Storms

Things have been pretty hectic in Fredonia and it's mostly due to the weather. This past tuesday evening we had a pretty bad ice storm. It caused the power to go out for about 7 hours starting at 5 in the morning. Unfortunately, the building that I was in is so old that the wiring gets screwed up easily. The power outage didn't help at all and, starting at 545, the building's fire alarms went off for two hours. We were only outside for about 10 minutes of it and for the rest we were inside losing our hearing. It was not a fun day. We had classes canceled until noon, but unfortunately had classes afterwards.

In the past few days we've accumulated near 2 feet of snow I would imagine. It's ridiculous outside. It literally never stops snowing. Of course this weekend has been when I have a million and one things to do around campus. So what would normally be a 3 minute walk is now a 7 minute walk after attempting to trudge through the poorly plowed sidewalks. I'm not usually a complainer about snow because Fredonia gets significantly less snow than Syracuse does, but come on! At least in Syracuse they plow immediately when it starts snowing. Fredonia let's it build up in attempt to get rid of it in one fell swoop.

Let's hope it stops snowing soon.

Well then

Considering I'm procrastinating from the piles of music theory homework I have, I suppose I shall post first.

Things are pretty great lately. My 20th birthday just passed. I spent the day being pretty low key and lazy. Then, around 8, my friends and I prettied up and headed off to Buffalo, NY for a night of dancing! It was so incredibly fun. Probably one of the most fun nights I've had while being at SUNY Fredonia and what better night for it to be on than my birthday?! It's great.

School is going really well. My voice is in a great place right now and I'm improving every day. It's a lot of hard work and a lot of time alone in the practice room, but it's completely worth it. Currently I'm working on a song cycle all in Russian. It's already challenging and I haven't even got to singing it with actual words! A lot of "doot doot"-ing and such to solidify my pitch and rhythm. Mussorgsky is a crazy guy, let me tell you.

I'm currently pursuing a degree in Music Education, so I have a practicum set up for this upcoming spring break. I'll be spending the days with my former elementary music teacher, Lisa Cowles. I'm very excited to get working with actual students.

I also am currently employed as a vocal coach for a local barbershop choir. The youngest man in the choir is just shy of 40 and the oldest is in his early 70s. It was really intimidating walking into the first rehearsal and be the youngest person in the room by two entire decades. But they are very respectful and try their hardest to listen to the coaching that I give them. It's only been about a month since I've been working with them and they already sound so much better! I'm also getting a lot more used to standing in front of a group and being in charge. It's a great experience all around!

Well, that's all for now. I suppose I should get working on that music theory homework!

:)