Of Gratitude, Humility, and Terror

Hello Hello Hello,

Let's face it: I suck at blogging.  Thus, this will be another ginormous update. Fortunately, I promise not to mention jewelry or craft projects :)

First is first:  I'm auditioning for some really cool stuff. 

Back in December, after I left my UT job, I decided to throw my hat back into the academic arena, and audition for graduate programs.  Hoo-ray DMA (to be chanted with moderate enthusiasm).

Now, I had been living in the complicated land of Administrivia for the last 16 months, and had the old adage "every moment you are not practicing, some one else is" floating in my mind.  I was confident that I would not be invited to a lot of places, especially to the places I was interested in.

So, I put together a punch of tapes, and sent them off.  Much thanks to Muldoon Baptist Church, Martin & Lora, Liz Love, and Dennis Llinas for helping me make it happen.  The list was:

Yale
Northwestern
USC
Michigan
Ensemble ACJW (awesome fellowship in NYC)
and New World Symphony

When it came down to it, I could not muster the sanity/fortitude/focus/will to put together one last tape, so New World didn't happen.  The other 5 sailed off alone into the inter webs.

And I waited.

AND WAITED.

and waited


and FINALLY, started hearing back.

Good News:  I'm invited to audition at all of them!!!
Bad News: I'm invited to audition at all of them...and some of them have terrifying tests (I'm looking at you, Yale)


must practice, must practice, must practice, must practice, must practice, must practice

Second: One Woman's Epic Quest to Reread the ENTIRE Norton Anthology of Music...in a month

Oddly enough, no networks have offered to pick this up as a reality TV Show.  I mean, it's got to be vastly more interesting than all the Kardashian nonsense on the air, but whatever.  America isn't ready for the Guidonian Hand.

Anywho, as aforementioned, Yale is known to have a terrifying and beastly entrance exam.  Thus, I am endeavoring to remember all of the music history that has ebbed in my mental tide, and relearn Italian (ha... haha ha ha) so that I can "translate scholarly documents"... all before 02/24

to that I say: Vorrei una birra, per favore

I don't think that the kind of "language abilities" that Yale is expecting... sigh


Third: I'm teaching, and I love it

Ok, I might be the luckiest person alive. I quit a paying job with benefits (and watched my poor Dad age 5 years overnight because of it) and leapt into unemployment with my fingers crossed, expecting January to be a waste land of stress.

Amazingly, Austin Soundwaves (a very very cool program sponsored by the Hispanic Alliance for the Performing Arts) needed a horn teacher, and even more amazingly,  I have the opportunity to check it out, and work with some fantastic kids and colleagues.

:)

Once upon a time, I was a Music Ed major (I think for 2 weeks....seriously) and then I switched, convince d that classroom teaching was not for me.  GUESS what I'm doing?   What's that you say, Irony?  2 hours of classroom teaching a day?  HA.

Lesson learned:  20 year old AMC had no idea what she wanted, because this is awesome.

Note: it's probably also awesome because I only do it for 2 hours a day.  All you full time teachers: GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR AMAZING PATIENCE.

So, right now, I'm insanely busy, but love everything I'm doing... well, ok, I don't love ready 100 pages of the NAWM a day, but this too shall pass.

Thanks for reading!