Plan B?

This week, Ms. Bondy has had me perform for the kids. She sees this as my last week here and she wants to take advantage of that. So, I had my friends bring down my clarinet and piano books. I made a CD of my songs for juries and took on the adventure of performing for nearly 10 classes a day. That's close to 6 hours of singing. My voice is pretty much shot today.

I love to see the kids' faces flush with shock when they first hear me belt out "Non posso disperar." For them, I've mostly been the quiet one watching in the back, writing in a notebook. Some of the classes have seen me lead actions for different songs, but that's about the extent of my interactions with them. It's hard to describe seeing kids realize that they had misjudged me. If you took my voice out of the equation, you could probably hear a pin drop because the kids were absolutely quiet.

I had so much fun performing for the kids and then answering their questions afterwards. A lot of the kids asked me if I was an opera singer. I had to let them down a little and tell them my voice wasn't strong enough to be one. That didn't stop them from telling me that they liked listening to my voice and keep wanting me to sing more. Talking to Ms. Bondy later that day, we were talking about opera singers. I told her, "Yeah, it was always my dream to be an opera singer." Her response was, "I thought you wanted to be a teacher." That line had me really thinking. What is my dream? Honestly, its been to be an opera singer. It combines two of my favorite loves. Theater and singing. But, I don't have the voice for it. I don't have the volume or the strength to cut it. So have I given up and settled for being a teacher? When do you leave your dreams and settle for reality? Or should you ever?

At the end of our reflections, it asks us the question of whether we still want to be a teacher after our experience that week. This one might be the hardest to answer. At my graduation, Sam, who's like a second mom to me, wrote in a book that she gave me. "Always live a Plan A kind of life. Don't waste time on a Plan B." I've always believed in the importance of following advice. I hate when others don't take my advice so I try not to be hypocritical and make sure to follow other's. So right now, I'm really not sure what to do.