Hello all,
I have been quite busy these few days and haven’t gotten a chance to blog. I hope you all missed me with a deep burning passion. I had a few tests, some meetings for different organizations, and classes themselves. Anyways, when you’re busy working, sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses. Granted the roses at school aren’t blooming quite yet, I went for a walk around Berea with my girlfriend. We walked to Coe Lake which is about oh 15 mins or so walking away. Coe Lake is this massive lake with trails and other nature-esqueness stuff. So we walked there, walked by our conservatory of music buildings, and then made our rounds back to campus. It was very relaxing to just go and walk around. I think that is one thing B-W has that is pretty cool. The metropark system is a system of several parks consisting of trails, lakes, ponds, etc. So get outside, it’s fun!
-David

Yesterday was the culmination of 4 years of work by the 13 Music Theatre seniors: Showcase.

For those of you who don’t know, showcase is perhaps THE most important thing BW offers to the MTs. It is a streamlined, colorful show that displays to the highest degree possible the talent of each of the seniors, which they perform here and then take to New York City, where it is watched by an auditorium full of agents and casting directors who then decide who they would like to call back for interviews. more than 90% will then have agents before they move to the city in May.

It was incredible. Every person shined in their own way; one of Vicky’s greatest abilities is to help them choose the pieces that will set them apart from the crowd, and from each other. There was belting, there was dancing, there was legit soprano and comedic scatting, but above all there was a sense of culmination and unity in their performances.

That’ll be me in 3 years.

March is a time of year where I tend to find out how much I really hate being cold. March is mother’s nature’s way of, as my father would say, “tickling our asses with feathers.” As astutely as my father put’s it, I feel I might need to explain. Mother Nature takes her proverbial feather, which is warm, summer air, and whooshes it around briefly, giving us North Eastern Ohioans a thorough bottom tickling, stirring up euphoric feelings — only to crush them with wintery fluff. It helped me realize, too, how tied my inner core is to the seasons of the year. When the sun shines warm, I experience strange sensations and changes in my demeanor, such as motivation, and positivity, and a simple love for the moment. Winter brings me down. This blog is not stating anything new, but whatever.
-SL

After this past weekend, I need a good long break. We had our first golf tournament this weekend, and if you weren’t in Northeast Ohio, let me tell you about it in two simple words: cold and miserable. Yep. And I got to play golf in the cold rain. WOO!!! I love golf but it gets frustrating every once in a while.

But then there’s this weekend which is gonna be in the mid and upper 70s. I will be in heaven. Perfect golfing weather. Even though it’s Easter, I might squeeze in a couple rounds with my dad. Why not? Golf as much as I can while I can.

As for school, I have tons of stuff due after the Easter weekend. I have two papers due that Wednesday and an exam, so I have to get a head start on that. Which I will work on as much as I can this week while I’m still in school mode. I just need to get a little bit of motivation to do work, because it’ll take a huge burden off my shoulders. Advice for life right there.

Normally I don’t post so close together, but this is something that I just realized, and it’s kind off annoying. Somehow, teachers find it possible to always give exams all in the same week as every other professor. Example given: Next week, on Monday and Wednesday, I managed to land three exams in my most difficult classes, History and Literature of Music, Harmony and Organic Chemistry. I almost ended up with all three on Monday, but my class managed to convince our Ochem professor to move the test to Wednesday. However, it leaves me with three difficult exams to grind out before I get to the short break provided by easter weekend.

On the other hand, I got to participate in one of my peers senior recitals. In certain music majors, you’re required to put on recitals at the end of your junior and senior year (as opposed to a paper). Shaina House, a BW senior music composition major had her recital today, and I played for her orchestral composition. I enjoy playing for various student composers, because it guarentees that the music is something I’ve never heard before, and thus is completely new to me. The recital went very well, so I’m glad that it was so sucessful.

As you might have guessed by the title, I’m pretty excited to have the weekend finally here. I thought this week would be easy after having such a tough one, but it wasn’t at all. But now I’m finally done with a huge load of schoolwork, and I’m just so content to have the weekend here (with a super easy week coming up, too). I finished reading a particularly arduous book for my Lit of Rock n Roll class (it wasn’t BAD, it was just a tough read), I got an EDU project out the way, and it’s just good tidings for a while. Unfortunately, I’ve come down with a little sickness–just in time for the weekend, right?–but it’s not too bad and I won’t let it bog me down at all. I even played five games of basketball at the rec today. I just love weekends since I have the time to do things like that. Oh, thought I’d mention, on Thursday I attended a mandatory reading seminar by the author Jeff Parker, and while I go to these things with an open mind, I never knew how much I’d like the material he wrote. I ended up buying a copy of the novel he read from (it’s called “Ovenman”) and had him sign it. I know it was a mandatory event, but I’m really glad I went–I think I’m gonna like this book (when I actually have time to read it). In other news, I got another A on a paper for my World Lit class, so I’m pretty proud since until now I’ve always seemed to be caught in this quagmire of B’s for all my papers, so maybe I can finally start churning out stronger work. I know it’s nearing the end of my college career, but better late than never, and at least I’m improving. However, apparently there are guests over my house, so I’ll be going now to help entertain, so until next time, readers.

Getting back to school after spring break, I feel like all of a sudden, my workload tripled. Maybe it’s the approaching end of the year that is stressing me out, but I feel more and more pressure from all the things that need to be done, every day. And I doubt that will exactly go away as the semester progresses. But I’m trying to organize my days as much as possible, to avoid the feeling of having to do everything at once.

But that’s pretty much been my last few weeks, trying to fight to stay above water. The biggest culprits are Organic chemistry, and rehearsal for Bachfest. They both eat up a lot of my time, Ochem because of all the study needed to be able to understand and apply everything, and Bach rehearsals are more or less just very mentally and physically draining. I just have to keep grinding away, and get through this last month or so.

Peace

This monday were auditions for the principal roles in La Boheme, and I decided that I was going to go for the part of Colline. And, after a 3-day audition process with two days of callbacks, I ended up with the part!

I had been surprised I even got as far as callbacks, but they must have seen something I didn’t! I was double-cast in the role with Jonathan Cooper, who is a sophomore Vocal Performance major, and a fantastic singer. They’ve brought in an incredible music director, Constantine Kitsopoulos, who actually directed the music and conducted for La Boheme when it was on Broadway in 2002, as well as other Broadway shows and operas. There’s an article here: http://cleveland.broadwayworld.com/printcolumn.cfm?id=82247 which is incidentally the first site that pops up if you type in “Constantine Boheme” on Google. Awesome. BW is a great place.

So, if you haven’t read yet, it’s been a busy week for all of us students. I feel that I have been quite busy this week as well. Yes it’s only Wednesday, but man, the things i would do for a nice nap. I already take at least one nap a day, it is what keeps me sane. Anyways, there are two events that I am putting on from my position of Vice President of Programming for Interfraternity Council. My first event is a paintball tournament that is open to all of the B-W campus. From my position of President on the Paintball Club, I have been able to work out a deal for students, and now able to work out pricing for a large scale paintball tournament. So I’m going around campus asking different organizations for co-sponsorship and their support. So far it’s been good. Just a ton of chains of command to go through. The other event that I am putting together is a large social for students. It is titled “Meet, Mingle, and Mocktails”. It’s a speeddating esque event in which people rotate seats and get to know people, really quick. So with both programs, it has been CRAZY!!!!! Hmm, I guess that’s why wedding planners get paid the big bucks? Not too sure.

Winding my head back on to my body
-David

So I realized I haven’t posted in a long while, so I figure I’ll play some quick catch up with what’s been happening these days. I’ve failed to make mention of my spring break… which was really fun, and definitely worth the high price tag. It was great to have a full week in “paradise” (it was warmer in Cleveland than down in Florida at one point, go figure) with a group of friends, and I hope to do it next year if my student teaching allows me to. Last week was utterly miserable for me, however. It was quite honestly one of the most work-filled weeks of my college career, with hundreds of pages of reading to do, a paper to write, an exam, a big presentation, the works. Every class had something big for me to do, and I’d even gotten some of it done over break during the car rides. Couple that with the fact that I’d lost two hours of my biological clock that weekend (one time-zone over and daylight savings), and that made for one tired, busy week. This week isn’t nearly as bad, though, and really all I have to worry about is reading and class scheduling. Next semester should be the last semester I have to take conventional classes, so I need to make sure I get everything done. After next semester it will be all about clinical practice and being a student teacher. AKA, real life is staring at me from across the street right now. I’m not trying to think too hard on that, so I’ll just leave and finish up the rest of my reading for the night. I also have to meet with advisers to finalize what my schedule will be looking like in the fall sometime this week, but considering the small number of classes I have left, it shouldn’t end up being too tough. Now here’s to hoping this reading I’ve been putting off doesn’t keep me up much longer.