needing the 25th daily hour

still here.  insanely time-crunched with classes and rehearsals and practicing and trying to find time to breathe.  will come back to real life after the opera closes next sunday.  I hope.

overused yet so enticing

I’m refraining from posting an entire “year in review” survey…especially difficult since I already posted one on facebook and would only need to copy & paste.  but truly, nobody cares what my thoughts are on the best movie of 2009 or if I kept my new year’s resolution–although, for the record, I don’t make resolutions for the new year.  and I only saw two new movies, which was more than I had seen in the past five years combined, and neither of them were even remotely laudable.

so instead of a trite survey, I decided I would really challenge myself to think for a bit.  especially since I got snowed out of my yoga class, and my home practice got cut horribly short by a puppy who thinks that down-dog is, in actuality, a human jungle gym.

9 triumphs of 2009:
running three 5K road races
surrendering myself to the practice of yoga
trusting my treatment team
finding joy in singing again
opening myself up to being loved
discovering a new path for grad school
learning to reach out for help
beginning to respect and appreciate my body
committing to recovery

10 wishes for 2010:
give at least as much love as I receive
get into grad school
put together and sing a wonderful senior recital
strengthen/deepen my yoga practice
run a 10K
learn how to cook, even if it’s just a bit
enjoy my last semester of undergrad
make it through another year with my knee intact!
start writing more regularly again
be more forgiving with myself

completely subject to changes/edits/revisions!

project 365 commences tomorrow!  and I actually realized that it will be, in reality, project 366…2010 is a leap year.  regardless…let’s see how it goes!

cheers.

a lot can happen in three months

it just occurred to me that my recital is three months from today.

it also occurred to me that in those three months’ time , I will have:
started my final semester of undergrad (1/20)
sang our senior class recital (1/23)
started and completed the opera (final show is 2/8)
sung and passed my recital jury (sometime in early february)
completed my graduate interviews & entrance exams (by mid-february)
planned and run NEDAWeek (2/21-2/28)
completed mid-terms (mid-march)
heard back from at least one grad program (UTKnox has a 3/15 notification deadline)
had my final undergrad spring break (3/13-3/21)

that is a busy-ass three months!!  not to mention regular academic stuff, the usual RA stuff, trying to squeeze a weekend visit home in there somewhere…

I think about everything that’s going to be happening, this incredible whirlwind, and part of me wants to just fast-forward to the outcome–skip over the inevitable stress and anxiety and just find out which grad program I get into, if any, and what I’ll be doing in the near future.

but then the other part of me wants to drink it all in, relish every moment because it’s all unique and once-in-a-lifetime.  even the stress and the tears, because there will definitely be both.  but there will be excitement and awe and amazing joy, too.  to get to the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain, eh?

remind me of this when I’m a puddle on the floor a month from now!

et rien ne sera libre

Sanglots is now officially approved to be on my senior recital.  the poem is undeniably exquisite.  so glad to have another chance at performing the piece, especially since it’s been so woven into my consciousness lately.

I keep finding music that I desperately want to learn and perform.  ironic, seeing as my recital in march will more than likely be the last solo performance I do, at least for a few years.  as soon as I decided to not pursue a performance career…I started singing beautifully, and fell in love with the art all over again.  amazing what freeing myself from the pressures of success did.

I’m going home in less than a week.  looking forward to the drive…the catskills are breathtaking this time of year.  I have a lot of work to get done between now and thanksgiving break, but everything seems to be flying by almost before I can get a grasp on it.  when I was a kid, it seemed like the passage of time was excruciatingly slow; now I find myself wondering where the time has gone.

You can’t waste your days wishing they’d slow down;
you would’ve thought by now I’d have learned something.

 

c’est la chanson des rêveurs

I’ve had Poulenc’s Sanglots in my head since last night.  I would love to sing that piece again, now that my technique is so much improved since I last tackled/massacred it in April.  I don’t know what captivates me more: the poem itself, or the musical setting.

I wrote myself into an exhausted stupor on friday night.  and then slept for eleven hours.  kind of ridiculous.

ran a 5K fun run/race this morning.  I wasn’t running it for time, as I haven’t been training in the slightest, but I forgot to ask them what my time was, since of course I’m curious.  I can’t imagine it was much under 25 minutes–I would say I was running 8-minute miles at best.  which is frustrating because I was running so well this summer before I got injured.  I still want to do a 10K in the spring, though, I’m much more suited for longer distances.  it was nice to race again though, even if I wasn’t gunning for any specific time.  the energy is so great in road races, the air almost crackles.

I’m going to need all of the energy I can get–this is the last full week of classes before thanksgiving break.  and it’s going to be an insane one.  just need to keep my eye on the prize.  easier said than done, I know.