Neglected Blog :(

Hello all you faithful fans who continue to check my blog despite any signs of life for over 3 weeks!!! Here's a little schedule of my life during that time, just so you can see why I haven't been blogging!

Typical Performance Day:
7:00 Wake up- if I've gotten to bed early I might hit snooze only once :)
8:30 Work begins- crazy days dealing with the drama queens in the office (seems a higher concentration than the average here at the opera!) as well as the lunatics who call us
5:30 Officially off-work, but still have to work at:
6:30 Box office at performance venue
9:00 I can now go home, hungry and cranky!

Typical Non- Performance Day:
7:00 Wake Up
8:30 Work- I get to skip out from my desk occasionally to teach a lesson down the hall
5:30 Off ALO duty, on to lessons
8:00 Finally finished teaching all my lessons for the day!
8:30 Time to try and come up with something for dinner- I've bought groceries on Saturday, but I always come home too late to really cook anything so all my meat and vegetables have gone bad! :( This usually means another night of boxed jambalaya, frozen pasta, or when very rushed, unfortunately it's fast food :/
I get about an hour to veg, and then it's bed time.

Busy days. And after all that work, I had to fight for my overtime pay! I was told, also, I only had to work full time until the performances were over, but now they're so backed up with work for next season, I still have to work full-time! I can't wait until I can have my life back!

I applied for the San Antonio Opera's vocal competition. Winner gets $3,000 + a contract to sing a role in their next season! I desperately want to practice a gazillion hours a day to get ready, so pray for me that ALO will start letting me work less! If I get accepted even to participate in that competition, it will be the 3rd weekend of May- I'll try and keep you all informed!

Meanwhile, Ross is trying to finish out his semester- a difficult task when he was wheeless (stupid Fiero was broken down for almost a month!) We keep looking at San Marcos, and just aren't sure if we should move now or wait until this fall. Ross seems pretty set in applying for Texas State, though, and it really feels right. So now just keep Ross in your prayers too!

Crappy Blogger!

I may not be great at keeping my blog updated lately, but at least I know it's because I'm busy! And man! am I busy! But it's good busy. ALO (Austin Lyric Opera) runs a music school, and they asked me to start teaching voice and piano lessons with them, in addition to my office work there. I'm very excited about this! But that meant this week I've been working full-time in the office, teaching for their school, and then teaching my private students. Lots of work! But hopefully it will also mean lots of moolah! $$$$ :)

A New First

I got my first broken bone yesterday- a broken toe! I kicked my old bike's kickstand and it hurt like crazy but I didn't think anything of it until today when my toe turned purple and black and is all swollen and ugly! EWWW!!

Queen of the Beach

Back in December, the director of the opera department at UT approached me about singing the Queen of the Night in a production of The Magic Flute in Costa Rica and Mexico this summer. I was really excited at the time, but then didn't hear anything else from him until a couple weeks ago. He didn't want to give the part to me after all since I was supposed to have graduated and he was trying to cast only students, and I learned he had been asking all over for someone else to do it, but when he found out I still have an incomplete hanging over my head, he agreed to let me take the part! I guess he already has another Queen from Mexico, but wanted 2 covers so we could alternate and not get too tired.

So, now if I can raise $900 and some living money for the trip, I will be spending June in rehearsals here in Austin, July 14-August 12 in San Jose and Mazatlan, and then September doing 28 performances in and around Austin! The production will be crazy because I'll be off stage the whole time singing to a video camera, so the audience will only see video screens on stage, but it should be fun and a great experience!

SPRING BREAK!!!

WOOYA!! I love spring break!! At least I would if I had a break! I am actually working every day this week, and must admit I am enjoying my new job at the Opera. It's really laid back (surprising in the operatic world), casual dress code, really nice people to work with, and comp tickets for Rossini's Barber of Seville. Not much to complain about, really. Things will get crazy as that performance draws near, but even that seems pretty easy to deal with, especially now that I'm getting the better of my cold. I swear I've been sick every month since I started working in the nursery at church!

So how is Ross enjoying his spring break? Staying up all night, sleeping all day, video games 24-7? Actually, not so much of that! Ya, he stays up all night and sleeps a good portion of the day, and has had his share of crits and pwnage, but he has also cleaned up all my closets that had previously been left in utter chaos by yours truly, he's filed our taxes, and is trying to get the laptop working again. Spring break? or spring clean? o.O

Ya, I know. We're nerds.

Catching Up

I have not forgotten my blog- I promise! Right after my last post, Ross' and my laptop died, and since then, I've had to fight for computer time since Ross practically lives at the computer! Today I have actually caught him away from the desk and am taking the moment to blog to my heart's content!

I had a great birthday- thank you everyone for the phone calls, emails, cards and gifts! I celebrated with a couple parties with friends, some delicious cakes, and I got all I wanted, including a new job which just fell into my lap- I have been working at the Austin Lyric Opera answering phones and selling tickets since Monday! So far it seems exactly like the kind of job I was looking for. I also had a great lesson with my teacher last week, which cleared up a lot of the doubts I vented in my last post. And Ross has made a final decision about UT that has seemed to lift a lot of the burdens he was feeling, making the both of us much more happy! UT just is not the place for him, and we now look forward to a new and better school for him. Keep him in your prayers as he begins the process of finding that dream school!

Something Bothering Me

I went to visit my voice teacher at UT last week and she said something that has been really knawing at me ever since. I told her I had been a bum since January and hadn't really done much of anything and that I really enjoyed not doing anything and having a break, and she said, "I think you have a love/hate relationship with singing." This really gets me, because my other teacher at USC kinda said the same thing. She said, "I don't think you love to sing." But I DO love to sing. But if I love it so much, why did I allow myself to take a break from it for a whole month? Why aren't I out in some opera company singing already?

I have yet to be able to answer those questions for myself, but on Monday I will at least answer something- and for an opera company: manning the phones and selling tickets for Austin Lyric Opera. :) Hopefully I'll learn something working behind the scenes, and hopefully I won't stay behind the scenes forever!