First conducting assignment

Well, my first conducting lesson isn't until tomorrow, but I got my first assignment today... Harry Somers' "Feller from Fortune." I don't think I've ever seen so many meter changes in one piece! If I get bored, I'll count them for you. I can say, however, that I've counted eleven different meters... 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 3/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 8/8, and 9/8. In just 20 little pages. Wow.

I was telling Christianne (my dear friend who has a master's degree in conducting!) that it reminds me of that video dancing game, Dance Dance Revolution. It's a challenge just keeping up... seeing the new meter and converting it in my brain to a physical movement while keeping perfect time. (I bet it's even harder with real singers!!)

Hehe, good thing I think this is fun. For now.

Sign of the times...

Eric went grocery shopping yesterday. We are now well-stocked on Chef Boyardee and frozen pizza...

Do you think grocery stores anticipate the drop in ramen noodles sales at the end of each school year when all the college kids go home to mom's cooking and the spike when they come back?

Okay, hit me!

My first day back to school is best described allegorically.

Imagine you go up to someone you've known awhile and you say, "Go on, hit me as hard as you can!" You wince and brace yourself for the blow. When it comes, it knocks the wind out of you for a moment, but you recover and choke out, "nice shot."

So, I don't think I have overestimated the degree to which UNC will monopolize my life for the next 15 weeks. When the blog entries get few and far between, you can safely assume I'm in my studio buried under a mountain of books and CDs.

This week I am also dealing with the swell of anxiety that comes with the first week of classes. I've had two of the professors before, so that helps, but there is always that formational time where each class develops its own chemistry. It's the time during which I am labeled as "smart" or "talkative" or "geeky" or "type A" or any number of other things. It varies from class to class. In my first class today, I was almost the only female! The only other female in the class walked in a minute or so late, to my relief.

What a perfect day!

Remember "My Perfect Day" that I wrote in 1990? If I were to rewrite that essay today, it would look just like today. (Talk about a mood swing! I took my rainy day mix out of the CD player and listened to Caedmon's Call: 40 Acres all the way to Loveland.)

First, Eric and I went to church. It was a worship morning in Sunday School, so it really gave me a chance to settle down and reconnect with God. I know it's for God, but I really needed it.

I went directly from church to a rehearsal with my quartet - you know, the one singing Peter Tchaichovsky and Elton John quartets for an upcoming recital? My voice was all warmed up from worship. As always, it was a fun rehearsal.

I bolted from there up to Loveland for a recital featuring Vale Rideout, tenor, singing Schubert's "Die Winterreise," which is a beautifully depressing song cycle. It was performed expertly - the diction, the technique, the musicality, all of it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My best friend joined me for this.

After the recital, we went to my bf's house and met up with her husband and another good friend of mine, and we all went out to dinner and just had an awesome time being together. The husband also introduced me to this video game thing called "Guitar Hero" which is kind of like "Dance Dance Revolution" except playing a toy guitar instead of dancing - it's awesome! I've got to get Eric to try it sometime.

I'm spending the night up here - it's been ages since I've spent the night with my bf!! Staying up here and driving to Greeley in the morning for my first day of my last semester... well, altogether it saves me at least 2 and a half hours of driving. I'm all for that. Plus the extra social time. What a perfect day!!

Taking a risk here...

As is absolutely natural, most of my friends are only kind of close, so they only share their happy lives and hide their troubles – or they only share the Readers’ Digest version and only because I ask. When I’m struggling, I find it hard to share my heartache with these friends. More often than not, I have been the same way with them, only sharing the surface stuff, so there’s no real foundation for sharing hardship. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m a basket case.

There are also people who only call you when they are upset about something. They don’t call up just to say hi or go out for sodas. These people are very draining. I get paranoid about becoming this kind of friend. I’m afraid other people will think I’m a basket case.

I know there are at least a dozen of people in my life who would gladly listen to me vent and cry when my world feels topsy-turvy (many of you already have), and they all know I would do the same for them, but when it comes right down to it, I’m still afraid people will think I’m a basket case.

So, I have a new friend who I sincerely hope will always be a close friend, and this person took a huge risk in taking me into confidence without knowing me all that well. I find this person's real-ness so refreshing and calming. Naturally, as soon as I was really upset about something, this was the first person I wanted to talk to. Now, of course, I’m afraid this person is going to think I’m a basket case.

I can’t explain it. There’s this huge tug-of-war between the part of me that thinks I’m just being paranoid and the part that thinks my fears are well-founded. Then there’s the part of me that’s frustrated that I even care what anyone else thinks.

*sigh* Now you all think I’m a basket case, huh?

30, here I come....

Wow. I know there are still five months to go, but I can already see that my 30-year-old body will feel a lot different than my 20-year-old body did.

I played soccer tonight for the first time since college. (Undergrad, that is.) A coworker of Eric's asked if I'd like to play in their night league - women's indoor. Eric bought me new cleats, shin guards and socks. I couldn't commit regularly because of grad school and because my teaching schedule will keep me from the earlier games, but I was able to go tonight. We lost 5-2. It could have been a lot worse, but our team had a stellar goalie.

I discovered a few things tonight:

1) I do not have the stamina I had 8 years ago. Or maybe it just feels that way because I used to play goalie quite a bit so I didn't have to run up and down the field. I didn't think I was going to survive the first half, but as it turned out, I had a little more stamina in the 2nd half than in the 1st.

2) I am still just as good/bad a player as I was 8 years ago. That is, I made several moves I was darn proud of, but a few times I kicked and missed the ball entirely. Given the timespan since my last game, I actually did quite well.

3) Most importantly, I still love the game.

The gal who invited me turns 30 this week, and Eric and I are supplying a volleyball net for her party. I am really looking forward to playing volleyball - no running, and it's only been about 2 years since I last played that one.

My first piano workshop

Given that I consider myself a voice teacher first and piano teacher second, I'd never attended a piano workshop before today. I decided to do this one because it was inexpensive, I had the time, and I was interested in the subject matter, teaching jazz techniques in the classical piano lesson. The workshop was taught by Dr. Lee Evans, who has authored more than 90 methods books geared toward this concept. At first, I was surprised by the nominal $10.00 tuition fee, but I quickly came to understand that the goal of the seminar was to sell as many of Dr. Evans' books as possible. It was done very effectively, too, as I struggled to pare down my wishlist to seven books, plus the three included in the tuition. There are still at least two others I plan to purchase at a later date. One book I got more for myself than my students is a collection of Dr. Evans' jazz arrangements of Christmas songs. His "Silent Night" and "What Child Is This?" are especially beautiful. All in all, it was well worth the time and money.

Website facelift

At the beginning of the summer, I revamped my teaching websites. This afternoon, I overhauled my entire studio website - that is, all the music related stuff. I still need to develop/redevelop the performer part of the site, but two teacher sites, composer site and author site are all redesigned to match my new contemporary theme.

http://members.aol.com/erveigel/studio.html

Smileys have taken over the world!

I was IM-ing Eric at work today. I use the AOL software itself as opposed to AIM simply because I'm usually checking my email at the same time. In the course of this discussion with Eric, I tried to type (1978). This is not possible in AOL. It comes up as (197 [smiley wearing sunglasses]. Apparently AIM doesn't have this issue unless it comes in from someone on AOL, so you may not be able to verify my tale easily. But smileys have finally taken over the world, superseding actual text.

Did you know?

Tonight we attended Eric's 20-year high school reunion in Fort Collins. It was fun meeting his old friends and amusing to hear what they remembered about him - particularly as they all said the same thing!

"Do you know this is the first time I've ever seen Eric wear pants? In high school, he always wore shorts - even in the dead of winter!" Multiple people said this! And yet, today, on a hot summer day, he was in jeans because we rode the motorcycle up there.

Old Friend: "Have you ever seen Eric wear corduroy shorts?" [tone of voice suggested this was so old-fashioned, he expected to surprise me...]
Ellie: "Yes.... yesterday. In fact, there's at least one pair on my bedroom floor. Eric, do you mean you've had those shorts since high school?"
Laurie: "Actually, I think some of those were hand-me-downs from Brian [her husband]."

These discussions made it all the more meaningful when I looked through the yearbook and found a big picture of Eric wearing those corduroy shorts! And you know, he was a handsome kid!

Summer stuff

There hasn't necessarily been anything noteworthy going on, but I feel compelled to keep in touch regardless, still believing that periodically someone other than my regulars (JPL, CBL, SBP, MRM & RWM) read it.

Perhaps the best part of my summer has been playing Pinochle on Tuesday nights. I first played Pinochle with my dormmates my freshman year at Indiana. Those were happy memories. I have always especially enjoyed the game ever since - never mind that I have always loved playing cards anyway. But in addition to playing my favorite card game, I have the opportunity to fellowship with good friends and simply relax and be myself. My only regrets are that I haven't been able to talk Eric into joining me yet and that it won't continue regularly in the fall. And summer is winding down.

I am also engaged in some musical activities this summer other than teaching. The master class Allison and I were teaching finished up with a recital on Sunday. We had such a blast teaching that class - I can hardly wait to do another one.

I am also singing a couple of quartet numbers with three girlfriends.... the opening quartet from Eugene Onegin and "My Strongest Suit" from Elton John's Aida. Hehe...yes, some variety in there! We're preparing these for a recital.

I am also originating the role of "Nan" in a new (very new - not even finished!) opera by a local composer. He's applying for a grant and therefore needed some local artists to help him record Act I for submission.

That's what I've been up to. Ooo - that and I built my resonator - remind me to tell you about that later - it's awesome - but I am out of time for now.