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To: "VOCALIST" <vocalist>
Subject: Re: before I give it all up....(long)
Date sent: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 18:41:27 -0500
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

Diane:

I'd like to hear your poem - I can never have too much inspiration!

Laura

----- Original Message -----
From: "DIANE M. CLARK (MUSIC DEPARTMENT)"
To: <vocalist>
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 5:21 PM
Subject: Re: before I give it all up....(long)


Molly wrote:

>It is going to be
a hard semester here this spring, seeing someone who
didn't deserve the part have fun with it...when I was
really prepared . It is going to be hard to say
goodbye to singing for good, but it looks like I have
no choice.

Honey, if you are this easily discouraged, then, yes, you should give it up
now, because there will be a lot more discouraging moments ahead. However,
we sing because we love to sing, and because we have been given a gift and
are called to be good stewards of it. No one promises us a bed of roses!
Far
from it, in fact! But we must keep on keeping on. Life dishes up one big
disappointment after another, and the test of our mettle is how we respond
to
those disappointments. Let me know if you'd like to read my poem, "Weeds
and
Wildflowers," which was my response to having my promotion to full professor
denied a second time. If you love to sing, then sing, and when you get
knocked down, bounce back with twice the determination. Don't let 'em get
you
down! Someone on this list has a great sig file that reads, "Work like you
don't need the money, Love like you've never been hurt, and Dance like no
one's
watching." (Or something close to that!) Every successful singer can
recite
a litany of disappointments, failed auditions, etc. You are 19. Wait till
you are many decades older, and then you'll really have grist for the mill!

|\ Dr. Diane M. Clark, Assoc. Prof./Chair of Music Dept., Rhodes College
| 2000 N. Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112, 901-843-3782, dclark-at-rhodes.edu
() http://gray.music.rhodes.edu/musichtmls/faculty/dclark.html