First day of the month, first Sunday of the month, Fast Sunday, get that out of the way as soon as possible, it being the first this month, phew. Fast Sunday is a blessing, though, of course. 58:13 of Isaiah calls the Sabbath a delight, 59:14 of the Doctrine and Covenants says that fasting and prayer is just another way to say rejoicing and prayer. So it's alright to fast, and going without eating for a little bit at least is a healthy way of reminding your body that you're its master, and, heck, maybe once a month isn't enough sometimes? But, dang, I was super thirsty, like, all day, today. Going without eating is something I'm well practiced at by now, but going without drinking is kind of... eh.
There should be purpose behind fasting, anyway, of course, fasting coupled with prayer and all that, and, with the words of Channing Winget floating in my mind the way that the d12 floats inside of a Magic 8 ball, all blue and murky and mysterious, I aimed my fasting and prayer toward answering the question, how can I get practise in on stuff, pushing myself though I don't have much time when there's a bunch of other stuff I enjoy doing that I'd like to get practise in on, too?
My singing voice has been kind of lousy lately, but it was awesome today. How could that be? Range exercise after waking up, of course, but also: I practiced the harmonica today a bit, really great for breath control, and my voice is always so much better after doing that. It doesn't even require that much practise. It was great. So secret of compound practise number 1: harmonica, then singing.
I've got a Pinterest account now, as of, a couple of days ago! This was in the computer lab, working on art homework, printing out the things I needed printed out, and reading aforementioned Channing Winget tumblr post. And, Pinteresting. Have yet to pin a single thing; basically everything in the world is super pinnable, and so if I actually start to do that, instead of just looking at other people's pins, it'd be a super slippery slope... but, Pinterest, anyway, is a super useful resource, and another way that I can compound my practise:
Pinterest, step one: put on some scriptures on audio in the background. I've made a goal to get in at least 20 minutes of scripture study a day as a baseline, this semester, and have been doing, not the hottest, at it, so far. Listening to the scriptures is something that I can do, and/or conference talks, having those on in the background. I can never put music on in the background; for me, music is something that you concentrate on, have on in the foreground, can't have it as just wallpaper or anything. Movies and television are the same way; I see people putting on, like, Arrow in the background, and then going onto Facebook or something, and I can't do that, I have to pay attention. But for conference talks, the most significant important kind of deal, that I can totally put on in the background and osmose while I do something else, so long as that something else isn't too distracting. Practicing art, specifically say following tutorials on Pinterest, is the perfect balance. Secret 2.
Pinterest has a lot more than just art tutorials, of course! Another thing it's a fantastic resource for is writing tips, prompts, and inspiration in general. This is the only "secret" I have not yet attempted, though the rest of the day (and not even that much of it, that is, it didn't take up that much time) has been filled with following through with the inspiration received from my fast on how to improve on my talents. So, those secrets up there so far: totally legit. This one, it's not something I can yet vouch for personally, but it did strike me as being a good idea a couple of days ago when I first did sign up for Pinterest. I was all, dang, all these pins, my inspiration meter's filling up! An inspiration meter isn't something that stays filled up, though, so no matter how much you manage to absorb you're still going to need to find some way to apply whatever it is that's inspiring you, lest it go to waste. So I figured: yeah, getting in some (creative) writing, directly after browsing some of the insane imaginative stuff on Pinterest, that'd be the perfect time to do that.
So, schedule bit again: much like how singing is better after playing harmonica, or drawing practise is the perfect time to get scripture study in, I figure at least, that, after the 20 minutes of scriptures and drawing practise are up, take a short time, maybe 10-15 minutes but like I said I haven't attempted this yet so wouldn't know, take an amount of time long enough to absorb imagination but short enough to keep yourself on track and avoid getting distracted, on Pinterest miscellaneously, though more particularly toward creative writing and that sort of thing, and then clicking out of that and getting some writing in. However much time. I don't know. Ideally an hour or two, but, if we really had that kind of time to get things like that in, I wouldn't have to work on figuring out how to align practises to maximize each of them.
And finally, what was that other thing I said I needed to practise on (besides socializing, because, I really am getting a lot of that here,) it's piano. I also practiced that today, and so can vouch for this one. Piano- well, first of all, it goes quite well with socializing, actually, so that's another compound, one I wasn't even aiming for. But, piano practise, scheduling it...? I don't know. After or before drawing, or typing, my fingers don't really discern any difference between either. I reckon it would perhaps align nicely with singing or playing the harmonica though?
Meanwhile, though, I've been using the British spelling of the word "practise," because my spellcheck right now doesn't seem to like spelling it with a c? So I'm rolling with it.
So yeah. In summation: scripture study/drawing practise → Pinterest → writing → piano I guess after typing?/chilling with friends here? → harmonica? → vocal skillz. It's all pretty logical, I guess, though mouth organing, once again, doesn't really take that much time, so could get in there before everything, or independent of it, or anything. But that's where it fits logically within the, logical progression, so, there you go I guess.
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