Until next time!
Lauren
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| Waiting for treats |
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| Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! |
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| Enjoying the sun |
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| What a pretty cat! |
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| Pay attention to me!!!! |
Showing posts with label DC/NoVA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DC/NoVA. Show all posts
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Kitty-sitting!
So as I mentioned in a previous post, I have been cat- and house-sitting for a friend for the past week and a half. I don't quite have my next post prepared yet, so to tide you over for the next day or so till I have that up, here are some cat pictures! Enjoy!
Until next time!
Lauren
Until next time!
Lauren
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
25 Things: Cook something on the grill
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
What I'm Reading - May 2013 Edition
May 2013 was a month of reading, what with lots of travels (to Boston, New York, and moving back to my parent's place in Virginia for the summer), and my current situation of cat-sitting for some friends and becoming extremely bored at their house since I already finished catching up on both "Game of Thrones" and the new season of "Arrested Development". So here are the books* I've read since the beginning of May, with a brief synopsis and my review, presented in the order that I completed reading them.
French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano
Synopsis: This is a diet book, written by a woman who was raised in France, based on her own observations about the French lifestyle.
Review: F I felt like this should be renamed the pretentious-yet-common-sense diet book. Every suggestion she presents is so immediately evident, yet presented in an extremely superior and smug tone of voice, that it was infuriating. First of all,not all French women are skinny, and most of the concepts that she presented are certainly not exclusive to even Europeans as a whole - for example, her suggestion that you should take the stairs instead of the elevator if you want to lose weight. Duh. And her sense of superiority simply because she is French made me crazy. I only finished reading the whole book because I was working stage crew for an extremely long concert and this was the only reading material that I'd brought. I only read this book in the first place, by the way, because someone in my dorm was throwing it away and I figured, since it's a free book, why not? I wish I hadn't bothered.
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Synopsis: This book tries to explain the differences between people who are successful and those who are less so, based on such seemingly arbitrary and/or lucky criterion such as when and where they were born, or happening to go to a certain high school over another.
Review: A I really enjoyed this book. However, it kind of made me feel bad about things, because of a few points that he made. First, Malcolm Gladwell pointed out that some people succeed just based on when they were born, using the example of Bill Gates, who was born at just the right time to take advantage of the boom in the informational technology field. This makes me feel a bit hopeless about being a classical musician in the 21st century, when the peak of my field was in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The other point he makes regards the theory of 10,000 hours, which says that you only have a hope of becoming the top of your field in any field after 10,000 hours of practice. Yet, there are also so many people who do put in the mandatory time and effort, and still never make it. If I make a very conservative estimate, I reached the point of 10,000 hours spent on classical music somewhere around when I turned 23 (counting since I started playing cello at the age of 4 1/2), but I don't think I'm any closer to conventional success in my field than thousands of my peers, seeing as I don't have a job. On another note, I really appreciated Malcolm Gladwell's writing style, which made this book so interesting despite its material's potential for dryness. I finished it in just a few hours.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Synopsis: A young white girl returns home from college with different views on race than the rest of her friends in a small Mississippi town.
Review: A I'd been wanting to read this book since I saw the movie a couple years ago, but I never got around to it until this month. I literally couldn't put this book down, and was reading it as I walked down the streets of New Haven, no joke. Even though I knew what was going to happen because of seeing the film version, I was glued to the page! I know this book and the movie got a lot of criticism for some of its treatment of racial issues, but I don't feel qualified to speak to that. I would, however, highly recommend this book based on its merit as a novel, and I found the movie definitely enjoyable as well.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Synopsis: The subtitle pretty much explains what this book is about, but more or less, Levitt analyzes data such as demographic data collected state by state to explain, in one example, why some teachers cheat on standardized testing and how to catch them, or in another example, whether the name you give your child will affect their opportunities later in life.
Review: B Perhaps because I was already statistically-analysis-ed out from reading Outliers so recently, but I found this book to be almost the same in many ways. Sure, these authors weren't exclusively looking at indicators of success, but the writing style and content was so similar that I almost felt I was reading the same book over again. However, they did find some interesting conclusions. I hadn't realized how indicative my name is of my ethnicity, for example, until I saw it right at the top of the chart of most popular baby names for white girls in my birth year. I also found it very interesting to see the average number of years of education of the mother for each popular baby name. The average mother of a baby named Jesus had only something like 8 1/2 years of schooling (which means they must either have been in the seventh grade at the time of the child's birth, or have dropped out of school at a young age), while the mother of baby Finn's have nearly 15 years of education, on average (meaning a full K-12 experience plus a couple years of college). My name wasn't listed with an average number of years of education, but I wonder what it would have been. I found all of this quite interesting, but I definitely wouldn't recommend reading this book at the same time as Outliers to avoid the statistical burn-out I experienced.
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Synopsis: This is a memoir written by one of the most famous female comedians alive today.
Review: C I'm sorry to give this book such a mediocre review, since I fully expected to love it going in, based on how I feel about Tina Fey and her work on "30 Rock" and "Saturday Night Live". I was pretty disappointed, though. Despite a lot of interesting and amusing stories, much of the book to me came across as trying too hard to be funny. But I admit humor is a hard genre to transcribe, and I've heard that this book works better as an audio book, which I almost wish I'd gone with. Maybe I would have found the humor less forced that way.
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
Synopsis: This feminist manifesto follows the life of the author through her discovery of her own sexuality and life choices both as an adolescent and into adulthood, and also introduces thoughts regarding today's feminism.
Review: A+ At first I thought this book would be a bit much for me, since in some of the early chapters she is quite explicit in her description of her sexual behaviors, but I grew to really appreciate her positive and empowering message, and by the end vowing to buy this book for a number of young women that I know. A few things really popped out at me: her definition of a feminist, and her brutally honest description of having an abortion. This is a book I think all women should read at least once and have in their libraries, but you should probably know that I already considered myself a feminist before reading this, so maybe not everyone would agree with my evaluation of this book.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Synopsis: An upper middle-class journalist/writer goes "undercover" working a variety of minimum wage jobs and living only on the money she earns there, in order to explore the living conditions of people at the poverty level. Her jobs include working as a waitress, cleaning houses, and working at Wal-Mart.
Review: B I feel bad saying I enjoyed this book, since I don't think the word "enjoy" has any place in this somewhat sobering subject matter. It was very amazing the obstacles the author encountered when doing what many people would consider unskilled labor. As a highly educated woman (she has a Ph.D.), she got rejected from many places of work she applied to, such as grocery stores and chain fast-food restaurants. I'm already quite liberal, but this gave me a different perspective on minimum wage workers, since one so rarely sees reporting that isn't from an outsider's perspective. The unfortunate thing about this book is that it was written almost fifteen years ago and I imagine many of the situations she references would be quite different today. I would be quite interested to see if anyone else has conducted a similar experiment more recently, and which of the difficulties they experienced were the same or different, and in what ways.
Check back tomorrow for another update to the blog, and next month for another issue of What I'm Reading.
Until next time!
Lauren
*During this month, I also finished reading Moby Dick (finally!), but since that is one of the things on my list of 25 things to do before I turn 25, its review will come in a separate blog entry.
Synopsis: This is a diet book, written by a woman who was raised in France, based on her own observations about the French lifestyle.
Review: F I felt like this should be renamed the pretentious-yet-common-sense diet book. Every suggestion she presents is so immediately evident, yet presented in an extremely superior and smug tone of voice, that it was infuriating. First of all,not all French women are skinny, and most of the concepts that she presented are certainly not exclusive to even Europeans as a whole - for example, her suggestion that you should take the stairs instead of the elevator if you want to lose weight. Duh. And her sense of superiority simply because she is French made me crazy. I only finished reading the whole book because I was working stage crew for an extremely long concert and this was the only reading material that I'd brought. I only read this book in the first place, by the way, because someone in my dorm was throwing it away and I figured, since it's a free book, why not? I wish I hadn't bothered.
Synopsis: This book tries to explain the differences between people who are successful and those who are less so, based on such seemingly arbitrary and/or lucky criterion such as when and where they were born, or happening to go to a certain high school over another.
Review: A I really enjoyed this book. However, it kind of made me feel bad about things, because of a few points that he made. First, Malcolm Gladwell pointed out that some people succeed just based on when they were born, using the example of Bill Gates, who was born at just the right time to take advantage of the boom in the informational technology field. This makes me feel a bit hopeless about being a classical musician in the 21st century, when the peak of my field was in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The other point he makes regards the theory of 10,000 hours, which says that you only have a hope of becoming the top of your field in any field after 10,000 hours of practice. Yet, there are also so many people who do put in the mandatory time and effort, and still never make it. If I make a very conservative estimate, I reached the point of 10,000 hours spent on classical music somewhere around when I turned 23 (counting since I started playing cello at the age of 4 1/2), but I don't think I'm any closer to conventional success in my field than thousands of my peers, seeing as I don't have a job. On another note, I really appreciated Malcolm Gladwell's writing style, which made this book so interesting despite its material's potential for dryness. I finished it in just a few hours.
Synopsis: A young white girl returns home from college with different views on race than the rest of her friends in a small Mississippi town.
Review: A I'd been wanting to read this book since I saw the movie a couple years ago, but I never got around to it until this month. I literally couldn't put this book down, and was reading it as I walked down the streets of New Haven, no joke. Even though I knew what was going to happen because of seeing the film version, I was glued to the page! I know this book and the movie got a lot of criticism for some of its treatment of racial issues, but I don't feel qualified to speak to that. I would, however, highly recommend this book based on its merit as a novel, and I found the movie definitely enjoyable as well.
Synopsis: The subtitle pretty much explains what this book is about, but more or less, Levitt analyzes data such as demographic data collected state by state to explain, in one example, why some teachers cheat on standardized testing and how to catch them, or in another example, whether the name you give your child will affect their opportunities later in life.
Review: B Perhaps because I was already statistically-analysis-ed out from reading Outliers so recently, but I found this book to be almost the same in many ways. Sure, these authors weren't exclusively looking at indicators of success, but the writing style and content was so similar that I almost felt I was reading the same book over again. However, they did find some interesting conclusions. I hadn't realized how indicative my name is of my ethnicity, for example, until I saw it right at the top of the chart of most popular baby names for white girls in my birth year. I also found it very interesting to see the average number of years of education of the mother for each popular baby name. The average mother of a baby named Jesus had only something like 8 1/2 years of schooling (which means they must either have been in the seventh grade at the time of the child's birth, or have dropped out of school at a young age), while the mother of baby Finn's have nearly 15 years of education, on average (meaning a full K-12 experience plus a couple years of college). My name wasn't listed with an average number of years of education, but I wonder what it would have been. I found all of this quite interesting, but I definitely wouldn't recommend reading this book at the same time as Outliers to avoid the statistical burn-out I experienced.
Synopsis: This is a memoir written by one of the most famous female comedians alive today.
Review: C I'm sorry to give this book such a mediocre review, since I fully expected to love it going in, based on how I feel about Tina Fey and her work on "30 Rock" and "Saturday Night Live". I was pretty disappointed, though. Despite a lot of interesting and amusing stories, much of the book to me came across as trying too hard to be funny. But I admit humor is a hard genre to transcribe, and I've heard that this book works better as an audio book, which I almost wish I'd gone with. Maybe I would have found the humor less forced that way.
Synopsis: This feminist manifesto follows the life of the author through her discovery of her own sexuality and life choices both as an adolescent and into adulthood, and also introduces thoughts regarding today's feminism.
Review: A+ At first I thought this book would be a bit much for me, since in some of the early chapters she is quite explicit in her description of her sexual behaviors, but I grew to really appreciate her positive and empowering message, and by the end vowing to buy this book for a number of young women that I know. A few things really popped out at me: her definition of a feminist, and her brutally honest description of having an abortion. This is a book I think all women should read at least once and have in their libraries, but you should probably know that I already considered myself a feminist before reading this, so maybe not everyone would agree with my evaluation of this book.
Synopsis: An upper middle-class journalist/writer goes "undercover" working a variety of minimum wage jobs and living only on the money she earns there, in order to explore the living conditions of people at the poverty level. Her jobs include working as a waitress, cleaning houses, and working at Wal-Mart.
Review: B I feel bad saying I enjoyed this book, since I don't think the word "enjoy" has any place in this somewhat sobering subject matter. It was very amazing the obstacles the author encountered when doing what many people would consider unskilled labor. As a highly educated woman (she has a Ph.D.), she got rejected from many places of work she applied to, such as grocery stores and chain fast-food restaurants. I'm already quite liberal, but this gave me a different perspective on minimum wage workers, since one so rarely sees reporting that isn't from an outsider's perspective. The unfortunate thing about this book is that it was written almost fifteen years ago and I imagine many of the situations she references would be quite different today. I would be quite interested to see if anyone else has conducted a similar experiment more recently, and which of the difficulties they experienced were the same or different, and in what ways.
Check back tomorrow for another update to the blog, and next month for another issue of What I'm Reading.
Until next time!
Lauren
*During this month, I also finished reading Moby Dick (finally!), but since that is one of the things on my list of 25 things to do before I turn 25, its review will come in a separate blog entry.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
My life since Jan 26
I have been quite busy in the past few weeks, but now that I have been holed up in my dorm room thanks to Snowstorm Nemo, I am ready to update you on what I have been doing.
As usual, my Portuguese class has been kicking my butt. I know I'm only taking two real classes but my the homework for this course really takes forever. However, one fascinating poet I have discovered through this course is Augusto de Campos. It may seem a bit gimicky but I find it so fun, especially after reading so much dry boring poetry! My favorite of his works is the "criptocardiograma". You can appreciate the poem even if you don't speak Portuguese - the end result is kind of trans-lingual. To read the poem, first you have to decode the symbols using the letters in the word bank on the left of the flash player. Once you solve the puzzle, you will understand what I mean about not needing to speak Portuguese in order to understand. Once you finish that, you can explore all the other interesting works of this contemporary Brazilian poet.
Of course, I also have been working on my auditions. I had on audition since I last wrote about my daily life in Washington, DC. It was nice to get home once again this semester and see friends and family living in that area. It started to feel for a while like I was in NoVA more than I was here in Connecticut! Because of the huge snowstorm, though, I had to cancel my trip home this weekend. I was supposed to audition for the Marine Band in DC, but I had to cancel my audition since I couldn't find a way to get there. The trains and buses were shut down, and my friend who could have driven us couldn't dig his car out. So that means I'm just looking ahead to three more auditions in the next week, and then I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, with only two more auditions after that!
Despite the snow, I have spent a lot of time outside in the past few days. On the day after the record snowfall of 34 inches (more than half my height!!!) I went outside with my friend S to go exploring. We walked all over the city of New Haven, got coffee at the only venue open (Dunkin' Donuts, of course), and then walked to an amazing sledding hill another friend let me know about. There we met up with a whole group of people from the School of Music and a fantastic time was had by all. School has now been cancelled since Friday afternoon, though my Friday morning classes were cancelled by the teacher as well, and they've already cancelled through Tuesday! I'm getting pretty stir-crazy here at home, which brings me to my next topic...
I signed up for a 5K! Running a 5K is one of my 25 goals to accomplish before my 25th birthday in November. The one I signed up for is on March 3, and takes place on the Yale campus, so I don't have to worry about how to get there without a car. So I am beginning my training. I already run somewhat regularly (outdoors when the weather permits, and inside the rest of the time), so I'm not doing the ever-popular Couch-to-5K plan. I instead made my own training plan for myself, which basically involves running a few miles 3-4 days per week (I get to choose whether I want to run again on the fourth day or do some other kind of physical activity). I guess the training plan is more about being consistent rather than an actual distance to run. Anyways, I made it into a sticker chart that is currently hanging on the side of my fridge, and I've been following it so far (all four days since it started snowing and I got bored...).
Just a few final tidbits before I go:
-I started reading Moby Dick (another one of my 25 things to do before my 25th birthday). It's really good so far, though I was really shocked by how racist the narrator is! I'm about 40% done now, so I'll probably have a summary for you in a few weeks.
-I found out that I was awarded a Presidential Fellowship from the University of Georgia! That means I will receive a generous stipend to do my doctorate there. I'm still not 100% sure I'll go - I want to wait to hear from everywhere before I make up my mind - but things are looking good for me to end up there.
-As most of you know, I often travel to Brazil to work for a youth orchestra program there. I'm happy to announce I'll be returning there for a week and a half during my spring break this March! With the orchestra, I will also be traveling to Oman to play some concerts with the orchestra there during the last four days of the break. I couldn't be more excited!
Until next time!
Lauren
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| "criptocardiograma" by August de Campos, just in time for Valentine's Day! |
Of course, I also have been working on my auditions. I had on audition since I last wrote about my daily life in Washington, DC. It was nice to get home once again this semester and see friends and family living in that area. It started to feel for a while like I was in NoVA more than I was here in Connecticut! Because of the huge snowstorm, though, I had to cancel my trip home this weekend. I was supposed to audition for the Marine Band in DC, but I had to cancel my audition since I couldn't find a way to get there. The trains and buses were shut down, and my friend who could have driven us couldn't dig his car out. So that means I'm just looking ahead to three more auditions in the next week, and then I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, with only two more auditions after that!
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| I made it to the top of a 15-foot pile of snow in the aftermath of the storm! |
I signed up for a 5K! Running a 5K is one of my 25 goals to accomplish before my 25th birthday in November. The one I signed up for is on March 3, and takes place on the Yale campus, so I don't have to worry about how to get there without a car. So I am beginning my training. I already run somewhat regularly (outdoors when the weather permits, and inside the rest of the time), so I'm not doing the ever-popular Couch-to-5K plan. I instead made my own training plan for myself, which basically involves running a few miles 3-4 days per week (I get to choose whether I want to run again on the fourth day or do some other kind of physical activity). I guess the training plan is more about being consistent rather than an actual distance to run. Anyways, I made it into a sticker chart that is currently hanging on the side of my fridge, and I've been following it so far (all four days since it started snowing and I got bored...).
Just a few final tidbits before I go:
-I started reading Moby Dick (another one of my 25 things to do before my 25th birthday). It's really good so far, though I was really shocked by how racist the narrator is! I'm about 40% done now, so I'll probably have a summary for you in a few weeks.
-I found out that I was awarded a Presidential Fellowship from the University of Georgia! That means I will receive a generous stipend to do my doctorate there. I'm still not 100% sure I'll go - I want to wait to hear from everywhere before I make up my mind - but things are looking good for me to end up there.
-As most of you know, I often travel to Brazil to work for a youth orchestra program there. I'm happy to announce I'll be returning there for a week and a half during my spring break this March! With the orchestra, I will also be traveling to Oman to play some concerts with the orchestra there during the last four days of the break. I couldn't be more excited!
Until next time!
Lauren
Saturday, January 26, 2013
What I've been doing in the past two weeks
As I mentioned in my last post, I've been super busy in the past few weeks, which is why I haven't had a chance to write anything. Here's what I was doing:
Shortly after my last post from northern Virginia, I took an all-day train back to New Haven.
The next day, I had to get up bright and early to take the commuter rail train to New York for an audition for a summer festival. I took the excuse to visit for a while with one of my best friends, D, who I don't get to see very often.
Then, classes started that Monday. This semester I'm super busy. First, I'm working seven hours per week at two different public elementary schools, which doesn't sound like that much, but it's all super early in the morning - I have to leave my house before 7:30 or I'm late for work. I also work as a TA for one of the School of Music classes, so that's another three hours per week. Then there's my classes, which together amount to five hours. I'm taking two real classes this semester: instrumental arranging and Portuguese poetry. The arranging class will be quite a bit of work, but should be fun - I really like making arrangements! I'm not that interested in poetry, but I love Portuguese, so I relish any opportunity to practice it. Finally, I have a ton of rehearsals. In addition to orchestra, which rehearses about eight hours per week, this semester I am in two chamber groups, so I have another six hours for that. I hate to complain about this because I signed up for it myself, and I love all the activities I'm taking part in, but it still is a lot of work.
Then the auditions started again for real last weekend. On Saturday, I had another audition in New York City. Because a bunch of other Yale students were auditioning for it as well, I had company on the train ride down. Afterwards, I was lucky enough to meet up with D again. We enjoyed some delicious miniature beverages, but soon I had to be on my way. I had to get back down to DC that night, because of the impending Inauguration Day traffic. I got to relax and spend a lot of quality time with my parents on Sunday and Monday in preparation for my first doctoral audition on Tuesday, at the University of Maryland. It was so nice to be at home with just my parents. I can't even remember the last time I was home and neither of my sisters was!
My audition on Tuesday went pretty well, but I'm notoriously bad about judging my own playing, so really who knows. On Thursday I had University of Georgia, and then on Thursday night I flew back to New York and took the train to New Haven. I got back to my dorm room literally as the clock struck 4am. I also had a concert on Friday night, yet somehow managed not to die of a caffiene overdose!
Now I have a few weeks off of auditions, though I still have all my normal school work to take care of. My next audition isn't untill February 2. But don't worry, I'll write again before then!
Until next time!
Lauren
Shortly after my last post from northern Virginia, I took an all-day train back to New Haven.
The next day, I had to get up bright and early to take the commuter rail train to New York for an audition for a summer festival. I took the excuse to visit for a while with one of my best friends, D, who I don't get to see very often.
Then, classes started that Monday. This semester I'm super busy. First, I'm working seven hours per week at two different public elementary schools, which doesn't sound like that much, but it's all super early in the morning - I have to leave my house before 7:30 or I'm late for work. I also work as a TA for one of the School of Music classes, so that's another three hours per week. Then there's my classes, which together amount to five hours. I'm taking two real classes this semester: instrumental arranging and Portuguese poetry. The arranging class will be quite a bit of work, but should be fun - I really like making arrangements! I'm not that interested in poetry, but I love Portuguese, so I relish any opportunity to practice it. Finally, I have a ton of rehearsals. In addition to orchestra, which rehearses about eight hours per week, this semester I am in two chamber groups, so I have another six hours for that. I hate to complain about this because I signed up for it myself, and I love all the activities I'm taking part in, but it still is a lot of work.
My audition on Tuesday went pretty well, but I'm notoriously bad about judging my own playing, so really who knows. On Thursday I had University of Georgia, and then on Thursday night I flew back to New York and took the train to New Haven. I got back to my dorm room literally as the clock struck 4am. I also had a concert on Friday night, yet somehow managed not to die of a caffiene overdose!
Now I have a few weeks off of auditions, though I still have all my normal school work to take care of. My next audition isn't untill February 2. But don't worry, I'll write again before then!
Until next time!
Lauren
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Making Pasta
The other day I went over my friend T's house to make homemade pasta! I'd never done it before, but I really enjoyed it, and the pasta tasted absolutely incredible!
T had made the pasta dough ahead of time. If memory serves, she said it's basically just flour and water, but you can find tons of recipes for pasta dough online. She had to let it set for a while before it was ready to roll out. By the time S and I got there, it was all ready to go.
T was in charge of rolling the dough out with the rolling pin, as you can see in the picture, and S and I were in charge of pressing it in the pasta machine. Please excuse my somewhat crazed look in the photo on the left. There were many different thicknesses possible with the pasta machine roller setting. We started with 1 (the thickest setting), and gradually moved up to 4. We rolled each section of the dough three times on each setting, and only twice on #4.
After that, it was time to cut the actual pasta. We rolled it through another part of the pasta making machine to cut it into strips. It was definitely a three person job! I am very impressed but thankful that S was able to take a picture at this point.
The pasta needed to dry for a few minutes before it was ready to cook. We used a staple of every woman's laundry room for this purpose.
Finally, the noodles were ready to cook! Here they are alongside the delicious homemade tomato sauce we cooked.
Ready to eat!
And for your animal friend of the day, here is a picture of T's beautiful dog! She is a wiry haired Ibizan hound - not a breed you see every day!
Until next time!
Lauren
And for your animal friend of the day, here is a picture of T's beautiful dog! She is a wiry haired Ibizan hound - not a breed you see every day!
Until next time!
Lauren
Thursday, January 3, 2013
A Look Back at 2012
Ok, I know I already posted my New Year's Eve post yesterday, but I thought it might be interesting to write a little snippet about what happened each month this year. (AKA, I know I'll forget promptly what I did, so it would be good to write down at least some of it for posterity.)
January - Yuri was still visiting me for most of this month. We were living in my dorm room in New Haven, where it was super cold, and doing tourist things in NYC, and eating out a lot. I was very happy to have him there, but very sad because I knew he would be leaving very soon.
February - This was a tough month. Yuri had just left and I was in the throes of a lot of difficult schoolwork for my music history and Portuguese classes. The weather outside really was frightful and I felt very gloomy and alone in New Haven. :( I did, however, discover a wonderful New Haven establishment known as Louis' Lunch. Louis' Lunch is the home of the first ever hamburger. They cook it on vertical griddles and have strict restrictions about what toppings you are allowed to use. They won't even let you put ketchup on! But rightly so, because they are the most delicious hamburgers I have ever had the privilege of eating.
March - March was much better than February for me. I took off a few days from school on either end of our two-week spring break and went to Brazil for three weeks. Whenever I go, I work for an El-Sistema program there called NEOJIBA, teaching, performing with the orchestra, and doing other various musical tasks. I really like working with my students, but of course the best thing was to visit Yuri. Pictured here are the permanent horn teacher and the horn players from the younger of the two orchestras in NEOJIBA.
April - This was a super exciting month because it is the month when my older sister got married! She and her husband had been dating for about three years before they got engaged, much of it long distance. After the engagement, he moved to Germany, where she has a job, and the planned the whole wedding from Frankfurt! The wedding took place in Virginia. We were all really happy that they got married, though I didn't like my bridesmaid dress at all. They seem really happy with married life, so that's really sweet, but I haven't seen them since the wedding, because my brother-in-law is trying to sort out his visa status, and thus can't come to the US until it's all figured out, and my sister is so busy with her job that she couldn't even get time off to come visit us for Christmas!
May - I left Yale on the first day after I finished my exams and went to my parents' house for less than 24 hours, and then flew back to Brazil for six more weeks. There, I did pretty much the same thing as I did when I visited in March, except they also had me go visit a new "nucleo" very far from where I lived, to help with the beginning horn students there. I had a great time as usual, though I worked my butt off! In this picture, Yuri and I were enjoying our daily relaxed coffee.
June - After my time with NEOJIBA was up, I flew to my parents' house, again for under 24 hours. Then I was off to Santa Barbara, California, to participate in the Music Academy of the West. During this eight-week program, I learned a lot through orchestral playing, chamber music, and private lessons. I would highly recommend this program for anyone serious about making a career in classical music! I'm just sad I can't go back this summer - it conflicts with the summer chamber music workshop I'm starting in my hometown.
July - In July, I was still at Music Academy of the West. I got to be really good friends with two trumpet players, and we hung out a lot. This picture was taken on the bus after we watched the fireworks on Independence Day from the pier in downtown Santa Barbara. I think in July is when Music Academy got so busy. By the end, I felt like it was another semester of school because it was so many weeks long, and so much work! I was usually playing from 9 am until 6 or 7 pm with very few breaks.
August - In August, Music Academy came to a close, but not before I had two important performances within two days! First, I had a solo performance of the Hindemith Sonata in E-flat, and the next day, my wind quintet performed the Harbison Quintet. Both performances were very successful, which made a great conclusion to my time at MAW. Afterwards, I went home for the last week of August, for the first week of true relaxation since before Yuri arrived the previous December. In late August, Yuri and I decided to break up. It was a mutual decision because the long distance was becoming way too hard for us to keep up. Also, both of us were getting some great career opportunities and felt like we needed to be able to pursue them without outside influences.
September - On the first weekend of September, I chaperoned a trip of the youth group I used to belong to when I was in high school. We went to a river house owned by one of the other chaperones. It was a pretty fun trip; one of my best friends from high school was also chaperoning so we hung out a lot. There was a lot of playing of board games and tubing on the river! The next week, I went back to school, where I had to get down to business preparing for an audition for a professional orchestra that I was going to take in October.
October - In October, my wind octet at school grew very close, and we ended up deciding to make a group costume for Halloween! We made life-size Tetris costumes, and wore them to a couple parties. They were super popular. Also, at the end of the month, I did my first audition for a professional orchestra, in New Orleans. I advanced to the second round, which was my goal, but didn't get any further because I was so stressed out about all the airports being shut down for Hurricane Sandy! I ended up getting stuck in Louisiana for a week, during which some friends of an acquaintance of my sister took me in. Coincidentally, the husband of this couple that I stayed with, is best friends with one of my good friends from both years I did YOA, and he had his recital while I was there! It was great to reunite with an old friend, make so many new friends, and get to know a city I'd never previously visited during my week there!
November - In November, I did a lot of school work and preparation for my recital, which was in December. I had a lot of makeup work from missing a whole week of school while stranded in New Orleans. I was also very busy preparing for my degree recital, which took place in December. Sarah was living with me for five weeks because of major issues with her apartment, and we started cooking together regularly, resulting in some delicious French Onion Soup and many nights of all-yellow dinners (macaroni and cheese, scrambled eggs, bananas, and orange juice). At the end of the month, it was my birthday, so Sarah and I had a joint party - me for my birthday, and Sarah for finally resolving her living situation and getting a room in the same dorm where I live.
December - I started off December with my degree recital, in which I performed a huge variety of repertoire. I think it went pretty well, but I have yet to receive my recording, so I'm not really sure yet. A few days before this I restarted this blog, which I had pretty much neglected since 2010. After one more week of classes, I returned to my parent's house once more, where I celebrated Christmas and New Year's, as you read about in previous posts.
So that was my year in an extremely large nutshell! Thanks for bearing with me. Your reward for getting through this super long post is this photo of a guinea pig wearing a sombrero!
Until next time!
Lauren
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| Visiting NYC with Yuri in January |
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| Eating Louis' Lunch in February |
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| Visiting NEOJIBA in March |
March - March was much better than February for me. I took off a few days from school on either end of our two-week spring break and went to Brazil for three weeks. Whenever I go, I work for an El-Sistema program there called NEOJIBA, teaching, performing with the orchestra, and doing other various musical tasks. I really like working with my students, but of course the best thing was to visit Yuri. Pictured here are the permanent horn teacher and the horn players from the younger of the two orchestras in NEOJIBA.
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| My older sister getting married in April |
April - This was a super exciting month because it is the month when my older sister got married! She and her husband had been dating for about three years before they got engaged, much of it long distance. After the engagement, he moved to Germany, where she has a job, and the planned the whole wedding from Frankfurt! The wedding took place in Virginia. We were all really happy that they got married, though I didn't like my bridesmaid dress at all. They seem really happy with married life, so that's really sweet, but I haven't seen them since the wedding, because my brother-in-law is trying to sort out his visa status, and thus can't come to the US until it's all figured out, and my sister is so busy with her job that she couldn't even get time off to come visit us for Christmas!
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| Visiting Brazil, Yuri, and NEOJIBA in May |
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| The horn section of Music Academy of the West 2012 with one of our teachers in June |
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| On the bus with MAW friends in July |
July - In July, I was still at Music Academy of the West. I got to be really good friends with two trumpet players, and we hung out a lot. This picture was taken on the bus after we watched the fireworks on Independence Day from the pier in downtown Santa Barbara. I think in July is when Music Academy got so busy. By the end, I felt like it was another semester of school because it was so many weeks long, and so much work! I was usually playing from 9 am until 6 or 7 pm with very few breaks.
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| Harbison Quintet performance at MAW in August |
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| Tubing with friends in September |
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| Dressed as Tetris pieces in October |
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| Soup cooked by Sarah and me in November |
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| My recital in December |
So that was my year in an extremely large nutshell! Thanks for bearing with me. Your reward for getting through this super long post is this photo of a guinea pig wearing a sombrero!
Until next time!
Lauren
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
New Year's 2013!
Well, here I am now, still at my parent's house, and missing my human friend,who left early this morning. Barfy, my dog friend, goes home tonight and I will be very sad.
New Year's Eve 2013 was the most calm one I've ever had. But first let's recap my New Year's Eves since the end of high school.
2012 - My then-boyfriend Yuri came to visit. We had been dating long distance (from Boston to Brazil) for about a year and a half at that point, and due to circumstances beyond our control, the only flight he could get arrived at Dulles at about 11:15pm on New Year's Eve. We made it home just in time to run to the TV and watch the ball drop. He was exhausted from over 24 hours of travel so we went to bed right away (thus the lack of photographic evidence).
2011 - I was in Brazil visiting said ex-boyfriend for three weeks, arriving just after Christmas and staying until MLK Day. We'd only known each other a short time at that point, with our relationship almost entirely over Skype, but we had an amazing time! I got to know his city, family, and more of his friends than I had met the first time I went to Brazil. It was summer there, which meant it was super hot, around 100 degrees every day. We went to a house party at this amazingly beautiful apartment overlooking the most beautiful bay in the entire world, and watched fireworks from the balcony at midnight.
2010 - I was in China with the World Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales. We took a 6-1/2-week tour all over the country, though sadly we didn't get to see Macau (one of the places I most want to visit), Hong Kong, or the terracotta soldiers. We went to some very... unusual... cities on our tour. For example, we spent Christmas about 2 hours away from the nearest interesting tourist attraction or medium-sized city. But on New Year's, we were in Guangzhou, a city on the southeastern coast that has the third largest population, after Beijing and Shanghai. Because the WOJM was based in Spain at that time, a majority of the orchestra was from Spain, so we followed a Spanish tradition at midnight - eating twelve grapes. You have to eat each one as the clock strikes, and you get good luck for a month for each one you eat! As you can see, the grapes they provided were enormous, so I missed one or two.
2009 - I was traveling with my family in Puerto Rico. If my memory serves, we didn't do anything special on New Year's because we were all exhausted from the myriad hikes my mother "encouraged" us to do. Here is a picture of me and my two sisters on one of those hikes. I'm on the right. I was trying to look tall...
2008 - For once, I was at home in Northern Virginia. My friend Maria, who now lives in Germany, had a get-together at her house. It was fun to hang out with all my high school friends again, and at that point, none of us were old enough to go out anywhere. We had a really great time being silly and playing board games. Somewhere I have some pretty bizarre photos of me from this night, but I can't currently find any of them.
2007 - I was traveling with my family in Costa Rica. It was pretty much the same as in Puerto Rico, where we did a lot of hikes and tourist things, and didn't celebrate Christmas or New Year's. This photo is the one my mom sent out on her "January cards" (they were sent out after Christmas, but otherwise were basically Christmas cards).
After that nice retrospective, let's return to this year. So what did I do for New Year's 2013? I stayed at home, had one friend come over to play board games, watch children's movies, and play with the dog and hamster. This was in addition to the friend who was already visiting me. So we played a modified version of Cranium (I won, yeah!) and then watched the first part of ParaNorman, meanwhile scarfing down homemade guacamole, pita chips with hummus, and leftover Christmas cookies. At midnight we watched the ball drop, then polished off a bottle of the finest champagne $15 can buy. My friend had to go home before 1 because she had to go home from her parents' house in the morning, so after that it was just a normal night. I had a nice time, though I didn't take any pictures at all. I hope a nice and relaxed New Year's celebration bodes well for a calm year ahead.
Normally, I don't do New Year's resolutions. I think it's such an arbitrary day to start something new, thus the start of my 25 Things the day after my birthday. But this year, I do have a few small, possibly a bit silly-seeming resolutions.
1. I resolve to keep my email inbox clutter free. I always sign up for those email newsletters, thinking I will read them and then educate myself about whatever it is, but the end result is that I have to go through and delete dozens of junk emails every single morning when I wake up. I have already started the process of unsubscribing from everything, and those that don't have an unsubscribe option are being directed straight into the trash can.
2. I will get a job this year. I know this isn't necessarily something that I can control, but I really hope I can make something work out before 2014! I mean, 2014 is the future, right? And yes, I do already have a job, working as a musician and teaching artist in public schools in Connecticut, but by job I mean a job performing music that pays at least half of my living expenses, and is not work-study or a stipend from a school I'm attending. This is not totally unrealistic - though I've only done one audition for a professional orchestra so far, I did advance to the second round of three, and I had a lot of circumstances against me in the second round, which I'm using as an excuse for why I didn't advance to the finals. I hope next time to make the finals, and by the end of the year, to win something!
3. Become part of the blogging community. I have been an avid reader of various blogs for the past few years, but I'm mostly a lurker. I'm going to try to comment more instead of just reading and going on to the next one, and also get my own blog out there to try to increase my readership. So please pass the address along to friends! (By the way, Beanilika is pronounced bean-uh-LIKE-uh, and was a nickname given to me by a friend in high school, since I was a vegetarian = beans and a musician who was interested in Russia = balalaika - a Russian instrument.)
I'll check back in about these in a few months and see how things are going! Until next time!
Lauren
PS. By popular demand, here is a cute hamster photo:
That's what came up when I googled "New Year hamster". Take of that what you will.
New Year's Eve 2013 was the most calm one I've ever had. But first let's recap my New Year's Eves since the end of high school.
2012 - My then-boyfriend Yuri came to visit. We had been dating long distance (from Boston to Brazil) for about a year and a half at that point, and due to circumstances beyond our control, the only flight he could get arrived at Dulles at about 11:15pm on New Year's Eve. We made it home just in time to run to the TV and watch the ball drop. He was exhausted from over 24 hours of travel so we went to bed right away (thus the lack of photographic evidence).
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| New Year's 2011 in Salvador, Brazil |
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| New Year's 2010 in Guangzhou, China |
2010 - I was in China with the World Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales. We took a 6-1/2-week tour all over the country, though sadly we didn't get to see Macau (one of the places I most want to visit), Hong Kong, or the terracotta soldiers. We went to some very... unusual... cities on our tour. For example, we spent Christmas about 2 hours away from the nearest interesting tourist attraction or medium-sized city. But on New Year's, we were in Guangzhou, a city on the southeastern coast that has the third largest population, after Beijing and Shanghai. Because the WOJM was based in Spain at that time, a majority of the orchestra was from Spain, so we followed a Spanish tradition at midnight - eating twelve grapes. You have to eat each one as the clock strikes, and you get good luck for a month for each one you eat! As you can see, the grapes they provided were enormous, so I missed one or two.
 |
| New Year's 2009 in Puerto Rico |
2008 - For once, I was at home in Northern Virginia. My friend Maria, who now lives in Germany, had a get-together at her house. It was fun to hang out with all my high school friends again, and at that point, none of us were old enough to go out anywhere. We had a really great time being silly and playing board games. Somewhere I have some pretty bizarre photos of me from this night, but I can't currently find any of them.
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| New Year's 2007 in Costa Rica |
After that nice retrospective, let's return to this year. So what did I do for New Year's 2013? I stayed at home, had one friend come over to play board games, watch children's movies, and play with the dog and hamster. This was in addition to the friend who was already visiting me. So we played a modified version of Cranium (I won, yeah!) and then watched the first part of ParaNorman, meanwhile scarfing down homemade guacamole, pita chips with hummus, and leftover Christmas cookies. At midnight we watched the ball drop, then polished off a bottle of the finest champagne $15 can buy. My friend had to go home before 1 because she had to go home from her parents' house in the morning, so after that it was just a normal night. I had a nice time, though I didn't take any pictures at all. I hope a nice and relaxed New Year's celebration bodes well for a calm year ahead.
Normally, I don't do New Year's resolutions. I think it's such an arbitrary day to start something new, thus the start of my 25 Things the day after my birthday. But this year, I do have a few small, possibly a bit silly-seeming resolutions.
1. I resolve to keep my email inbox clutter free. I always sign up for those email newsletters, thinking I will read them and then educate myself about whatever it is, but the end result is that I have to go through and delete dozens of junk emails every single morning when I wake up. I have already started the process of unsubscribing from everything, and those that don't have an unsubscribe option are being directed straight into the trash can.
2. I will get a job this year. I know this isn't necessarily something that I can control, but I really hope I can make something work out before 2014! I mean, 2014 is the future, right? And yes, I do already have a job, working as a musician and teaching artist in public schools in Connecticut, but by job I mean a job performing music that pays at least half of my living expenses, and is not work-study or a stipend from a school I'm attending. This is not totally unrealistic - though I've only done one audition for a professional orchestra so far, I did advance to the second round of three, and I had a lot of circumstances against me in the second round, which I'm using as an excuse for why I didn't advance to the finals. I hope next time to make the finals, and by the end of the year, to win something!
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| Balalaikas |
I'll check back in about these in a few months and see how things are going! Until next time!
Lauren
PS. By popular demand, here is a cute hamster photo:
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Christmas
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| Me with Barfy |
I had a great Christmas surrounded by my family and friends, and one immensely adorable puppy. My little sister was asked to dogsit for a family she regularly babysits for while they are on vacation in Mexico, and I have fallen in love with the dog. He's named Barty, but I call him Barfy because it's cuter and funny. He's a miniature Schnauzer. My mom and I have already taught him how to sit and shake hands since he got here just a few days ago. I'm going to be super sad when his real family comes to take him back!!!
I also have a human friend visiting me. My friend Sarah who goes to school with me and also plays the horn, is an international student, so I invited her to stay with my family for the holiday. We've had a great time! We made a silly video on Christmas Day to send to our friends as a holiday greeting:
On Christmas Day itself, we opened stockings as soon as we got up, right at the crack of 10:30. I received thank you notes, a new mascara, and a pomegranate. Thanks, Santa! After a very nice family breakfast of pancakes and waffles, we opened presents as a family. I gave and received a number of very nice gifts! I gave my little sister a pair of running pants, which she really wanted. My dad got a nice sweater from LL Bean, and I gave my mom a scarf that I knitted (actually, I still haven't finished it... oops!) and a coupon book for household chores. I gave Sarah a really cute t-shirt from one of our favorite restaurants back in Connecticut. I received a new bike helmet, some nice clothes for work, tennis shoes that I need to go pick out in the next couple of days, a gift card to the grocery store (ugh, I feel like such an adult!), a sweater (gotta go exchange it for the correct size), a memory chip for my phone, and some earrings and a pendant. Emily also gave me a coupon for a sister bonding day. I have to decide what I want to do on my special day, though! It's a tough decision...
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| My parents, Barfy, and me on a very cold Christmas walk in the park |
When we got back, we helped get everything ready for the delicious dinner. We had a very traditional dinner, with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, and fruit salad, accompanied by sparkling apple cider (since we are unfortunately an alcohol-free household) and followed up by apple and pecan pies. Everything was enormously delicious! Thanks, Mom!
In the next few days, I have some fun activities planned, including a lot of sightseeing with Sarah, since she has never visited DC before. We have a lot of museums and a scavenger hunt on the itinerary! But more about that later. Meanwhile, enjoy this lovely photo of me wearing plastic aviator goggles in the gift shop of the Air and Space Museum. Until next time!
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