It's been forever...

Yea ok, it's been forever because I've been totally busy! My recital has come and gone thank goodness. It was an interesting day...my voice teacher's sister passed away unexpectedly that morning, so she couldn't come to my recital. Nothing about it could be helped, so I went into calling around to the voice faculty to try and find someone to help me warm up/unlock the recital hall for me...and find someone to video tape it. I got a hold of some rude people, and some obnoxious ones that wouldn't leave me alone...so without going into detail...I lived :) A good many people made it up here for the recital. Aunt Carol and Uncle Mikey...and the boys...Aunt Laura and Terry (who did an AMAZING job as my personal photographer), Grandma Dot, Grandma Charlotte and her husband Carroll, Cousin Leya, of course my parents, Katherine and Chris...and Aunt Peggy! A ton of my friends came, people from my church choir here in Boone, my former choir director and some of the kids in her choir, and some professors inside and outside of the music dept! I was amazed at the turn out, but still relieved that it's over!

Last weekend I went to Music Educators Conference in Winston-Salem. It's 4 days long, and I had a wonderful time. Saturday and Sunday I spent most of my time watching the honors chorus rehearsals. I'm an alumni of the High School honors chorus. They have Elementary, Middle and High school. Back in my day I think they auditioned about 1300 for High school and only 160 were chosen....I don't know the numbers now or for the different age groups....but the singers are the best in the state, so they bring in choral clinicians known throughout the nation to conduct the choirs. They sounded phenominal! Here's a youtube link to my favorite piece the high school did... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKy0SQmx6C8 ...they totally break it down in the middle/end!

I went to some seminars that were fantastic...I went to a lot on middle school voices...especially the changing male voice since I will be student teaching middle school. I also got to see the lady I hope to student teach with, which is also the person who inspired me at the age of 12 to go into music. I really hope it works out to where I am able to student teach with her....we find out for sure next month. It doesn't matter how discouraged I am, or tired of being so spread thin with music school, all I have to do is go and visit her, or watch her teach...and it reminds me of why I'm doing this!

I'm recovering from a bad cold. I haven't had a full blown cold in probably close to a year, so I was a huge baby about this one. I came down with it on my last night at conference, and came home on Tuesday to stay in bed for two days. To make matters even better I had to sing in front of the entire school of music on Friday afternoon....Friday morning at my rehearsal, I was sounding pretty rough, was really pale and clamy, and kept having to sit down because I was so weak! I didn't get near as nervous about that performance as I normally do because I just figured it'd be bad and there was nothing I could do about it. To my surprise that afternoon, everything came out ok...and I hadn't wasted my energy near as much on being nervous as I normally do.

I haven't been home in a month. Friday night I went to a voice recital of one of my friends...it started at 6 and lasted until 7:30....then we left there and went to the auditorium right next door to see the opera Carmen by Bizet. I did the famous aria from that on my recital...Habanera. The performers were members of a traveling opera company...parts of it were great....other parts I wasn't so amused. It was 3 hours long....11pm and I was in Applebees finally eating dinner! I didn't get to bed until well after 1am, only to get up early the next morning! I headed down to Maiden High School to sit in on the All-County chorus clinic...I'm friends with the choral teachers in Catawba Co. so we had a good time...and I enjoyed watching the clinician work with the singers. I got there around 10:30 am and left at 4....and went home just to see my family and look at the lake. It's funny how much I just miss seeing the water. You grow up all of your life waking up and seeing it....and then you go a long time away...you miss it! I went to dinner with my parents...came home and grabbed some music I needed and headed back up the mountain...I got here around 10:30pm....it was COLD and I was past exhausted. Guess who didn't get to sleep late today either!? I got up and went to church to sing....came home and cleaned for a few hours...and fell asleep for a good two hours. I was freezing...seemed like no matter how high I turned up the heat, I was still cold...and I slept in fleece pants, tshirt, and a fleece pullover....and had a homemade HEAVY quilt over me. I woke up, watched some of Jack Frost, and then went grocery shopping and came home to cook dinner. I just now finished eating and it's 10pm! I can't wait until Thanksgiving! I need to be home and I need to see my family....alllllllllll of them!

I took some pics of the choirs at conference with my phone....they aren't the greatest quality, but I'm still going to post them:

The first is Elementary, then Middle, and the last is High School