fancy college girl journal

MOVING!

2008-08-01T19:16:04Z

Yes, I'm tired of ads and dysfunctional posting methods. I'm moving this opera ation to a new and exciting place.

http://wisconsinmolly.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry I can't ad a link to it but that's part of the reason I'm leaving...maybe it'll add itself...anyways, check the new journal out! it's pretty and nice.

Summertime

2008-07-12T02:47:22Z

Well hellooooo
It's summer and I'm here in the mountains doing the opera intern thing at Ash Lawn Opera!
We've been staging Carmen for the past week. It opens on the 19th! very exciting. I'd post pictures but my camera cord got left in wisconsin...so till I can replace it these are boring entries :)

but it's fun here. Thanks for all the birthday calls/wishes/gifts! Liam's coming to visit for a couple of days at the beginning of august. And the family I'm staying with are nice though their house is way out in the country and scares me a little bit (totally haunted I tell you...)

Anyways, come see the show! for tickets you can call 434.293.4500

fancy fancy

2008-06-04T04:23:37Z

So I got some headshots taken for the internship this summer. I feel weird sending pictures out randomly but I hear that motherly/fatherly/grandmothery/grandfatherly/etc. types enjoy that sort of thing. So if you'd like any of these just leave a comment with the number of the picture that you'd like.

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spring time music

2008-06-02T04:49:37Z

more music more music. This is from when my church performed Schubert's Mass in G this spring. rather than putting the whole thing up here which would have taken...years...i cut out my solos and put them together in a rather slapdash manner with some random pictures so that you didn't have to stare at a black screen. without further ado...

more pictures hooray!

2008-05-24T02:24:27Z

So Opera Scenes was last night and pretty awesome. My scene went of really well and I got a lot of compliments so hooray for that. I also got selected to sing in an opera scene (in a role of no importance really but still), for the big concert we put on every two years in the fancy schmancy performing arts center around here. So that's pretty cool... anyways here are some pictures.

me and maura before going onstage (she was in a scene from Candide)

The sophomore women of my studio

All of my studio who were in scenes!

A couple of the other people in my scene

rando.

2008-05-23T04:28:03Z

This is the big picture post..

here are some pictures from the dance that Liam and I went to a couple weeks ago.

here are some pictures from zoo days...
me post-dunking...

me making some delicious cotton candy

and me upset about not getting any syrup in my snow cone yet with my co-RLA michael (whose snow cone I made by the way...it's lovely)

OH MA GAWD A VIDEO!

2008-05-21T04:35:38Z

So this is a very very poor quality video of a performance I did in my studio class last week. This is an aria (actually for mezzo sopranos so it's a little lower than I'm used to). But I thought folks would appreciate a musical update so here it is

Zoo Days

2008-05-17T21:55:53Z

Well today was what is known as "Ormsby Zoo Days". In other words, it's a giant carnival type thing Ormsby puts on complete with typical fair food-I made cotton candy.

many inflatable moon bounce type things

a mechanical bull, a nearby old car that you could pay a dollar to hit with a sledgehammer (put on by a fraternity and surprisingly popular) pie your RLA and dunk your RLA...I was dunked multiple times and it was quite unpleasant due to the not-quite-warm-yet temperatures. But it was fun none the less. Real pictures are coming soon!

future home!

2008-04-16T19:34:11Z

Yay! I got my letter telling me where I'll be RLAing next year and I'm pretty psyched.I'm living in Draheim which is the smallest "dorm" on campus. So small that I'll be the only RLA in the building though it's connected to the dorm across the street which is the (constantly mocked) substance free hall. So I'll work in that building when I'm on duty but I'll live in Draheim which looks kinda like this...it's a poor view..

yay place to live!

springy

2008-04-15T04:25:10Z

well, it seems like Wisconsin has finally dropped the last of it's winter weather knock on wood...
This weekend was the choir tour, we went to Chicago and Milwaukee and the Bahá’í temple in the Chicago suburbs...which was vaguely creepy but fun to sing in.

And the weather was pretty miserable, we got dropped off in Chicago for a couple hours of "fun" on saturday, and unfortunately for us it was pouring sleet/rain for those 3 or so hours...
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But now it's pretty springy around here! I've been spending a lot of time at the Co-op house and made good friends with most of the people who live there or hang out there a lot. It's also where Liam lives which means I'm there a lot. Anyways, today was really nice and Liam got his camera out and yay springtime at the co-op house!

I should find out sometime in the next two days where I've been placed for RLAing next year which is pretty exciting, so I wait.. news and pictures when they occur.

classes grades and some pictures

2008-04-01T01:27:20Z

My friend Alex is studying abroad in London and has also started a blog which he updates much more frequently than I which reminds me to do this...

So I got my grades from last term and was pretty happy with them. I'd gotten a pretty awful grade on my Music Theory midterm but I apparently did really well on the final because I ended up with an A- in the class. So that was awesome, and all the rest of my grades were As and Bs so I'm pretty happy.

New term started today and I finally get to take interesting classes now that I've finished the music theory sequence. So my classes for this term are...

Cultural Anthropology
French 200
Recitative (basically...speaking on pitch)
Introduction to Conducting
Voice
Choir
Opera Scenes

All that scholasticness out of the way, here are some spring break pictures!

This terrifying beverage is known as a Green River and is essentially liquid sugar...delicious

We babysat her cousins who live in a giant mansion with a shuffleboard table and an in home cinema and ms. pac man and two very silly dogs...but we got to hang out in the house while all the kids were at school which was pretty awesome.

We spent a lot of time on a puzzle too which we finally finished on the last day we were there. Our friend Zach came over from school to help out too.

We went shopping and tried on some awesome glasses

Maura and I also went to the John Deere pavillion and took many pictures in tractors, and then went to the Skybridge first during the day and then later at night when they turn on a bunch of cool lights...and that's about all the pictures I have.

wisconsinmolly @ 2008-03-29T16:24:00

2008-03-29T21:26:28Z

Greetings from Iowa/Illinois!
I'm here on spring break which is tragically ending tomorrow. I went home with my friend Maura to the Quad cities which is half in Iowa, half in Illinois, we're on the Iowa side though. It's the home of John Deere and it's right on the Mississippi so there's a lot of gambling boats. It's been pretty calm. It's my new term resolution to update this more. Pictures from spring break to come!

spring

2008-03-12T16:42:35Z

This morning I heard birds singing as I walked to breakfast. It's also supposed to be 40 degrees tomorrow. Therefore I have optimistically changed my journal decorations to spring deco. we'll see...

Catch-up

2008-03-12T06:56:17Z

Yay the opera is done!

Spring appears to be coming which makes everyone a little happier. I actually woke up early enough last weekend to go eat breakfast at the co-op house, where Liam made this lovely fritata.

Which was nice because with all the opera stuff it was hard to get to the cafeteria when it was open. So yeah, here are a bunch of pictures from the opera.

and then we had a cast party! yay!

and then it was the last week and we were all so busy with homework we never saw eachother...

cold weather, opera and valentines

2008-02-15T04:58:34Z

Whoops, haven't updated in a while!

Well it's plenty cold up here. It snows just about every other day and we've had our -40 with windchill for the year. Last week was particularly miserable though things have gotten better. It's sad when people quite say in quite reasonable tones "Oh! It's going to be warm tomorrow! 10 degrees!" Anyways it snowed a bit today and to prove it here are some pictures.

You may have recognized that Liam was in one of those pictures. Liam and I are dating again and all seems good and well.

So we had a low key valentine's day. He got me flowers...

and then we braved the cold to go down to our Gelato shop where they had like..15 different chocolate gelato. So I got chocolate Rose- it was delicious! And then it was very cold on the way home but we were okay with it.

And then tomorrow we're going to his parents' house and celebrating Valentine's Day for real when we're in Milwaukee.
Also check out this awesome candy heart we Lawrentians have been finding this year. I suppose it's supposed to be an abbreviation for "I Love You" but ...it looks more like "I Lawrence University"

In other news the opera is in 3 weeks and it's starting to come together now! exciting.
What's more exciting is that I was informed yesterday that I've been cast in opera scenes! It's a production we do in the spring that basically performs several scenes from a bunch of operas. So I've got a rather little part in the first scene of "Street Scene" by Kurt Weill but I'm one of three sophomore women who were cast at all so I'm pretty excited!!

I completely re-arranged my room today all by myself which took large amounts of brute strength and made me feel pretty awesome. So I'll post pictures once my arms recover enough to pick up a camera.

I think that's all for now! I'll post again when there are opera pictures!

chilly

2008-01-25T01:38:53Z

It's very very cold here. We've successfully gotten to days where it's easily in the negative 30s. So mostly these days I hide inside along with the rest of my dorm. Which is actually pretty awesome because it's made being an RLA that much more fun. The residents are all hanging out in the lounges and coming to our programs because it's just too cold to do anything else.

On that thread, the RLAs of my dorm went on a retreat last weekend which was pretty awesome. We all went out to dinner and then stayed up until 3 am playing board games, video games and watching movies. And uh...here are some pictures!

This picture was of a situation that happened gradually and on accident and was incidentally incredibly painful...

And then this picture was our very carefully planned out pyramid.

and this was the unplanned fall from said pyramid.

Mostly though I've been going to a lot of rehearsals. I just performed Liam's new composition last night(recording is possibly on the way?) then the usual choir, plus I have 4 opera rehearsals a week that can last up to 3 hours. But whenever my friends and I don't have opera we hang out and that's pretty awesome.

now if only it would get warmer...

Christmas christmas!

2007-12-25T07:01:53Z

This is sort of an amalgam of christmasy type things.

it's very late on christmas eve but I'm still awake for some reason and so felt the need to post lots and lots of pictures.

Going back in time a bit, here's another picture from a choir party

As an R.A I have to host programs sometimes, and I went a little bit crazy with the christmas spirit. of my like..8 christmas programs in a week, the most popular by far was the "Yule Ball" that I co-hosted with a couple other R.As. anyways here are a few pictures from the grand event.

finals were horrifying. But I finally finished all of them. Here's a picture of me and my friend Evan fighting over a piano (but smiling for the picture) to get our theory work done in time

and then it was christmas! mom and I stopped by Lexington (pictures to follow) on the way up and then came up to Blacksburg. and...I got a new camera! so more pictures and therefore more updates from now on!

Also I should hopefully have some tracks up on here from the Christmas Oratorio I sang at my church.

Happy Christmas y'all! I'll probably update this after all christmases are said and done and more photos are around!

Concerts and parties

2007-12-09T00:50:48Z

We had our choir concert last night (it was also dad's birthday-happy birthday dad!). It went really well, or at least our part of it went well. We started with a Beethoven Choral Fantasy that I had a solo in, which as I may have mentioned was my first solo with the orchestra (it's a big deal because you have to be loud and powerful to stand up to an orchestra). So that was awesome. Then we did our set which was all early music and everyone was just totally in the zone for it and we really made music happen. It was awesome. Then the women's choir sang, and then all the choirs performed Poulenc's "Gloria" with an alumni soloist who was amazing (gives me hope). Anyways here are some pictures.

This first pic is from before the concert when all the people who sing in my church choir went out to dinner with each other, because we're all really good friends which makes working there 10 times better. So this picture was taken because my friend Lacey realized I had someone named Andrew on either side of me.

and the next picture is a picture of the soloists for the Beethoven in rehearsal.

And the next two pictures are from the choir ping pong party that we had right after the concert.

So stuff's good here now that class is done. I've got 3 exams and then I'm done! I come home on the 16th. yay!

music- EXCITING!

2007-12-03T04:32:39Z

So, this is a test. Hopefully this video will work. It's not really a video but this is the only way to put a sound file up on livejournals. Anyways, this is a piece that I composed for a project in music theory and then performed with my friend Susanna on the organ. It won first place in the class competition so that was nifty. The sound quality is terrible but hopefully soon I can put up better videos! It should be up and working by tomorrow

Thanksgivin' etc

2007-11-24T03:39:43Z

So, sorry I haven't updated in a while. I talked to most of you on thanksgiving so sorry if this is a repeat.

I went home for Thanksgivng with my friend Sarah in Minneapolis.

So..I'm still here. We all drove over in a big caravan that our friend Andrew drove. So wednesday we wandered around Minneapolis and I finagled some very very cool shoes from the 70s. Thursday we all woke up and IT WAS SNOWING! There was a good 2-3 inches on the ground! So we got over it and began chopping, mashing, spicing etc. Then a bunch of Sarah's family came and we all ate until we were gonna bust. Then today we did more wandering and she went to hang out with her friend from high school and I went to hang out with our friend Andrew who drove us here.

Which leads me into point two. Andrew and I are, as of today, officially dating. So I guess I'll tell you some stuff about him...He's 21, and a junior. I didn't really get to know him last year because he spent a term in London. He's also a singer, he's a tenor and one of the best in the school. He got second place in this year's NATS competition...um...his parents are both opera singers, and he's from St. Paul. And uh...here's some pictures?

So in this first picture it's a bunch of kids before a choir concert, he's the blonde, second from the right. And the second picture is what he looks like most of the time.

So that's the news from here. Back to school on sunday and many many projects due in the next week *sigh*. Then there's a big choir concert on the 7th. I'm singing second soprano in a sextet for a Beethoven piece which is exciting because the other two women are upperclassmen and the best in the department which makes me feel cool. Also it's my first time singing solo with the orchestra which is a big deal. Then after that finals begin which means lots of stress...but hey. I'm keepin myself pretty optimistic. I'll try to update more!

oh yeah...

2007-11-01T22:18:00Z

I forgot to mention that I found a new place to go for Thanksgiving. Initially I was supposed to spend it with Liam's family but now I'll be spending it with my friend Sarah in Minneapolis (she's the girl with longer hair in the pictures in the last entry). So I'm excited, also the car that we're riding to Minneapolis in is going to be packed with our friends so I'm excited!

pictures galore!

2007-11-01T22:11:19Z

Oops. I forgot about this- it's been incredibly busy around here. Well, let's see. In that time we had the first choir concert of the year which was great! I was in a small sextet for a Hadyn piece. There should be a recording coming out soon, which I can burn people copies of if they want. Anyways though, here's a picture of me and Maura (my roomate from last year), and then me, Maura and Sarah at the concert in our uniforms.

So that was awesome, and in less awesome news Liam and I broke up. But I'm doing fine and haven't been massively traumatized so it's all cool. I'm actually so busy that it's kept me pretty distracted. Also my amazing friends have been pretty awesome and we've been having lots of "girls nights out"...or in really because there's not a lot to do in Appleton.

RLA stuff has been going really well. I've had to bust up some parties and pour out some alcohol and except for one near hospital trip, it's been pretty easy. It's also a huge amount of fun. Here's a picture from training when we all had a murder mystery night. I'm on the left wearing a plaid shirt (my character was supposed to be from the 70s...i had little warning)

We have a really tiny staff in our dorm and we've all gotten to be really good friends. Here's a pic of us at training...presenting a video game we designed about our dorm.

Last night for Halloween in an attempt to keep people from drinking we were showing halloweeny movies in the lounge and it was amazing...here are some pictures one of our residents took of the RLAs running it

and here is a picture of some of our freshmen residents- because they are so charming.

So life around here is busy and fun. NATS is this weekend ...actually it's tomorrow, so after that life will sort of calm down...but not really because on Monday I have auditions for a Beethoven piece, and then I need to start preparing for auditions for a Poulenc piece with the orchestra and full choirs, and my new church is putting on the Sans-sans Gloria and I have a few solos in that to prepare...but I like it so yay! I'll post up right after NATS with results!

developments

2007-10-12T23:32:34Z

Well this has been a strange week. The weather suddenly got cold and wet and gross, which is a less than pleasant change. But the trees are turning nice colors so that's cool.

Opera auditions were monday and I had a decent audition. Well I guess it was better than decent actually because I was one of 4 people to get a callback the next day. I didn't end up getting the role but when I went in for notes it seemed like it was mostly because I was sick in my audition. So I'm in the chorus which was sort of a bummer but then again I'm taking math this winter and I'll have more time now.

But then today I got a big solo in choir for this Haydn piece we're doing, and then later today I was offered a position at a church which is basically considered the best church choir in the area. It also pays me triple what I currently get paid. So that was nifty...

So...that is what I'm up to these days. NATS (the competition I won last year) is the first weekend of November and my accompanist, Michael, is another RLA in my building so I've spent a lot of time learning new music and starting soon he and I will be rehearsing a lot.

good singin'

2007-10-03T18:22:13Z

Yay! This has been a busy week but a good one. The opera auditions are monday so everyone is jostling around getting ready. I was lucky enough to be recommended for a coaching (sort of like a lesson but just on one piece of music) with Dale Deusing, our Resident Artist who's sung at the met many times, la scala, the Paris Opera, Covent Garden, plus won a Grammy or two...and is in general very impressive. So I had that this morning and it went really well. We worked on my audition excerpts and he was very very nice and completely changed how I though about the piece.

Directly after that I had another coaching (which was very poor scheduling on the school's part and now I've had to put myself on vocal rest for the rest of the day which means no singing and as little speaking as possible) with Brian DeMaris who is teaching at our school for a term while a teacher is in London, but is regularly the assistant conductor at New York City Opera and guest conducts all over the place.

Anyways the main part of this was that both of them were really surprised to hear that I was a sophomore because of the size of my voice. Mr. Deusing said that he was genuinely excited to work with me again next year and Brian said that we should all be expecting some great things to come from me.

so yay! and maybe...an opera role? Anyways auditions are monday, callbacks are tuesday and I find out results...probably by saturday or sunday.

new things!

2007-09-28T04:14:19Z

Well classes have started and today we got choir audition results and I'm in concert choir which is the top choir at the school! So yayyyyy! So I'll be going up to Bjorklunden which is Lawrence's property in Door County which is the boonies right on Lake Michigan. Anyways here are some pictures of Bjorklunden because it is so pretty!

Anyways here are the classes that I'm taking this year:

Intro to Religious Studies
French
Voice lessons
Concert Choir (yayyy!)
German Diction
Music Theory
Aural Skills
Sightsinging

so ...a lot...but 4 of them are only one day a week.

Anyways the exciting news is that I got a futon! My former roomate moved into a significantly smaller room and had no room for hers and since my room is giant I am the foster parent for the futon.

Also I've so far kept up promises to myself to be healthy. Last year my shopping trips had me coming home with goldfish, cookies and chocolaty things...however this year I went shopping and came home with baby carrots, trail mix, cheese, crackers, peanut butter and bread. So I've been eating healthier with the exception of maybe ingesting too much tea.

But in adding to my healthy resolution a lot of my friends including Liam live in the co-op house this year so I've been hanging out there a lot...anyways they all cook their own food for each other every night and guests are welcome anytime as long as they do the dishes. They also usually get all the food from our campus garden since most of the gardeners are in co-op. The only problem is that they only cook vegetarian food but that's why I eat at the cafeteria a lot too.

It's cold already but that just means I get to wear my scarves so I'm alright with it. My camera needs a new battery but I took some pictures of the futon with Liam's camera so I'll add real pictures to this post later. umm...oh! next week is my one year anniversary with Liam so that's exciting- hopefully it'll still be in the 50s-60s so we can walk somewhere for dinner...or borrow a car.