Easter

Happy Easter!

I seem to be forever cold. I can't stop shivering! Perhaps once I get under warm blankets...

Anyway, I'm in New Ulm, MN with a friend, hanging out with her family, etc. It's a good time, I've never been to New Ulm before. I'll be back at Olaf sometime tomorrow evening, not sure when. We should both be asleep right now, since we have to be at church at 8:30 in the morning (yuck), but unfortunately we are both still awake. I guess the computer and sending text messages prove more important than sleep sometimes. :) No, we'll go to bed soon, I'm getting sleepy.

Words I have discovered I say too much:

Lame. Sweet. Chill. Whatevs (thanks Kait...right?) My vocabulary needs significant improvement.

This is now the end of this incredibly pointless entry. Yay Easter Break.

Currently Watching Mulan (Disney Gold Classic Collection) By Miguel Ferrer, Harvey Fierstein, Freda Foh Shen, June Foray, James Hong, Miriam Margolyes, Pat Morita, Eddie Murphy, Marni Nixon, Soon-Tek Oh, Donny Osmond, Lea Salonga, James Shigeta, George Takei, Jerry Tondo, Gedde Watanabe, Frank Welker, Ming-Na, Matthew Wilder, B.D. Wong see related

Break!

It's update time.

Yesterday I found out I got called back for Ole Choir again, and I'm going to be a JC! Good news. I'm still waiting to hear about summer jobs. One of the jobs I wanted didn't come through after all. Sad. So, I'm hoping at least one of the things I applied for will work out. We'll see I guess! Hopefully I won't have to come home for the summer.

As of right now it is officially spring break for me. I just finished packing and I'm pretty much all ready to go for my flight tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, I'm already a little bored. And very tired. Hopefully my last night on campus will get more exciting as the evening wears on.

I'll be in Lawton tomorrow afternoon. I hope I can handle a week with my family, in my house. It doesn't really feel like home anymore, so it's weird to go back there. I mean, I like it and I have fun while I'm home, but (I feel like I've said this before) my whole life is up here. And I like my life a lot, so leaving it for a while is kind of sad. OH well.

My entrance recital on Monday went really well, and I was pretty happy with the recording I heard. It's interesting to hear how much my voice has changed over the time I've been here. It'll be really interesting to see how much more it will change over the next like 10 years too. Everyone who sang on Monday night did a great job, I love how talented my classmates are.

That's all.

Two Weeks...

The week from Hell begins...or so it has been deemed by my fellow Music Ed. Majors. The next two weeks are going to be very, very stressful. Or at least super busy. Up until today I was feeling OK about how things are going to go, but right now I'm kind of anxious and nervous.

So, tomorrow night I'm going to see ABT in the cities. Not a stressful thing at all, but it is going to take up a good chunk of like 4 hours that I should use to finish my Alice paper. Oh yes, and I'm interviewing for yet another summer job tomorrow afternoon. Not scary, but something to do. On Wednesday I'm auditioning for a solo in Cantorei, about which I am kind of excited. It's a fun solo, I hope I get it. Then on Thursday I have my Ole Choir audition at 5:10 (!!!) and my JC interview at 8, and should also go to Piano Forum from 7-8 and I feel like there was something else I remembered earlier today that is from 7:30-8 on Thursday or something like that. Thursdays are already way too long, so with all this and the fact that I have part of a paper due on Friday....Thursday is going to be the day from Hell. So really, I just need to get through Thursday, and I'll be fine. ~cough cough~ So yes, Alice paper due Friday. Then next Monday is my Entrance Recital for Music Ed, and I also need to have read a book for Ed. Psych by that day. And then of course I have midterms. OH yes and I have to film myself teaching a 7 minute lesson to 7 or more people and send it to the Breakthrough St. Paul site (yet another job interview...I can't go to the real interviews because they are over our Spring Break) by Monday. And, my application for the Ed. program is due on the 22nd (a week from Thursday) and I'm supposed to have interviews with two professors before I turn that in. And, I probably don't have time in my day to meet with them at a time that's convenient for them. BAH.

So, right now, I'm stressed. Prayers would be nice, that I will make it through these two weeks healthy and happy, and that everything will turn out for the best and I'll get home safely for a WELCOME break. That's all for now.

It's funny how you can work and work and work to change something about your life, but nothing happens...until you stop paying so much attention to whatever it is you were trying to change. Then, gradually, right under your nose, it changes for the better. :)

My semester so far (all two weeks of it) has been amazing. I love all of my classes, for the first time in my career as...well, a student. I think it's because everything I'm taking this semester is for my major. Which is a good thing, since I have my entrance recital in a month. I have nothing to do but focus completely on being a Music Ed major --JOY :)

My Ed Psych class is really great --by far the best discussion-based class I've taken so far (blows Con straight out of the water). There are only around 11 or 12 of us in the class, mostly fellow Music Ed majors who by now I know pretty well. And our professor is really low key, but very informative and knowledgeable without being pretentious about his knowledge. Music History is great too, Alice is a wonderful prof. She's pretty darn high-strung, anal, and intense, but she is so passionate about her subject and freakin' knows everything about it in the world.

Also, to my great joy and delight, I am now in the midst of my fourth and FINAL semester of Theory and Ear Training. That actually makes me feel pretty proud, considering the first-year me seriously considered changing her major because theory was "so hard." Good thing I didn't!!! Just goes to show ya...good things come to those who wait :) Conducting is kind of slow (our prof is technically retired, but teaching this semester because Dr. A's on sabbatical AGAIN) but good for building the basics...plus there are a lot of really fun people in that class that I wouldn't see much otherwise.

Which reminds me, for my Ed. Psych class we have to do 20 hours of Field Experience in a real classroom. I, out of some miracle of scheduling, get to do mine with the Northfield Middle School choir!! YAY for jumping right in :) I get to lead warm-ups and run sectionals and other such duties.

My voice lessons are great this semester too. I had to divide my hour lesson into two half-hours a week, because my schedule this semester is insane. But I like it, I get to see Mark twice a week now. We decided to spend one day on vocalizes and such and another on repertoire. After my recital's over I'm going to see if I can do some fun stuff (like musical theater??) since I don't have to do a jury this semester.

Oh yes, and I'm taking piano lessons. It's scary some times and reassuring at others. Sometimes I think I suck completely at the piano, and other times I surprise myself. My teacher is really cool, so that should continue to go well.

I'm also in Ballet III this semester, which is super fun and way more challenging for me than Ballet II was. I'm really glad I've gotten back into dance in college, I think it will really be of use to me in my career. My prof for that class is much nicer than I thought she was going to be (from a brief first impression I was terrified she would be really anal and...well...rather mean) and I really like her a lot. There are some really good dancers in that class...it's really cool to see good technique on bodies that are perfectly normal in the real world, but unfortunately not good enough for "crazy ballet dancer world." I don't think there are any typical tiny, skinny, ridiculous dancers in that class. All very toned and in good shape, but normal looking. :) And there's my observation about people for the evening.

I'm sure there's much more I could ramble on about, but I really need to get to sleep. So....goodnight!!!!