Calm before the storm

I've been home now for 10 days.

The MCAT is in 3 days.

Yeah.

Last week I studied some more, but not as much as I had hoped for. I did a lot of physics review, which was desperately needed, but didn't get the practice tests in as I wanted. However, there was a lot I did do.

Last week was the only week that both Ben and I were here together with our Dad for this whole summer, so there was a lot of things planned. We played frisbee golf all morning one morning, went shooting (shotguns) all afternoon another day, shot pistols all morning another day, mixed and poured concrete for our front walkway another morning, went and saw movies one afternoon, played racquetball one evening, etc. My hands were full. And I felt that I should really take the time to enjoy the company of the only guys in our family for the only week we'd be spending together at home.

Well, Ben left to FSU in Tallahassee on Sunday morning for a month long Law Program there, and things have really slowed down. Dad's off at work, my sisters are still in school, Mom's running errands, and I'm left to...STUDY!! Yes, study my brains out. And it's not really like studying, but reviewing. Studying new material at this point isn't going to do you much good. I took a full length practice yesterday (again) and will take another one in a couple hours. I'm feeling confident yet very nervous. I hate that.

It's like giving a talk for me (which I did this last Sunday). You would think that as a Vocal Performance major I'd be able to get in front a group of people, open my mouth, and get used to it, right? Haha, au contraire. I get very anxious, my palms sweat, my knees shake; oh, it's bad. So I feel that I'm approaching that point in slow motion with the MCAT coming up. I haven't started shaking or sweating or anything, but I have begun to get nervous. Ugh.

Tour in a nutshell

So I thought I'd be able to keep a blog on tour... That was a joke, haha, fat chance. First off I didn't have the internet most of the time, so I'd try to keep something on my computer then copy it later, but that wasn't working right with the fonts and stuff (look below), so I just kind of forgot about it. It did make my life a lot easier. :) But here's the quick recap:

Tour was, like always, incredible. We stayed with awesome families, some with full families, others just an elderly couple, but they all had wonderful insights and views of life that influenced me. There were a few in particular: the McDermot (sp?) Family in Rancho Cucamonga taught me how life is too precious a gift to be serious all the time. Yes, be responsible, but for pete's sake, have fun with life (but be responsible). The Hobbs in Palmdale basically lived off of a healthy dose of sarcasm that was hilarious and worked well with the family. Sister Wood (??) in Mesquite was an incredible example of the importance of geneology. There were many.

Our concerts and firesides were wonderful too, even if there weren't many people at some of them. Our tour motto was "You can be for them." And we were the right people at the right time for some of those people. The most memorable for me was not in a concert or a fireside, but rather at the City of Hope in Duarte, California, where we put on a short presentation. We sang for about 15 minutes or so, then just went out to mingle with the patients there. After 20 minutes or so of that Dr. Staheli (our conductor) began rounding up the choir back into the bus. I was chatting in Spanish with a woman from Guatemala who was there with her friend, an elderly woman from Finland, who was speaking Finnish to our quasi-Finnish choir member Brent. Well, those of us who were there decided to sing for her our one-and-only piece in Finnish, and only the first verse. It was wonderful and made her cry. She let us know that her grandmother was a friend of the composer, that she loved the music, and was all smiles despite her medical condition. Brent later told us that the last verse ends with "Behold the bliss of vanishing life." I started crying right there...

The rest of tour was just wonderful, of course. We ended in Las Vegas and that night had fun with other choir members on the strip. We didn't want Dr. Staheli to know, because he'd probably veto a late night excursion, so we went in "secret". Except that we ran into at least half the choir around the Bellagio, so...great secret. But it was a blast. :) Especially that huge keyboard on the floor at FAO Schwartz. That thing + music majors = very embarrassing moment. We did have a few sonatas going well, though, before it closed...

The next morning all the choir headed back to Provo in the bus (6 hours, gag), but Ben and I boarded a less-than-3 hour flight to Fort Worth, Texas and got home just in time to celebrate Mom's birthday (May 10).

It was a great 2 weeks :)

St. George to Moapa

Tuesday, April 29

This morning was a beautiful morning. First off, I slept in to 8am :), then my host family made us the best French toast in the world. It was a very relaxing, come-what-may kind of morning. The sun was shining, there was an ever-so-slight breeze, and in one word it was ideal. :)

Also, all morning Kenny (the father) was telling his son Ian that if he didn't finish his breakfast he couldn't wear his cowboy pants. I thought this was a little weird (Ian's four) but didn't think much of it. Then time came for me to brush my teeth, which meant using Ian's bathroom in his bedroom, where all my bathroom stuff was. In I go and what do I see? Popcorn. Popping on the…haha, couldn't help myself. No, I come in and there's Ian, decked out in not only his cowboy pants, but boots (complete with spurs), a cowboy style button-up shirt, cowboy hat, and rawhide gloves. He's barely 3 feet tall!! I almost died it was so cute. So we brushed our teeth together (male-bonding, I know) and then parted ways.

Later in the car driving back to the bus, Kenny asked me what ethnicity I was, and I answered him that I'm Navajo. Kenny laughed and told me that Ian had been wishing and wishing that when Singers came that he'd get an Indian to sleep in his cowboy bed (apparently he has this Cowboys & Indians fixation), and I inadvertently fulfilled his wish. Considering the chances of having one of the only 2 "Indians" in the choir, Ian had a very lucky day. I now wish that I'd been there to see little Ian's face when his dad told him that I was a real life Indian, and that we brushed our teeth together without one arrow or pistol shot. :) What would Custer have said?

We arrived at Moapa Valley High School around 1 or so and immediately entered the auditorium to do a workshop with the choirs there. The workshop was…educational. We all learned a lot, but it was rather frustrating, and a good reminder to why I am so glad to not be in high school anymore. All be it educational and almost candid, the air after the workshop was less than lovely. In fact, it was rather tense. Our following rehearsal was, consequentially, very frustrating. We weren't staying in tune and began to point fingers and play a blame-game to determine the cause of our problems.

Then Scott Moore had something very enlightening to share. All he said was that we needed to be very forgiving right then and there. All of us were feeding off the negative energy in the rehearsal and giving out more negative energy that was undermining our efforts to have an effective rehearsal. Scott's suggestion really opened up my eyes - I for one was really feeling antagonistic towards the rest of the choir for no reason whatsoever, and once Scott helped me realize this I made a very positive effort to reverse my feelings. Our rehearsal ended on a good note (haha, no pun intended) and we had a great concert tonight.

I'm constantly astounding on tour with the deep friendships we create and the help and support they give us. I was asked to sing a solo tonight in the concert and was absolutely terrified of it. It's more of a baritone solo and although I can do it, I'm not very comfortable in that range. Valerie, an alto and good friend, gave me a little "prep session" before the concert and calmed my nerves, to the point that I gave the best performance of that solo I've given. Afterwards everyone was so supportive and forward in complimenting and congratulating me, which, unbeknownst to them, I really needed. What an opportunity to be in a group where everyone builds everyone up without hopes of reimbursement or payment of any kind, and most of the time without even knowing they're doing it. :)

Tonight we ended the night in the home of the Waite Family. Brother and Sister Waite (Lanny and Maxine) have 4 children, 3 of which are married with their own families. We never met their youngest son who lives at home. I think he avoided us. Lanny is an attorney in Las Vegas and is also the Justice of the Peace here in Moapa. Apparently in towns of less than 30,000 or 100,000 or something like that the Justice of the Peace is just elected by popular vote, without the need of a specialized degree (or any for that matter). And as far as I know Maxine just held the fort down, which she did very well. We had a great conversation about medicine, law, religion, insurance companies, etc. before going to bed, which is where I am now. And I'm falling asleep, so good night :)

First night

Monday, April 28

These next couple weeks I'm going to be showing pictures and writing about events from the BYU Singers 2008 Tour to Nevada and Southern California. Ben and I are going with the other 40-or-so members of Singers. Actually, right now I'm sitting in Moapa, Nevada (thriving metropolis…) in the Moapa Valley High School band room typing this out. But here goes.

Yesterday we finished cleaning in the morning for cleaning checks that were this morning, but only my cousin was there. Either way, we left him all alone for a few days with this completely full refrigerator.

Hopefully he'll eat all the extra food :) (which means all of it, haha) After cleaning the rest of the apartment, we joined up with Singers in the Museum of Art parking lot and hit the road at 12pm in a big bus.

Now, normally I'm not a fan of sitting on a bus forever, but with this group of people things are a bit different. We have so much fun while we're together and build off each other's fun and joviality. However, on the bus we go by some rules:

1. NO SINGING on the bus. This is the first and foremost rule that is never bent for anyone. We may be a choir, but there's a time and place for everything. And a bus is NOT the place.

2. Respect quiet time.

You know, there are more but I can't remember them. But those two alone make the bus a much more enjoyable place. Which is what it has to be with so much time spent on it. Yesterday was a long trip - 4 hours to St. George. So, 4 hours later, we pulled into the red-rock city and went to the Cox's house for dinner. And oh. my. gosh. That house was HUMUNGOUS. I want to put up pictures, but they're all too big, so some day in the future I'll put the pictures up.

We had a fireside that night in St. George, where we saw the Abraham family after 6 years (maybe 7). They came to the concert and we went ahead and took a picture with them. All of them but their second oldest, Nick, was in the picture (he escaped with other young men in the stake). It was nice seeing them again. :)

That night we stayed with the Miller Family (Kenny and Stacy) and their two boys (Mason and Ian). Their neighbors came over across the street with Ben Peterson and Brent Rogers (also in Singers) and we had a fun time laughing and talking over ice cream till about 11pm, when the neighbors and the two guys left to the other house and we all went to bed. I got Ian's bed, which looked like it would have fit Woody from Toy Story perfectly. He also had a glorified rocking horse and tons of cowboy paraphernalia throughout the room. It was entertaining as I fell asleep texting my sister Devan through the night. :)

On tour

Here I am on tour with the choir, and I've been keeping up with blog entries on my laptop, but I haven't had the internet to plug my computer into and load up those pages (OneNote). So, I'm writing this quickly to pacify those looking to see what's happening. I'll hopefully have something up this afternoon. :) I'll have more soon!

book tag/movie quote contest

So this is from my sister Courtney. Ok, grab the book closest to you and open to page 123 (if there aren't 123 pages get a bigger book) and read the 5th sentence on the page. Now post the sentence. Courtney's was actually pretty in-depth, in it's own little way. Mine is completely random. Here it is, from the textbook Aproximaciones al estudio de la literatura hispánica, from the story San Manuel Bueno, mártir. Ready for this? Here goes:

"¡Esta terrible pesadilla!"

The story is like 24 pages long in this textbook, so I don't think I'm gonna read it to explain it.

...what was that?

Textbooks aren't allowed?

Hmm...well, here's another close book.

"Put your Iron Boots on (set them so you press
[down] to access them on and off), then press A
to catch the Goron, and throw him off the barricade!"

Oh, yeah. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - PRIMA Official Game Guide. It's Ben's, not mine. Just setting that straight. Ben's been playing this a lot lately, now that classes are over and we're in finals week. Haha, you'd think...


Movie quote time.

Fake scientist: It's a yenaglotchi [sic]. It's the Navajo version of a...

Crow: Poodle!

Haha, I don't know how many people will get the quote. Ben will, definitely, and Courtney should, too. It's one of my favorite movies. :)

So there you have it! Don't everybody start doing it at once, now, ya hear? Actually I don't really care if people do it or don't. But it would be interesting.

I'm professional

Tonight I just had another lesson with my voice student, Alex. Can you believe it?!? I'm actually giving lessons! Teaching somebody something that they want to know that I know about! Haha! It's like I'm an adult or responsible or something. Who'd of thunk? No really, I've been teaching 2 students since the beginning of January, and it's been an eye-opening experience. I don't consider myself that well educated in the arena of vocal pedagogy, but I guess I can help others to start learning how their voices work and how to get the best sound out of them without any nasty side effects that self-teaching can bring about. It's for a class I'm taking so it would be unethical to charge them, so they're free lessons. But before you start grabbing your phones, I'm not giving away lessons anymore - I hope to (somehow) get a little studio going over this summer to increase my income a bit. Just another to add on top of my schedule.

But hey, it's fun :)