A Mostly Non-Cynical Post

I'm trying to edit my application essay because I am a crazy perfectionist, and I wanted to save this paragraph that I deleted from it.  What better place to save something personal and heartfelt than on a blog, right?  <awkward silence> It's too flowery for a grad school essay, but I wrote it when I was thinking about why I want to be a professional musician.  Love you, Merrimans.

Every Thanksgiving my whole family comes to my house.  That’s approximately thirteen cousins, five uncles, and five loud aunts.  The Merriman sisters are tall, tough, 3/5ths redheaded, and they love to sing.  They sing the Doxology before dinner, and when we finish eating they crowd into our kitchen and bicker happily over what they should sing first—“Young at Heart”, “Oh Johnny”, or their signature rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.  I don’t care what they start with because I will sit in the other room and watch them through the doorway until they have finished every song they know late into the night when the other cousins are sleeping off their turkey dinners.   I grew up wanting to sing with them.  I wanted to have flaming red hair and bend my knees on the really sweet notes and throw my head back in celebration of the sheer joy of making music and sounding so good. Thank you, Merriman women, for making me want to sing.