Holiday weekend (pictures too!)

Well, the weekend is over. Only finals await. Woohoo. Can't I wait...

So, to catch up a little:

Friday: History class at 8am--Ouch. The last class--Yes! Thus marks the completion of 1/4 of my master's degree. That's a scary thought. Then I did some Christmas gift things, watched some tv, and partied! Adonis and I went to Lennie's for our friend Nick's 22nd birthday, and then we followed that with the Holiday party at Noelle and Eliza's house. This party was just fantastic. Wine, different fondues, lots of my wonderful friends, and music and dancing. A good time was had by all (see pictures below).

Saturday: I don't remember. I slept in (after mom called me at 8:30am!) and drove Susan to her car. I put together some music, and gosh knows what else. The time flew by, and my apartment looks like a pig sty. That's all I know. Wish I could report a tantalizing and scrumptious story, but there will be none of those this semester. At least not on my blog...

Sunday: (today!) Slept-in. That was great. Then I showered, hopped into my bikini, and studied for about 6 hours. The studying wasn't so bad, because I mainly studied french, which I know for the most part. I just made complete semester vocab and verb lists, which felt very much like doing, and not studying. Not to mention I had on my bikini. (For those of you not in the know, my beach-wear is a very important part of heavy-duty study days. At Barnard College my first freshman year, I had an amazingly hard English course. I was getting C-'s on my first papers, and was under tremendous pressure living with 3 english whizzes. Darn AP Bio person I was, I wasn't much for writing papers...Anyhow, the one thing I could do while writing these papers was to put on a bikini and some sunglasses and flip flops. I could attempt the re-creation of a beach feel, and then write in a good mood. As it were, it's almost turned into a goodluck charm with a kind of Pavlovian feel...I put on the bathing suit today, and completely avoided computer and tv use. I was studious and productive. Yay! It's all about the bikini.
I followed the studying with Church, where we sang carols and such and then had a festive mass. (I can't believe I'll be home in Poughkeepsie next Sunday...)

Alas, that was it. My weekend is over. Je dois etudier pour l'examen de francais. Je prefere dormir, mais l'examen est demain. Je veux avoir des bonne notes. (Yay, I know something!)

Sogni dolci (gotta get the Italian in there somewhere)~ Lowa



Christmas party--the girls

Alexis, Jamie, Naomi, adonis, and I. Laughter abounds.

Susan and I! (she is not holding me up here, I promise. I was a little intoximicated, but so was she, and we had a designated driver. All was well. :))

:)

I just want to say that I had an amazing time tonight. I am so glad that I went out to the party at Noelle's house. The people were fantastic, the food, the wine, the dancing, the laughing, everthing. Too tired and dehydrated to type more, but pictures will be up... nighty night.

I have been a bad blogger. :(

Hi all. I know---for shame. I blog less than I should. I have even had moments where I could have taken the time to write, but I decided to do something else. Like sleep. Can you blame me? :)
I don't think there's much chance of actually catching up, but I'll try:

Friday
*went to class and had my last listening exam for history. Gotta love that I'm dropping this one because it's my lowest. I really knew the examples Thursday night (see, the last blog tells you so). Ah well. [and mom, by the way, you drop your lowest listening exam. everyone does it, so I'm not going to fail or anything.]
*didn't go to the gym (there's a surprise. However, I have managed to lose 7 pounds by not going to the gym. Hmm.)
*had lots of rehearsals for the weekend musical escapades. See "Saturday".
*went to see my wonderful friends perform opera scenes. Overall quite enjoyable.
* Dinner with Adonis and his great friends, Faye and Adam. Lots of fun.

Saturday (aka:Lowa stay at home day)
*woke up late at 11am. Woohoo!
*Church Christmas rehearsal for 2 hours. Few trained musicians+lots of music= painful.
*Home for Lowa time--I made a nice dinner of pork chops, galuska (polish noodles) and broccoli. Had a little wine, watched a movie, and went to bed early.

Sunday (SING ALL DAY-day)
*woke up really freakin' early to sing at the 8:30 mass (rehearsal at 7:45am). I had to be really attentive too, as we are singing new mass parts and the director wasn't there. I had to be in control and know my stuff. Luckily it went well. Phew.
*sing for party at Mr. Samuelsen's house. YAY! The best part of the weekend. I Caro Nome-d like my old/new self, and even Ms. Wise seemed really pleased. The people at the party were all amazingly nice and enjoyable to talk to. I figure that if I can make a living singing and wining and dining with really intelligent and interesting opera-lovers, I'm pretty cool with that.
*Bach B-minor (pronounced Bah-tch, haha) and Orrego-Salas. We survived. I noticed that I have an absolute desire to go dancing. I could barely control the savage beast inside me at the end of the Orrego-Salas. Not my favorite piece of music, but once you get the rhythm section going, I'm pleased as can be [I miss percussion ensemble and Afro-Cuban Jazz concerts at MSM...]

Monday
*School-felt like mid-week already.
*Funny story of the day: I decided to make my peanut butter ball cookies for our last studio class and party at Mr. Samuelsen's. I had two hours. You'd think I could do something so simple in such a long amount of time. HA. I got the balls rolled in 45 minutes. Had no double broiler, and hardly any time, so did the chocolate coating in the microwave. It doesn't get as thin in the microwave (even with a little wax to keep it jelled right, and shiny to boot) and so that was more difficult than usual. They weren't setting correctly because I had no time to let them sit out. I had to move them to the freezer for a bit...well, that was a tricky manuever. Moving them they started sticking to each other, etc. and when I finally made it to the freezer door, as I opened the door, a nearby container of popcorn kernels that was open started to spill on the floor. All I could do for a few seconds was watch as the dozens of kernels spilled all over. By the way, this was 7 minutes before I had to leave the house, cookies and music in hand. Alas, I made it through. I was not pleased at the time, but all went well.
*recorded the Orrego-Salas piece from 4-6. Somehow this 2 hours was a lot longer than the 2 hours I had to make the cookies...grr.
*Studio party @ the Samuelsen's house! Yay! A lot of us were exhasuted from the recording, but it was fun. The Samuelsens are just so kind and loving. They opened their house two days in a row to bunches and bunches of people. Mrs. Samuelsen cooked up a storm, and we all brought a dish or two each to supply the appetizers, salads, drinks, and desserts. It was a really great evening. And for all of you who haven't met Mr. Samuelsen, this is a picture of us at dinner. Our tables were set-up in a space on their lower level where a lot of their grandchildren play (can't you tell from the background decor? :))



Me and Mr. Samuelsen.

Now I feel better that I've blogged. Hope you enjoyed my almost week's worth of adventures. Now I'm going to clean up this apartment, make some lunch, and relax before my church rehearsal tonight. Hope you are all enjoying the weather wherever you are...here in IN it's rainy and windy, but around 55-60 degrees. Definitely doesn't feel like winter.

~Lowa

ps-Rachel (Bug) and Matt (her beau) are coming to NY around New Year's. YAY!!! I hope they can stay for a few days...

BLOG.

Adonis says hi, everyone. Kaia would say hi too, but she just went home. We can now tell you the 5 movements of Couperin's Vingt-cinquieme order...just ask. Haha. Gotta love listening exams.

So, there's lots to tell, but not enough time. First and foremost, news from the girbles:

1) got a great picture of Rachel ("Bug") and her beau! Oooh so exciting.
2) Twisha has lost her voice, but found her fingers on the keyboard, and typed me a very long and exciting email, which I loved! Fanks, Twish!

So, other news, one more full week of class left. I can't believe it! Lots of stressors already over. Refering to my last list, the main news of the week is that I had a lesson with my "actual" voice teacher, Ms. Wise, who is now back from sabbatical. A few things are going to have to change regarding my technique, and also some new things I've learned this semester (eek), and we made a decision that my singing for Mr. Effron would be a little premature. So, I had to suck in my pride and write him a polite email explaining the situation, and cancelling. Thank goodness, Ms. Wise also called him, and explained to him, and put in lots of good words for me. Phew! Gotta love Ms. Wise. So, yeah, I was a little dissapointed, but it seems that I have my "coloratura" label back, so that's good in general. I'm only 22 (23 in 3 weeks exactly) and am an opera baby. Just what I always wanted. This leads to the question of the year:

Why in the 1920's-1950's did the opera world accept young singers singing main arias? Why could those vocalists sing the hell out of most any exciting role at age 20 at the MET, where now we can't even sing something -ina and -etta ish (my label for all soubrettish like roles) without someone thinking it's just too premature...or having the feeling that everyone and their mother (and sister, and niece, and granddaughter) are singing those same 4 arias? ......

Ok. Time for bed. Make a wish, it's 11:11~