[EggsAckley]

She considered suicide. However, she couldn't do that, and soon afterward she saw Immortal Beloved, the screen biography of the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who also lost his hearing.

Willis intends to pursue doctorates in higher education and music theory.

And she plans to continue composing: "It gives me a chance to pursue my imagination for sound."

At risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I say, "Horse hockey!"

1) If the Beethoven film (which was horribly fantacized, btw) was her "inspiration" (how could she tell if she couldn't hear it?),

2)and she is from Daly City, the legitimate and obvious Music School that would let her in would be San Jose State University, where the American Beethoven Society is housed.

This does not pass the smell test. I hold a Master's in Music at SJSU, specialty, Beethoven Studies, and this insults me. Waaaaayyy too touchy feely.

[Maigrey]

It's supposed to be a touchyfeely piece. It's called Filler (or also fluff) because it's not really newsworthy, but as a human interest piece, it makes the news, somewhere in the middle folds.

(Now as the devil's advocate...)
Maybe she loved music as a child, and was working on it in school, then endured the attack. She was miserable, and about to revert to room temperature. She then saw that movie, and realized that even deaf people can succeed.

(Notice how far I'm grasping at straws here.....)

[IronJack]

I hold a Master's in Music at SJSU, specialty, Beethoven Studies

Heaven has smiled on you. To have perused the works of the Master himself is to hold daily conversations with eternity.