April update

I'm sorry it has been so long since I last wrote!! Since coming back from Spring Break, I've been super busy.  First, I've been working a lot to try to get my finances in order for the summer, when I won't be earning any money at all, and secondly, I have been making an audition recording for a prestigious position in an orchestra, so all my free time has been focused on working on that.  I do have a few tidbits to share, though!

 My faithful trusty suitcase, that I have had for four years, with which I traveled all over the world (all over the US, Canada, China, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Colombia twice, Spain, Ecuador, Brazil eight times, Peru, Germany, and Switzerland), finally irreparably broke right at the end of my travels back from Brazil.  I'm thanking my lucky stars that it broke at the end of the trip rather than at the beginning, but I am so sad that it finally succumbed to old age.










My roommates in Brazil taught me how to make pineapple juice from the skin of the pineapple, so I decided to give it a try at home.  It was a lot of work, but it was awesomely fresh and delicious!!











My good friend here at Yale introduced me to a food stand where I can buy Colombian style arepas! It was delicious and reminded me of the arepas I ate on the street with friends in Manizales, the first time I visited Colombia.  Aww, memories!

I've also decided what I'm doing this summer and next year! This summer I'll be attending the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, here in Connecticut.  I'm very excited.  I already submitted my repertoire request form, and I asked to play a lot of unusual pieces, so I'm hoping at least one or two of my requests are granted!

Next year, I'll be starting work towards my DMA at the University of Georgia! I'm very excited to start a new life in a new state where I won't know anyone at all, but that means I need to buy a car between now and August.  I have no idea how to go about doing this! Help!!!

As I mentioned above, I've been working really hard on a recording.  The orchestra is super specific about how they want things set up - they designate a specific microphone to use, and it has to be eight feet off the ground, six feet away from the player, and pointed directly at the instrument.  I was able to borrow an appropriate microphone from Yale, but they didn't have any proper mic stands available, so here is my improvised recording set-up!

 One of my fitas finally broke off!  Fitas de Bomfim are one of the most famous symbols of Salvador, the city I frequently visit in Brazil.  You make a wish when you put it on, and when it breaks, the wish will have come true.  I don't usually believe in superstitious things like that, but it's true - the wish when I made when I tied on this fita has come true in the meantime.  This one I wore for about a year and a half before it broke.  I'm still wearing another one that I put on one year before this pink one, and it doesn't even look close to coming off.  It's a bit awkward - I actually don't want that wish to come true anymore, but I also don't want to cut it off or something, in case superstitions are true, and it would bring bad luck on me! I know it's silly, but better safe than sorry, right??

Finally, for a bit of blog maintainance stuff, I need to amend some of my 25 things that I wanted to do before I turn 25.  First of all, through elimination and reintroduction into my diet, I have learned that I am lactose intolerant.  The day I made this discovery, I was crushed.  But it's now a fact of my life.  So instead of doing a month of a gluten-free diet, which would be nearly impossible right now when I'm working on changing my diet already, I will do a month of lactose free eating.  That means no milk, cheese, or other dairy products, though since eggs seem to be ok with my digestive system, they're allowed.  Cheese is the hardest thing.  I absolutely adore cheese and used to eat it nearly with every meal.  I've only done a few days at a time without cheese so far so I need to really dedicate myself to this for a whole month! But not till I finish this blue cheese I've got in my fridge....

The other goal that I need to amend is having my summer camp.  Unfortunately, I had to cancel it due to insufficient student enrollment.  But! I still want to do 25 things that I've never done before! So I am adding do yoga to the list.  I think I am probably the only 20-something woman in America who has literally never tried yoga, so this is the time to do it! This is especially ironic since my dad has been doing yoga at least five days per week since I was in middle school or before!

Anyways, that's about all the updates I have today.  I have been falling behind once again in my essays for my Portuguese class, as well as in my schedule of the 25 things to do before my birthday in November, so hopefully I'll have some updates on that for you guys soon!

Until next time!

Lauren

This past week

Mainly this week was the same as the past few weeks - busy and full of auditions - so this will be a pretty brief post.  We finally went back to school after a bit of the snow melted, and just one day after returning to playing, I had an audition in New York.  Tomorrow I go to New York for another audition, and then on Monday, to Baltimore.  Only four more auditions to go!

Today was a very exciting day, though.  After teaching a lesson, in which my student (an undergraduate here who isn't majoring in music) showed huge improvement since the previous lesson, I met up with a former student for coffee.  S was my first horn student ever, who I taught when I was in high school.  Now he's about to graduate high school himself, and it looks like he'll be coming to Yale next year! It was really nice to see him, and to see what progress he has made in the past six years!  After that, I had my first lesson with A, my two-year-old student.  She is super cute.  We're learning basic musical concepts - like clapping to a beat, loud and soft, and high and low notes.  We sing lots of songs and dance around the room.  It's lots of fun!

Well, I'm sorry for the short post, but I better go.  I have to get up super early for my 11am audition, and I still haven't packed for my weekend away or anything.

Until next time!

Lauren

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.

"criptocardiograma" by August de Campos,
just in time for Valentine's Day!

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!

I made it to the top of a 15-foot pile of snow
in the aftermath of the storm!

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

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

5 Things I Learned in 5 Hours in Georgia

Hey, guys! I know I haven't posted in a long time, but I'll get to that later.  Right now I'm in Athens, Georgia, for an audition I'm taking tomorrow.  I have barely spent any time in the south, so there were a number of interesting things that I discovered even in just a few hours here.

1. There are chains everywhere!  You know those signs on the side of the highway that say what gas and fast food is available at each exit? I swear, at every exit on the highways I took to get here, they had to have two whole signs because there were so many different places.  And now there are a ton of different chains surrounding my hotel for at least a mile in every direction.  I'm going to take advantage of this tomorrow.  I'm definitely eating some Chick Fil A for lunch, since we don't have it in Northern Virginia or in Connecticut!

2. Most people don't have southern accents.  I kind of expected that everyone would, but really they don't! Even the people at the hotel have generic accents, and only a few of the radio announcers I heard on the way here had even the slightest drawl.

3. Kroger is the best!  My hotel room for some reason has a microwave in it, but that's great for me! Instead of going out to eat, I went to the grocery store and picked up some dinner, plus some snacks and fruit for tomorrow.  Kroger was the best grocery store I've ever been to! It was like, normal grocery store mixed with Whole Foods.  They had everything you could imagine, plus lots of types of prepared foods.

4. You totally need a car here.  It took me an hour and a half to get here from the airport and there wasn't much on the way.  Even here in the "big city" of Athens, there is only a 5x5 block of "downtown."  When I'm in New Haven, I always complain about not having a car, but at least I can get around to everything I need to!  Here I really don't know how anyone could live without a car. You would even need one to go to the grocery store!


5. You know that G symbol that I thought was for some pro sports thing?  Apparently it's the logo of the University of Georgia.  Even though I'm applying to go here for a doctorate, I had no idea that that G was for Georgia until I saw it on an ad for UGA in the Atlanta airport.  Oops... I guess if I do end up living here, I will learn a lot about sports.

Hope that gives you a little insight into my feelings on my trip to Athens, Georgia!  I'll try to post more regularly, but I have a lot more auditions in the next few weeks, so I can't make any promises.

Until next time!

Lauren