Tada, inspired by early morning extra time and Dave's site...

You Are the Loyalist

6 You have strong relationships and are intensely loyal. People find you easy to love and care for. You like your world to be stable and secure, no surprises. You're cautious. You prefer your inner circle to the outside world.

What number are you?

1 day down.

You know, it's immensely scary that we only have 9 more days of class left. We just went on vacation, and now we're stuck with only 1 more full week of classes. I feel the need to list. Here goes:

Stressors until holiday time (in stressful-order):

Singing for Mr. Effron (definitely #1 on the list)
History Final
History Listening Exam
Theory Final
CVE concert
Singing at Mr. Samuelsen's holiday party
French Final
Learning more music (for the recital less than 3 months away)
1 or 2 more French exams


Wow, that list isn't very long at all. Sort-of. Anyhow, I don't want to think about it. Great thing about the list, however, is that by next week at this time, there will only be 3 or 4 stressors remaining. Wheeha!

Ok, this blog is becoming very silly. I am going to leave you with a picture of tonight's dinner. I cooked some pasta (it doesn't look great in the picture, but it was yummy), fried tomatoes with goat cheese, and then a really wonderful shrimp scampi. I'll be eating the shrimp for the next few days, so I apologize for the garlic scent that will be radiating from me...

A Dinner for Kings (or just for me!)

Nighty night~ Lowa

Thanksgiving break

Per usual, it's been a while since I've written. No surprise. Sorry about that. Once you get out of the normal daily blogging, I think it's quite difficult to jump back in. Well, now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, I figured to start this semester's remaining 3 weeks in blogging-style.
The Lowa update since my Bloomington departure:

Tuesday: smooth plane ride into NYC. Dinner with Joseph at Swish (yum yum) and then lots of talking. A few interesting things I've noticed about the city since I've been gone---there is a lot of garbage. everywhere. It smells a little funny. Darn clean IN air. Also, there just isn't a lot of free space. I still had lots of fun, and was ever so happy to see Dodidef. Too bad we only had a few hours of time together. MSM Spring break awaits for more Lowa-Dodidef time.

Wednesday: Train ride home to Poughkeepsie. Sad to say there was no snow. I prepared some thankgiving goodness with mom, read the book I borrowed from Amanda (The Alienist--quite interesting, a bit of historical fiction), and then met up with Leanne and Mr. M (and her new cat) and went out for sushi. No, the cat didn't get sushi, but perhaps she'd have been more sociable had we included her... :)

Thursday: Thanksgiving. Mom and I cooked. Oh yeah, we also cooked. Did I mention the cooking? We shared the holiday with the Zolniks (my adopted Aunt and Uncle)--the food was excellent, and as usual, the company great. We were all stuffed and exhausted by around 8pm. More reading ensued.

Friday: Eating leftovers. More eating. Leanne and Laura time .Oh yeah, Spongebob movie with Adrian and Mom (we were very disappointed. Bleech. I should have written the darn movie.) More eating. More reading.

Saturday: Crafts fair, a generally ickified day. But we did manage to assemble a pretty nice lookin' Christmas tree:

Mom and I then went to see The Incredibles. I had been waiting to see the movie since the very first preview almost two years ago. I was incredibly disappointed. Haha. Really. Another bad movie. More reading followed.

Sunday: EARLY drive to NY to catch an early (and then delayed) plane. Luckily we stopped in Flushing's mini Chinatown and I was able to pick up some yummy pastries. Bloomington-ites, I think we need a good Chinese bakery around here. We need to find one. Definitely. Anyhow, after coming back home, I put my things away, ate dinner, and then went to late mass with Adonis.


Common thread in my vacation:
2 bad movies.
2 new good books read .
Too much eating.


Monday awaits.

Please consider adopting me! I love to cuddle and give kisses, and I never scratch. I am quiet and very beautiful, and would make an excellent companion. Please let Laura know that you want to adopt me! 

Date night.

Tonight I took myself out on a date. It was a lot of fun. I went to see Jesus Christ Superstar here at IU's main auditorium. It was the traveling Broadway production and most of it was really good. They set it in modern times, which I felt pretty mixed about, but the singers in general were quite talented--particularly Jesus, Mary, and Caiaphas (who has sung at La Scala!).

Funny thing, going to this show has reminded me of the whole combination of my past boyfriends...I went to see the show for the first time with Tim, Marcus was in the show, and this one being a traveling Broadway show reminded me of Nick's traveling and doing all the backstage and sound stuff. Actually, put all of them together now with their current (or so I remember) plans, and we've got a production: Tim writes the show, Marcus acts and sings in it, and Nick takes care of all the hidden details. Scary. I need to find a businessperson...

So, other than that, my day was really relaxing. Here's the breakdown:


Highlights:

Jesus Christ Superstar was really great
Was a very short day, compared to most
Really excited about singing for Professor Effron
Hot weather is on the way
So few things left to do before break!
I only have two more Threepenny shows left
Lost cat hasn't been hanging around the past two days (that way I don't get sad for it)
The rest of the week looks pretty easy
Bet I might not go to class tomorrow...

Alas Ryan, I like hidden messages too. And of course, so does Adonis.

I think I'll finally sleep well tonight~


Jesus Christ Superstar

Weekend Madness!

Well, Mom and Rochelle were here, and now they're gone. A quick overview of everything (I think) we did:

Siam House for 1st dinner
day trip to Nashville for some window-shopping and lunch
meet Susan, Kaia, and Rob
Most amazing exquisite dinner EVER at Tallent
La Cenerentola
Crazy Horse (too loud!) and drinks with Adonis
Long walk around Bloomington
Dinner and a movie in-house to relax
Threepenny Opera
early church
breakfast @ the Runcible Spoon with Adonis and Ryan
drive to airport to drop them off

and LOTS and LOTS of talk throughout. :)

So, to cut this short (I'm excluding a lot of things---the Threepenny production, general thoughts, etc.) I just wanted to post the new clothes I bought today. I figured that since my mother was dying for me to get some new clothes (and I finally realized she was right) I went shopping. Mom deserves to see the things she's been hounding me to get, so here they are:


New clothes. Miracle of miracles.

More shopping.

Yay for the early weekend and for guests!

Tada! I made it through another week. Since class was officially cancelled tomorrow, I have a three day weekend! It'll be jam-packed with activities, so I'm sure it'll rush by.

Tonight mom and Rochelle arrived, and we quickly rushed to Siam House for dinner (always yummy) and then came back here and chatted and laughed over some Spongebob episodes. Not only was I off target on my guesstimate of their reactions to my aparment--they love it even more than in my best case scenario! Yay! Of course, as interior designers they slightly rearranged some of my furniture and moved a lamp or two, but they are very impressed! Even when I walked in with them, it looked so clean I was bowled over! Haha.

Well, we have a really full day tomorrow, so I'm going to sign off. Hopefully I'll have some pictures for you all tomorrow.

~Lowa, completely contented because I'm listening to Barber's violin concerto (thanks mom, for bringing it with you!!!)

less than 24 hours before Mom and Rochellie arrive!

Yay! I will have two wonderful splendorific guests coming to see me tomorrow!

This week has gone by really fast. Wow. So many good things are happening vocally right now, I'm just so happy. Also so pressed for time trying to accomplish as much as possible. Despite the fact that I've only had one 45 minute brush-up rehearsal this week, I still haven't been really finished with my days until around 9:30 or 10pm. Crazy. I suppose I just like keeping busy. Today I was able to fit in quite a few little errands, which was nice, including a trip to Walmart to pick up some Christmas decorations! Yay for Christmas lights. I'll wait to put them up until Thanksgiving, but I'm really going to try to be festive this year, considering I'm living in my very first apartment! :)

I really want to try to go to bed early tonight as I still have a little bit of cleaning left to do for tomorrow.

Here's the possible scenario if I don't:
Laura: Well, here it is, my lovely apartment. Tada!

Mom: Wow. Hmm....Well, you could have cleaned up a little bit, don't you think, Laura the bean-bag?

Rochelle: Denise, don't worry about it. (enters the next room) Eeeew! Laura! {laughing amidst the dust bunnies}...


This is what I'd like to hear (fade into dream sequence):
Laura: Well, here it is, my lovely apartment. Tada!

Mom: Wow! You couldn't have cleaned up any better! I love how you've decorated--it looks perfect. Thank you, Laura!

Rochelle: This is great! (enters the next room) Wonderful! Not a speck of dust, and so homey!


This is what will probably happen:
Laura: Well, here it is, my lovely apartment. Tada!

Mom: Wow. It's definitely Laura. A little clutter here, a little clutter here, but overall, very comfortable. Let me just sneak by this stuff here, excuse me Laura the bird-brain...

Rochelle: Laura, it looks nice. (enters the next room) ...a little textured perhaps, but nice.


So there you have it, folks. The pre-arrival guesstimate of the arrival. We'll see how on target I am. Keep your fingers crossed for the encounter in blue :)

Sogni dolci~

:)

This weekend was full of relaxation--yippee! Lots of sleep, quite a bit of productivity, good meals, and to end it, a great incubus concert! I better get to bed as I have a full day tomorrow, and I have to store energy because I'm going to the gym with Kaia around 6pm! YAY!

Personal Day.

Yes folks, today was my personal day. The only I thing I did outside the house was go to John Waldron Arts Center to sign in at 6:30 to make sure Liz was there for tonight's performance, and then come right back home. I completely avoided the temptation to sit at the computer or on the sofa all day, and was really quite productive, despite the fact that I didn't seem to get too much done.

1) I studied my french for our next quiz. I've felt particularly lazy nowadays, with all this Threepenny. I go to class, practice, come home, eat, go to rehearsal, and sleep. I study just enough to get good grades, but haven't been as organized at life as I've wanted to. Anyhow, from this first activity of the day I've secured the feeling that I want to prepare more and be a little more organized nowadays.

2) I made copies of music. This isn't a big deal, but it gets me thinking about all the music I should have ready to go by the end of the semester. I need to get my behind into the music libary copying down translations and IPA and everything like I did back when I had a little more time and energy. I also need to find a copy of two Strauss songs so I can get those in my binder so my spring recital is ready to get worked on. Also, this reminds me that deadlines for many summer opera programs are passed and gone. Luckily, most of those are still out of my league, but I need to get looking on a few more ideas for this summer before everything passes me by! Oh where does the time go?

3) I put together the listening lists for the remainder of our history tests. This took quite some time, as I had to put them on the computer and organize them, name them and categorize them, etc. This lesson runs into the same one from #1: Want to be more organized.

4) I Secured my train time for Thanksgiving break from NYC to Poughkeepsie, as well as bought my round-trip plane ticket home for the holidays. Let this be a lesson to all of you: a) a week ago the tickets were $80 cheaper. Get your holiday tickets now! Yesterday! Last week! Anytime but later would do. and b) sometimes the cheaper sites, such as cheaptickets, expedia, etc. don't have the cheapest seats. I got my tickets about $50 cheaper right from American Airlines.

So, that's pretty much all I did. It was great studying though, because I just put on rachmaninoff cd after rachmaninoff cd, and had a leisurely breakfast (mint hot chocolate, yummy) in my pjs and everything. It was thouroughly enjoyable, if I say so myself.

Alexis and Adonis came over for a taco dinner, and we talked and watched a movie. Jamie stopped by soon after Alexis departed, and then we talked for an hour or so. Now it's almost 2 am, and I'm happy to say I can sleep in tomorrow as well. I sure hope I don't need as much sleep after Threepenny!

Goodnight to all~

quick entry

Ah yes, approaching mid-week. Made it through today's classes, had my first Threepenny dress rehearsal, and now am watching how today's votes pan out..

So, interesting thing---for at least a week now there's been this gray cat hanging around my apartment complex. I don't know where it's from, but it looks really healthy, so I think it's close to home, just not at home. The cat when outside greets me as I leave my car to come back home. If it's not outside, it'll be near my apartment door--like I came home tonight and it was laying on my doormat. It's pretty cute, but alas, I really don't like cats. I refuse to bring it into my house. It was waiting for me outside my door when I walked out of the house this morning at 7:10am. This is pretty weird. Why me? I went to the Heritage aparments staff and asked if anyone had lost a cat--seems not. Well, hopefully it'll find it's way back home soon so I don't have to worry about it...

nighty night,
lowa

It's amazing how so many things in one day can remind you of someone:
-Sugar cookies (ate some homemade ones for breakfast)
-Jazz songs playing in the restaurant where you eat lunch (early afternoon)
-Songs you like to sing that weren't always their favorite (this evening at studio class)
-Halloween candy (sitting on the desk next to me)
-Typing on the computer (right now)
...and the list goes on....

Love you, Dad.

Icky Monday.

Yeah, it was rainy and gross, and I was tired and in a relatively bad mood. I'm getting to bed so I can end today and get tomorrow started (not that it'll be any shorter of a day...).

paraphrasing Ryan-style:

Highlights:

*Lunch with Adonis at Yats (each meal just $5, really hearty cajun/creole dishes!)
*Singing Barber at studio class (my Barber, not of Seville)
*Threepenny rehearsal ending an hour early

Bleech:

*Rain
*Tired
*Only home for 2o minutes between 7:15am and 10:30pm, and during that time I changed clothes for the studio class and plunked out some Barber on the piano to try to brighten my day
*feeling unprepared for life in general as each day only seems to contain a good 4 hours instead of the 20 more I should be seeing pass by.
*a long week ahead

well, that's it folks. Gotta get this behind to bed so I can hobble around semi-conscious tomorrow. Honestly, all I had today was 3 classes (1 exam) a studio class and a rehearsal...how come I'm so busy?!

-L.