Time for a real update.

Ok, so here's my reason for lack of blogging (this time) and also what my life involves right now.

Tomorrow, I have to perform for the voice faculty various selections of my recital program, which is coming up in about two and a half weeks...unfortunately, I don't know which selections. I really should have my recital program perfected by now, but I don't, and whenever I'm under stress I begin to forget the words unless I'm über confident on them...which I'm not. Some of them, yes, but not all. The review is tomorrow at 3, and I have between now and then to memorize everything perfectly...that's four french songs, two german songs, four english songs, and three italian songs to have down perfect. Again, I really should have this done already, but I don't. I suppose after tomorrow maybe I'll feel a lot better. We'll see. See, if I don't do well at the recital review, they can decide that I can't do my recital this semester, which means I'd have TWO recitals next semester, and the second one is supposed to be way longer.

In addition to all of this, I have my every day homework, a research paper to write, a book review (same length as research paper), three lesson reviews to write, a student to teach (yes, I"m teaching lessons now too), two choral songs to arrange, and a couple tests coming up. I'm a little stressed, which is really oddly out of character for me to show any stress. Probably why I'm blogging about it and not really showing it too much otherwise.

The good side of all of this...
I've worked out my schedule for next semester, and instead of having 19 credits like I have now, I'll have twelve, and they're mostly easy credits, like choir and recital lab and opera class (we just learn parts and perform an opera). So, I'm REALLY looking forward to next semester. Plus I graduate then, so that's good. :) Then on to grad school, as long as I get in..........

Pumpkin fun.

Ok, Chris and I invited our friends Matt and Heather over to carve pumpkins, and these are the results. The painted one is mine (I'm terrible at carving!) and the middle one is Chris's, the one on the end is Matt and Heathers. I believe that Matt and Heather named their's Wilma, though it was a guy, apparently, :), and Chris's was the Mac-o-lantern. I guess mine would be Cat Noir. (Yes, I know it says Chat Noir, but still...) Yay for pumpkin fun!

OS Updates.

Ok, Chris is probably going to blog about this, but we got Mac OS X Leopord today. I have to admit, it's pretty sweet. Brings out the geek in even me, a non-geek, (well, a non computergeek, that is). It's got a great way of organizing your windows, say if you've got iTunes, the internet, a chat, and a couple homework documents open...it's like having four, or up to sixteen, seperate computers to work with, since you can put them in different spaces...essentially, they each get their own screen space. You can still have music playing in the background as you're working on another screen, but you don't have to deal with that window unless you want to. It's difficult to explain, but really cool to see. There are bunches of other cool things that they did to the system too, including it's just plain pretty now. So yeah. Cool.

Visiting Pierre.

Hi all! I know it's been awhile.
Well, I'm back in Pierre this weekend. I apologize to my friends from Pierre that I didn't let you know, as I honestly thought I wouldn't be having any downtime to hang out. As it is, it's both of my parents birthdays this week, as well as my mother-in-laws birthday today. Chris and I came home to celebrate with them. Unfortunately, my parents had a wedding to attend in Sioux Falls yesterday, so they've been gone, and should be back tonight. Thankfully, I've got tomorrow off from school, due to the holiday (columbus/native american day).

.......

Ok, so I didn't finish the post yesterday, and now I'm home. It was a great weekend, and I fully enjoyed spending time with everyone, despite being the ultimate loser of all four games my parents and Chris and I played together. I came in last on every one!!! Oh well, must have been an off day, because I've won all those games before.

:) Good to be home.

The Career Game

Ok so I took the quiz recommended to me from Psychobunny's site, and here are the results. Remember, these are my suggested careers to go into.

1.Costume Designer


2.Special Effects Technician


3.Actor


4.Psychologist


5.Animator


6.Desktop Publisher


7.Potter


8.Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator


9.Fashion Designer


10.Craftsperson


11.Set Designer


12.Art Director


13.Casting Director


14.Artist


15.Graphic Designer


16.Comedian


17.Sport Psychology Consultant


18.Medical Illustrator


19.Composer


20.Industrial Designer


21.Stylist


22.Computer Animator


23.Musician


24.Marriage and Family Therapist


25.Magician (??????)


26.Addictions Counselor


27.Archivist


28.Jeweler


29.Editor


30.Public Relations Specialist


31.Critic


32.Print Journalist


33.Writer


34.Market Research Analyst


35.Picture Framer


36.Anthropologist


37.Sign Maker


38.Translator


39.Upholsterer


40.Furniture Finisher

School and Casper.

Hi all!
Well, school starts officially on Tuesday for me, when I have to go in for a choir audition, so I'm currently enjoying the last friday night before school starts. I'm really excited that Monday is my last day at work, though my boss didn't remember that until Thursday, which was the last shift I worked. I thought it was kind of funny, really. When I reminded him, he said that another girl was leaving the day before me and that he "felt kind of rejected". He said it with a smile on his face though. The other girl's a college student too, and we told him we were done when school started, he just forgot when that was. Oh well.

I'm taking 19 credits this semester. Hopefully I won't go crazy with it, but I'm preparing a half hour recital, on top of my regular school work. I also don't know who my accompanist is yet, though I did ask a friend and he's considering. I forgot to ask him a couple of key questions though, one of which is if he charges anything for his accompanying services??? Wow, that makes him sound like an escort. Completely off, but still amusing. I hope he gets back to me soon with a yea or nay. I need to know.

Also, there is an adorable black cat outside our building. Chris and I have both grown very attached, and (of course) we named her. Her name is Casper, and she seems to love it, because we have only to step outside and say 'Casper', and she comes running. She's a very snuggly lap kitty, though Chris has discovered he can't hold her anymore, as she was sitting on his lap, and fell in between his legs and dug in with her claws to hold on. She didn't break through fabric, or injure anything, (though I have to say the sight was nervously funny), but she did scratch his calf with her back claw and we're waiting to see if he reacts to it...he's allergic to cat saliva, cats lick their claws, claw scratch.....you get the picture. Hopefully nothing happens. In any case, I can still hold her, and we play with her almost every day outside. I know, too attached already, but it's like having a pet with no responsibility! Kind of nice. We know she gets fed, too, because not only are other people in the building feeding her, but we saw her chowing on a bird she caught the other day...that was gross.......

Ok, that's all for now. It's almost 1 am and I'm tired! I don't usually stay up this late anymore!! Goodnight.

Honeymooners

Ok, so this is just a funny sign I saw in the fish market in Seattle. Never really liked the caveman commercials for Geico, but I find this play off of those quite funny.

This is me(obviously) with my hair down, which is a rare sight. This was our first free day in Seattle, and we'd gone down to the pier to take pictures. It was a lot of fun spending a week there, though if I were to do it again, we'd probably stay in a different district of seatle, since all the restaurants closed at six pm promptly, sometimes earlier, and we always had a hard time finding dinner that was affordable.

I got a haircut. This is the amount of hair that came off. Shocking, huh? Right now on my desktop is an image of flowers that I took a picture of in Pike place market. Soon I'll upload the parade of pigs pictures. That'll probably take awhile though, as there are a lot of them. A LOT of them. Ok, you ready to see me with short hair? Are you???

Ok, so I want to make you scroll a bit. In the picture below, I'm in the international district, in the giant chinese grocery store/mall. You can kind of see everything in the background...I think we're in teakettle land.

This last picture is the picture of Chris and I on our last night in Seattle. Also probably my favorite picture of the trip of us.