Carissa-Coyle-Ch 5-7

 Wow. There's a lot to unpack in these chapters. I honestly have really enjoyed reading these chapters. Ignition explains a lot about how I operate as a person. I would say in general that I experience very little ignition nowadays. I can look back and see throughout high school that ignition coming into play. I know that when I was working overtime at chick fil a for a year to earn enough to come to college, I was in constant ignition. Interestingly, my ignition has continued to decrease throughout my time at USU. This has become increasingly frustrating for me. It has made me wonder if I am in the wrong degree, or even the wrong university. I think in some ways, honestly, the degree and university at USU is wrong for me personally. That ignition talked about in the book, the "that could be you" feeling, has mainly come when I've watched and been involved in commercial and contemporary music. I feel it when I listen to jazz singers, when I watch pop concerts, when I attend musicals,  and when I see people singing in coffee shops. I know for a lot of people in this program, they feel it when they are watching opera singers. I can really respect that and I think that's wonderful. Unfortunately, I've simply never had the desire to be like an opera singer. I think the realization in reading these chapters is that I have been trying to be excited about fitting into a circular hole. But I don't want to fit into a circular hole. I want to fit into a square one. 

The real question for me now is how to light that ignition for myself again by the repertoire I choose and how I choose to identify myself. In collegiate music programs, there has always been a sense of "lesser" surrounding non-classical music. This has made me hesitant to fully delve into that as part of my identity. The message I have gotten is that I am lesser if I am a pop or jazz musician. Reading these chapters has helped me realize that my fire has really been slowly put out over the past few years. I'm training to gain skills I don't really want. And honestly, that's exhausting and has left me in my last year of college feeling like I've put so much effort into trying to be good at something I don't want to ever do again. That's the current dilemma for me. Where do I go from here to light my fire again? Because I really want to be ignited in my musical ventures continuing after graduation at USU too.

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