Chapter Nineteen: Playing Catch-up
It's been forever. Quick update: Christmas break was busy and awesome, as expected. Went to New York with the family and saw the Producers and Rent. Then to New Jersey for a few days with my grandparents. Then home for less than a day, and off to Medina to see Kathleen. Which was awesome. Spent four days up there, then came back. Got to see some of the gang for a night which was AWESOME. Then it was off to New York again with the glee club.
Club tour is where it gets interesting. At the time of tour, Ethan's wife Siri was nine months pregnant. Not wanting to leave her and go twelve hours away (where he might miss the birth), he decided not to go to New York with us. That left me and Jason, the student conductors, in charge of the music, and the other officers in charge of logistics and keeping all the freshmen alive. Good times. There was also the minor detail that one of our alumni who failed to make concert arrangements for us called on Sunday night with the excuse that the church "collapsed." Needless to say the church was perfectly fine, as we found out from other alumni who tried to go see us. This cost us both a concert and a place to stay, so we wound up in a sketchy youth hostel on Amsterdam and 103rd for a night (some underclassmen spent two nights there) and then a nice hotel at 95th and Broadway for the rest of the tour. Jason and I conducted concerts at an elementary school, and more importantly, St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was amazing. The group did really well and did a great job following us in Ethan's absence. I saw three more shows while I was there -- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Light in the Piazza, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. My thoughts on these will be posted later...
Ethan showed up for the last three concerts in Cleveland. We sang at a church there, my group spent the night in a RIDICULOUS mansion on the lake, owned by three gay men and a random female Case student who was renting the guest apartment. Slightly strange, but the most gorgeous house EVER!! We did music for a Lutheran service that morning, then I left and had brunch with Jim Krukones, a family friend who works at John Carroll now. We did our last concert of tour at another church down the road, and Kathleen's family came to that, which was pretty cool. I rode back to Oxford with Kathleen, in what was definitely the silliest car ride of my life.
The semester started off at full speed. Quick rundown of classes:
MUS 312 - Music History (Classical to Modernism) -- I LOVE this class. Probably because i'm a nerd. Dr. Green is an awesome teacher, extremely intellectual. He's rapidly becoming one my favorite profs ever. I've learned SO much already.
MUS 355 - Elementary General Music Techniques -- This class is fun. Not hard work at all, yet (knock on wood). It's half lecture, half playing 2nd grade music games. Plus the upside is its all vocal majors so i'm friends with everyone in the class.
SPA 211 - Deaf Culture and Language -- This one is also awesome. It's mostly learning Sign Language, with a little bit of lecture about Deaf culture as well. Really fun, and Joey Schneider is in it with me.
MUS 189 - Great Ideas in Western Music -- I'm a TA for this class. There are four undergrads and 1 graduate TA leading discussion sections once a week. I had my first one today, it was OK. Things will get better once I get the hang of it. Or maybe once they actually open their mouths and talk...
Those are all the regular classes, plus I have voice lessons, Glee Club, and Chorale. Which are the usual.
To sum it up, life is pretty good. Anyway that's it for now, stay tuned...
Club tour is where it gets interesting. At the time of tour, Ethan's wife Siri was nine months pregnant. Not wanting to leave her and go twelve hours away (where he might miss the birth), he decided not to go to New York with us. That left me and Jason, the student conductors, in charge of the music, and the other officers in charge of logistics and keeping all the freshmen alive. Good times. There was also the minor detail that one of our alumni who failed to make concert arrangements for us called on Sunday night with the excuse that the church "collapsed." Needless to say the church was perfectly fine, as we found out from other alumni who tried to go see us. This cost us both a concert and a place to stay, so we wound up in a sketchy youth hostel on Amsterdam and 103rd for a night (some underclassmen spent two nights there) and then a nice hotel at 95th and Broadway for the rest of the tour. Jason and I conducted concerts at an elementary school, and more importantly, St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was amazing. The group did really well and did a great job following us in Ethan's absence. I saw three more shows while I was there -- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Light in the Piazza, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. My thoughts on these will be posted later...
Ethan showed up for the last three concerts in Cleveland. We sang at a church there, my group spent the night in a RIDICULOUS mansion on the lake, owned by three gay men and a random female Case student who was renting the guest apartment. Slightly strange, but the most gorgeous house EVER!! We did music for a Lutheran service that morning, then I left and had brunch with Jim Krukones, a family friend who works at John Carroll now. We did our last concert of tour at another church down the road, and Kathleen's family came to that, which was pretty cool. I rode back to Oxford with Kathleen, in what was definitely the silliest car ride of my life.
The semester started off at full speed. Quick rundown of classes:
MUS 312 - Music History (Classical to Modernism) -- I LOVE this class. Probably because i'm a nerd. Dr. Green is an awesome teacher, extremely intellectual. He's rapidly becoming one my favorite profs ever. I've learned SO much already.
MUS 355 - Elementary General Music Techniques -- This class is fun. Not hard work at all, yet (knock on wood). It's half lecture, half playing 2nd grade music games. Plus the upside is its all vocal majors so i'm friends with everyone in the class.
SPA 211 - Deaf Culture and Language -- This one is also awesome. It's mostly learning Sign Language, with a little bit of lecture about Deaf culture as well. Really fun, and Joey Schneider is in it with me.
MUS 189 - Great Ideas in Western Music -- I'm a TA for this class. There are four undergrads and 1 graduate TA leading discussion sections once a week. I had my first one today, it was OK. Things will get better once I get the hang of it. Or maybe once they actually open their mouths and talk...
Those are all the regular classes, plus I have voice lessons, Glee Club, and Chorale. Which are the usual.
To sum it up, life is pretty good. Anyway that's it for now, stay tuned...