Two hours in the life of a teenager
As soon as I walked in to church this morning, Katilynn grabbed me: "Can you play this?"
I took a look at it; I'd heard the song before, so I played through it once to familiarize myself... "Good. I'll be singing it at 11:00," and she headed for the copier to run a set.
Meanwhile, I was in a bit of a stupor. She has that kind of "whatever" aloof shyness that some teenagers have, and as far I knew, she had never sung in church before.
In the interim, she was my only student today -- which usually happens during youth football season: the boys are playing, the girls cheerleading -- so, after quizzing her on who Abraham was, we shot the breeze across the table.
I have only Katilynn's word on the following story. Take it with a Lot's-wife-pillar of salt:
Apparently, there's this 17YO boy from Pennsylvania she met on MyYearbook.com who took quite the fancy to her. She got annoyed at the attention, let alone the IRL 14YO boyfriend she does have.
So when she updated her profile photo, she did a little Photoshopping work on what she described as her "worst picture ever" by making it look she cuts herself. I should state her categorically that she does not cut herself. She showed me her arms and they are cut-free. In the ensuing conversation, I hope I stressed the importance of co-opting such a dangerous activity and lying about it for trivial purposes.
And now, back to the music...
Her spot in the 11:00 service came up, and I asked her how many times she wanted me to play the song (once) and we kicked off.
As of right now, she won't be headlining any production of Christian School Musical.
She sang ably, albeit softly (like her grandmother does), and hopefully her stage fright subsided a bit when I made a very noticeable mistake; on the sheet music, the entire song was bracketed by repeat bars. So although she was going to sing it once, that required me to play it twice... but I didn't.
Hopefully, this won't discourage her or any other willing soul to hook up with the Piano Man for a little bonus music at church.
I took a look at it; I'd heard the song before, so I played through it once to familiarize myself... "Good. I'll be singing it at 11:00," and she headed for the copier to run a set.
Meanwhile, I was in a bit of a stupor. She has that kind of "whatever" aloof shyness that some teenagers have, and as far I knew, she had never sung in church before.
In the interim, she was my only student today -- which usually happens during youth football season: the boys are playing, the girls cheerleading -- so, after quizzing her on who Abraham was, we shot the breeze across the table.
I have only Katilynn's word on the following story. Take it with a Lot's-wife-pillar of salt:
Apparently, there's this 17YO boy from Pennsylvania she met on MyYearbook.com who took quite the fancy to her. She got annoyed at the attention, let alone the IRL 14YO boyfriend she does have.
So when she updated her profile photo, she did a little Photoshopping work on what she described as her "worst picture ever" by making it look she cuts herself. I should state her categorically that she does not cut herself. She showed me her arms and they are cut-free. In the ensuing conversation, I hope I stressed the importance of co-opting such a dangerous activity and lying about it for trivial purposes.
And now, back to the music...
Her spot in the 11:00 service came up, and I asked her how many times she wanted me to play the song (once) and we kicked off.
As of right now, she won't be headlining any production of Christian School Musical.
She sang ably, albeit softly (like her grandmother does), and hopefully her stage fright subsided a bit when I made a very noticeable mistake; on the sheet music, the entire song was bracketed by repeat bars. So although she was going to sing it once, that required me to play it twice... but I didn't.
Hopefully, this won't discourage her or any other willing soul to hook up with the Piano Man for a little bonus music at church.