Clarity?

When a person says in a somewhat impatient - well, actually, just plain rude - way that they need "space" and "time", does this automatically translate to "two days and then start sending messages and IM's and texts" again? I'm just wondering.

In relation to this, I have hopefully erradicated the stalker-problem. Hopefully.

In other news, I'm pretty sure I'm ready to be off-book tonight for the show.

And my email isn't working.

That is all.

Grumpy Face

I have a stalker. A real, honest-to-goodness stalker. I know girls who have bragged about having stalkers. How is this a good thing, I wonder? If it goes any further, I've already reassured my roommate that I'm calling the police. He knows where I live. He left me flowers in my car, for fuck's sake. I feel all... weird and uncomfortable about it.

In other news, I'm moving back to Pennsylvania for the summer. I have a job at Krislund. Thank God - the news could not have come at a better time.

Lovely?

After a gorgeous day like today, I feel bad for reading my friend's blog account of her travels in Vienna and feeling jealous - but it's difficult not to compare and think, "I could have been there."

It was a beautiful day, though. I woke up REALLYreally late after sitting with P. on RA duty to keep her company. Then I showered and by the time I was out of the shower, there was a message on my phone (from P.), which stated that she was wandering around downtown and I was more than welcome to join her. So I did, and we wandered around before stopping for lunch at the Pampered Palate. We ate outside, right on Beverly Street, and people-watched while we ate cheese and soup. It was delightfully warm out and - yes, yes I am sunburnt.

Then we shopped around and geeked out over an antique store built in a studio loft apartment (I want to LIVE there, it was SO nice and attic-y), where I splurged and bought a pair of really nice white trousers. Then we decided to walk down by the Wharf and we shopped around some more until we came across Sunspots, the blown-glass studio below the Wharf. They were having an openhouse of sorts, which involved them blowing glass creations for anyone who wanted to watch. It was amazing. Glass-blowing is a skill I would very much like to learn sometime.

By the time we left Sunspots, it was storming and pouring down rain, so P. and I dashed up to campus through it! We were fairly well soaked by the time we reached campus, but we didn't care. There we parted ways and I walked back to my house through the drizzle. I put in a few hours studying my script, then decided to walk back downtown to grab a bagel and some chai from Coffee on the Corner, since it had become once more sunny and warm.

I spent the evening munching on my bagel in my room, reading my script, and watching "Love Actually", which made me feel far too sappy and gave me the near-irresistable urge to learn German. I read S.'s blog, then, and now I'm feeling a mite depressed.

For instance, today - instead of geeking around downtown Staunton - I could have been listening to Mozart's Requiem Mass and then going to a Spanish restaurant with Dr. A & co., where I would have drank sangria and eaten amazing Spanish food. I could have watched "Salome" and explored Vienna. I could have maybe seen B. Could have. Could have. Too many could haves.

Why do I never do the things I know I won't regret?

Back to Work We Go!

I'm back in VA now, awaiting wonderful things. Firstly, my new job is starting tonight - I'll be in charge of my very first choir practice, which should be interesting. But hey - it's all about the experience, right?

Today was also the first day of May term - or Play term, as it is often called here. I'm taking Problems in Production, and I'll be in the play, so it should be an interesting time. We'll be putting the whole thing up in about two weeks. (Excuse me please, while I panic justalittlebit.)

Hm. I kind of thought I was in the mood to write, but I guess I'm not. It's so nice outside that I think I'm going to sit out on the porch with a book until it's time to leave for choir.

Deus Ex Machina

I saw a play at the Lycoming College Theatre tonight - "Machina", it's called, and addresses the suppression of women - and indeed, of freedom of thought - in society. It was an excellent play, in a conceptual sense. The script was strong and I have to say, it's something that I would like to read at some point, assuming I can find a copy of the script somewhere.

In performance, it also had its strong points. Firstly, the acting was top-notch. It was impressive to watch the actors really lose themselves in their roles - both the ciphers and the one actual character. The one character - and there really was just one - there were points in the play during which she really sounded like River Tam, from Firefly. The disjointedness of her speech and the odd tangents she would set out on that were triggered by the most random words were just interesting to listen to. Kudos to the actress for her memorization skills.

The set was fascinating. Very spare and minimalist, and all metal. The chairs, the gates, the structure of the set - all metal bars. The technical director must have had a helluva time getting everything welded, because there was no way they could have ordered all of that. The light effects were also very striking, especially during the his-and-hers scenes. At one point it was green-light-go on the man and red-light-stop on the woman, and the woman eventually shifted to the green-light. Also, another scene there was a violent blue light on the man and an equally violent pink light on the woman. These sorts of lighting effects occurred throughout.

Now, that being said, I had a few criticisms. It's mostly nitpicky stuff that only another theatre person would really catch, but some of it is relevant to regular audiences. Firstly, the light grid was really high up and the audience seating, as well as the thrust stage platforms, were not moveable - I just didn't see a practical way for the techies to hang lights. Moreover, some of the light cords "tails" were left hanging down, which was just a little bit sloppy, I thought.

The pyrotechnics at the end didn't work very well, but pyrotechnics are always touch-and-go, so I don't really have any complaints. Just a note.

My biggest problem with the production was that the lead actress did not break character as soon as the lights came up for the curtain-call. Something I will always focus on is that you DROP the character as soon as the play is over. She didn't break character, though, and she still wasn't completely out of it when the actors walked off stage. That is dangerous. I cannot even begin to express how psychologically-damaging it is not to break character as soon as you can, especially when you're playing a role which requires you to lose so much of yourself.

That being said, it was a strong production. It was a very strong production and I enjoyed watching - it's something I would like to do someday, actually. But it could have been done even better.

The past few days at home have been very nice and peaceful. I've been gardening with Mom - and let me tell you, weeding the raspberry bed? Not fun. And I've been cooking a lot, too. I get tomorrow off, since Sawyer is making a roast, which I'm looking forward to. Monday, I'll make groundnut stew, I think.

Let the Choirs Ring Forth!

I got the job! I am now the choir director of the Third Presbyterian Church of Staunton! *dances* It's a wonderful opportunity and the pastor and elders who met with me are really nice - I'm going to enjoy working with them. It seems like a very similar place to the church I grew up in, so I'll feel right at home and I know exactly how to deal with the choir. I'm pretty sure KA didn't always know how to handle them, since she didn't grow up in this sort of church, but I think I have a fairly good idea of how to work with them so everyone gets along. I like knowing that I'm qualified to do a job, and to do it well.

I finished all of my exams and am now comfortably ensconced in the living room easy chair back in Watsontown, PA. Dad is sitting across from me with the paper and Mom will be home soon from Sisters in Faith. We are watching Monk, because Dad refuses to watch Third Rock From the Sun again. But ah well.

Found out just five minutes ago that my older sister and her fiance will be moving to Colorado this summer, for his graduate studies. I have mixed feelings - she's one of my very best friends, possibly my best friend, and I won't be able to visit her so easily now. (However, now visiting her means a cross-country trip out West, which should be the shit.) However, my first trip, should I choose to attempt it, will be a journey to Germany, methinks. I've been wanting to go for quite a while now, and now I have added incentive to go. :-)

Shameless Self-Pity

I've been posting a lot within the last few days, on the basis that I'm really just killing time between exams. At this point, I really can't study any more than I already have, and if I do, then I'm going to start doubting myself once I'm actually in an exam - and we don't want that, do we? Today I am taking US Foreign Policy, then I'm going to a job interview, then I'm taking Music Theory II. (I'm so not worried about Foreign Policy that it's scary. Music Theory II is what's freaking me out right now, actually. Once more, there IS a reason why I'm not a music major.)

I keep getting this feeling inside - like something is going to happen. I don't know what and I don't know when and I don't even have an idea of what it could be. But it's GOING to happen and it's GOING to be big.

I can't, of course, help wishing that magically within the next two days, someone will drop Dr. A. on the Vienna trip and say, "Shae, why don't you take my place? It's already paid up - why, of course you can pay me back in monthly installments for the rest of your life! No problem!" Because I would, because I want to go that much. I know I've already had my trip to Europe. I don't deserve any more than that - though I wish I could have gone for longer, or had the foresight to save until NOW - but I'd really just like to go.

I'm too restless. And wishes just don't come true. I shall be content.

Mrrrr?

This past week - well, more than a week, actually - has felt like a month. I keep flashing back to the beginning of the semester and thinking about how different it's been. Then, I hated that it felt like a week felt like a month. Now - well, I wish it had been longer, at least at some points. There are particular days that I wouldn't have minded stretching out over a good long time.

Time is a curious thing: It seems like so long ago that I started here at MBC - a short skinny redhead with a serious penchant for skinny geeks and a desperate need for knowledge of any sort. I was little and scared and younger than all of my friends. My hair was unfashionably short and my face was still a little round and my nose was like a little button covered in freckles. I wrote my very first essay when I got here - I had never needed to write one before English 102. I failed my first class - math, of course. I discovered, to my own astonishment, that I really was pretty good at that singing thing, if a little deficient where the technicalites were concerned.

Now, I'm still short, skinny, and once again a redhead. I still have that fairly serious penchant for skinny geeks and I still feel that thirst for knowledge. I'm still little and scared. But other things have changed. My hair has grown and my face is thin, because I don't have time to eat anymore, and I've finally grown into my nose. I'm getting better at writing good essays and can whip out a 10-page paper in two hours or less. I've come to care a little bit less about failing a class. I'm still good at that singing thing - worlds better than I was when I got here and one of the most advanced students at MBC. Maybe even the most advanced, now that KA is graduating. And I'm older than a lot of my friends now. They look up to me as someone who knows more than they do, who can fix things, who can take care of them.

I've discovered that I'm better at taking care of other people than I am at taking care of myself. I don't sleep enough, nor do I eat enough (in quantity or in frequency), nor do I stop working when I need to. Then again, I don't always work when I need to, so I suppose it evens out in the end.

I've been considering grad school again recently. It has become clear to me recently that I have a real gift for singing and acting. I'll never sing on Broadway, or do any show singing of that sort. I simply do not have that sort of voice. I'm a lyric soprano. I have an opera voice. I always will. So I've been giving some thought towards applying for opera programs once I've gotten some work experience under my belt. Grad school can't be all bad and a masters' degree looks darn good on a resume.

Distance Makes The Heart....?

I'm kind of sleepy right now, so this post may or may not be very coherent. Contributed to that is the fact that I just took my math exam and my brain feels a little abused because of that fact. This past weekend was very nice, apart from performing A LOT.

The Madrigals performance was on Friday night - it was our bi-annual Benefit Concert, this year for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and Charm also sang with us. It was a good concert - not Charm's best, but they had their Jam coming up and they were also missing members. Only one of our Madrigals was vocally under-the-weather, and we weren't missing anyone, so we sounded quite good. It seems that Mads and Charm have this habit of one group being exactly right while the other group is lacking, and vice-versa. Someday (hopefully next semester) I'd like the groups to be evenly matched skill-wise, even though that's hard to gauge - our rep is very, very different, after all.

Anyway, the benefit went well. It was our final performance this year as a group and it was a little emotional. I directed the last song on the program, and it felt as though KA was passing the torch on to me, so to speak. It was appropriate, but very moving for me. (I also may be getting her choir directorship at Third Pres, so I feel like I'm inheriting KA's life, somehow.) Two of our pieces suit us very well and I hope we can carry them over to next semester: an arrangement of the "Kyrie" by Lotti that I just love the sound of; and "this is the garden" by Persichetti, which is an arrangment of a poem by e.e. cummings. Also, I want to bring back our one piece that we do with piano accompaniment: our Whittacker piece, "Rain O'er Rahoon", which I still love beyond any other piece we've ever done. (We only did it last year, so I doubt Ms. F. will allow it, but I've been begging to bring it back ever since we put it away.)

The Junior Recital went well, too. I sang my set of Hundley and I think it was the best I've ever performed it. First was "Sweet River", which was actually not my best piece in the set and it has been until this point. It's short and light and happy, but tricksy, and Ms. H. still doesn't quite have the accompaniment down - but I'm used to that by now, so it's okay. The middle piece was "Waterbird" which was by the far the best I've ever performed it. I actually felt it this time, since recent events have helped me to understand what it's about. There were tears in my eyes by the end, because it felt so GOOD - a first for that piece.

Now, the final piece was my real worry: "Lions". It's high in my voice, it's fast, it's complicated, and it requires not only an exemplary vocalist to pull it off, but an experienced actress, as well. To be honest, I really don't remember how I performed it. But I took it as high praise that the majority of people who spoke to me afterwards said it was their favorite piece in my set. :-) I'm fairly excited to perform this same set on my final recital next year, with maybe a piece added if I can convince Ms. F. to give me "Screw Spring". (And yes, the song is about what it sounds like it's about. Hundley is awesome. I want to marry him and have his babies.)

In any case, it was a performance heavy weekend and busy to boot, but I had a good time.

My Life As a Chick Flick

I am content. I am, in fact, beyond content. This day was... well. I won't bore you with details. I spent the day in DC with B. And it was indeed good. :-)

Also, I got cast in "Honour", which beyond thrilled me - even though I didn't think anything could possibly make this day better. I got the role I tried for, too - I'm playing Claudia (the "other woman"). She's completely different from anyone I've ever played before, so I'm fairly excited.

The only thing that made the day somewhat less than satisfactory is that I missed Madrigal rehearsal - and it was kind of an important one. (Though a niggly little voice is stating in the back of my brain that I could very well have stayed in DC longer, since I missed it in spite of my rushing off.) However, it was okay because Ms. F, M., and I all went out to dinner to discuss the group and various and sundry other things. We all ended up fairly giggly by the end of it - Ms. F. because of the wine she'd consumed, M. because she just gets that way, and me... well, it was a mixture of sheer exhaustion and elation at how well my day had turned out.

M. and Ms. F. spent a lot of the meal trying to convince me to stay in Staunton for the summer. I'm tempted - after all, I did make it into a (admittedly, relaxingly low-key role) in "Die Fledermaus" and I have a chance at a decent job at Stone Soup Books, which I would definitely not mind. However, I really do want to go to Camp Krislund this summer. I've been putting off applying, though, which is definitely not good.

Because, as much as I love my family, I am not enthusiastic about spending an entire summer with them again. I'm sorry, but no. Occasional weekends, so I can check on SEA and make sure SHSA is being good, but other than that? Mmmmno. I feel like a bad daughter, because Momma really does want me home - but I just can't.

Right. Now, it's off to sleep. I shall have good dreams this night, methinks.

Complications, Thy Name Is ALLEN

Dr. A. mistook the concert night. It's tomorrow, not tonight. Tomorrow evening, I have:

Madrigals - 4:15-5:30
Madrigals Direct-Off to Determine My New Assistant Director - 5:30-5:45
Repertoire Class With Ms. Flory's Studio - 5:45-?
Dress Rehearsal for S.'s Junior Recital (which I'm singing on) - 7:30

Needless to say, I will not be attending the concert nor will I be meeting Benjamin afterwards for a drink. I am distraught, upset, and entirely grumpy about the whole thing. And I'm feeling decidedly homicidal towards Dr. A. right now, though he was admittedly very sorry about his mistake.

However, a friend of mine just messaged me to say that he won a free weekend at Massanutten Resort and needs someone to go with him this weekend - if he doesn't mind me driving back and forth, I may just take him up on that. It made my day marginally better, though.

Here Comes The Sun

...doo doo doo doo... here comes the sun, and I say, "It's all right."

Because it is all right. It really, truly is. A few nights ago, we had a guest pianist on campus for our Broman Concert Series. His name is Benjamin Moser, and he is an internationally reknowned artist. We were VASTLY lucky to get him before he gets really famous. In any case, I had been on the fence about attending the concert, since I was a bit tired and also rather sickish. But, I was down on that side of campus anyway, so I decided to go. My friend R. and I sat in the front, because whenever I'm at a piano concert, I really do like to see their fingers and the way that they handle the keys.

(I'm a geek, yes.)

The program was.... earth-shattering. It was immense. I was in tears for half of it, because the music was so beautiful and indescribable and... just, wow. By the end, I was trembling with the enormity of it all. Now, anybody who really knows me also knows that music rarely (if ever!) touches me this way. That's one of the reasons why I don't study music full-time - I simply don't feel it in me the way other people do. Not only did it move me to tears (especially the piece Ondine by Ravel), but he was especially moved by Le Gibet, also by Ravel. It was astounding to me to see an instrumentalist so absolutely into his own music. I had never seen that before and it was very, very refreshing.

After the concert, I couldn't even move. I could barely breathe. I managed to stumble out into the hallway outside the concert hall to sit on the couch, but that was pretty much it. Dr. A. came out to talk to me about it and after noting my shellshocked state, he suggested that I speak to the artist himself, as everyone else in the audience was doing. I stammered about how I just couldn't, because I was babbling anyway and I would babble more if I spoke to him.

A little while later, I was still trying to will my limbs into movement, and Dr. A. led Benjamin Moser out to talk to me. We spoke for a while, and he was very nice, then he mentioned that he would be playing at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and if I would accept his email address, then I could just email him to let him know whether or not I would like a free ticket.

To make a long story short, Dr. A. managed (through his various connections) to get a few other students tickets so it's not just me making the drive to DC, and we'll be heading up on Monday to see him. Benjamin and I have been in fairly constant communication since he left Staunton, and we'll be attending the reception after the concert and then going out for coffee afterwards.

Me? Excited? Nah. I'm on Cloud-fucking-NINE.

Because, did I mention? Benjamin is only 26 years old. :-D