A Rant About the Dentist and Miley Cyrus.

So, I had an impromptu dentist appointment on Monday.

It was scheduled for today, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, six months ago I thought it would be a grand idea to schedule my next appointment for 11:30am...right in the middle of the workday.

Which is totally fine for someone who works full time and really has no other option but to miss part of work to go to the dentist. But I only work until 2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 3 on Mon/Wed/Fri so CLEARLY I do not need to miss part of my work day. Nor should I.

So on Monday, I called to reschedule, and literally the ONLY time they could get me in was 3:00 that same day. Right when I get off work. I told them I'd be about 10 minutes late, but they were cool with that so we scheduled it.

So, I get there at 3, and as usual, I sit around for about 15 minutes before they call me back. The lady calls me back to do some x-rays, and that takes like 10 minutes. And then she sends me back out to the waiting room because apparently she's not my hygienist. My hygienist isn't ready yet.

So I literally sit in the waiting room for 15 more minutes. Remember that they scheduled me for an appointment at 3...I didn't get back in the room until almost 4.

Then while I was waiting, a girl showed up who is apparently a new employee starting on Friday and so she was supposed to be visiting. Well, the head honcho dentist guy decided to put MY hygienist in charge of helping her out, so about 5 minutes into my cleaning, she leaves for literally 10 minutes. And I'm just sitting there with a bright light shining on my face, until a nice lady came in and moved it for me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE my dentist. I truly feel like they want what's best for me, and not what will make them the most money. But I had somewhere to be at 5:30, and I was starting to get concerned.

My teeth were perfect as usual, and my gums were puffy, inflamed, and unhealthy as usual. I don't know why I have had gingivitis since I was 7 but I have never had a cavity. But whatever. At least with gum infections they don't drill a hole in your face.

Anyway, they are genuinely concerned about the condition of my gums, so guess who gets to go back into the dentist in three months for another cleaning? Huzzah for me.

So, I leave the dentist with my sore and bleeding gums (because they are NOT gentle with those cleanings!) and OH YEAH my broken wire because she literally flossed right through my permanent retainer on the back of my bottom row of teeth....

I was meeting a bunch of family for dinner at 5:30 and didn't have time to go home, but did have time to run a quick errand. So I stopped at a store, walked around for 10 minutes looking for what I needed, got in a line with a broken register, got in another line, left, and got lost. Because I thought I knew where I was going, and I should never, EVER think that.

EVER.

So I was like...15 minutes late to dinner. But it's okay. We went to see Man of Steel afterward, which was good, but WAY too long, and the action scene at the end seriously could have been 30 minutes shorter.

And thus ends my dentist rant. Which brings me to my rant about Miley Cyrus. Have you seen her new music video?

Please don't.

Though you probably will now because I've struck your curiosity, but I must warn you: it is the WORST music video, in every way possible, that I have ever seen in my entire life. Including Lady Gaga videos.

Yeah. I know.

And what's even worse, is all the people in the comments who say "This video is so awesome!" and then say "Stop hating on Miley, she's a grown up now!"

Um...I'm sorry, but she looked pretty juvenile in that video.

Newsflash: being a grown up does NOT give you a free pass to do whatever the heck you want. It means you stop acting like a child, which is not -- by any definition -- what Miley has done in that video.

If anything, she was more mature when she was on Hannah Montana.

Sorry if you're a Miley fan, but unfortunately it's the truth.

Also...either Miley is really bad at twerking, or that dance move should never, EVER be attempted in public OR private. End of discussion. Outlaw the twerk.

Don't worry, I'll have some more coherent posts up soon. :)

I Almost Died Today.

And now I know what it's like to see your entire life flash before your eyes.

And when you get through reading this, you're going to hate me for scaring you into thinking I almost died when in fact I was nowhere near death. But I wanted to die.

Here's how it went down:

I am taking a music class this semester called History of Jazz. Today we were scheduled to have a guest speaker who's a famous jazz drummer from New Orleans, named Adonis Rose (he toured with Harry Connick, Jr.!). It is also important to note that I almost skipped this class today, because of something going on in another class that overlapped with Jazz. However, when I heard we were having a guest speaker I was intrigued, and decided to work around the other thing.

Normally when people hear a guest speaker is coming to class they think they're going to like, come to class and talk and stuff, right? I thought he was going to speak about being in a jazz band and his background, and maybe play some drums for us.

Instead, he came into class, introduced himself and gave us a little bit of his background, and then he quizzed us.

Meaning, he picked on random people in the class to answer questions about jazz history. He called on me once. I didn't know the answer, but it wasn't a big deal. Most people didn't know the answers.

He then wanted to know who in the room were musicians by show of hands. So we raised our hands and then he asked specifically for singers, of which I am. So I kind of shyly raised my hand, but he was all like "Raise 'em real high!" so I raised my hand higher along with a couple other people in the class.

And then he was like, "Great, we'll have to get y'all up here to sing for us," and went on to ask if there were any rappers. We all chuckled when he said that because it was a funny joke.

It wasn't a joke.

And this is where my life starts flashing before my eyes.

After finding out if there were any rappers or poets in the room, he called on one of the singers to come up and sing a song. Per a fellow classmate's request, he sang You Are My Sunshine.

After that, he called on the only poor guy in the room who said he was a poet and made him recite a poem. I felt bad for the poor chum who recited this sappy love poem to the entire class. I'm sure it wasn't written for public recitation.

Then he goes back to the singers and I'm sitting in my chair shaking panicking convulsing and he calls on a girl in the front row. She sang At Last by Etta James, which is very appropriate for a jazz class. She sounded really good, but she hit a few bad notes, probably because nerves and big songs don't go well together.

Then he couldn't remember who else was a singer and I'm all like yes I'm off the hook! Praise God. and then he looks at me and points and says "You in the striped shirt" (and I regretted immediately wearing a striped shirt, though I'm not sure that made much of a difference).

And then I died.

But my vocal chords were still very much alive, which meant I had to get up and do this thing. He asked me what my name was and I squeaked out "Kayla". I could almost hear the Death March as I walked to the front of the class, which so conveniently has a stage.

I avoided all eye contact with the audience until I started singing. Adonis asked me what I was going to sing, and I tried to make a joke because I use humor as a defense mechanism. I said, "I'm going to sing a country song. I would do jazz but I don't know many of those."

I know what you're thinking...that's not funny. That's a perfectly normal statement to make...yeah. I know. It sounded funnier in my head.

So then I sang my song. The Night Before (Life Goes On) by Carrie Underwood. I sound good on that song and it was the first one I thought of so I went for it. And I sang through the first verse and chorus of that song, and I walked back to my seat to a reprise of the Death March, and then I died again.

And then another girl came up and just showed up all of us with her stupid confidence. She sounded like Norah Jones and she sang a song she wrote all by herself because apparently she's a budding singer/songwriter.

And now it's been about an hour since this horrific experience and I'm sitting in the cafe, still recovering. Still shaking a bit.

But on the bright side, my Facebook status about this experience has 15 likes and counting.

With No Regrets.

This is the story of a girl who let one negative critique rule her life. A girl who failed to recognized her own talent. A girl who lost faith in herself.

This little girl grew up in a show-business family. Her parents were both fantastic actors and her dad could even sing. Her mom could paint almost as well as Picasso, and both parents had an ear for music. The little girl was pretty much destined to succeed at anything in the fine arts genre.

Pretty much ever since she uttered her first word, she was on stage in plays. She did plays, skits, and musicals for both church and school.

When she was about 9, her church started doing children's musicals. Of course, she auditioned. She loved acting, and was hoping to get a lead part.

Everyone was required to not only do an acting audition, however, but a singing audition as well. So, naturally, she auditioned for that, too. She had never really sung before, so she wasn't sure how things were going to go.

They went extremely well.

Her mom was the director for the musical, and therefore had inside information. Her mom found out that her daughter had one of the best singing auditions out of everybody.

The little girl was given a lead role and two solos. This was the first time she had ever sung in front of an audience.

And the last, for many years.

The next year, it came time for another musical. The little girl was 10 now, and thought she had the lead role in the bag. She received a callback on her acting audition. She did not, however receive a callback for singing.

She was not cast in a lead role. She was not given a solo.

She found out later, from her mother's inside information, that she was not even considered for having a solo. The judges apparently had not liked her audition. They didn't like her voice.

The little girl believed this critique. She began thinking that they were right and that she had no talent. She had no intention of ever singing again.

Well, that didn't last long, of course. She loved singing too much. Her mother enrolled her in voice lessons to improve, but that still didn't stop her from believing that she was talentless. The only people she ever let hear her sing were her mom and her voice teacher. They said she was good, but they had to. Their opinions didn't count in her mind.

This went on for about 5 years.

One day, her school decided to have a musical. Anyone with musical talent was asked to audition for a singing role. Under normal circumstances, the now 15-year-old girl would have done what she always does: fade into the background, and pretend to have no talent. Unfortunately, she didn't have that option. Her mom was, to her dismay, the director. She was, quite literally, forced to audition.

And she got the lead role, with two solos.

But that still wasn't enough to convince her that she could sing. Despite all the comments she got after the play, she didn't believe them. Not one.

In fact, it still took her 2 years after that to start regaining confidence in her ability.

After this musical where everyone realized that, hey, she can sing, many opportunities arose for the girl to sing more. And she was expected to take them.

Her mom wanted her to sing in the school talent show. She didn't.

Her parents and friends wanted her to join the worship band for the youth group. She didn't.

Her mom wanted her to audition for a recording as part of the elementary school girls' curriculum at her church. That one she did, but she regretted it. She didn't get the recording--because she sounded too mature. Not a bad critique, just not right for the part. But that didn't matter.

The judges' opinion about her voice from 5 years earlier still resonated in the back of her head. She still believed it.

Then the next school musical rolled around. Again, she was forced to audition. Again she got the lead part with solos. Again, she lacked confidence.

She put on a small concert for family and a few friends (her new voice teacher's idea, of course). This one was even worse than the musicals.

But then, she went on a mission trip. On this trip, she stepped out, and joined the worship band. She, along with her friends, led many in worship during this time. And she had a great time doing it. She actually found herself more confident than ever before, and realized that this was what she was supposed to be doing.

And finally, after three years of hiding behind the crowd, she joined her youth group's worship band.

With no regrets.

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In case you didn't figure this out, this is a true story. The little girl is me. Not to say that I'm like the new Celine Dion or anything, but I am starting to think that I'm not as tone-deaf as I thought I was for so many years. I share this story for a couple reasons: One, for anyone who doesn't get why I was so coy about my singing for so long. Now you know. 

Two, to show how I wasted so many years hiding my gift and feeling discouraged just because I had one bad singing day when I was 10. I chose to listen to the opinion of three people who happened to hear me on a bad day, over the opinion of hundreds who have heard me on more than one occasion.

Third, for some reason this story has been on my mind a lot lately, and writing helps me clear my thoughts. What better place to write it than here?

My Decision Was Final...Until I Changed It.

I didn't want to do it.

I wasn't going to do it.

No one could make me do it.

And nothing was going to change my mind.

This used to be my attitude toward being on the worship team in my youth group. With as much as I loved singing, I hated being on stage in front of people and there was no way I was going to do it. Even though, every year for the past three years, I slowly warmed up to the idea, each year I continued to reject the opportunity because my stubborn nature refused to let me do otherwise.

Well, this year, my senior year, I'm finally going to join the team. And I'm super excited about it.

Why? Well, after being on the band for the Canada mission trip, I realized that singing in front of a bunch of people isn't as bad as I was expecting. It's still not my favorite thing to do. I definitely prefer singing in the shower or in my bedroom where no one can hear me. However, I love singing. And after I got over the anxiety of singing in front of a bunch of people, I actually enjoyed myself. A lot.

And then, I got to thinking. And I came to three conclusions:

1. I love singing. Seriously. It might be my favorite thing to do. Like, ever. 
2. The people that are on the worship band is a great group of kids. Way better than some of the friends I've had in the past. And, as I discovered hanging out with this group in Canada, they're a ton of fun. Definitely a bonus. :-)
3. This is what God wants me to do. He gave me a gift that for years I've been hiding. This is how I can best serve him.

I guess, somewhere deep down inside of me, I've always known all this. But, I'd made such a big deal out of NOT doing the band, I could never bring myself to admit that I should.  But, that doesn't matter to me anymore, because seriously...how can I not do it after realizing all this? It's a win-win-win situation.

Seriously, I wish I'd thought of this three years ago!