Live Journal

I started a Live Journal back in April of 2005 and I had hoped that I would keep using it and updating it. I was successful for the longest time but my last entry was in January of 2009. After going back and reading a few of my entries I realized how important it was to keep a journal. It's been so long that I've forgotten half of the things that happened, and half of those that I've forgotten I doubt ever actually occurred. I hope this blog/journal lasts as long as my Live Journal and someday I look back and remember how amazing my life has been.

I think what's important in this post is to note how I've changed since my very first entry nearly 6 years ago. I was a sophomore in high school when I first started my LJ, I had just come out, I was involved in the school plays and speech competitions, and I had some wonderful friends that I spent a lot of time with as awkward as some of those relationships were. I like to think that I was a really nice and kind person back then but something happened during my senior year and I became kind of an ass. I cheated on my boyfriend, I alienated people, and I did just about whatever I wanted. It feels wonderful to say that I'm conscience of it now and that I'm a much more exciting and kind person than that. I try to make a conscience effort to find the best in people and not say anything negative about them.

After high school I had planned on going to the UofM in Minneapolis to study music performance and education but I attended Northern State in Aberdeen, SD instead. They had given me a generous amount of money so I started studying music ed for a while until my professor, Raouf Zaidan, had mentioned I might pursue an opera career. I was on board immediately and during my sophomore year at NSU I started looking into transferring to a school with a performance degree. Under the most amazing circumstances I was offered a full ride at CU to study music performance with Patrick Mason. It was a very rough process trying to leave CU--a lot of mistakes were made on my part but eventually I ended up in Boulder.

I have been in Boulder for 2 years now and I'm about to start my 3rd and final year of undergraduate work at CU. While here I've already gotten to perform in the chorus for 6 operas, cover roles in 2 of those operas, sing principal roles in the Bernstein Mass and in CU's New Opera Workshop. This fall I get to perform two roles in the same opera and gain that much more experience. I would have never had these opportunities in South Dakota and I'm so grateful to have moved here.

This next semester is going to be one of the busiest with the opera, grad school auditions, senior recital preparations, and work. I've tried to prepare as much as I could this summer but I know I could have done better. It just means that I'll have to work that much harder during the school year.

A lot of things haven't changed since I first started LJ. I still love peanut butter and I still need a fan to sleep at night. I'm still an introvert and have some trouble making friends. A few things have changed, however. I am slightly balding and I'm more obsessed with my hair than ever. I'm probably in better shape than I was in SD though, since bike and walk a lot. For a while I worked out and had some pretty awesome arms too, haha. I also some quite a bit of herb, haha.

There is so much more that I'd like to add--philosophies, music that I love, information about my love life, and how much I hate my back fat--but hopefully I'll mention it in future posts. I specifically remember my director from Our Town the play asking if I kept a journal and whether it was more about events or my feelings. Honestly, it was nearly all about events. It would be wonderful if this could be a good mix of my ideas, events, and emotions...so, I'll try and keep that in mind.