If I was going to be apply for grad schools in a few months I would be literally going crazy. If I knew I was going to be at PLU all next year I would be going crazy! I need to get away from PLU, and I'm not ready to be a piano performance masters student quite yet.

I think it's good I'm not making any commitments. No opera, no choir, no exact graduation date. This way I can be free to be free in London. To let what happens happen. If I have access to a piano and find myself practicing hours everyday and constantly performing, so be it. If I don't see a piano and find myself not even singing in my free time, sure. I think this is what I need to do, in order to really figure things out.

I think I've come a long way: I was a uptight freshman with an inflexible 10-year plan, determined, naive, and overconfident. I feel like I've chilled out a bit and loosened up. Now I need to get some things figured out before I'm really ready for the next step.



That is the mindset I am entering this program with, and I hope you enjoy following my travels!