Dr. Tellez, my hero :)

So I haven't written in a while. Yes, I have taken a blog-break. Pause on the blog. I am back, hopefully for a more stable writing session this week. As you could have probably guessed, I have been totally exhausted by my schedule and have therefore not written to you. I was so tired, that this Friday night, in the middle of dinner with Adonis and Susan, I nearly fell asleep on the table. Then Susan and I watched some West Wing episodes here--actually, Susan watched 2 or 3 episodes while I fell asleep in the middle of the first, sometime around 9pm. Yes, I have been totally empty of energy recently, and this week looks like another draining one. Before talking more about this week, and today in general, let me give you the run down of music I must learn before this Friday afternoon:

*All of Threepenny, lines and music, memorized (by today, sorta)
*Caro Nome and Oh, Had I Jubal's Lyre, for tomorrow's studio class
*Bach soprano 2 solos for his b-minor mass, audition Friday afternoon
*Utah Light Opera audition, after Bach audition on Friday

Enough to be stressed about, right? And, um, classes. Right. Luckily those aren't too stressful, it's just juggling them with everything else.

So, one thing I no longer have to be worried about is the CVE concert (for those of you who might not know, that is my choral group here at IU, the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble). I feel priviledged to be in the group because
1) I really love more modern musical works
2) I like being challenged
3) I can't stand being in choirs made of poor sight-readers and bad musicians
4) Our director, Dr. Carmen Tellez, is amazing.
Tada. I do love CVE, but I was really worried about tonight's concert. A few of the pieces in particular were quite difficult, whether because they were in a very foreign language, or that the harmonies were very tricky and finding notes was a challenge. I feel that I put a bit of work into studying the music however, and all in all, I managed to scrape by tonight. I could have done better, but I could have done worse. I suppose that's always the story.
Anyhow, after the concert Dr. Tellez asked us all to go out for food and drinks, to this place on 10th St. called Lennie's. At first I didn't think I should, being so busy and all, but I decided that it was something I really wanted to do, so I went. It was fun, and the food was pretty good (albeit the sevice slow). The one truly unbelievable thing was that when we inquired about the bill, Dr. Tellez said that it was already taken care of. She paid for all (~20) of us. I never imagined that she would do that. Needless to say, I was touched. So, although this isn't the best picture of her (she's really dynamic and generally upbeat and cheery) I introduce to those of you who don't know her:

~~~~~Dr. Tellez~~~~~


Now I must get to bed. I have to wake up in 5.5 hours. Not a pretty thought.

Buona sera~