So I’m sitting here thinking, what is it? That drives me, that pushes me to untie certain knots (Where’s that link, David?) and leave others in a heap on the floor.

I know one of the answers. It is beauty. Beauty for the sake of beauty. Beauty that comes from balance. Beauty that comes from people. Beauty that comes from efficiency. I think that pretty much sums it up.

And it’s nice to know that about myself, again.

I had to laugh and then think a bit more about the moral of this story.

There is a difference between A. Credentials; B. Skills, knowledge, and experience; C. Specialization; and D. Market smarts. Everybody who wants to succeed in a local, regional, national, or global economy needs to pay attention to all four. Let me elaborate on each of these, which I think apply in good economic times as well as bad.

A. Credentials get you into the paper club. They are mostly valued by the gatekeepers of traditional full-time employment, HR Departments. HR likes paper because it has shown over time to mitigate the risk of hiring people that would hurt more than help their enterprise or their enterprise’s culture (enterprise being defined loosely as any not-for-profit, for-profit, or governmental organization or firm). It’s also a way to brand a company or institution (look at us: we have sixteen grads from M.I.T. on our team). The problem with credentials is that even with oversight from accrediting bodies in every region and for most every industry, it’s still just paper. Until HR departments decide that other pieces of a potential employee’s profile are more important (i.e. industry experience or the portfolios that are becoming more and more prevalent in educational environments), we are stuck with the requirement of getting at least one, and probably more, pieces of paper to compete.

B. As I have observed in workplaces around the globe, the problem with credentials is that they cannot and do not necessarily represent IN ANY WAY the real skills, knowledge, or experience acquired by its holder. The real learning that must occur for a person to acquire relevant skills, knowledge, or experience that bring value to an organization or a marketplace can not be easily represented by grades or a G.P.A. to start with. But more than that, educational organizations experience all kinds of inertia and historical baggage that keep them from delivering the real goods. They might try, but by and large, they will not give you the real skills, knowledge, and experience that will make you more marketable in a global economy. They’ll give you a piece of paper, though! That’s a start. I don’t think we should fret about this or try to make it different. Consumers just need to realize that they will have to make other investments in themselves outside of formal education to get the skills, knowledge, and experience that they really need to enter a field. My best advice in this regard is to seek out groups of professionals already working in your field of interest and FIND A MENTOR. True learning—the kind that really gives you an edge on the competition—is individual, costly, and doesn’t scale very easily. So budget for it. Plan to spend money to get yourself to where the living, breathing people in your field are, whether those are conferences, specialized workshops, user groups, or cutting-edge information, books, and media. This is where “80 percent of success in life is…” (Thank you, Woody.) You’re going to have to pay to learn from other people’s mistakes or pay while you make them yourself to learn from your experience. There is no shortcut here, no piece of paper that will get you to this level of general competency and true entrance into your field of choice. It’s about time. It’s about passion. And it will require more money than you already paid for your formal education. Good luck.

C. But that still might not be enough! Acceptance into your field of choice is just the beginning. You still have learn how to make pancakes that are different than all of the other pancakes in the marketplace. Plan to specialize in at least two, hopefully three, sub-specialties in your field that are, or will be, in demand. I can speak to this in terms of translation. Translation is a skill (B), increasingly in demand, that is acquired over time as one works with real clients. You can get a certificate (A), like I happen to have, but it’s not enough. To achieve proficiency, translators need to get real world experience demonstrating their skill when money is on the line. That’s the only way to really learn what it takes to be a good translator and whether or not you’re cut out for the job. Additionally, you need to have specialties that are in demand for your translation skills to count. Generally speaking, corporations, governments, banks, institutes, and NGOs contract translators for technical, scientific, medical, and legal translations. If you don’t have a specialty in one of those general domains, don’t count on making a great living as a translator any time soon. Even though I have the capacity to be a good translator and have practiced several of the skills involved in that career path, I can’t say that I truly specialize in any particular technical field, so I cannot compete for the most lucrative jobs out there. In the mean time, I take more general translation and transcription jobs as they come. But I can assure you, it’s not paying the bills.

D. Part of the reason why translation is not paying my bills is also part of the reason why my friend is doing so well in his career. Market smarts. He has proven to his employers to be able to quickly and flexibly retool when ever his company or a potential client has a problem that nobody’s solved before. He doesn’t go where everybody else goes. He goes for all of the hard problems that nobody else likes and he sticks with them until he closes the deal. I’m sure a lot of his prospects turn out to be dead-ends. But the end result of this decision over many years is that he has a variety of specialties under his belt that increase his chances of bringing value to his company. Since the market moves in waves, like a good surfer, he rides the good ones and jumps off on to a new wave just before the old one peaks. He doesn’t plan on staying with any one wave (product cycle) for longer than 5-7 years. Instead, he plants many seeds and tries to be smart about where he focuses his efforts.

So where is this all going? Yes, we all need to develop critical thinking skills. I like to think about the list of cognitive skills identified by Roger Shank, for example, or the plea for a new sensibility of what constitutes ability or intelligence by Sir Ken Robinson. But if we can’t apply our creativity and critical thinking skills to the ever-changing global job market or local communities, then what good will they be to our personal bottom line and the long-term security of our families? Again, I’m not fretting about the fact that they don’t teach this in school. They rarely will. And if they tried, I would still wonder whether it would make any appreciable difference in their graduates’ economic pathway (I’d love to be wrong about this!). Instead, I suggest that recent college grads or seniors about to graduate find mentors who are good at reading the signs of the market times in their chosen field(s) and then follow that advice so that they don’t specialize in things for which there is or will be no demand during their lifetimes.

A sobering post, I guess. But I’ve seen far too many college graduates (and I include myself here, in many instances) not only academically adrift, but economically adrift. And for very good, clearly identifiable reasons.

When it comes to education, I like to think outside of the box that has got us all into this pickle. What if we just stopped pretending that education for credentials was the same as education for judgment? What if we just streamlined the credentialing process so that people could get the piece of paper that is so important to HR departments, since I don’t suppose they will change any time soon. And then, what if we organized ourselves, in other non-credentialed ways, to provide citizens with the real skills, learning, and experience, specialties, and market smarts that they really need to succeed? Just a thought. I know that many in education would hate to see the piece of paper from their institution referred to as a mere credential. Devaluation for one institution is devaluation for everybody. But if that’s where we are in our conception and delivery of education, that’s where we are! And if unemployed college graduates can live in their just-tell-me-what-to-do-to-get-an-A dreamworld, then I’ll live in mine! There ARE better ways to take advantage of the immense human capital that surrounds us. I am convinced of that. If we could just release our grasp on tradition a little, let go of the prestige of history, we might have a chance of enjoying the opportunities and tackling the challenges that are all around us in the present.

2. Partituras y pistas de canciones individuales de CN

3. Si escucho con el corazón (partitura-dos páginas)

**Si escucho con el corazón (letra y música)**

Si escucho con el corazón (música)

¡Que tengan un muy buen año!

This Saturday, I’ll be performing eleven lullabies by Argentine composers with pianist Nancy Pounds. Local friends are welcome to attend. It will be held in Presser Hall on the Illinois Wesleyan University campus and begins at 7:30. I will have a slideshow with Latin American art and translations behind me so that everyone can understand the words. Children are especially welcome! More info here.

Program notes:
I view lullabies as having a special place in the heart of the Argentine nation. The emotional environment of this simple genre, which so quickly elicits feelings of security, maternal protection, and familial love, were welcomed by Argentine audiences throughout the twentieth century, especially during times of political upheaval, social change, or economic uncertainty. The homogenizing effect of these emotions brought together disparate localities of Argentine identity: the middle- or upper-class porteño (city of Buenos Aires) experience, the rural criollo (province of Buenos Aires and beyond) experience, the indigenous pre-colonial experience, and many other spaces in-between.

The first lullaby, for example, written and composed by Enrique Mario Casella, and dedicated to his daughter recalls the familial security of a smaller town in the northern province of Tucumán, amply provided for in 1919 by the sugar cane industry. The second lullaby, written and composed by Julián Aguirre, invokes images of an urban mother or nanny from a well-to-do family, rocking her baby to sleep in a comfortable nursery. The third piece, a children’s chant, encourages students to obey their mothers and go to bed at the appointed hour. The lullaby by Pascual De Rogatis, which falls more clearly into the tradition of Western art song, emphasizes the common theme of how tired a mother is and reminds us that the obvious purpose of the lullaby is to put the baby to sleep so that the mother can get some rest. The two lullabies that follow, by Ana Serrano Redonnet and Gilardo Gilardi, attempt to evoke the “indianist” manner of singing a baby to sleep, with a text that calls upon indigenous deities and a piano accompaniment that imitates the supposed irregularities of indigenous music. Attentive listeners will hear the beating of the bombo (folk drum) and the trilling of the quena (indigenous flute). Alberto Ginastera’s lullaby from his oft-performed set of Cinco canciones popluares argentinas (Five Popular Argentine Songs) layers a simple lullaby against a nostalgic dissonant accompaniment, recalling the nostalgia for simpler, peaceful times in the context of the military movements for heightened control during the 1940s. Lía Cimaglia Espinosa and Carlos Guastavino do us the favor of setting two of Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral’s most famous poems, Botoncito and Meciendo, both beautifully represented in the piano accompaniment. One can hear in Meciendo, for example, the gyration of sea water, wind gusts, and rocking chairs, which Guastavino achieves with a continual syncopated rhythmic pattern that pulls our ears to upbeat instead of the downbeat. I end tonight’s set with an a cappella Vocalise by living composer Irma Urteaga as well as her setting of another poem that works with the metaphor of small children as “little flower buds”, which, suddenly and unexpectedly, blossom before our eyes.

Canción de cuna / Lullaby (1919) — Enrique Mario Casella (1891-1948)

from Dos canciones de cuna — Julián Aguirre (1868-1924)
Ea / Sleep now (1923)

from Tres canciones de cuna de estrella florida — Athos Palma (1891-1952)
Canción de pollitos con sueño / Song of the Sleepy Young Chicks (1924)

Canción de cuna / Lullaby (1930) — Pascual De Rogatis (1880-1980)

Canción de la guagua (Arrorró indio) / Baby’s Song (Indian Lullaby) (1939) — Ana Serrano Redonnet (1910-1993)

Canción de cuna india / Indian Lullaby (1942) — Gilardo Gilardi (1889-1963)

from Cinco canciones populares argentinas — Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Arrorró / Lu la lay (1943)

Botoncito / Little Bud (1945) — Lía Cimaglia Espinosa (1906-1998)

from Seis canciones de cuna — Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)
Meciendo / Rocking (1961)

from Canticos para sonar — Urteaga, Irma (b. 1929)
Vocalise / Vocalise
and Capullito / Little Flower Bud (1993)

I really enjoyed MA student Carlos Avila’s conducting concert last night. He prepared a whole range of wonderful pieces from Latin America for small ensembles ranging from string orchestra to handbells. I’ll post excerpts of the concert here so others can enjoy his great work. It’s once in a blue moon that concerts like this come to central Illinois, so I’m especially grateful for his efforts.

PART ONE: Ocho por Radio (México) by Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940); El coquí (Puerto Rico) by José I. Quintón (1881-1925); Amalia (Venezuela) by Francisco de Paula Aguirre (1875-1939); La canción del arbol del olvido (Argentina) by Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983); and Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 (Brazil) by Heitor Villa-Lobos.

PART TWO: Sinfonietta for String Orchestra (Puerto Rico) by Jack Delano (1914-1997); Impresiones de la Puna (Argentina) by Alberto Ginstera; Suite for Strings No. 1 (Venezuela) by Aldemaro Romero (1928-2007); and Almendra (Cuba) by Abelardo Valdés (1911-1958).

Anyhow, in a recent series of youtube videos on her blog, Carol reviews how each of the four Types go through their “pity parties”. I think it’s worth posting them here. It might help you better understand how certain people in your life deal with stress and conflict.

Type 1: The tantrum Type

Type 2: The pouty Type

Type 3: The “I have to do it all myself” Type

Type 4: The silent Type

Moon river, wider than a mile
I’m crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you’re goin’, i’m goin’ your way

Two drifters, off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
We’re after the same rainbow’s end, waitin’ ’round the bend
My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me

(interlude)

Two drifters, off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
We’re after the same rainbow’s end, waitin’ ’round the bend
My huckleberry friend, moon river, and me

I. MOVING AROUND

Move to First Segment of Doc:
Fn + Ctrl + Left Arrow

Move to Last Segment of Doc:
Fn + Ctrl + Right Arrow

Move to Previous Block:
Fn + Up Arrow

Move to Next Block:
Fn + Down Arrow

Move to First Segment of Block:
Fn + Left Arrow

Move to Last Segment of Block:
Fn + Right Arrow

Move to Previous Segment of Doc:
Up Arrow

Move to Next Segment of Doc:
Down Arrow

Provisional Segment: [Default Fn + F10 conflicts with OS commands!] I changed this shortcut to
Option + S (You’ll know it worked if yellow box shows up at left of segment. To avoid ending the translation, I’m in the habit of typing “s” in the target field when I don’t want to translate it and then Option + S to move on in the document.)

Translate until Fuzzy Match:
Fn + Shift + Ctrl + Down Arrow

Shrink Segment:
Fn + Option + Up Arrow

Expand Segment:
Fn + Option + Down Arrow

II. TOOLS

Show/Hide TM Panel:
Ctrl + Option + M

Concordance Search:
Ctrl + Option + C

Delete TU:
Ctrl + Option + Delete (This is buggy. I can’t go back and edit segments where I’ve recently deleted the TU associated with it)

Show/Hide Glossary Panel:
Ctrl + Option + H

Glossary Search:
Ctrl + Option + G (This isn’t working for me. When I open, it says “The glossary is empty” even though the Glossary is “on” and “tested”, I’ve added terms to it, and can see in the right hand side glossary entries popping up. Hmmm…)

Glossary Dialog Box:
Ctrl + Option + T (Select first term and it will automatically be added to first field in the glossary, though I’m having difficult getting rid of the placeable red box, which when present, only takes the placeable term instead of the complete phrase that I’ve highlighted)

Open Setup Dialog Box:
Ctrl + Option + W

Change Display Mode (Toggle between viewing target only, source only, or bilingual view- you can also click on lower right hand corner of screen):
Ctrl + Comma

III. SEGMENT EDITING

Open Previous Segment:
Option + Up Arrow

Open Next Segment (Commits currently open segment to TM! and doesn’t appear to overwrite existing. I’m seeing multiple duplicate TUs in the TM window.):
Option + Down Arrow

Close and Save Segment (and End Translation):
Fn + Option + Right Arrow*

Close Segment without saving (and End Translation):
Shift + Fn + Option + Right Arrow*

Restore Original Segment:
Fn+ Option + Delete

Copy Source: [Default Fn + Option + Enter doesn't work] I changed to
Ctrl + Option + D for “Dump” Source into Target

Copy Previous TM Match:
Option + Left Arrow

Copy Next TM Match:
Option + Right Arrow

Copy TM Match:
Shift + Fn + Option + Enter

Empty Target Segment:
Ctrl + Option + x

Toggle Placeable (Show Placeables):
Ctrl + Option + Up Arrow

Next Placeable:
Ctrl + Option + Right Arrow

Previous Placeable:
Ctrl + Option + Left Arrow

Copy Placeable:
Ctrl + Option + Down Arrow (Also: Shift + Tab seems to do this?)

Next Word:
Tab (not sure of intended context for this command; seems to work with placeables)

Previous Word:
Shift + Tab

*Note: I find that sometimes after completing an operation, such as closing a segment with or without saving, the cursor moves OUTSIDE the application. An annoying error beep will tell you something is wrong when you try to make your next move. This may happen because it thinks* you are finished translating. Press tab and you will see that it moves to the address bar in your BROWSER. Click tab again to move through any fields that you have in your browser toolbars. Once you’ve tabbed out of the final field you will be back in the web application and can proceed with your regular short cuts.

Feist

The Republic Tigers

Landon Pigg

Natalie Walker

Regina Spektor

Mates of State

The Crystal Method

Band of Horses

the bird and the bee

The Postal Service (Death Cab)

Sigur Rós (Jónsi)

Björk

• Bella
• Sweet Land
• Jean de Florette
• I’ve Loved You So Long
• Amazing Grace
• Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
• turtles can fly
• A River Runs Through It
• What About Bob?
• God Grew Tired of Us
• The Secret of Kells
• Kinamand
• Searching for Bobby Fischer
• Queen to Play
• Grave of the Fireflies
• Ponyo
• Rabit-Proof Fence
• Strictly Ballroom
• The Man Who Planted Trees
• Random Harvest
• The Help
• Crossing Delancey
• Miss Potter
• Coco before Chanel
• States of Grace
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Viva Zapata!
• Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
• Ballad of a Soldier
• Educating Rita
• To be and to have
• Ladri di biciclette
• Italianetz
• Fiddler on the Roof
• Departures
• Chocolat
• The Story of the Weeping Camel
• Séraphine
• Big Fish
• Lilies of the Field
• Elmer Gantry
• The Quiet Man
• Inception
• Ray
• You Can’t Take It with You
• Not one less
• Metropolis (2001)
• Waking Life
• Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School
• The Visitor
• The Chosen
• Daniel Deronda
• Ponette
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Bridge to Terabithia
• Waitress
• Ce que mes yeux ont vu
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s
• Roman Holiday
• Song of Sparrows
• Peaceful Warrior
• John Adams
• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
• 84 Charring Cross Road
• Penny Serenade
• Dear Frankie
• The Tammy Movies
• Polar Express
• An Angel for May
• A Beautiful Mind
• The Moon and the Son (2005)
• The Princess Bride
• Man on Wire
• Walk the Line
• Waking Ned Divine
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Orfeu Negro
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Toy Story
• Babette’s Feast
• On A Clear Day
• Forrest Gump
• The Neverending Story
• Empire of the Sun
• Awakenings
• A Bug’s Life
• What’s Up Doc?
• Pane e tulipani
• Who am I this time?
• 500 Days of Summer
• Shadowlands
• Chariots of Fire
• Molière
• Wings of Desire
• Is Anybody There?
• Driving Miss Daisy
• Le papillon
• The Mission
• 12 Angry Men
• For Whom The Bell Tolls
• La vita e bella
• A Star is Born (1954)
• Pete’s Dragon
• Avalon (1990)
• La vie en rose
• Edward Scissorshands
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Enchanted April
• Some Kind of Wonderful
• My Life
• The Kid
• Under the Tuscan Sun
• Say Anything
• Citizen Kane
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• E.T.
• Singin’ in the Rain
• Afterlife (1998)
• Say Anything…
• The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn
• Pride and Prejudice
• Becoming Jane
• A Room with a View
• Somewhere in Time
• The Namesake
• Once
• Young Frankenstein
• North & South
• The Scarlet Pimpernel
• Remains of the Day
• Songcatcher
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Sense & Sensibility
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Never Cry Wolf
• The Year My Parents Went On Vacation
• Up!
• Wallace & Gromit
• Chicken Little
• Places in the Heart
• Winnie the Pooh
• Charlotte’s Web
• Ratatouille
• The Man of Snowy River
• The Boy Who Could Fly
• The Sandlot
• Serenity
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
• You’ve Got Mail
• Sleepless in Seattle
• Jaws
• Danzak’
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding
• The Journey of Natty Gann
• Into The Woods
• The Secret Garden
• Annie
• Casablanca
• An American Tail
• Tuck Everlasting
• The Muppets Take Manhatten
• Winged Migration
• March of the Penguins
• Paper Moon
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• The Sound of Music
• The Wizard of Oz
• Into the Woods

Thou art more powerful than me.

If I climb your staff will you wrap me up,
will you swallow me whole,
and send me down your black pole?

To the rich brown earth
To live with the roots
To slumber there
And eat fat worms
While you envelop my life
And pierce my heart.

In the hair of your roots.

Your roots.
Your roots.

1. Eat good food. I really like the guides laid out in the Fat Flush books and the products sold at UNIKEY. Mercola.com has some great products and information too. I try my best to eat whole foods that bring vibrant, raw nutrients into my body. And I’m a stickler for clean water. [p.s. This book will help you shift your relationship with food if it's being used as a substitute for other unmet needs.]

2. Sleep. I need nine hours to process everything that happens to me in a day. And to process all the processing I did in a day. I know. It’s a lot of time but I feel great when I give it to myself.

3. Hot baths and clean sheets. I give myself the joy of a hot bath around 5 times per week. Excessive? I think not.

4. Write. Three pages (8 1/2 x 11) of freewriting every morning (“Morning Pages” in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way). When I wake up, I have all this stuff spinning around in my brain. Get a notebook like this one or this one and write three pages of blah, blah, blah, nothing, whining, happy, blissful, possibilities, shallow-ness. Get it all out. Then you can talk to God with a clear head. And only then you can interact with God’s children. This is different than writing in my journal, which I consider more of a conscious act. These pages are meant to be messy and only I will ever read them. I use them to acknowledge myself and my own experiences and feelings, as they are and not as they “should” be. When it’s time, I will burn them (after taking note of any of the good ideas that might have trickled down in there).

5. Prayer, meditation, slow breathing, peaceful music. Though again, I’m not really in the mood until I’ve written my peace in the Morning Pages. Some people dig yoga for this.

6. Scriptures. Read whatever holy writing you believe represents truth and light. Feed it to yourself. Even just opening the books help. Have them close to you. I read these.

7. Slow walks. Brisk walks. Speed walks. Thoughtful walks. Just walk. At least 20 minutes of every day that I can fit it in. Bike rides are a bonus. Walks are essential. Even better if you break a gentle sweat. This helps the body detox. Also, I recently discovered and am having a blast with T-Tapp!

8. Create and Play. Write a song. Learn how to sing! Paint a picture. Write a thoughtful entry in my journal. Write a book. Write a screenplay. Contemplate something. Draw something. Hang up something. Take a picture. Care for plants. Work in a garden. Doodle something. Clean up something. All activities that help me learn and express myself better.

9. Work with my energy systems. All of the activities on this list actually help clean up your energy without you knowing it, but there are also ways of more directly cleaning up the energy that flows through your physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental bodies. My favorite guides in this respect: Louise Hay (for positive language), Donna Eden (for balancing hormones), therapeutic gemstones (for cleaning up unhealthy patterns), Carol Tuttle (for my spiritual journey, turning on chakras, human experience, and adorning the feminine expression). Regular massages and healthy monogamous sex are excellent for this as well.

10. Explore and learn something new. Go places you haven’t gone before. Watch good movies, talks, or documentaries. Read good books, explore new neighborhoods and parks, countries. Learn about your ancestors. Visit a bookstore or library. Create lots of small adventures for yourself and throw in a big one when you can.

I’d love to hear what my friends and readers would add to this list!

If you are a classically-trained singer or know one, help us celebrate by sharing the gift of this largely unexplored repertoire.

Buy at Amazon or directly from the publisher.

Product description:
A reference guide to the vast array of art song literature and composers from Latin America, this book introduces the music of Latin America from a singer’s perspective and provides a basis for research into the songs of this richly musical area of the world. The book is divided by country into 22 chapters, with each chapter containing an introductory essay on the music of the region, a catalog of art songs for that country, and a list of publishers. Some chapters include information on additional sources. Singers and teachers may use descriptive annotations (language, poet) or pedagogical annotations (range, tessitura) to determine which pieces are appropriate for their voices or programming needs, or those of their students. The guide will be a valuable resource for vocalists and researchers, however familiar they may be with this glorious repertoire

• Las 13 canciones cantadas por mí
• Las 13 canciones con pistas instrumentales
• La partitura entera—veinte páginas con el acompanimiento para piano

Esperamos agregar ayudas visuales (gratis) al sitio en las semanas venideras. Yo he probado estas canciones y verdadermente ayudan que yo haya podido memorizar y RECORDAR todas las palabras a los Artículos de Fe. ¡Esperamos que puedan ayudarles a sus familias también!

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p.d. Este sitio lo hace muy fácil que compartas las canciones que te gusten. Haz click en el botón de “Share” y verás una variedad de opciones.

Para descargarlas (todas son gratis), haz click en “Download” y entra tu correo electrónico, país de origen y código postal. El sitio te mandará un correo electrónico con un vínculo para descargar el archivo .mp3

p.s. CoveritLive stream for Wednesday’s event here (12PM CST).

I’ve been visualizing how I would decorate my home if I had big, expansive spaces and lots of white walls. This is the kind of wall art I would print for myself. Maybe you know of some spaces out there that are in need of these types of pieces now…

If so, by all means, call.

Enjoy. Ahhhhh.

Inspired by Carol Tuttle’s energy profiling system.

This afternoon, I was talking with one of my sisters who has struggled to feel loved in our family. It’s not that anything was wrong with her or with my family; it was just that the way that love was/is generally expressed didn’t/doesn’t translate to feeling loved for her. I think all of us can relate to this scenario on some level.

As we were talking, we discovered five strategies that we can use to receive a greater amount of love in our lives.

1. Learn to love yourself. No matter what.
Whenever you are caught in an uncomfortable situation of any kind, immediately reaffirm to yourself how much you appreciate yourself for being alive and learning what you came here to learn. Life learning is messy. Love yourself anyway.

2. Learn to receive the gifts of others in the spirit of love.
Assume that people around you love you.
Whatever people do to you, around you, or say to your face, consider how it might be an expression of their love for you. This may open your eyes to other ways of expressing love that are not natural for you. For example, some people show their love by making you laugh; others by making you comfortable; others by helping you do something or improve how you do something; and others by helping you make something better. Rejoice in the gifts that others are giving. Feel gratitude for them and show your gratitude by joyfully receiving their gifts. As a modern-day apostle has reminded us, we should “assume the good and doubt the bad” when it comes to our relationships with others.

3. Love others in a way that makes sense to them.
What goes around, comes around. We all know that. But sometimes we have to be the ones to express love in a way that is not natural to us. Reach others with a love language that they understand, even if it’s not as self-gratifying. Many people have read The Five Love Languages. Practice different ways of communicating Words of Affirmation, spending Quality Time, Giving Gifts, performing Acts of Service, and extending loving Physical Touch until you find ways that really send the message, “I love you.”

4. Help others to understand what speaks love to you.
When others give you love in a way that really makes sense to you, tell them. Let them know with words that you appreciate their trying their best to communicate love to you. Also, make opportunities to share with your friends and family what love looks like to you.

5. Attract more people who speak your language.
Not everyone can meet your needs. Attract people into your life who can effortlessly give you what you need to thrive. That is a win-win situation that can shore you up, even when life is at its craziest. Remember that those who are close to you cannot fulfill 100% of your physical, emotional, or spiritual needs. Reach out to create a strong network of support (big or small) that will be meaningful to you. Choose to be around people who see the best in you, who encourage you, and accept you just the way you are.

Where to involve myself? That is the question for tonight AND for the next twelve months. 2009 was a great year of finishes for me: the translation certificate at the University of Chicago Graham School [check]. The thesis about Julián Aguirre to complete my MA in Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago [check]. A move to a new job at Illinois Wesleyan University in Normal, IL [check]. A new home and community of friends in central Illinois [check].

Now what? It’s time to think about what new goals to set for myself and where I’ll be heading next. There are a lot of options and for that I am grateful.

I am grateful to live in a country that still, in spite of human weakness, provides me with opportunities to develop myself and make a difference. I am thankful for the seen and unseen hands that have supported me when I’ve needed it. I am extremely thankful for my large family—so many personalities and challenges enrich my life and make it interesting. And I am thankful for my connection to God. His hand is and has been over me this year, guiding me step by step to the people and circumstances that I need for my own growth. I am glad and grateful for all of these things.

If I can just survive Travis’s 250 foot jump, ten more Nerf darts, and the final kiss in North & South, 2010 will be off to a great start.

My best wishes to everyone for a WONDERFUL new year!

I like this model because it allows you to give what you can and still contribute to worthwhile independent projects (THEREBY CHANGING THE WORLD).

Keep it up, Kickstarter!

2. Partituras individuales de CN

3. Yo sé que me ama el Salvador (partitura-dos páginas)

**Yo sé que me ama el Salvador (letra y música)**

Yo sé que me ama el Salvador (música)

4. Venid a mí (partitura)

Venid a mí (Letra y música con coro)

Venid a mí (Letra y música con solista)

Venid a mí (música)

¡Que tengan un muy buen año!