smiling faces, beautiful places

this post serves two purposes:

1) i am amazed at how prophetic/foolish i can be. shortly after i wrote the previous post yesterday evening, i received word from my grandmother in new york that i had been accepted at the peabody institute at johns hopkins university. i was beyond emotional. i laid in my parents' bed and wept. i'm still in shock right now and i fear i will be every day until i get there.

that's right. despite the fact that i received no scholarship money, i will be attending school there in the fall. this is my dream. as i told my parents, my only goal in life is to do what i love. i never thought in a million years that it would become a reality. even typing this is difficult. amazing, but difficult.

these are signs to me that i am worthy of all that i've wished for and believed in and believed myself to be. you have no idea how hard that is for me to accept --- that i am worthy of such great things. all i know is the work i do. it is my life.

2) another thing in regards to my future:



this is one of the many pictures i took while i was in savannah this past week. this town is everything i imagined it to be. i asked my mother if she could envision me living there and she said of course. it is filled with history and beauty and of course, happy southern people. i felt nothing but warmth and pleasantness. i miss all of those things so desperately. it's really the only life i know. moving back to baltimore is a step in the right direction --- these are things in life that i feel are important. raising my kids in a town where they can run barefoot in the woods and teach my students on beautiful clear days.

who knew such dreams were possible?

for you i was a flame.

i wanted to wait until tomorrow to write when i return to new york because i wanted to post my beautiful pictures but i suppose you wouldn't mind two entries back to back, eh? plus i have a lot to write about, it seems.

there's been so much in my mind bouncing around, i don't know where to start exactly. i went on vacation with my mother to hilton head island/savannah. it was great at first and then when we went to the library i checked my email only to see that i had received an email from julie at NYCO. to make a long story short, i'm pretty sure i'm about to lose my job. and i don't blame them if they fire me but after this was a sort of ripple effect. over my vacation, i became extremely depressed. moreso than any time recently. i mean here i was, sitting on the beach overlooking the ocean thinking about how i singlehandly, in one month's time, had lost what i thought was a friend, lost a boyfriend, lost a job and been rejected from two colleges. the key word is lost here because not only was to lose as a verb a factor but lost as an adjective very much plays a part. i feel lost. i'm so worried about graduating and where i'm going to go to school and making sure i take care of EVERYTHING that it kind of overwhelmed me. i had been putting all of those feelings off during cinderella but now i had nothing but time.

but that's not surprising.

and this is way too personal to be honest and i'm sure that none of you care. (this is NOT livejournal, imani) the point is, i went to a funeral yesterday of a childhood family friend and it kind of sobered me up a bit. i don't want people to say that i worried myself to death. i'm not ashamed to admit that i also thought about things that i don't want to think about but no worries. i love my life and i'm trying to make the best of it. who knew these past five years would turn me into such a crazy person?

on verrouilla le ciel [if one could bolt the sky]

one small diatribe before i get on with the business of catching up: we are (or at least i am) musicians. part of our job as musicians is keeping our craft alive by performing new works. now granted, not all new works are going to be good. i think we as students of the western art music school are tricked into believing that all music that precede us is great music. wrong! there were plenty of mediocre and bad composers who wrote bad and mediocre music. thankfully, time has done what it always does and will continue to do so, in this generation and others. but we can't be the ones to decide by not performing works. so whatever you may think about a piece that you may be working on, keep it to yourself and understand the service you are doing.

i could go on about this but that would be getting into the personal and i don't want to do that. in other news, cinderella has taken over my life. but that's a beautiful thing, as it always is. go here to check out beautiful pictures from my ridiculous cast. but you can imagine how tired this would make, which it is.

i think spring makes people crazy. everyone is going out of their way to make other people's lives more problematic. i am trying to stay out of it as much as i can but god knows i have my own problems to deal with (more on that at iweepforwonder.livejournal.com --- if you care) and it's just more reassurance that i need to get out of here.

so everyone's getting rejections from grad schools, including myself. it's tiresome, no doubt but it's life. amazingly enough, i'm doing much better than others in similar situations. granted, i'm sure i have some sort of an edge given the instrument i play but you know it's doing as much harm as it is good. at this point, it's two out of four and you know what? that ain't so bad, kids.

...god opens a window.

i hate that saying but i suppose sometimes it proves true. and trust me, that is not an easy thing for me to admit (i absolutely HATE being cliché) this weekend my romantic relationship ended after almost seven months and as sad as that is (just because of the simple fact that most if not all endings are sad) in the same night, something wonderful happened. i finally got in touch with another one of my so-called 'little sisters', who i hadn't seen or talked to in a couple of years. even more surprising was that she found me on the same night through another medium. but what tops it off is the news that she has a daughter.

she is my window. and it is calming and joyful, not to mention a pleasantly unexpected birthday present.

if you want me to talk more about how i feel about the breakup, well, sorry. and it's not just because i don't really have much to say. i've grown over the years and i have learned to temper myself in the things that i say and the way in which i say them. i think i've done a good job keeping the greater part of this relationship out of the public's purvey and i owe it to him to continue to do so. he's a good person. i'm not the kind of girl who would put him on blast, as it were. not unless he deserved it. :)

i feel like the world would be a much place if people would be as professional, mature and ready as i am. on the stage that is, but i won't get into that. that's why people hire me and not other people.

two days till the big 2-3. let's hope its something worth celebrating.

assume the (dance) position.

insecurity can be a horrible thing. it can make you crazy. i criticize every move that i make because i'm insecure. i have always felt incapable of being loved so when i am in a relationship with someone, i get so paranoid trying to keep them. why am i paranoid? well i'm too crazy to be in a relationship, duh. and i hate these feelings because i'm so strong minded and strong willed. i think its because i'm trying to be the type of woman i think men want me to be when who i am is just fine.

this is why unlike other people i know (ahem) i can tolerate being single. its nervewracking being in a relationship, but its worth it.

putting someone's dirty laundry out on the street is also another terrible thing. so is lying to someone's face. but you know what, i've been all through that already and i have no desire to go through it again. let's just say that it is what it is (and i'm going down fighting)

aschenputtel, i mean, cendrillon, no, cenerentola...cinderella is going well and taking up all of my time. my dresses are amazing, i got new lines that are mad funny (funny because i say them) and i wonder if other people in the ensemble hate on me because everyone loves me. oh well. (repole gives me lines and confers with me, amanda tells me she trusts me and don't get me started on stephen...) this show has a long run and i don't know if i have it in me to do it without collapsing (especially how i have midterms coming up)

but all and all, i can't complain. i got fabulous news last night and i hope it keeps coming. one can only hope.

the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

queens college is obsessed upon keeping me. but i won't let them.

i went to the political science and english departments and hit some road bumps, respectively. it looks like i will be taking political science over the summer to replace the class i took in spring 2005 with which i'm comfortable --- i will still walk at commencement and receive my diploma. however, english will not be quite as easy. the chair was not there and will not be in till tuesday. so what did i do? i went to my adviser. :) prof. schober was incredibly helpful and made me feel so much better. i sat in his office for about 30 minutes or so just discussing my situation. his solution? take his water gun to the registrar's office and attack them. i told him that i thought that might make things worse but that's just me.

i feel much more secure. all i have to do is corral prof. stone (god knows how hard that will be) and then all will be well. although, it's very funny that on the checklist the school gave me...oh wait, never mind. to be honest, if i get accepted to schools in the next couple of weeks, i may not go through the trouble of changing those FINs that i received that spring...we shall see.

it's difficult for me to think about, just like my incoming grad school letters (that everyone tells me i shouldn't worry about --- you'd think if enough people way the same thing, you'd change your mind but not me!) i can't help but be so utterly pessimistic. but that doesn't stop the drive. i trudge through the muck and mire, if you will, to get to my goal. the days just get harder.

ugh, i need ice cream.

out like a lamb.

my first post for march, eh? time sure does fly.

march is and has always been an odd month for me. affectionately known as the month with no holidays, i commemorate a lot of things around this time. when i was in high school, this was always the busiest time for me by far. i'd be in a different city each weekend playing different concerts, always on the road. in a way, that much hasn't changed. i don't go quite as far but i'm still moving. and of course, the best part about march is my birthday. those who know me know that i'm a birthday nut. i think everyone should go crazy on their birthday and i've tried to live up to that. but since i turned eighteen it hasn't really been the case. i will spend this upcoming birthday in tech for cinderella, just like i've spent the last four birthdays in tech/performing for orpheus descending, hansel and gretel, and the pajama game.

but really i take time to reflect.

my best friend was killed days before my eighteenth birthday and i can not begin to explain how that has impacted my life. every year i've tried to honor her in some way, knowing that she would want me to go out and get my party on. i had to learn that she was so full of life --- to love her was/is to do the same.

so a lot is on my mind and on my plate. but honestly, when is that not the case? so to all of you who will be on spring break over the upcoming weeks, fuck you. but no, seriously --- enjoy it. i'm sure it will be cold and raining wherever you go. take lots of pictures and be sure to send a little birthday/vernal equinox love my way.