5 Favorite Symphonic Works
1. Beethoven's 7th Symphony
2. Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
3. Mozart's Sinfonia to The Marriage of Figaro
4. Beethoven's 5th Symphony
5. Mahler's Second Symphony ("Resurrection")

5 Favorite Quotes From Real Life
1. "That last sip of apple juice tasted like a snail!" - Tina
2. "That was a potentially tragic moment." - Kirstie
3. "This is the real world and this is Brian's world.  The only thing in common is Brian." - Katy
4. "Haydn was the guy who'd short-sheet your bed at camp." - Prof Krasner
5. "Jane is Wendy's illegitimate child.  You never see the husband." - Heather, age 13

5 Favorite Shakespeare Plays
1. Twelfth Night
2. The Tempest
3. Hamlet
4. Romeo and Juliet
5. A Midsummer Night's Dream

5 Favorite Bands
1. Anberlin
2. Jars of Clay
3. Eisley
4. Daughtry
5. Sixpence None the Richer

5 Movies That I Can Watch 20 Million TImes
1. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
2. The Emperor's New Groove
3. Mansfield Park (w/Billie Piper)
4. The Incredibles
5. Ella Enchanted

5 Opera Roles to Play Before I Die
1. Cherubino - The Marriage of Figaro
2. Rosina - The Barber of Seville
3. Sesto - The Mercy of Titus (Mozart)
4. Octavian - The Rose-Bearer
5. Romeo - The Capulets and the Montagues

5 Actresses That Are Fun To Watch
1. Amy Adams
2. Sandra Bullock
3. Nana Visitor
4. Emmy Rossum
5. Anne Hathaway

5 Favorite Places
1. home
2. the library (pretty much any library)
3. Great Aunt and Uncle's house in Rheinbeck, NY
4. Metropolitan Opera House
5. Grandma's house

5 Musicals I'd Love To Be In
1. My Fair Lady
2. The Phantom of the Opera
3. Tarzan
4. The Sound of Music
5. Beauty and the Beast

5 Favorite Authors (in no particular order)
1. C.S. Lewis
2. Madeleine L'Engle
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Ray Bradbury
5. Eoin Colfer

5 Operas I Have Left To Listen To This Summer
1. The Saint of Bleecker Street - Menotti
2. Werther - Massenet
3. Othello - Verdi
4. Tristan und Isolde - Wagner
5. Faust - Gounod

Maggie Stiefvater is coming out with a new book and I'm about to give a shameless shout-out for it.

It's called Shiver and it's a boy-meets-girl, boy-turns-into-wolf, girl-cries story and if I know Maggie, it's going to rock. :)

Here's a trailer that she made for her book. She did all the it: the music, the art, EVERYTHING. Definitely worth checking out.

...you can get away with this.

This is the lovely Malena Ernman, operatic mezzo-soprano and European pop sensation. She is to be admired for her versatility, personality, and undivaness. (And did I mention her amazing biceps?) I love a opera singer who can take a picture like that and get away with it.

<3

You can find the Facebook page dedicated to her here. (You will find more flattering pictures there.) If you want to see her in action, check out her La Voix winning performance and an opera aria.

I just finished Diva by Alex Flinn.  I don't usually do chick lit, but this one spoke to me.  Immensely.  I could relate to so much of it!  Caitlyn, the main character, wants to be an opera singer (but she's a soprano, naturally).  Everyone thinks her obsession over opera is weird and she works really hard to get what she wants.  She has an uber-crush on a gay guy friend.  She struggles in dance class.  etc etc

The best part about that book was every so often, my heart would almost explode because she'd mention Renee Fleming or La Traviata or, God forbid!, Mozart.  I just see those words and my heart starts racing.  It's involuntary.  I'm not kidding you.  It even creeps me out.

Tomorrow I have the lovely job of converting LPs into MP3s.  My uncle (amazing man) bought me tons of opera LPs from antique shops.  And they're AMAZING.  Incredible casts, orchestras, and conductors.  Maureen Forrester singing Mahler!  Need I say more?

Plus, this is a much cheaper way of expanding my opera MP3s without doing anything illegal.  YESSS!!!!  I now have Traviata (which is, shock of all shocks, beginning to grow on me), Boheme, Aida, Othello (Verdi) and tons more!  Wow, now I sound like an infomerical.  I apologize.

In less operatic news, I went to my brother's high school graduation.  I got a random tan (ughh -- damage control, commence!).  When they were calling names, I fell asleep between J and S.  I was awake when everyone started counting the number of kids with the last name "Singh."  Apparently this strange tradition started at the middle school graduation last week and continued here.  It was amusing to see spontaneous mass-cooperation.  If only that'd happen for something productive...

Still, I saw my little brother walk across the stage and get his "diploma" (they had to get the real ones later).  In less than two weeks, he's off to the Merchant Marine academy and I won't see him for months. :(  He'll be really happy (in a strange sort of way as he suffers through mud and sweat and screaming) so I'm happy for him.  It's such an amazing opportunity for him.  He's pretty much set for life now.  At least one of us is.   

My Tammy-time for this week has been eaten by the NY Phil -- not an entirely bad thing, I must say.  It's going to be an all-Russian program.  Aka an all-amazingness program.  They're playing Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture!!  Even you classical music n00bs out there would know parts of it if you heard it.  However, the point I was trying to make is that Tammy started bending over backwards to find a new time for me.  It is SO NICE (and a change) to have someone making an effort for me like that.  I appreciate it more than she knows.  I only hope she understands how much she means to me.

So, one summer reading book down.  Many, many more to go!

Amidst too many graduations (and their adjoining parties), I've come to the realization that discovering my obsession for opera came at a good time.  If I'd discovered it in high school, not only would I have been wayyy more stressed out about college and my life, but I would have been considered even weirder than I already was.  At least in the music department at Hofstra, most people can tolerate (or even sometimes appreciate) my insanity because they're half-insane themselves (aka they are musicians or at least half-musicians).

If I had to choose three reasons for being happy about going to Hofstra, these would be them:
1. Tammy
2. No $100,000 debt
3. Roles in the operas

So I discovered a Puccini opera that doesn't drive me crazy.  Clearly, a miracle has occurred.  Madama Butterfly = <3  Beautiful music, beautiful story, beautiful setting, beautiful everything.  Sure, it's a little sad for my taste, but it's a well-done sad.  In other words, I approve.  :)

Finally found some good summer reading.  Hurray for public libraries.

I'm in the mood for lists.  Besides, I need some good suggestions for reading.  I'm running short on ideas.

Things I've Read So Far

The Joys of Love: Madeleine L'Engle
The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Waltz Kings: Hans Fantel
Twelfth Night: Shakespeare
The Effect of Gamma-Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds: Paul Zindel
Anthem: Ayn Rand
Trickster's Choice: Tamora Pierce

Currently Reading

The Castrati in Opera: Angus Heriot
Sonnets to Orpheus: Rainer Maria Rilke
The Humanoids: Jack Williamson

Operas I've Watched/Listened To This Summer

Madame Butterfly: Puccini
Aida: Verdi
La Cenerentola: Rossini
Die Fledermaus: J. Strauss, Jr.
Der Rosenkavalier: R. Strauss
La Traviata: Verdi
Fidelio: Beethoven
La Clemenza di Tito: Mozart
Cosi fan tutte: Mozart
Le Nozze di Figaro: Mozart
Idomeneo: Mozart
Dido and Aeneas: Purcell
Orfeo ed Euridice: Gluck
I Capuleti e i Montecchi: Bellini
Romeo et Juliette: Gounod

SOOO, if anyone has any good book or opera suggestions, I'm open.  I really need a good book these days...

When you're going through a horrible class, you always say: "The minute this class is over, I'm burning these books!"  Only you never do it.

Well, my brother had an Earth Science bonfire this afternoon.  He burned his review books, notes, everything. 

You have no idea how liberating that is to watch.  Why didn't I ever go through with my threats and burn my books?  It's not like I'll ever use them again.  I think I can learn something from this.  Some things you just have to DO.

So here's to my brother and his pyro-maniac tendencies!

Apparently Google knows who Igor Stravinsky is!  I'm so proud!!


Happy birthday, Stravinsky.  We actually love you.

My Mom has been working hard to make sure that there's always someone home to take care of me.  So my younger siblings have, in effect, been "babysitting" me.  Oh the irony.

This afternoon, while my 13-year-old sister was babysitting me, I was like,

"I'm bored.  You're the babysitter.  You're supposed to entertain me.  Entertain me!"

So she started doing charades for me.  She didn't really quite get the point of acting out the words of a title, but it was hilarious anyway.  Pretty soon, she was not only acting out movies and books but operas as well.  That was the funniest of all.  (You know you're a nerd when your sister starts doing opera charades and you can actually guess them.)

Oh, life, how you amuse me!

So, everything's all set. I'm going to Salzburg, Austria to study opera with Ann Murray. OMGOSH I CAN HARDLY BREATHE RIGHT NOW. And I'm not even there yet. When I land in Salzburg and walk into town, I think I'm going to have a heart-attack. You have no idea. Mozart was born and raised (mostly) in Salzburg. Sure, they've destroyed the house he was born in by making it into a flashy museum, but I can walk the streets that he did and see the things he saw. Time has changed things, but a place is a place.

After the classes, I'm taking short trips to Vienna (another I'M GOING TO DIE OR FAINT place) and Stuttgart (Germany). I should try to get to Zurich (Switzerland); we'll see.

Honestly, though, I cannot wait. That plane ride is going to be the longest plane ride of my life -- well, actually literally -- because I'm going to be waiting to get there. I'm super-psyched. I can't even explain what this means to me.

Why is it that we find so much importance in place?

I could go on about this forever. It goes both ways: good and bad. There's a rumor that Tammy is going to move her studio into Beck's old room. So I'll be taking voice lessons with my new teacher in the room that I'd taken lessons in with my old teacher who passed away last Christmas. Is it going to bother me? I don't think so, but I'm not sure. It's going to be weird, I know that.

When Tammy told me that she might be moving, she asked if it would bother me. (I'm the only one it would affect.) I told her "no" and I believed it. But I guess you don't know until it happens. It's so much easier to move on when you're in a totally new setting. Places hold things: memories, smells, feelings. Can a person fight that?

I didn't mean to end this on such a sad note. I'm really excited and happy for my trip. I can't believe that I'm able to do this. It's a huge step. I'm ready. :)

It's frickin' GORGEOUS out today. LOVE IT!

Did some fun shopping today; got a pair of Skullcandy headphones that I love. They're green (at least I'm told; I'm colorblind) and they fit inside your ears. They work fantastically but being the paranoid person that I am, I'm scared that they work TOO well. I'm going to use them when I can't use my big ones (<3). I was hesitant to buy them up to know, but they were a totally low price so I felt it was worth the risk. (The biggest risk was, of course, that they wouldn't fit in my ears. I have the smallest ear canals. :/ )

Washed Gia the Kia-- she now looks beautiful (for about another 20 seconds; then the birds will get her). I'm debating buying a vanity plate for her. I just love vanity plates so much! The $$ is the problem; I'm trying to save up for my Austria trip. I had to buy books already, so that was money down the drain (not really, but you know what I mean). That and I couldn't help but buy the 1979 Kleiber Rosenkavalier DVD. BRIGITTE FASSBÄNDER, I LOVE YOU. Cutest Octavian ever!

My brothers are watching The Dead Zone. I've never watched that show before. It's pretty interesting. And YAY EZRI DAX. At the end of the day, Star Trek is really the only show I care about. (LOST gets second place.)

I have a new book idea stamping around in the back of my brain. This summer might produce another novel! Hurray. I love when that happens. :) We shall see...

Ok, it's off to more lounging in the sun. Yayz!

Don't you love it when someone remembers you? It's a beautiful thing.

I went to cash a check at the bank today and the teller asked me if I'd looked into wiring my money to Europe yet. I'd been at the bank a few days ago and inquired about sending money to Europe for my glorious AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE. Apparently it was the same guy. And he remembered me! And he was pretty good looking. Glorious!

He asked me where I was going and what I was studying.

"Austria for opera."

The conversation abruptly ended with an uninterested "oh." WHY DOES THE WORD "OPERA" TURN EVERYONE OFF SO FAST?!? I don't understand this. Does opera = boring in some subliminal way? Granted, I thought it was boring and didn't care two cents about it until I saw Marriage of Figaro. But, still! I could have said "astronomical geology" and gotten a better response. Am I doomed to singleness forever because I'm an opera singer? Ahhhh!

On another note: I babysat Tammy's 6-year-old kid Rainer on Sunday. What a trip that was. The kid's a frickin' genius.

We played Stratego and he won. I'm relatively smart and pretty good at strategy games (I'm undefeated at Risk and almost undefeated at Monopoly) but this kid WHIPPED me. He watched what I was doing and said, "My dad uses the same strategy. He attacks in groups, too." He also made comments on what he guessed was happening on my side of the board and 80% of the time he was dead on. I had a few tricks up my sleeve, but not enough to win (apparently).

He could build these really intricate Lego ships without instructions. He used the pieces in ways that I've never seen before. It was crazy. And he understood the word "hydraulics." What the heck?

Sure, he still acted like a 6-year-old sometimes (he refused to eat peanut butter with bread; he wanted to eat it with a spoon), but he was incredibly smart. I've babysat a lot of kids, some of them pretty smart, but this kid tops them all. I'm kind of scared/interested to see what he'll do in ten years.

STAR TREK: I saw the movie and I liked it. It wasn't "Star Trek" but it was good as its own thing. The cinematography was outstanding and I really liked the characters. Bones rocks the house!

Question: Has anyone ever read Rainer Maria Rilke's "Sonnets to Orpheus"? I will have to talk about them when I finish. They are so incredible...

Sidenote: This cracked me up. Opera Chic writes: "Please don't tell Stephen Colbert that an Iranian who, suspiciously, always wears sunglasses and has been denied in the past a visa to the USA went to France to direct a show about marital infidelity and Albanians written by a Jewish heretic/Catholic priest obsessed by sex and by an Austrian kid obsessed by p00p."

This of course refers to Abbas Kiarostami's Così Fan Tutte. Ahhh, OC always makes me laugh. That is, OC and any reference to Mozart. :)

Had tea time with some old friends today. How nice it is to be together again!

Now is such a weird time. I feel like everything is shifting again. Things are never what I expect them to be. I'm surprised everyday by the people I thought I knew so well and the circumstances that I thought I had all figured out. It's not a bad thing; it just throws me a little off-balance.

Every summer is different. I'm not really sure what to expect from this one. I'll expect the unexpected, I suppose.

People amuse me.

A bunch of kids and their teachers were walking over the unispan (glass enclosure that goes over the main street) at my school. I was walking with them, enjoying the various reactions. One kid said what I always think when I go over the unispan:

"What if this really big truck goes by and smashes through? Wouldn't that be cool? We'd be like 'woooah!' and we'd fly through the air and..."

That was a 10-year-old boy. Love how the same thoughts that go through a 10-year-old boy's head go through mine.

Then they passed by the doors to the library. One teacher said to another,

"You want to peek your head in, just to see it? It looks like a hotel lobby in there."

I never realized what a ritsy school I go to. *shrug* Whatever. I'm not paying for it.

Speaking of paying for school...

I've decided that scholarship or no scholarship, I'm going to get my masters in Europe. I don't know why I didn't come to this conclusion sooner. There's no point in studying in the States.

The way I see it:
1. It's waaaay more expensive here ($30,000-50,000 a semester vs. $800-1,000 a semester)
2. Opera is a European art form. They're better equipped to teach it. Besides, their programs are driven toward opera; in the states, opera is just an add-on.
3. Why not? I'm going to move away anyway. Might as well go all the way.
4. Foreign languages don't scare me. In fact, they excite me. Might as well make my life as interesting as possible.
5. I could possibly win an all-paid scholarship to study there. You can't beat that.

Speaking of foreign languages...

I started my annual summer language study. This year I picked Russian because I'll be playing a Russian prince in the opera in January.

Russian is so cool! The alphabet is the love child of ancient Greek and English (aka "my" alphabet). The printed letters look nothing like the written ones, but WHATEVER. They have so many more letters than we do. There are ten vowels. Ugh.

The really interesting thing is that the letter for "I" is actually the last letter in the alphabet. There's something psychologically interesting about that. I'm always interested about a language's choice for the word "I" and how they handle its capitalization. As in German and Italian (and probably tons of other languages), the Russians only capitalize I when it's at the beginning of a sentence. What is it about us English speakers that we always capitalize it? There's no grammatical need for it. "i" is not a separate word. Is there something haughty about the fact that we always capitalize "I"? Is it a confidence thing or a mere grammatical tradition/decision? This is very interesting...

I cannot wait to master Italian. When I do, I'm going to write a novel in the language. I feel like it is so much more conducive to fiction. If I were writing a philosophical or other non-fiction work, I'd use German, but I'd never use German for fiction. It's horribly incompatible. That's a rather broad generalization and I'm sorry. My point is: I want to write in Italian one day. The end.

But I'm enjoying Russian. My co-worker is shaking her head at me saying "RUSSIAN?!?" Whatever. Got to love the shock factor.

I just can't completely be my character if I don't know the basics of his language. Certain words and phrases need to come out of my mouth without thinking. In the show, English (usually German, but we're doing this production in English) is his second language. That needs to be apparent. I'm going to work on my accent. Yay! I love imitating accents; it's so fun and I can usually do it. The Russian accent is hard, but I think I can handle it.

This is going to be such a fun part in general. I'm really looking forward to working on it. How often do I get to be a spoiled young princeling?

More to come.

I just started watching Roswell. It's starting to get really good. I just finished the first part (285 South) of this SUPER INTENSE two parter (aha). Yay for teenage drama.

I officially love hulu. :)

Anybody out there ever watch Roswell? Apparently it's a Jonathan Frakes baby. He always supports cheesy sci-fi. Oh, but I love it!

Fav characters:
1. Maria - got to love the weird best friend! I secretly want to fill that role in real life...the strange sidekick...
2. Liz - because she's a super-hot nerd; aka what we all aspire to be
3. Mike - THE HAIR, the bad-boy mentality, the guy who want to but never should date
4. Max - oh so nice and oh so frustrating
5. Creepy "guidance counselor" - didn't you always want someone to care that much about your personal life?
6. Sheriff Valenti - SLOANE! ahhhh Section 41!
7. Isabel - aww, Katherine Heigl

One of the great ironies of the world is Chopin’s trip with George Sand to Majorca. I’m surprised he would go at all. But that is beside the point.

The funniest thing of all is this: while they (Chopin, George Sand, and her two children) were in Cartuja, they stayed in a monastery. The place had been inhabited by monks just a few years before but the government had driven them out and repossessed the land for their own use. Now foreigners took up residence in the monk’s cells. What a strange place for Chopin and George Sand to stay!

I’ll be honest: I really don’t understand their relationship (yet). It is so utterly complex and the facts are muddled and cloudy; I can’t seem to get a clear fix on what actually went on. This relationship has obviously intrigued others; there are a great many books written on the subject and during the course of every thing written on Chopin, George Sand is brought up. And vice versa. They are both “famous” in their own respects. I suppose it is a curiosity that two celebrities (of two different worlds) would have had an affair, but the interest in this relationship seems to extend past that. I can’t put my finger on it. Not yet. This is one of my summer projects: figure out the Chopin/George Sand relationship.

Meanwhile, I’m excited to listen to the music that Chopin wrote while residing here. Majorca is so exotic— so singular a place. I cannot wait to hear what sort of music it inspired. More to come.

Just to get an idea, here is one of George Sand's description of the place: (she is such a good writer!)

"How lovely were those tricks of light we used to see when oblique rays would find a way through the crannies of the rocks, or slide between the different peaks, to pick out alternating crests of gold and purple in the middle distance! Sometimes our cypresses, those jet-black obelisks which served to set-off the background of the picture, would bathe their tips in this flaming sea, and the clusters of dates on our palm-trees would seem like bunches of great rubies, while one great line of shadow sweeping down athwart the valley cut it into two quite separate zones-- the one, flooded with the brilliance of a summer's light, the other blue and cold, and to the sight uncompromisingly a winter's landscape.

"It is one of those views which overpower the spectator because they leave nothing more to be desired, nothing to the imagination. Nature has already created everything which poet and painter could envisage in their dreams. An immense whole, an infinity of details, an inexhaustible variety; a welter of mingling shapes; clearcut outlines, dim depths-- oh, everything is there already and there is nothing left at all for art to add! As for me, I have never been more conscious of the inadequacy of words than during the hours which I spent gazing out from the Cartuja."

from Chopin and George Sand in Majorca by Bartolome Ferra; trans. James Webb, Haskell House 1974

Omgosh, this semester is officially and finally OVER! Thank God!

I just handed in my 96-page honors project; that means SPRING 09 IS COMPLETE. Ah! I can't believe how amazing this feels. It's disgusting outside but I feel like I could coax the sun out with my enthusiasm.

What a change this is from the last month. Before Monday, my life was hell for three weeks. Terrible. I was so happy when it all turned around on Monday with my huge C Level Petition/Jury. It was a turning point moment: a Shakespearean "point of no return." It could have gone really bad (which would have jeopardized the rest of my career, aka my life) or I could have broken through the three-week slump and done amazing. There was no in-between.

Thank God it was the latter. I did fantastically. I got an A and I was emphatically approved into the performance program by all four judges. Yes!

Now summer can begin. :) Here's the music that helped me get through the end of the semester:
Head over Heels (In This Life) - Switchfoot
Even Angels Cry - Jars of Clay
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen - Mahler (Translation: The world lost me long ago)
Hanging by a Moment - Lifehouse
Awakening - Switchfoot
Cinque...dieci...venti... - Mozart (opening duet from The Marriage of Figaro)

For those of you who have been paying attention the past few months:

( On writing, art, and self-discovery )
But enough philosophy! I hope you all have a great summer and good luck to anyone who still has school/finals.

Toi, toi, toi!

Pre-jury regiment:

sleep
warm-up
make-up
WATER
3 pretzels and/or tortilla chips
deep breathing


Post-jury regiment:

deep breathing
cool down
WATER
food
sleep

I passed my Level C Petition Jury with an A! YESSSSSSS!

Mrs. Incredible HANDS DOWN!!

You struggle through a terrible day, make it home to mope to your parents, and it turns out they've had a worse day than you.

You sleep in late the next day and wake to find that the rain has passed.

The sun is shining, the grass is green, and there are trees that you haven't noticed before.

Amazing how clouds can open your eyes to the sun.