I don't understand why a pretty good day is leaving me feeling sad and despairing.

Because of a late-night thin-crust pizza slip (that was in part provoked by my insistence of pressing on in my review of Mad Men seasons past and not having eaten for over 6 hours), I decided to try two back-to-back exercise classes this morning at the Y, Nightclub Cardio, which I'd never previously done, and Zumba! with perky, pixie-haired, Cathy Rigby-esque M.

Nightclub Cardio is basically like a watered-down Zumba with emphasis on pop, rather than Latin, music. I knew that I would enjoy it when the warm-up was "Starships." In the penultimate song, "Domino," I accidentally added a high-kick to one of the moves, which the instructor dubbed, "beautiful" before adding it to the mix.

I didn't eat until The Hunger Games matinee at 1:35 PM, which I enjoyed thoroughly with a trio of my friends who had already seen it previously on the premiere night. Because summer is coming, all of the previews looked enticing (okay, except maybe the final installment in the Twilight franchise).

While I am wary of any movie adaptations of books as a genre, I felt like the movie, with its changes, stayed true to the spirit of the original novel and made for a very compelling, varied experience with drama, action, pathos, and even fashion.

I thought that knowing the entire arc of all of the characters -- I read the trilogy over 1.5 days in March, stopping only to sleep, really -- would make the movie less… emotional or heartrending, but it didn't. I was already beginning to tear up when Prim had nightmares about the Reaping, when she was selected, and in the moment she was given to bid her sister farewell. And then the scene with Rue? Oh my goodness. I was a mess.

I got to spend the evening with my favorite 8-year-old, whom I gifted with a Keep Calm, HP shirt ("Keep calm and be the chosen one") in anticipation for next week's Orlando trip. (Mine is Hermione's "Keep calm and try not to get killed, or worse, expelled.")

In not being home almost all day, I had a few moments between the movie and being picked up for dinner and baby-sitting to check my e-mail. Amid the junk mail, I heard back from the young artist program for which I auditioned last Monday.

And while I am honestly grateful that the experience was a good one, that I felt great about my singing and progress especially in the last semester (if not the last 1.5 years with S), it was/is still disappointing to be rejected.

When I saw this posted on a friend's status tonight, it sort of summed up exactly how I feel.

So. More Mad Men? I'm nearing the end of Season 4. (I have been re-watching Seasons 2-4 while keeping up with the current season. Perhaps Season 1 is in order soon.)

Travesty. The Sound of Music is unavailable on Netflix.

On the bright side, yesterday post-Zumba!, one of my classmates introduced himself and said how much he enjoyed watching me dance.

Today before Zumba!, the instructor asked when I was going to start teaching, and I said that I was aiming for fall. The soonest certifications I could attend are in mid-to-late June.

Tuesday I practiced for the first time in earnest -- not counting shower singing and singing while I bake (my kitchen has good acoustics, haha) -- since the two-week bout with mild bronchitis and laryngitis. And it was so much fun! The arias that S suggested were good fits, although I want so much to sing all 4-5 NOW, that I had some trouble stopping for a moment to formulate a game plan to learn them properly.

I have learned this week that drinking is not for me. (I rarely drink, and when I do, it's wine with a meal, and once in a blue moon.) Tuesday evening I had a cosmopolitan -- Maria was buying the first round, I couldn't think of anything else that I might want to drink (the champagne was by-the-bottle and through the roof), and for me, it was my only round -- on a telescoped pub crawl (we went to two bars total before hitting the 24-hour diner for 2 AM grub).

Yesterday evening at Maria's going-away party, I brought cupcakes and the bottle of prosecco I'd recently received as part of a thank you gift; I was heartened to be greeted with whoops and cheers as I situated the tray on the central coffee table.

I poured myself about 1.5 glasses of the prosecco… And while it tasted good, without anything more substantial than Goldfish in my stomach, I immediately felt warm and slightly giddy. To the point that I collapsed onto Maria's bed until 3 AM. It was a much-needed nap after a long day. Even when I got home, I couldn't fall asleep.

I felt like a zombie and even contemplated skipped Zumba! this morning (but I'm glad that I didn't). I think two nights in a row of "partying" and the resultant sleep deprivation have contributed to my thirstiness and slight effort required in my high :(

I sent my mom a Mother's Day card along with the recording, program, and texts and translations from the recent studio recital, and I finally got around to writing Maria her graduation card. (Only bummer is that while I was setting my wax seal, a drop of red hot wax fell onto my bare leg. OUCH.)

Her present, a miniature red suitcase reflecting her future PhD program's colors/logo and lined with Vivaldi sheet music wrapping paper, is a care package or survival guide: engraved flask, Seven-Year Pen (the hipster glasses are exactly like hers), monocle (an inside joke), miniature Polaroid-style magnets of pictures from the last 2 years' parties, and star sunglasses and a mini sceptre.

But today in my practice session, I literally put my head down for a moment on the baby grand Steinway before I realized what I was doing and where I was.

Looking forward to a lesson tomorrow, work, and the commencement concert and reception.

I realized earlier today that, when it is time to say good-bye (or see you later) to a group of friends at a time like this, I often get irritable/angry/withdrawn. Perhaps as a defense mechanism against the imminent reality. I also know what a busy time this year is for everyone, so I guess I am striving to make the most of the next 4 days. I can't believe so many people who I've come to know and grow fond of over the last 2 years will be gone come Sunday through Tuesday.

I really can't sleep
I'm really quite sad, you know
Friends graduating

Yesterday was spleen*
But with some bright spots, of course
Bought gift, ate croissant

Copied new ar-ias
Obsessed with Madam Mao's piece
Sounds like screaming, though

I really can't sleep
So I'll bake Guinness cupcakes
For Wednesday's party^

Ordered pizza, too
Catching up on Smash, Castle
Once, and GCB

Might go to Flor' da
Harry Potter Wizarding#
Hopefully I'll go

*In the melancholy sense. Not the organ.
^I'm baking a dozen Irish carbomb and a dozen tiramisu cupcakes for my fellow musicology classmate's going away wine party on Wednesday. My roommate, a math PhD-track, also successfully completed her qualifying exams, so I'm baking a dozen Irish carbomb cupcakes for her, too.
#Yes, I know it's The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

1. swing at the park
2. watch Smash (loved finally getting to hear Dev sing in the Bollywood musical number with the rest of the cast in tableau cameos!)
3. return library books (on Aida and Don Carlos)
4. retrieve American Music book review from mailbox (so glad I was lucid enough to write that in the two hours before class)
5. retrieve piebox from Maria's locker
6. retrieve programs and flyer from my teacher's Monday's spectacular recital
7. buy first part of Maria's graduation present (mini-suitcase and Vivaldi suite wrapping paper for lining) at Paper Source
8. explore ways of spending my tax refund and security deposit at Anthropologie
9. last Zumba! class of the semester at university rec (signing up for the Y this weekend!)
10. procure more bottled water and baking ingredients
11. watch Once Upon a Time

My motivation for anything other than voice lessons and things I'd rather be doing (e.g., practicing, Zumba every day, SMASH-booking, hanging out with friends, reading for leisure, baking, sleeping, etc.) is quite slim.

All I have left besides my thesis defense in August is

9-page paper on French grand opera
3 minutes of a group presentation about the Met and primacy of singers in the early 20th century for American Music seminar
6-page review of Horowitz's Classical Music in America: A History

And next week's studio recital, which I don't count as an assignment because it's fun.

Last week I was able to do Zumba five times, which was reminiscent of last summer when I did it six times a week. Saturday was an all-morning fitness expo in which different classes were sampled every half-hour. I tried the Les Mills' Sh'Bam, which reminded me a simpler version of those dance games for Wii or X Box Kinect… More like a warm-up for Zumba.

When my Zumba instructor friend A taught the Zumba and Zumba Toning sets, I realized how liberated and happy I felt dancing after a particularly busy Friday -- and this was before I went onstage to be a back-up dancer for a set of so.

Awhile back, A jade asked if I have considered getting certified to teach Zumba (obviously as a second job, not my main one), and after Saturday morning -- all segments at the Y and A's noon-time class at a local shopping center totaled about 3 hours of dance fitness, which left me sore even today (on the bright side, it is less effortful to sit and stand up straight, as it had been last summer when I did Zumba regularly) -- I realized that I would love to get paid to exercise but more importantly/fulfillingly, to help share that happiness, freedom, and lightness with other people.

Tonight in class, despite being somewhat cautious in light of my soreness, in the mirror I glimpsed the Old Me, the one who was happier, spryer, the one who cared consistently about her health and well-being… Which made me realize that my goals are within reach.

In other news, I received my super-cool new piping bag and tip set, and last night I almost burst into tears when I was in the midst of writing a paper due today (I asked for an extension until tomorrow because I had to change gears when I realized that there weren't enough sources to write the paper on that opera), and my teacher requested additional program notes for instrumental pieces, one of which had recently been added.

Thankfully I had already researched one of them, and the other three weren't hard to write about. I will be so happy when this week is over.

I have mixed emotions about the imminent close of the semester and thus my time in this graduate program.

I have

15 days of class
3 more thesis chapters and an acknowledgments/intro/conclusion
thesis defense (April 11)
a 9-page paper on Aida (April 16)
a 6-page book review on Horowitz's engaging Classical Music in America: A History (April 19)
a 20-minute presentation with 3 friends of mine on opera in 20th century America (April 17)
4 voice lessons
program notes for my teacher's operetta-themed recital
a studio recital

left. I don't really consider the last 3 items to be "work," since I like them all.

Yesterday I had a reality check via advice from an eminent conductor that I'm sure wasn't meant to be discouraging... But it was kind of a downer coupled with the rainy weather. That if I were I were to pursue a musicology doctorate, with my skills ("You're great with people, you write well, you're a good musician...") I would be an "interesting commodity" and still be able to perform, whereas, if I pursued primarily performance, I would be approaching a corridor resembling the masses of people clamoring outside of Macy's on Black Friday.

That I know... But I wasn't able to convey in response to my sage advisor that I would pursue musicology further if it weren't making me so miserable to the point that I don't think I could go on living if I had to get another musicology degree. I don't think I've ever felt this awful about school and what I'm doing.

My allergies coupled with tendonitis from a half-marathon about 3 weeks ago have made it difficult to participate in physical activities. This week, since my leg was better to the point that I could balance on it, I returned to Zumba! twice and boot camp, the last of which was especially brutal, but good. I also started eating mostly vegan (Udi's contains eggs) and gluten-free again, and all of this has made me begun to feel better and cleaner.

I bowed out of seminar this morning and rescheduled my meeting with my advisor because I woke up this morning to find that yesterday's raw throat had escalated into a sore one and crackling cough. An orange, several bottles of water, 2 1000mg Vitamin C pills, and a sample Whole Foods vegan cold/flu pill later, I am feeling a bit better, although I am not using my voice much today.

I can't believe that Holy Week and April are already here. Yikes.

Off to hang some laundry and write more thesis chapters... I just have to keep remembering the robes and pink hood (which I won't buy until my defense is over), shaking Dr. L's hand on the graduation platform, and being free in a few short weeks...

Bad news: No from summer program #1.

My thesis advisor isn't happy with me because I've fallen off my schedule.

I can't really sleep. Uh oh.

Good news: Epiphanic voice lesson on Tuesday. S and I worked on singing high and soft without disconnecting (something bad I learned in undergrad) as well as honest-to-goodness nuanced crescendo/decrescendo/messa di voce-ing. I don't think I ever had a lesson that took time to focus on that in undergrad; it was just "expected" as part of whatever piece I was working on at the moment.

I finally got to sing in the amazing recital hall (in which I've seen and managed recitals for YEARS) when I recorded a few tracks for summer program #2 application due mid-March. I think I was so bent on recording and getting it done that I almost forgot WHERE I was singing and how cool/neat/amazing and what a privilege it was. (Since I'm not a voice major anymore and am not obligated to give a recital, and the hall is super-difficult to book.)

My … ex-teacher suggested a Baroque summer institute to which I might apply, and I already have all of the requirements (recording of 2 arias, CV, tax form), so I think I will. That there is no application fee, and I have family in the program's city are a plusses.

I get to babysit the coolest kid in the world this evening.

The last symphony program notes that I will write at this school are done! Well, almost. My faculty advisor for that had few corrections to make and said that I could include the Kalevala in my Sibelius symphony notes. (I feared that the word limits would mean omitting this important detail.)

Me: 2, pizza: 0. Each night I have a craving for flat-crust pizza with spinach, pineapple, and mushroom, and what with online ordering it isn't hard to get pizza. But I've decided to ease back into veganism this Lent, and when I think about how good I felt after Zumba! this evening, I don't want to mar that.

One more motivation to stay on track: a cute red blouse with a peplum that I may be able to wear for the Collegium concert in two weeks? Fingers crossed.

I need to do laundry, so maybe not being sleepy yet is a good thing?

It's also spring break starting at 10:50 AM today. I just have one more seminar in which my professor is surveying the film treatments of Verdi's Falstaff, which should be fun and interesting.

1. Having a friend with whom to share the Half-Marathon experience.
2. Free swag and samples!
3. Working two superb recitals.
4. Finally getting to leave the music school…
5. And have quality Mexican and hilarious conversation with my Spelling Bee cast.
6. Coming home to Zumbawear in the mailbox and a free issue of February's Opera News.
7. Laundry.
8. Starting Candide rehearsals tomorrow evening!
9. Monday's Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday!
10. Upcoming Hulu and Smash scrapbooking time :)

Update on the past week of school tomorrow!

1. Classes and rehearsals starting tomorrow. (This also means voice lessons!)

Although this also means 124 days until graduation…

2. Zumba! and boot camp

3. packages (Instagram pictures, rain boots, scrapbooking paraphernalia, Zumba! clothes, contact lenses, eyeglasses, washi tape)

4. Spelling Bee reunion dinner on Saturday

5. Half-Marathon with Andrea

---

It's been good, if slightly strange to be back. I've wanted to do everything and nothing at the same time. The weather has been erratic -- I was wearing my coat and scarf on Tuesday, but yesterday was 77 and sunny -- and many people haven't returned.

I had a great practice session on Wednesday and a good one on Thursday, but I admit that especially when I had to work on "Glitter and be gay," I got self-conscious, because the highest other instruments I could hear in the corridor were a trumpet and piano.

And then on Thursday for a brief moment, I fell prey to an awful feeling of doubt and negativity that was quite upsetting, before I calmed down and resumed slowly but surely practicing.

Also… I also felt awkward practicing the end of "Life is Happiness Indeed," when Cunegonde sings her octave G "-ppiness!" until the final C… People were walking down the hallway, and I'm pretty sure some of them thought I was singing something other than the final two syllables of "happiness."

Last night I babysat the precocious 8-year-old S I watched in December, and on top of the fact that I was exhausted from running 11 miles that morning (my last long run before next weekend's race), I felt sort of like a failure because we didn't adhere to his mom's prescribed plan (8 PM bath, followed by snack, brushing teeth, reading Harry Potter, and then 8:30 PM bedtime), and because I felt like I couldn't do anything right.

Because Free Willy: Escape from Pirate Cove was on, and the protagonist is Australian, he wanted to watch. (S's mum is Australian.) During which he mostly played his Nintendo DS. When I made him a Vegemite sandwich to his specifications for his snack, he said that it wasn't the way it was supposed to be, so instead I plated banana and raspberries.

By the time we got upstairs to read Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, it was nearly 9 PM, and as I read "The Boy Who Lived," S kept on asking questions. Like why Harry Potter was a baby, whether Dumbledore's number-less pocketwatch was the same as Hermione's Time Turner, who Hagrid was, why Harry had a scar, whether Voldemort was human. To which I mostly replied that answering him would ruin the story.

S is a great kid, and I enjoy watching him, but last night made me think twice about whether I want kids someday. And I came to the conclusion that I'm happy that that isn't a decision I need to make in the near future :)

Okay. Game plan… Watching a few more episodes of The Wonder Years before transcribing old lessons and doing some subtext work before Mass. I wanted to practice in earnest today, because I haven't sung anything Cunegonde since Thursday, but I think it would be more prudent in the long run to do this foundation work instead of rushing in like a bull in a china cabinet.

Take the first sentence (or 2) from the first post of each month of 2011. That's your year in review!

( year in review. )

I can't believe that it's my last day at home. Yesterday evening, I postponed my flight one day from yesterday morning, so I could take care of some things: having tea with a friend I haven't seen in months, finishing up A Nervous Splendor (I will just borrow Isaac's Storm from my school's library), using my last Zumba! class on my 20-class punchcard, printing out pictures and things for my Cunegonde Smash book.

I also needed one more day to wrap my head around the idea that I won't be home for about 7 weeks, and while I intend to savor every one of the next 6 days, I need to both work and play when I get back. Finally, the music school and the rec center don't open until tomorrow. (I can't wait to have my pick of piano and plunk out Candide and to get back into group fitness classes and watch intramural basketball games.)

Waiting for lemon bars in the oven (my mom's request) using gargantuan, orange-yellow Christmas Meyer lemons before I shower and change to meet Kacie.