Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Growing Pains

"Growing up" by the Urban Dictionary definition: The feeling of childhood freedoms slipping away without any warning, the loss of unstructured time for relaxation, the necessity to work to survive. The impending journey across space and time to achieve one's dream, the feeling of hopelessness when that dream is not achieved, reflection upon one's carefree childhood, longing, regret and desire for a good retirement fund and a glass o' prune juice.
"Growing up" by the Wikipedia definition:
the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time. in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of growing up, grow and expand over time, while others decline. Reaction time, for example, may slow with age, while knowledge of world events and wisdom may expand. Research shows that even late in life potential exists for physical, mental, and social growth and development. An important part of all human societies reflecting the biological changes that occur, but also reflecting cultural and societal conventions. Age is usually measured in full years — and months for young children. A person's birthday is often an important event. Roughly 100,000 people worldwide die each day of age-related causes.

Growing up, a very broad topic I know. I have chosen to write on this only because it is what I am currently doing. Well actually, we all are growing up whether we want to admit it or not. You
never stop growing up, you will always be learning something new that forces you to grow up to some extent.
For example: my great grandmother is 102 years old. At her age you would assume that she has seen it all WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Dessert Storm, depressions, economy's rise and falls, countless births and deaths, you name it. She even worked in a school when she was young. She was a teacher for retarded(it was the proper word in the day) girls around 1930's(I am not completely sure on the dates) in Connecticut. Learning that, you would most definitely think she has learned everything possible, right? Wrong, she still admits to learning new things and growing up at her age.

My point being it is something that we can not escape and something we can not do on our own. This is something that I have come to realize in the past month. Like everyone, I have come to some hard choices that could alter the rest of my life. I have also come to the point of getting over things and moving on with life. This is what we call "growing up." Something none of us want to do and will never want to do.

That is someone I like to call Mr. Flesh. You see, Mr. Flesh is of the world and of sin, he is someone we can not trust. In fact, he is your own personal little devil on your shoulder constantly pestering you and trying to suck you into the body. Mr. Flesh is not just of the world, Mr. Flesh is the world, the critics, and the sinners. Mr. Flesh can not be your best friend. He is the person you need to part from. But how do we do that? Simple.

"Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night."-Psalm 1:1-2, New Living Translation.

What that is saying is: yeah, the world seems like it is just the dreamland where everyone wants to be, but do not be deceived by the world. Do not seek the advice, help or comfort from the world because they are wicked. Instead follow the law, lean on God. Seek your knowledge, and your comfort on him and you will be rewarded.

This is what I have done. My Mr. Flesh refuses to grow up and to move on from my current situation but me, Naomi Miyazato desires it in my heart and that is what I will do. I have confronted myself and told my Mr. Flesh that "hey, I am going to do something that you do not want to do and you are going to hate me for it. Too bad, get over yourself." Then I set it straight with God, "I do not want to live with this, like this any longer. I need you because I can not do this alone and you are the only one who can get me through this. I am putting my 100 percent faith and trust into you and i will be obedient to your word." I know it is only going to get harder from that, Mr. Flesh is going to use everything he can against me, but now my challenge begins to take a leap of faith and get to business.

I challenge you to do the same. I have just started and I will be posting a blog later on with an update, but let us not worry about that right now. We can do this together with God. It is hard to do in the first place, but I already feel free from bondage and I am willing to risk it all to get back with God, free from my bondage. Will you do the same?


Friday, January 14, 2011

Barbecue Chips

Right now I am in my lunch period sitting in my APUSH classroom. I am eating barbecue chips and listening to worship music on Pandora Radio. It is quite the relaxing thing. My teacher is in here as well, but he minds his own and I have the room to myself pretty much. I have decided to spend my lunch period in this empty class room, Pandora, and my bible that I have on my phone. I was going to just sit in the band room and waste time, but if I want change I have to make it happen. I am making this my Jesus time.

But what I really was meaning to say is that I have come to realize that my previous blog is full of grammatical errors and I am working on revising it. I suppose that is what you get when you blog at 3am huh? Well, I apologize for all my grammatical errors in past and future blogs. I tend to post my blogs at ungodly hours of the night, so I am not fully aware of my poor English.

I am going to try to blog more.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

This Is What Love Is

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never looses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." -1 Corinthians 13:4-7, New Living Translation.

If you did not already know, that passage would be the Love Verse. I looked up the definition of "love" on Dictionary.com and I got: -noun 1.tender, passionate affection 2.strong personal liking 3.person toward whom love is felt -verb loved, loving 4.to have love (for). I quickly realized this was a terrible definition so I went on UrbanDictionary.com and this is what I got: the most spectacular, indescribable, deep euphoric feeling for someone. Yet another terrible definition. For those that do not understand my frustration I will explain. When you have a definition of something you are not supposed to use the word in the definition. Well, dictionary.com, you have failed. You used the word in the definition and you didn't tell me what love is. Urban dictionary is just a failure and a terrible source for definitions, but why I used it, you will see in a moment.

The love verse is the perfect definition of the word "love." The obvious reason is because it is straight from the bible and the bible is nothing but the truth and life. Secondly because it describes what love is, not what it feels like. And to make it better, it is the words of God the Father himself, who better than the one who's love is like any other, beyond all compare?

If any of you have noticed, on my Facebook I have added captions to certain pictures. Those captions say, "this is what love is." What most people do not understand about me when I say, "I love music" is because everyone says that. But that verse, the love verse, describes the love I have for my music. That is why I posted those captions on any photo of me playing an instrument or conducting. Not only is playing my instruments something I love to do, but it is my one-on-one time with God. I am able to relax, sit and worship the only man I love. So whenever you see that and read, "this is what love is" you can know that me playing those instruments is what love really is for me. That is the only thing on earth that I love. It is my way of expressing love to my Jesus.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

A Rant

This whole band thing that I do. Sometimes I do not know why I even signed up for it. I just have those days where I think quitting would have been a better idea then pushing through. I love what I do so much that I hate it. Is it wrong do demand perfection from yourself? I feel as if I am pushing myself twenty times harder then the previous day because it just is not good enough. I have heard that I am one of the significantly better players in the band, but every time I make a mistake I feel like I am the worst. Is it bad to push myself that much?

What I really love is when I tell my friends where I plan on going to college and they reply with "well, you know___ did not even make it into ____" it just boosts my self esteem by twenty, not. I feel as if I am ready for this audition though i know that my playing abilities are no where near where they should be to even be considered. Is there a way to make everyone understand that I understand how hard these auditions are, and I know the level of competition. But I am willing to spend every chance I get to prepare for that moment when it is just me and I show them everything that I have worked for and why they should accept me.

If you did not know already I plan on going to West Virgina University to get a performance masters on trumpet and minor in music composition. I have spent a great amount of time researching this out of state university and I highly understand the prices of physical money I will need to pay. But why do people still find the need to say, "do you have any idea how much out of state costs?" my response is, "YES! yes I do!" but apparently that statement is not clear enough. This is a very random rant, not even a rant. This blog is completely pointless though. Goodnight world.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Blog

Well I was going to write a new blog tonight but I obviously have not. I was halfway done writing it then decided that it was stupid and contradicting it's self so I got rid of it. Do not worry about it, nothing special.
But right now I am listening to some music and I can not help but wonder what people were on when they wrote some of this music. Never mind what I was on downloading it and enjoying it. Because music has such an influence on people, more so on the person who is listening to it rather the one who wrote it.
I am currently listening to "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" by Usher. It is a good song from the out side. Has a nice beat to it, catchy chorus that makes you want to sing it over and over again. But that is the problem. The chorus:
"cause baby tonight, dj's got us fallin in love again, so dance dance, like it's the last last night of your life life, gonna get you right, cause baby tonight dj's got us fallin in love again"
That is a decent chorus with no harm intended, it could be meant for numerous things. It is the actual lyrics that are the problem:
"hands up when the music drops, we both put our hands up, put your hands on my body, swear i've seen you before"
In my opinion it is pretty self explanatory what is wrong with that. I do not think that us, as a people, understand what we are putting into ourselves. I am obviously one of those people because I am listening to it. I just think that we all need to take a second look at what we listen to. If anything even out your secular music to christian music. There needs to be more God on our iPods, Zunes ect.
You reap what you sew, so be careful what you put into yourself because at some point eventually it will come right back out with out you even noticing. Just a thought for the night, try sleeping on it.

Friday, July 2, 2010

The Story of a Girl

This will be the name for my new album I'm going to be writing, it's my new project. I realize this leaves many of you very confused. As does every other teenager girl, I as well write songs. This is a new project that I have started already that I think is the right thing to do, and it'll be loads of fun.

Right now I can feel God trying to tell me something. This has been an indescribable past six months where God has completely turned my life around and it's time for me to move forward. I have been thrown off course following what I thought was the right course. Of course I was wrong. But the past month God has really been trying to tell me something. It's not that I'm ignoring him or avoiding him, It's just that I can't get it. I feel as if what ever he is trying to tell me is right in front of my face and I am just too blind to see it.

This which brings me to my new project here. The shorter story is, my heart not right with God resulted in me loosing my musical abilities. Get right with God and it comes back. Ok, we're on the same page right? Good, time to move on. This being said, i had written a chorus to a song right before I decided that I wasn't going to be friends with God anymore. That resulted in nothing, I had this spiffy chorus and no song, just great. Well this past week I really got in check with him and it has been just mind blowing, ironically I am suddenly able to finish that song. I built a song around that chorus and it is the only song I have finished writing.

Now realizing that I have my creative juices and musicality back I am able to finish songs again. I'm not sure where God wants me to go in life at all. As of now I am just living with no direction as to what to do with life, what college to go to etc. Well I have just recently(well like an hour ago) got an idea to write this album about this girl's life. This isn't a story about me, any of my friends or anyone in particular that I know, it's just about a girl. It is going to be the same concept as Flyleaf's Momento Mori. In their album it's throughout the course of a war and every song is a letter from the general. Well in my album it'll be the girl's life and events of her life. I know many artist write songs about people's lives from birth till death, but mine will be an album. The story will start from her birth and end with her death. Cover he childhood, her teens, her adult life and herself as an elder. It'll really focus on the struggles of her life, growing up mom a christian and father a drunk. Being a christian and being in high school. The death of close family. In the end it will result it will be a testimony of her walk with God.

This is extremely
random for me to do such a project. One with such a movement and a focus and such a story. But like I said, I don't know what God is trying to tell me to do. But the fact that I have this picture of this album at the same time that I am begging God to show me what I am to do might be my answer. I honestly still do not know. But I will write this album, not knowing how long it will be or how long it will take, never mind me really having to learn to play guitar. I will leave this up to God and have him work through me. Cause if anyone knows me they know I don't just come up so randomly with an idea as such. I am feeling it's my answer but I can not be sure this early, I will continue to pray and move on with this project.

Friday, June 25, 2010

The Naomi "Charm"

So, many people have said that I have this "charm." They say I get what I want, when I want it. They say that I just have too much knowledge for my own good. I know too much information and I never apply it correctly.

The truth is, this "charm" is running low...very low. What happens to me, mentally, when I no longer have this "charm?" I am currently lost. I can be sitting in a room with you having full on conversation yet my mind is absent. I feel like I am two people in one body. To be completely honest I am scared to death. Is this normal? Is this something everyone goes through? Is this a phase? What is going on?!?

I am a christian and I know that God is right there with me all the time. But I just feel like he is so hard to reach right now. I feel as if I am stretching out my arms wider than the universe and I still can't reach him. I know that he knows that I am reaching for him and that I just want to be in that place with him, yet I feel as if he does not.

Everything thing that I do all day everyday is the same routine yet it feels as if I am not doing it. That my body is preforming these daily tasks but my mind is lost somewhere out there. I do not even know where it is. I have no thoughts, it feels as if I am in a void within my own mind. As I sit here and type this is one of my few moments where it feels like I am one person again. But this leaves me completely lost and confused.

Me as Naomi still has a will power to do well with everything that I do and to do it to the best of my ability. But this thing makes me want to not do it. Never in my life would I give up music or get sick of it. Yet now a part of me is just completely done with it. This thing just wants to sit on it's bum and do nothing all day, think nothing all day, to be nothing and I have no control(at least that is how it feels).

Prayer. Just pray, because I do not know.

" How nice it must be to have the Naomi "charm" right? Well how bout when you think you make it to the end of the bridge and it's all falling apart around you and when you notice it might be too late?"