Moments in the Woods

While I have weaned myself from caffeine, I still feel a little happy jolt every time I see a neat little coffee shop. There's one on my walk to school that has a lovely charm, from its purple spotted dog statue that greets passersby, to its ornate gold chairs with brocade cushions, to its upper wall self-aware mural depicting the neighborhood around the shop, to the eclectic mix of music that swirls around the center island where the baristas work their craft. I stopped in tonight for a cup of hot chocolate as I perused my reading for the 19th Century Opera Singers course. The realization that this material was something I would have picked up for fun in my prior life crystallized one of my best moments of the day.

My other favorite snapshots from today:

• Getting to hear a 2 hour concert in my opera workshop class as every student sang 2 pieces - 1 aria and 1 of any style that we loved to sing. All the voices were beautiful and brilliant, and there were soaring notes and glorious expression throughout. I was fully entertained.

• Realizing that I may actually be able to bring my past experiences in business to bear here to help some folks out with a few things

• Sitting in my bedroom with the three windows open, seeing the lights of the city glitter as the perfect temperature fresh air flows through. A beautiful place for a desk.

• Watching a guy perform "Popular", singing to his sweats-clad female accompanist. (For the uninitiated, "Popular" is from the musical Wicked and is normally sung by the popular, saccharine, pretty-in-pink, blonde girl to her frumpy fellow student.) It was like "What Not to Wear" in musical form. Hilarious.

• Getting a very supportive offer of help after confessing to my music theory professor that I'd never had the class in undergrad. Instead of calling me under-qualified or marveling that I was accepted to the program with my econ major, he was incredibly kind, attempting to link economics and music theory as "very similar to each other - they both deal with an entire system." And then he made sure I felt comfortable emailing with any questions or if I felt like the class was going too fast. I love this place.

So life is lovely overall. Things are rushed and busy in many ways, more than I'd anticipated. For instance, the 1.5 credit music theory class is turning out to be about 9 hours of work per week outside the MWF classes. (This is based on my 4.5 hours of work for last night's assignment, which was supposed to take 90 minutes. I can only hope that I'll get faster at this ear dictation over time.) But I'm still getting to sing and practice more than I'd imagined, and people are wonderfully supportive here (not to mention unbelievably talented - what an amazing place to learn!!) And I'm still in a "pinch-myself-am-I-really-here?" state. So much fun!

Ah, happy day.

Bon week-end!

~Hope

PS The title is a reference to an Into the Woods song in honor of a piece sung by a classmate today from that show.