Morning run in the light rain and cool. I pushed myself to do two laps (6 miles) and was pleasantly surprised to run into Vanessa. (I rarely run into people I know when I run underneath the oaks.)

I caved and ordered my jury dress from the Atlanta Anthropologie because I figured that it was closer than California or Missouri.

I practiced for nearly an hour before a thirty-minute recording session that began somewhat inauspiciously when Jose said that the previous users of the sound booth (Irish Studies for a concert on Wednesday) tampered with the fuse box and the wiring so that the microphone was disconnected to the equipment!

We wasted maybe 20 minutes while Jose tried to fix everything. It was no one's fault. Thankfully, we were able to record everything except "Rejoice greatly," which, although we did one take... was frenetic and inaccurate at times on my part. I will record that Monday morning at 10 AM.

Tonight my job is to compile a master CD of all versions (my recital and tonight, mostly) of my rep to give to my teacher for perusal as well as to decide how to order the tracks. I also need to finish my personal statements.

I can't believe that I am thisclose to finishing the majority of my applications, but I don't feel relieved. I declined watching New Moon tonight because I had to bake pumpkin scones and key lime bars for tomorrow's concert as well as work on graduate school materials.

Pedagogy postponed. Slept in again, if you can count sleeping 'til 9:30 AM.

Ehh biology test on photosynthesis, mitosis, and some meiosis. I can't believe that I didn't study C4 and CAM plants more thoroughly.

Had a wonderful voice lesson. Low-key, not frenetic on my part. My upper-middle and high were ringing, and The Salley Gardens, while not entirely a stroll through the park, was gratifying.

My teacher used my red barong (gossamer embroidered layer over a vibrant red camisole) as a metaphor for my middle voice, comparing the camisole to my chest voice and the over layer to my head voice. He also said that I am a good musician and have been progressing rapidly in choir and in voice (at that moment, anyway) although I am "self-deprecating and drive [him] crazy."

After he had opened the piano fully (I almost never sing with it this way), he said that I should listen more to the left hand and bass-line in everything from solo rep to choir. Before we finished work on the Britten, he instructed Jasmine to only play the left hand and for me to sing a duet with it, as if the left hand were the love of my life.

The potential jury dress didn't quite work out as I'd hoped. I have some time.

Two of 7 tracks done, the Buxtehude and Handel Brockes Passion arias. 5 more to go: Handel opera aria, potentially "Rejoice greatly" with florid ornaments, Schubert, Massenet, and Arne. I could also use Fauré's "Pie Jesu" from this summer...

Personal statements will be done by this weekend, my recs are cooking, I've allocated the money for the exorbitant fees that would afford me more than a cocktail dress at Anthropologie as well as transcript fees ($8.25 a pop) and Priority Mail.

On another note, my jury dress is 50% off at Anthropologie and is on hold. If it fits, I'm buying it tomorrow afternoon. I'll just need a fresh pair of flesh-colored fishnets and a black cardigan.

I feel sort of like I'm in The Three Little Pigs as the one who built the brick house...

I got a callback via e-mail for the light opera summer company to which I submitted a screening application at the beginning of October. I was actually kind of surprised because I'd thought the date for notification had passed.

My audition is in the evening of December 5... which means that I have to memorize the monologue I said I'd do if I were selected... The season includes Gypsy and Iolanthe, the former of which I am especially excited.

I feel a little bit like Alice in Wonderland and Chicken Little combined. I feel a little discombobulated and know that several deadlines are impending, that the sky might fall, but it won't. I'm strangely calm yet tense and focused, if that makes any sense.

I am steadily getting grad school apps finalized. I already have some tentative tracks for screening CDs, and Thursday I record 2 Handel arias in the chapel with my teacher and Friday 4 secular art songs in the recital hall with my accompanist/piano teacher. I need to finish my personal statements and essays.

The official GRE score report finally arrived this evening, and I was relieved to learn that Longy doesn't require GRE scores. I was going to have to pay $20 online tonight to have an additional report mailed.

My biology lab group's poster is due Thursday morning at 8 AM, so tonight Gerardo and Sara came over ( for a few hours. )

I also have a rehearsal for "Heart and Soul" with Walter this afternoon, music to distribute to the faculty instrumentalists playing on our Advent/Christmas concert, a student-teaching voice lesson at 6 PM on Thursday, a biology test Friday morning on photosynthesis and mitosis, and my actual voice lesson Friday afternoon.

Jasia kindly said that I could borrow a dress or something to wear so I don't have to wait an additional hour for my laundry. I have virtually no clean clothes.

For some reason I felt compelled to whip out the Into the Woods OBRCR for the first time in years...

Time to shower and sleep.

Had an ehh day.

Got to sing a gorgeous setting of "Love divine, love's excelling" standing in a space about a foot between a grand piano and a wall with some of my favorite people.

In rehearsal this evening, my teacher laughed at me because my arms weren't fluid enough during the partner dancing of the dance break of "Heart and Soul," and I apparently really need to work on both emphasizing and executing the backstep of the West Coast shuffle-based choreography as well as learn how to spot while doing chaine turns.

I realized that, while "Heart and Soul" is perky and cute, the whole idea of the scene is a complete travesty since Walter is my platonic, homosexual friend. I don't want to perform the duet cynically, but I feel like right now, it seems campy.

I ate too much at dinner. I had been planning to eat a simple turkey sandwich after 8 PM Mass, but I returned to find my apartment filled with the housemates and soccer team friends. There were plentiful Costco leftovers: rotisserie chicken, chicken alfredo, stuffing, and Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate brownies.

It's a good thing that I'm going running early in the morning.

And so another week begins.

My appetite is still not where it used to be.

I threw away half of my usual English muffin/peach preserves/egg sandwich yesterday morning, and the delicious, hearty chicken portabello mushroom sandwich from the amazing supermarket that I normally scarf down I split between lunch and dinner and was thus extremely full.

I had a bowl of Rice Chex this morning and was quite sated.

Like clockwork, I heard my phone chime at the receipt of a text message.

Choir was surprisingly quick yesterday afternoon, and it was strange that there were only 6 sopranos including myself.

Post-abbreviated P90X plyometrics workout, Jasia and I had a good conversation over bubble tea, although I barely drank mine, and we stayed until closing at midnight.

Last night was the second consecutively that I could hardly sleep. I ended up playing dress up and trying on my cocktail dresses in my closet until about 3:30 AM.

Yet I woke up at 7:28 just before my alarm this morning.

Biology lecture canceled, which would be good if we didn't have an online activity to complete by 5 PM.

I can still hear that music and still hear those words. It is awful.

I almost wish that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's memory-erasing process at Lacuna, Inc. or Men in Black's neuralyzers were real.

I feel so stupid on so many planes. For idealizing them, for looking up to them in that manner, for not being more perceptive, for believing.

Loss of appetite.

Vacant stares.

Snippets of the Duruflé still wafting through my head.

Belting (over my passaggio, even... now to translate that placement to classical singing...) the otherwise hilariously flirty "Heart and Soul" with Walter.

Jamming in the truck to Britney and Black Eyed Peas on the way to the playground with Walter and Kristen.

Library field trip with Walter to get the Bryn-Julson recording of The Nantucket Songs, listen to some of our teacher's Masters recital (A Hand of Bridge and Brahms Lieder), and peruse the beautiful Bärenreiter Messiah facsimile manuscript from the British Museum.

The most bird-like dinner I have ever eaten. I could hardly finish the strawberries and minimal whipped cream, which I normally devour.

Staging "The Grass Is Always Greener" with Andrea.

Wanting to be alone, but also wanting to be with people.

I don't know where to go from here.

I hate not being able to talk about it.

Awful elephant in the room. Living a lie. For how long?

Feeling weighed down, hopeless, and frozen.

Those 11 awful, stark, real words constantly coming up in my mind, on the wall, on the board. Everywhere.

It's like a nightmare. But this is real and never-ending.

People who smoke and walk down the street or academic mall simultaneously.

Creepers who aren't music students or majors/minors who clog up the practice rooms.

Male guests who do not return the toilet seat to its initial state.

Poor sight readers who don't have good tonal memory.

And especially today: People who feel the need to divulge their diet strategies out of the blue.

For example, someone who today said that she is going to buy whipped cream to make a Splenda-sweetened concoction to replace ice cream, that she "knows all the secrets [to make this diet work]," that Atkins isn't bad for your heart, and that she and a certain teacher want to lose at least 5 pounds by Thanksgiving.

No offense, I know I've mentioned food before in my journal, but

1) When did it become okay to talk about these things in public?! (I felt like Betty Draper not wanting to be improprietous.)

2) Why do people feel like it's okay to be a martyr about it?! No one is forcing them to alter their eating habits.

3) What does she want me to say? "That's great"?!

4) Everything in moderation, I say.

Half of me wanted to eat that lasagna and dessert, whatever it was, with relish as she sat there, but then the other part of me was so furious that I had to sit through this the entire car trip that I decided to have a strawberry smoothie and Rice Chex instead and resisted partaking of the brownies the soccer players brought over to the apartment when they watched a basketball game with my housemates.

I don't know if I was more annoyed that almost all conversation this evening centered on this diet, or that she bombarded me with it completely unawares. I felt like the rest of the time, I couldn't allude to anything remotely carbohydrate-related, whether it was future baking projects for upcoming school concerts or replacing my roommate's cereal.

Jasia seems to think this occurred because this other friend thinks I'm much closer to her than I think she is to me.

UGH.

On the bright side, the light at the end of the tunnel is near in regards to my applications! I just need to get my screening CD choices approved, set up times and dates to record, as well as finalize the personal statements. The recommendation letters are being written, the GRE was taken, and the money for application fees and transcripts has been set aside. (Yes, passive construction, I know.)

Long day tomorrow. But I can do it. Toodles.

I had a revelation today: I don't want exactly "what I don't have." I mean, I don't want to be someone or something I am not. I would rather be the very best version of myself that I can be. With as few (vocal) technical problems as possible.

Power Vinyasa yoga + Handel's Cleopatra + ornaments from Sills, Claycomb, DeNiese, and Te Kanawa + Unused I am to lovers (and its not-hard-to-tap-into subtext) + "I attempt from love's sickness" = :)

My teacher said my middle was "more closed" today, perhaps because yoga was amazing (the first time I'd been in over a month), perhaps because it was past 9 PM at night. I was also able to sing the otherwise challenging "Non disperar" octave from B4-B5 and then A4-A5 more easily.

Perhaps it was because it was the end of the day?

I was mostly happy with what I heard on my recording for once.

Duet in the works with Walter :) Yahoo! "Heart and Soul" will steal the show. It will be cute.

A crazy week is over.

Deciding to attend the party after all.

Makeshift Liza Minelli-as-Sally Bowles last night, thanks in large part to my dear Irish housemate Maria, a whiz with costuming and make-up.

Walter winning the costume contest in less than 30 seconds.

Dancing and jumping up and down on the stage/catwalk with Walter, Kristen, Daniela, Andrea, Meeka, and friends to our favorite songs.

Early-morning conversations about music and science with Jasia and Maria in the bathroom.

Four hours of sleep and feeling strangely refreshed.

Kicking GRE butt (thank you, econ_cat, for being instrumental in making that a possibility!)

New and free phone!

Baking chocolate cupcakes.

A good end to a long month.

Last night Jasia, who worked at Smoothie King during the summer, made Zoe, Sebastian, herself, and me strawberry-banana smoothies with vanilla Gladiator protein powder for dinner. Initially I thought, "Mmm, this tastes good," since I've not had a smoothie in a long time, nor have I ever ordered a milkshake. However, as I neared the end of the 16-ounce cup, I suddenly felt full. Whoa. It was pretty neat, but I do like eating solid food.

We had Johannine Literature for the first time in a little over a week. I was relieved that the professor was well, but then I was also disappointed to have class because I was falling asleep.

I get to be Woman #3/Karen Mason as Tess Harding in "The Grass Is Always Greener," originally from Woman of the Year and incorporated into Kander and Ebb's And the World Goes 'Round. I'm happy that the lower part (not that I couldn't sing Woman #1's part) happened to be the celebrity. I was hoping for a more dance-oriented solo, however.

I need to stop eating dinner on Wednesdays. Srsly. Meatloaf, green beans, rice, bread pudding with whiskey sauce. It's a good thing that I don't eat lunch on Wednesdays.

I lost my phone tonight... My housemate called it, and the voicemail picked up the call, so hopefully this means that it wasn't stolen? I can't believe this happened. I've never lost my phone before, and I had just gotten it in April the day after my recital.... Aaaack.

Off to try to calm down and do bio lab homework. Toodles.

This whole not-eating-for-8-hours thing is getting old. I kind of want to try Larabars, what with those enticing flavors... although I don't really like replacing meals with 200-calorie bars, nor do I really like the concept of snacks, organic or not.

Piano lesson went mostly well, except for the fact that I was seized with momentary fits of anxiety. Again, I need to stop treating my weekly piano lesson and its completion like Peter Rabbit evading Mr. MacGregor and enjoy myself. I mean, I practice diligently.

Voice class went well, too, I think. My teacher said that the lines of "Wir wandelten" accelerando and then slow down, and then I repeat this again and again. He had me kick off my heels and run around the piano during the opening and then sing.

When my teacher asked how I felt, I replied, "I feel alive!" with a huge grin on my face. I was heartened with Vivian said that my lines were beautiful and that my face was engaged to the point that she believed I was in love, that she was compelled to look behind to see the "man."

Walter's "Non è sì vago e bello" was gorgeous, like chocolate silk pie. I realized toward the end of his turn onstage that we may not go to the same graduate program... and I got kind of sad.

I want to do "Non disperar" next week, but I have nothing to wear, and I don't want to get burned.

Choir went okay, except that 1) I was famished, 2) that partly dwarfed any sense of accomplishment I could have derived from voice class, 3) the sopranos kept missing intervals in David Ashley White's Love came down at Christmas, and 4) my teacher pedestalized the gorgeous, thirty-something mezzo-soprano staff singer who is bolstering the alto section. She is such a humble, beautiful person, though, so you kind of feel bad feeling bad about his praising her; she is nothing short of amazing.

It just made me wonder if and or when would it be possible to attain such a level of musicality, professionalism, and skill. It made me feel behind. After the 2 or so hours of both voice class and choir, I mostly noticed what was missing: the "feigned" notes in the Brahms, the missed intervals, the shading that could've happened in that English carol.

We had pedagogy video-viewing for about 40 minutes, which made me want to cry even more because it only underscored the fact that most of what singing entails is controllable or manipulatable by us, the singers, as opposed to things like the weather, one's cycle, and allergies that might negatively affect us.

The weather is gorgeous outside, and I feel depleted. I'm heading out for a run within the hour...

It's so hard not to freak out when you get a horrid grade and remember that the world isn't over because life is so much more than grades, but also because your professor allows you to drop a quiz grade (although I have 2 particularly disgusting grades, not 1), so in the grand scheme of things, you can still make an A in biology and graduate summa cum laude...

But still. The feeling sucks.

And I love that my roommate, as I was taking the quiz, brought in a housemate to peruse online make-up tutorials and talk loudly.

*sigh* It's not their fault that I tanked -- the quiz was particularly difficult and full of application questions -- but eeeek! I don't want to have to be climbing uphill for the rest of the semester. And I'm tired of living someplace that is virtually unconducive to studying.

In the living room 2 of my housemates and 2 friends are watching the North and South miniseries after taking a break to visit a local 24-hour diner and earlier, watching the 2005 Pride & Prejudice adaptation. Don't these people have homework?!? Having a social life is not a potential BA concentration when I last checked.

Tabbing my chamber choir music and then it's finally time for bed. Amen.

It's the ninth week of school.

I went to bed last night at 12ish, got up at 6 intending to write a paper that was due at 12:10 PM, but went back to bed because I was still tired. Got up at 9ish, wrote through my 11:10 biology, finished the paper, literally ran to the theology house, and lo and behold, class was canceled because the prof was ill. Oy. At least the paper was done.

I'm taking the GRE soon and am finalizing graduate school applications, confirming recommendation letters, and fine-tuning my personal statement. Part of me is glad that I'm finally making time for this, since it seems that school and music have taken most of my time, but part of me is still scared because this only affirms that the end of my time here is drawing close, even if "the end" comes in May.

Part of me misses having time and interest to go out with friends, but another part doesn't really give a care about what most of my friends and acquaintances here at school are doing (econ_cat and mental3540case, I am not referring to you here! I do miss you), mostly needy underclassmen. (Is that so horrible to say?)

My apartmentmates are all juniors, many of whom have classes Monday through Thursday, which means impromptu hookah-smoking at a restaurant on Tuesday (!) or a boisterous movie night in the living room on Thursday, complete with Grey Goose and tortilla chips; my actual roommate and her boyfriend (soon to be fiancé) are practically attached at the hip.

There is no "perfect" time to practice, what with the extremely thin walls in the music building. In the morning, I value my sleep or time to do homework or I have class, but in the evening, I'm bordering on exhausted, or I have to compete with the freshman pianist banging out minor scales or other singers whose voices I don't care to hear. Ugh. I left after my thirty-something minutes of piano practice and about twenty minutes of Handel and Brahms.

I feel like I enjoy practicing for piano now more than I do voice, in part because there is a newness and slight impersonal aspect in that I am manipulating an percussion instrument instead of my vocal cords.

I don't know if it's the ragweed, being female and irregular..., the change in the weather, and/or fatigue, but I feel as of late like it takes effort to vibrate. We sing G and A5 straight tone in chamber choir a lot, but I haven't warmed up to anything higher than that lately, and I miss using my high.

I feel like the rest of my life won't begin until I can iron out my technical problems. That haunting quote from that renowned pianist/coach to his son -- that he had no business dating a girl whose middle voice was a wreck because that meant she couldn't keep house, balance a checkbook, etc. -- always resonates in the back of my mind. I feel like I want to fix my problems SO badly that I can taste it, but I don't know if this willfulness will help or hinder me. I'm supposed to relax certain things but simultaneously maintain tension elsewhere. I don't understand how some people can not think about it and just sing. I wish I were one of those people.

Part of me is honest when I answer people that I don't know what I want to do after school. Part of me is not. I know pretty well what I want in life, in music. But part of me is embarrassed to admit it because I fear that people will judge me or think negatively of what I want.

I've had beef twice this week for dinner (beef brisket last night, French roast tonight)... I almost never eat beef. Eeeek. I need to stop.

I think I'm going to write this lab report and go to bed. I was going to run the parking garage stairs with my roommate, but my heart is not in it right now.

Whip It! was an entertaining if somewhat long movie that almost made me completely forget all of the stress and deadlines mounting in my life... until, for a split second, as the screen panned from Ellen Page to Landon Pigg parting ways after their nighttime pool rendezvous, my mind drifted back to reality.

When Mary Kate and Zoe picked me up from the airport in the former's shiny red Prius, I was almost in disbelief that I was already back from my brief sojourn, that yesterday I was in the car with my parents after my unsuccessful trip to the mall.

I need to stop being overambitious on short school breaks like this one. Or at least be more content with what I do accomplish. Just getting out of here made my weekend that much better.

My hair is now a cross between a 1920s flapper bob with 20th-century asymmetrical bangs. The wispy layered back was getting on my nerves, despite compliments from some friends at school.

Time to get on with the rest of my day. Some TV, biology, laundry, groceries and preparing for the weeks to come.

I never thought I'd say it... but I kind of hate shopping because of the way I'm built.

Over 2 hours at the mall for the first time in months with my mom, and the only things that I came remotely close to buying were a set of durable stainless steel measuring cups and spoons from Williams-Sonoma and a pair of black satin heels at White House Black Market.

Maybe also a pair of black glitter-dusted pointy-toed flats and a black wool capelet with three shiny buttons at Forever 21, but I thought about how it's not quite sweater weather yet. I decided to hold off on Sephora purchases until I got back to school. There were also these delicious-smelling black leather equestrian-style boots by Frye at Dillards that were extravagant...

No one seems to carry nude fishnet stockings in my size. Victoria's Secret was out, and Dillards no longer stocks them.

Earlier I had lunch with Donna at one of our favorite Japanese restaurants, which was the first time I'd had sushi this semester (!) Tonight we're going to see Whip It! with a few friends. Paranormal Activity will have to wait until Wednesday night, since it's not showing here, but I'm looking forward to that, too.

Ooh. Want to watch this one.

Off to the movies.

I want to have a day when I don't feel remorseful about everything that goes into my mouth.

I sometimes forget that food is sort of necessary to live.

But I don't understand why I seem to be hungry most of the time...

Fall Break at last. I realized this afternoon that it's been SO long since we've had a real break -- I don't mean a two-day weekend, because those go by so fast and are usually jam-packed with rehearsals and homework -- that my body is confused as to what to do.

I wouldn't mind being Diana Damrau when I grow up, but I know that the world already has a Diana Damrau, and she's amazing.

I've listened to "Je veux vivre" so many times this week that, in the heat of my biology test, as I thought about ribosomes and lipids, I could hear the lilting waltz. Oy.

Postmark deadline on Monday for a light opera summer program. I'm sending my things off on a whim, since the program includes a favorite musical of mine.

And I am likely going home, if only for a day-and-a-half. I have to get away from this place.

P90X with Jasia and Sebastian tonight. Should be good.

I did it!

Picspam to come in the morning...

It's been one amazing weekend. And it's not even over yet! Toodles.

I should live up to my first first name more.

And now I'm off to prepare Opera Workshop music before going for a brisk run. I think, post-toning, I will have dinner with Marissa and Ariel before we acquire ingredients to bake something tonight. I was thinking a king cake, but I don't know what will strike my fancy later this evening.

It's also Fridaaay! Long, good, music (concert attendance)-filled weekend ahead! Toodles.

( to-do. )

halloween costume. help. Halloween is less than a week away... I'm a bit bummed that it falls on a Friday because that means I'll only get to wear my costume once; the school-wide costume party will obviously be on Halloween, as opposed to the Friday before Halloween as it was last year.

I originally wanted to be Zerbinetta, patterned somewhat after Kathleen Battle's costume, except red, black, and white with a solid bodice/corset and diamante skirt like Diana Damrau's. I already had a jaunty hat as an accessory.

But I don't know how feasible that is given the short amount of time. My other ideas for this year were Sophie from Der Rosenkavalier (Julianne Gearhart in Seattle Opera's production), Duchesse de Polignac in the green gown from Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, or Cécile de Volanges from Valmont (which I know is a tweaked version of Les Liaisons dangereuses)... which are about as involved as the Zerbinetta costume *shrugs*

My mom said she'd make me my costume if she had an adequate workspace, so my thoughts now are 1) renting a costume, 2) paying to have my costume made (I supply the pattern, measurements, fabric, and notions, and hope for the best), 3) *shudders* buying a simple costume, or 4) not going incognito at all. I don't want to be Cherubino again this year, since that costume was quite memorable last year, nor do I want to be like hordes of other girls scantily, skankily "clad" in the potentially cold weather. That is too easy :p

I'm going to e-mail our stage director if she can recommend me a good seamstress/tailor who could execute my costume.

I was thinking of having either this pattern (pattern 3637) or this simpler one (pattern 4092) made for the blue Cécile gown. However, I realize that both designs require a pannier of some sort... or at least petticoats. The more complicated one even has a separate, $17.95 pattern for the panniers (pattern 3635).

ETA (10/21, 7:30 PM): I decided to put an inquiry to the local professional costuming supply. I added Queen of the Night to the list of possible costumes. I hope it's still possible, that it won't break the bank, and that I get a pretty costume.

As for the pie, I'm baking a lattice-work peach pie tonight! Perhaps will watch The Dutchess around 10 PM with my mom? I don't know.

what to bake? I'm thinking it's between the hand pies, for which I actually packed my two cookie sheets, and the apple crumb bars. Or just plain apple pie, hahah. Fruit filling, definitely.

I also want to snap up a set of icing tips (okay, I'd be happy with a 1M and a set of 12 disposable icing bags) at Michael's before I return to school so my next cupcakes are spiffier looking. And a pair of 9" springform pans. And a 9 x 9" pan.

zzz. I was reminded today of how much sleep I need (have lost?) because I almost slept all afternoon. I'm taking an extended break before I return to my Introduction to Sacred Scriptures homework. Tomorrow is Christ and the Moral Life, and Tuesday is theory and ET/SS.

The aroma of scrambled eggs calls? Toodles.