Sunday came late this week!

It’s part of the end of Daylight Savings Time.  Duh.

I’m kinda glad, though, because it means I can talk about my awesome Sunday as part of my awesome week!  The week proper was kinda “eh,” to be honest – everyone was basically marking time until break, classes were the usual, and the only piece of excitement was the start of an attempt to drop Indian Music.  I’m definitely going to make it pass-fail (actually, I need to go turn that paperwork in later today), and then I think I’m going to try to drop it.

The problem is that my dean pointed out that saying that I’m overloaded is not an acceptable excuse in the eyes of the committee that makes decisions about dropping post-deadline.  I think that’s bullshit, if you’ll pardon my language – the deadline is way before midterms start, and most classes have no work (and therefore no way to measure your comprehension and progress) before midterms get going – or if you turn in work, you won’t get it back ’til around then.  I know a lot of the math-y classes (with multiple midterms) specifically schedule their first midterm a week before the drop date, to make up for that, but if it’s a one-test class, you can’t do that.  Also, if it’s a one-test class, that test is a significant part of your grade, and if you really bomb it, it can be impossible to pull yourself back up to a decent grade.  In principle, you shouldn’t be dropping a class because you’re doing badly, but if it’s a class that’s important to you and you want/need to do well in it, you should have the option of starting fresh if you honestly feel like that’s your best option.  And yes, you can pass/fail it (which is what I’m going to do with this class, pending the committee’s decision), but if it’s a major requirement or a Core requirement, you don’t get credit for it, and certain classes don’t actually let you pass/fail (like languages, for instance).  In short, the system is flawed, and in my meeting, I said as much.  My dean’s answer:  “Yeah, well, welcome to Columbia.”  (Though not in so many words.)  Go figure, eh?

But the weekend has definitely been making up for that irritation.  I overslept on Saturday, but still had brunch with Isabelle, bought a copy of the score of Così fan Tutte (no more scrolling desperately through the online version), hung out in a bookstore for a while, and had dinner with Aryeh.  It was a lovely day.  And yesterday was just as lovely:  church, soup-making with Isabelle at the boys’ place, Chorale rehearsal, a screening of Così (filmed at the Salzburg Festival this past year) at Symphony Space, then dinner and Sleeping Beauty with the Sitcom-ers minus Liz and Pete (who are in the Dominican Republic right now).

I need to take a moment and encourage all of you to see this film of Così – it’s showing again at 7 pm on 15 November, and it’s excellent.  Weirdly, the production itself isn’t all that hot – they modernized the setting, which really doesn’t work with Così.  But the singers are so freaking fantastic that you don’t actually notice how weird the modern setting is, because you’re too busy being wowed by the music.  The woman who played Fiordiligi, especially, was absolutely brilliant.  That part is famous for arias with insane leaps – high G to middle C, for instance – and she makes them sound like absolutely nothing.  They just happen.  And they sound so easy, so you sit there and think that you could do it…and then you think about it again and go, oh, hell, no, that’s impossible.  But she made it sound beautiful.  Dorabella’s acting was fantastic, too – she completely stole the show – and the interpretation of Despina as a vaguely punklike maid (motorcycle jacket and helmet included) was hysterical, if odd.  Go see it if you can.  If you buy the tickets online, you can use the discount code “COLUMBIA” and get the ticket for less…it’s so worth doing…go go go!

In store for the rest of break:  singing, singing, and more singing, along with reading, reading, and more reading.  I’ve been slacking for the past two days, and now it’s time to catch up and get some work done (and some laundry, too…le sigh).  I’ll see you next week!  Enjoy your break, if you are breaking, and don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

What I learned on Sunday (which I mostly already knew but had forgotten)

If you’re going to sing a recital, get more than four hours of sleep the night before.  Don’t work until 12.30 pm.  Don’t go to a Halloween party after that.  Don’t get up early to run a rehearsal at church before the service.

Never ever ever ever ever read the bios of your fellow performers until after you perform.  Otherwise, you freak, then you psych yourself out, then you choke, and then you don’t breathe right (and then you don’t sound as good).

Don’t let the theater’s acoustics freak out you.  Miller is weird.  You won’t sound resonant.  Get over it.

Don’t hang out backstage right beforehand.  You can still wish the first performer good luck beforehand and congratulate them after, and you can still hear them through the monitors.  Chill in the green room, so that you can sound stupid by doing breathing exercises while you wait but then sound great onstage.

Ignore the guy with the loud camera.

Be really clear about your tempo.  Don’t let the accompanist nudge you faster (unless you’re slowing down as you go).

Take a long time to warm up.

Don’t sing a church service and then a rehearsal right beforehand.

Smile more.  Be happy.

Bring flowers for your accompanist.  She earned them.

Sunday came early this week!

Or rather, I know that I won’t have time to update tomorrow, so you get an update now instead.

Crazy week…as ever…  I got the last of the midterms out of the way (HALLELUJAH!) and got most of the grades back – nothing lower than a B+ (in Indian Music, which I was basically expecting to fail).  Win!  Of course, I got no homework done, but hey, do I ever?  The last “official” midterm is on Tuesday, in Italian, but since it’s the length of a regular quiz (50 minutes), I’m not hugely worried.  Of course, having said that, I’ll probably fail.  The world will spin onward.

BIG FAT HAIRY PLUG:  if you’re reading this before 7 pm on 25 October 2009, please come to the CCP recital!  7 pm, Miller Theatre.  116th and Broadway.  Casual dress.  Free admission.  Possible free food after.  You know you’re interested.  If nothing else, it’s a great procrastination strategy…

Dramatic moment of the week:  a hard discussion with the Bored of the Marching Band.  I’m the treasurer (and it’s my second year), and I love my job – and love being on the Bored.  They’re a great group of people, and I’m proud to be part of that group.  But in case you didn’t notice, this has been an insane semester for me, and the stress is really starting to get to me.  (There’s a reason why the Sad Trombone is my theme song!)  22 credits, 3-4 hours in practice rooms every day, lots of extracurriculars, two jobs…it’s piling up, and I’m exhausted and stressed, and something had to give.  And something did give – I ended up leaving the Homecoming game early last Saturday to go home and have a mini nervous breakdown.  I promise I’m fine now, but I did a lot of hard thinking and realized that the only thing that I could legitimately ease up on at this point (especially now that we’re past the drop date for classes) is marching band.  So we talked as a Bored on Thursday, and while I’m still officially the treasurer, they’re releasing me from the absolute attendance requirement.  Thank God.  So I’ll come when I can – to Bored meetings for sure, to rehearsals as often as I can, and maybe a game or two – and when I can’t, I’ll let them know and it’ll be ok.  I’m so lucky – they were all completely kind and understanding, and I feel good about the agreement and the conversation.  It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Still hard – it wasn’t something I wanted to do – but easier than it should have been, and I’m very grateful for that.

Lest I end this post on a sad or serious note, allow me to offer you a few moments of entertainment from a fellow blogosphere resident (albeit a considerably more prominent one).  Ladies and gentlemen, Rules For My Unborn Son.  Enjoy.  I wish I could offer a favorite, but I have at least twenty, so you’ll have to find your own.  I don’t think it’ll be too hard.

If the devil’s in the details, then God is in the music.

I’ve had an interesting few days, musically speaking.  My dad sent me a lovely, lovely email a few days ago, in which he reminded me (among other things, of course) that one makes music for a living because and only because one can do nothing else and be happy.  He also pointed out that music, in every form, in every way, is completely and utterly for God.  As he said, “It gives you a direct line.”  Jokingly put, perhaps, but the point is good.

This is interesting to me because we also just started looking at courtly Indian music in Music of India and West Asia (courtly Indian music = ragas, if you weren’t sure and didn’t want to ask), and one of the points that is constantly being emphasized there is that the music is done for the sake of God.  It’s a devotional exercise:  the musician performs as a way to express their devotion to and love of God, and they give their entire lives to the practice, in hope that they will eventually be good enough to please God.

I guess it’s a common thread throughout human society, and it almost leads to a chicken-and-egg conundrum:  did musicians invent a God for themselves to give their music a higher purpose, or was music invented as the ultimate way to glorify the God that was always there?  As a Christian, I think I’m kind of obligated to argue for the latter, but if you asked an atheistic ethnomusicologist, I’m sure the answer would be very different – and very interesting.

Dad’s right, you know.  Music is a direct line to God.  They say that prayer is a direct line, but you know, it’s not, quite.  Prayer is a one-sided conversation (unless you’re really, really special), and like any conversation, it ebbs and flows and is full of primary and secondary motivations, manipulations, strategic use of syntax and connotation – even though you can’t play off the other person’s reactions, all those things are still there, because for most of us, they’re honestly instinctive.  When you say “Help, God, I’m feeling overwhelmed,” you’re saying that because you have too many midterms, not because you have too many friends to hang out with, and you want Him to respond by making your teacher cancel a test, not by giving all your friends the flu so that you have time to study.  God responds (in His mysterious, odd, generally incomprehensible ways) without any of those devices, and I’m sure He sees right through them when we use them, but we’re human, so we employ them instinctively.

But when you’re singing, you can’t do any of that, because there isn’t any room.  You’re too busy thinking about breathing and phrasing and tuning and dynamics and diction and all the other little subtleties that go into making music sound really, really good to push in anything that doesn’t belong there.  You don’t have time to manipulate.  You don’t have time for any motive more complicated than “Please, hear my song and like it!”  You don’t need anything more complicated than that.  You don’t want anything bigger than that!  Why would you?  You have everything you need in that song.  The fact that you are taking the time to sing well, to concentrate and to put in the required effort, is an act of devotion and therefore prayer in and of itself – nothing more is required in that moment.

Maybe that’s why I love singing so much.  People think I’m insane when I tell them that I spend three hours a day singing in practice rooms, working on tiny little seemingly insignificant details.  But see, when I’m doing that, I’m giving my life over to something that’s so, so, so much bigger than me.  I’m setting aside all the stupid, petty stuff in my life (even when the stupid petty stuff is related to music!) and putting absolutely everything I have into making the sound that’s coming out of my mouth right then sound as glorious as I can make it.  And I do it again and again, over and over, so that the “as glorious as I can make it” gets more and more glorious, until maybe someday it’ll be good enough.  I don’t have to think about anything else.  I can just focus on that.  It’s the best escape in the world.  (I think the best way to rehabilitate drug addicts is to teach them to sing opera, by the way.)  There is no sensation in the world that can compare to that momentary loss of self.  For that moment, you are the music, and you are absolutely everything that you have ever wanted or needed to be.  And in that moment, you are as God intended you to be, and you are with Him.  That is a direct line, and that moment is what I live for.

I’m not so big on McDonald’s -

- but if the catchphrase fits, use it!

In short, I’m lovin’ it.  (It, of course, being this.)

Isn’t your day just a little bit better now?  I know mine is.

SHAMELESS PLUG! SHAMELESS PLUG! SHAMELESS PLUG!!

WHO:  me, singing, along with many of my peers (who will not all be singing – some will play instruments instead).  you, watching and applauding raucously at appropriate intervals.
WHAT:  a Columbia Classical Performers recital, sponsored by the Music Performance Program, in partnership with Miller Theatre.  me, singing a couple of Mozart songs in said recital.
WHERE:  Miller Theatre – 116th and Broadway
WHEN:  Sunday 25 October, 7 pm.  it’s long, but there’s an intermission.
WHY:  because you love classical music performed by fantastic students, and you also love me, even though I’m not really that fantastic.
HOW:  just show up.  with friends.  and enemies.  and homeless people that you dragged in off the street.  it’s free.  gotta love CCP for that.

please come?  I’ll love you forever.  (more than I already do.)

A couple of stories

It’s been a very long week, so this will be a fairly short post.  I don’t feel like boring you guys with “so then I wrote this paper, and OMG it took, like, soooo long, and then I was sooo sleepy, so I took a nap for an hour but then it was five hours and then OMG, I had to get up and study for that test!  So I made some coffee and then I burned my hand, and then -”

Except that actually happened.  I mean, I prefer to tell it is “I got into an epic battle with my coffeepot and then my coffeepot won,” but the truth of the matter is, I may or may not have poured boiling water on my writing hand.  Ah, oops.  I then went to a piano lesson.  That lasted about five minutes (literally).  And later that day, I tried to write my music history midterm and had to walk out without finishing because I couldn’t hold my pencil for longer than about twenty minutes without crying.  Again:  ah, oops.  I actually just emailed my professor to reschedule – she’s being fantastically nice about this, thank God – and I ended up typing my Indian Music midterm on Wednesday.  I feel like that was unfair – I type a lot faster than I write, even under ideal circumstances, and that was a long, hard exam.  I can honestly say that I probably wouldn’t have finished it if I was writing by hand.  As it is, there were still a couple of smart-ass answers on there (my favorite:  when asked to define adivasi, I talked instead about a Native American tribe of a similar name that existed in the American Southwest.  Funny story – turns out the adivasi are the aboriginal people of India…).  But I’ve talked to a few other people in the class and I think everyone got raped by that exam.  And he did say he would curve it.  Thank goodness.

Other awesome news:  I’m singing in a recital!  It’s sponsored by the Columbia Classical Performers, which is a student outgrowth of the Music Performance Program, and it’s at Miller Hall (116th and Broadway) at 7 pm next Sunday.  It’s completely free, of course.  I’m singing two short Mozart pieces, Un moto di gioja and Ridente la calma.  If you’re reading this and you’re on the correct side of the Atlantic ocean right now, you should absolutely come!  See you there.

The last piece of news for this week is also music-related…  You may remember a mention of my friend Teddy and his and my plans for a joint thesis.  WELL…he found someone who’s interested in producing an opera, so we’re still going to try to collaborate on a thesis, but we’re also going to try to put together an opera performance this spring.  Così Fan Tutte, no less.  I’m already scared out of my mind, but at the same time…bring it on!  I can’t wait.

What I can wait for:  the Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in American is going to come and consecrate my church in the spring.  Know what that means?  That means that I get to conduct a hierarchical liturgy.  During midterm season.  I almost fainted when Father announced it in church today.  Anyone want to run away to Mexico with me during the first week of March?

A little introspection?

I don’t know what it is, but something about working the late-night shifts at the TIC makes me really pensive and introspective.  Maybe it’s the quiet – aside from brief rushes right before shows, it’s pretty dead.  Maybe it’s the memories – I’ve been at the TIC (and working the late-night Friday shift!) for a really long time and in a lot of different hats – as a raw newbie, as a regular employee, as an employee basically pretending to be an assistant, working with assistants who openly acknowledged that I was at good at the job as they were (oh, Ben), and now as an assistant.  It kind of forces you to think.  And it was a constant through all the classes, all the friend drama, all the boy drama, all the everything.  It doesn’t help, too, that my iPod keeps spitting out music that links to all kinds of memories – everything from summers five years ago to high school madrigals (PENNY LANE!  OMG!) to this past summer to stuff from The SixtyOne that I fell in love with in August.  Again, a recipe for thought.

This means that you guys are stuck listening to me reminisce.  Sorry, y’all.

It’s weird to think, for instance, about where I was a year ago.  I was trying to make up my mind about a really long, involved relationship and where I saw it going.  I was adjusting to being a choir director, which may have been the scariest thing I’ve done in my life.   (Honestly, the only reason I was able to do it is that I didn’t really know what I was getting into.  If I had known, I would never have taken the job.)  I was making up my mind to kick a really ridiculous, draining friend out of my life.  I was getting serious about the whole being-a-music-major deal, and trying to figure out where I could see my life going with that.  I was getting used to my voice teacher, who ROCKS and is one of the reasons I want to try to go to grad for voice.  And I was really, really sick of literature courses.

And two years ago – I was completely uncertain about everything, from my major to my lack of job to my living situation to my classes to my friends.  I wasn’t really invovled in much music, outside of those horrendously painful voice lessons, and I wasn’t really involved with the Church, either, which was a huge drain on my life.  I didn’t like a lot of my classes, I wasn’t really happy with where I was living, I missed having my own space, I missed singing like nothing else in the world, I missed my boyfriend…I was unhappy in a lot of ways, and yet I was thrilled to be independent and in the big city on my own.  I was so happy to have my own life and my own choices and all these OPTIONS that I could play with and explore and then make decisions about.  The world was my oyster in a way that it never has been before or since.

Now, I’m in a new involved relationship, and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier – because the boy is so wonderful, because I’ve never been this happy with another person, because the normalcy of having a boyfriend be there when I need him is so comforting, because I’m enjoying the realities of not being in a long distance relationship…  I’m comfortable being a choir director and am actually starting to (gasp) really enjoy it, though a large part of me wishes that I had my weekends to myself – for things like marching band, and seeing my beautiful goddaughter, and being able to see shows on Saturday nights every once in a while.  I think about the ridiculous former friend every once in a while and wonder why I was ever friends with them at all.  I’m thrilled about being a music major, getting ready for my first MPP recital, and working out logistics to sing in an OPERA in the spring.  (!!!)  I still love my voice teacher.  I sound better than I ever thought I could, and I still have almost two years to work with him.  And I don’t have to take any more literature courses if I don’t want to do so.

My life, in short, is absolutely beautiful.

And that one phrase gets me thinking even more, of course.  Columbia’s homecoming is this weekend, and U-High’s homecoming was this past week.  I know people who honestly, seriously, think of high school as the best time of their lives.  They miss it deeply and desperately.  They aren’t happy at university and they want to go back to being sixteen and seventeen.  I can’t understand that.  What is there to dislike about uni?  You’re away from your high school friends, but now more than ever, it’s easy to keep in touch with far-away people (exhibit A:  my summer spent on GChat!).  You’re not in a familiar place, but you make it familiar and it becomes home, your first real home as an adult.  You take classes that you actually enjoy and you engage with your professors as an adult and as an educated, intellectual person, not as an uneducated teenager whose opinion may or may not be worth anything, depending on who’s evalutating it.  You find a job that you like.  You participate in clubs that you adore.  You find a new family (or in my case, several new families).  You fall in love (maybe a couple of times) and you get your heart broken (that one might happen more than once too, but it’s ok – it’s necessary).  You pull all-nighters and drink coffee and tea and sit around talking about everything and nothing at all at three in the morning.  It is, in short, precisely what it ought to be.

But I also know alumni who are coming back to Columbia this weekend and are so excited because it means that for one weekend, they get to pretend to be college students again.  They are endlessly excited about this, because college was the best time of their lives and they miss it sooo much, omg.  I can’t really understand that, either.  I love college, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t love it more than high school, and I don’t love high school more than college.  I just can’t see why people cling to times like that.  You are precisely where you are when you are there.  It’s wonderful to think about where you were, and I love doing that – I’ve had an incredible life, and I treasure everything (well, almost everything) that’s happened so far.  But you can’t do that to the exclusion of all else.  You have to appreciate what you have at the moment, because otherwise, what’s the point of having it?  The alums who are coming back this weekend have fantastic lives as well!  They have jobs, and apartments, and great friends.  Some of them are married, or engaged, or living with their significant others.  They’re happy, they’re fulfilled, they have most of the things they need and want.  They have no reason to cling to the past the way that they do, and I can’t understand their motivation to do so.  Part of me would LOVE to be in their shoes – so why can’t they appreciate where they are?

So I guess the point of this whole long rambling post is to ask you, my dear readers, to stop.  Yes, right this minute.  Take thirty seconds to think about everything that’s in your life at this moment – your boyfriend/girlfriend, your best friends, your family, your beloved pet iguana, your home and your job and your leisure activities, and be happy about where you are.  Be happy that you get to read Harry Potter fanfiction and rent documentaries on Netflix.  Be happy that you can pet your cat and cook pancakes/bake cookies with your boyfriend at one in the morning.  Be happy that you can dance around your room to loud music and talk with your friends for hours on end.  Just be happy.  You have reasons to be happy – remember them and revel in them.  You have had reasons to be happy in the past, and you will have reasons to be happy in the future, but you have reasons right this moment, as well, and it’s your job to make those reasons worth remembering.

Go forth and do.  I’ll see you Sunday.

I can’t give you a full post -

- but maybe I can make you giggle!  Behold, the soundtrack to my life.

Now, didn’t that just make your day a little bit better?  (Snaps to Jager, who found it and posted it in his GChat status.  Music geeks FTW!)

Have a delicious week.  :-)

Agony -

- beyond power of speech; when the one thing you want is the only thing out of your reach!

Ten super-awesome-bonus points for you if you know what musical that’s from!  (Hint:  U-High performed it during my sophomore year.  I wasn’t in it, but everyone joked that I should have been.)

Come back next week for an answer to that question.  No post this weekend, unfortunately, because between now and Wednesday, I must:

- Complete two midterms
- Take an Italian quiz
- Write a “CD Report” (yeah, I’m baffled too) for Indian Music
- Write an Italian composition
- Do a serious chunk of homework
- Catch up on reading for Indian Music, since that’s one of the midterms
- Memorize two songs for a recital
- Practice for piano and voice
- Finish arranging the Star-Spangled Banner for the marching band
- Go see my mom, who’s leaving to go back to Cairo

After I do all these things, oh beloved readers, I will happily write you a charming, witty, and interesting post.  But only then, and not before.  I’m sorry!