You know that point in the semester when you have so much stuff you should be doing, but you come up with lots of ways to keep busy to prolong doing your school work. The times when having dance parties, going to get ice cream, and playing volleyball aren't even questions in your mind, you are going because if you don't you would be in the library studying for your exam. Even cleaning your apartment and going to the gym sound like great ideas, because well you haven't worked out all semester but in high school health class they told you that exercising was good for your brain. Well for me this situation may or may not occur way more than once a semester, but I can usually count on it happening around finals week each semester. My second semester of college was no exception! With only a few days left in the semester my roommate and I were in the living room avoiding school work for a couple of hours as she played the ukulele and then proceeded to show me a few of the basics. It was so much fun and way more memorable than studying a couple more pages in my sociology book. Since that jam session I have wanted to learn to play the ukulele, but have never made it a priority. So here I am 5 years later finally making steps towards the goal of learning the ukulele.
Most of the steps that I have taken in efforts to start my new occupation fall in the calculative thinking. I researched ukuleles online before deciding to purchase a ukulele at a local music store. In addition to purchasing the ukulele I have talked with friends who play the ukulele who are willing to help teach me the basics. As of right now my occupation is going to be heavy in calculative thinking until I am comfortable with the basics of the ukulele and can move towards more meditative thinking. I am hoping that the meditative thinking will come more into play as I learn to enjoy playing the ukulele and choose songs that have more meaning to me.
The only personal experience I have had with a ukulele is the one that I described earlier with my roommate. Although this experience has given me a small amount of personal meaning in my desire to learn the ukulele, the majority of my desire to learn is coming from societal expectations that may come from class or my desire to conform with my current roommates who play string instruments as well.
Congrats on finally picking up the uke to learn! My occupation (singing) is also something that I have put off doing for a long time. You said that you mostly used calculative thinking so far in pursuing your occupation. Was meditative thinking involved in choosing your ukulele? I feel that starting out with an instrument there is less knowledge about how it sounds and it can be easy to use meditative thinking to pick out an instrument that you simply like the look or sound of (without a certain reason).
ReplyDeleteMy choice of ukulele was both calculative and meditative. I didn't want to spend lots of money on the ukulele so that limited my choices of ukulele, so once I found the ones that were in my price range I chose the ukulele based on color.
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