School/summer/AH
I am happy yet not. It's the awkward stage of being excited for school and dreading it at the same time. I feel weird being the sophmore now. All the freshman look up to you, because you JUST went through the experience. You don't have the excuse of "I'm just a freshman, I didn't know." You actually have to set an example now. I kinda don't want any of the freshman looking up to me when it comes to performance. I know that I'm not making the strides that everyone else is making, and I don't want to give the studio a bad name. I just don't see myself performing in this genre. There are only a few songs that I actually enjoy to sing. Maybe if I had grown up with Classical music I would be enjoying it more, but I feel as if I'm just trying to trudge through it in order to get to the "good" stuff. It makes me sad that my appreciation isn't as great as I would like it to be, and it shows in my performance. Everyone is expecting us to be amazing. I know I did when I came in. Mike and I were talking about how we were very unimpressed by most of the sophmores last year at the beginning when we saw everyone sing. Seeing the progress that they all made (which was HUGE) was incredible, and we always are drooling at the end of the performances because they're all so amazing now. Thankfully there's a lot of upper classmen next year, so the freshman will be looking more towards them. When we entered into the studio (of about 25) there was the five freshman, one junior, three seniors (two of them being 4 1/2 majors), and the rest were sophomores. That's a lot of sophomores. However I'm so grateful for all of them, especially my mentor (I <3 KRISTIN!). I'm scared though. I don't really want to be looked upon in a higher regard.
I saw the list for the incoming freshman on one of the last days and I decided to take a peek. It was a choice between Patrice and Doc, and Doc had "NO" written on some of the margins, lol. I love that guy. However, I noticed that they are ALL performance or 4 1/2 majors. So, being just a "measely" Ed major they're going to expect me to just not be "as good." However I wanna prove them all wrong and be awesome and amazing. However it's hard. I want to improve but I always put my written schoolwork or piano before my voice. I know that I'm a VOICE MAJOR, which means that the voice should come first. However, I feel like to teach I HAVE to be really good at piano, that I HAVE to know theory, sight-singing, and history like I know it like I know the ABC's. I think that voice gets set on the back burner for when I have available time. And then during that available time I need to have somewhat of a life (just to be healthy socially). I know that there can be time to practice it, I could just push those other things aside and work more on voice, but it's almost been embedded in my brain to get the best grades possible and to finish up all the other schoolwork before you sing. I never HAD to practice voice, I always WANTED to, and I never knew how to practice, I just sang songs. Heck, I still don't really know how to practice voice. It's a problem. Especially if I'm still debating the 4 1/2 program.
I guess this is a rant about school. However I'm not excited for the schoolwork, I'm not excited to sit through boring recitals, to wake up for 8am Children's Psych or Classroom instruments, for feeling extremely stressed about everything, worrying about the three tests and two performances that I have to make on a given day. I like the fact that I'm seeing friends that I didn't get to see for a while, I'm sometimes getting to see Toll, seeing broadway productions (second one of the summer coming up on Friday!), getting reaccquainted with popular music and XPN, belting (even though I shouldn't be) to my old time favorites, or just singing jazz.
One time in Rep Class, someone asked Andy, "you've improved so much..." and blah blah blah. He said that one thing has helped him, is to get so into the music, like you're just driving down the road with you windows down blaring Puccini and singing along with it, the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. Maybe I need to drive around Ithaca blaring Brahms or Faure, haha. Of course I don't have a car up there. Maybe it'll be easier being Jessica's roommate because not only will we listen to "fun" music, but blare some Schubert (Haha, whenever I think of Schubert, I think of Katie convincing someone that Schubert wrote all the German Lieder in the universe and that he just used some pen names such as Schumann) and sing along.
I don't like the fact though that this summer I have barely seen Jeremy at all. I know that sounds awful like "you're such a clingy girlfriend" and such, but I've seen a lot more people more than Jeremy. It's tough to have the long distance relationship in the first place, and it still seems as if we're in different states. I babysit and work and he works a lot. The past several times I've seen him have been at 11pm just stopping by after work just to say hi and just visit for 15 minutes and then leave to go to bed. I feel like an old woman sometimes. I'm drinking two cups of coffee every day (black) and then going to bed as early as I possibly can because I'm so pooped. I'm ready to go to bed now. Lol. It's going to be hell during the school year when I cut myself off of coffee and go back to tea...and the fact that I'll stop eating breakfast when I'm use to my bagel. Maybe I'll figure out something easy to just grab for breakfast.
Anyways, I'm just ranting. I'm gonna try to get Elizabeth unglued to the TV and do something a little more active...byes.
I saw the list for the incoming freshman on one of the last days and I decided to take a peek. It was a choice between Patrice and Doc, and Doc had "NO" written on some of the margins, lol. I love that guy. However, I noticed that they are ALL performance or 4 1/2 majors. So, being just a "measely" Ed major they're going to expect me to just not be "as good." However I wanna prove them all wrong and be awesome and amazing. However it's hard. I want to improve but I always put my written schoolwork or piano before my voice. I know that I'm a VOICE MAJOR, which means that the voice should come first. However, I feel like to teach I HAVE to be really good at piano, that I HAVE to know theory, sight-singing, and history like I know it like I know the ABC's. I think that voice gets set on the back burner for when I have available time. And then during that available time I need to have somewhat of a life (just to be healthy socially). I know that there can be time to practice it, I could just push those other things aside and work more on voice, but it's almost been embedded in my brain to get the best grades possible and to finish up all the other schoolwork before you sing. I never HAD to practice voice, I always WANTED to, and I never knew how to practice, I just sang songs. Heck, I still don't really know how to practice voice. It's a problem. Especially if I'm still debating the 4 1/2 program.
I guess this is a rant about school. However I'm not excited for the schoolwork, I'm not excited to sit through boring recitals, to wake up for 8am Children's Psych or Classroom instruments, for feeling extremely stressed about everything, worrying about the three tests and two performances that I have to make on a given day. I like the fact that I'm seeing friends that I didn't get to see for a while, I'm sometimes getting to see Toll, seeing broadway productions (second one of the summer coming up on Friday!), getting reaccquainted with popular music and XPN, belting (even though I shouldn't be) to my old time favorites, or just singing jazz.
One time in Rep Class, someone asked Andy, "you've improved so much..." and blah blah blah. He said that one thing has helped him, is to get so into the music, like you're just driving down the road with you windows down blaring Puccini and singing along with it, the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. Maybe I need to drive around Ithaca blaring Brahms or Faure, haha. Of course I don't have a car up there. Maybe it'll be easier being Jessica's roommate because not only will we listen to "fun" music, but blare some Schubert (Haha, whenever I think of Schubert, I think of Katie convincing someone that Schubert wrote all the German Lieder in the universe and that he just used some pen names such as Schumann) and sing along.
I don't like the fact though that this summer I have barely seen Jeremy at all. I know that sounds awful like "you're such a clingy girlfriend" and such, but I've seen a lot more people more than Jeremy. It's tough to have the long distance relationship in the first place, and it still seems as if we're in different states. I babysit and work and he works a lot. The past several times I've seen him have been at 11pm just stopping by after work just to say hi and just visit for 15 minutes and then leave to go to bed. I feel like an old woman sometimes. I'm drinking two cups of coffee every day (black) and then going to bed as early as I possibly can because I'm so pooped. I'm ready to go to bed now. Lol. It's going to be hell during the school year when I cut myself off of coffee and go back to tea...and the fact that I'll stop eating breakfast when I'm use to my bagel. Maybe I'll figure out something easy to just grab for breakfast.
Anyways, I'm just ranting. I'm gonna try to get Elizabeth unglued to the TV and do something a little more active...byes.