Blog Break

I haven't blogged in a while and I need a short break from an assignment I'm working on, so here are some short points:

• On Wednesday I decided to have a look at my sister Amy's blog and SURPRISE! - she had her baby on Tuesday, one Gideon David Omer. That was a totally unexpected way to find out about it. He is their third child (my 10th nephew/niece total), and this was the first time that I wasn't there at the hospital with the Omers when the baby was delivered. I guess I could have made it to the hospital with enough advance notice - according to Mapquest it's only about a 33 hour drive from Ann Arbor to Moorpark, California. It's a little abstract right now that I have a new nephew since they're so far away and I haven't seen any pictures yet, but I talked to Amy on the phone last night and I heard li'l Giddy (what's the nickname for Gideon? Gid? Deon? We'll have to figure that one out) crying in the background, so I guess her story checks out.

• This has been a really heavy rehearsal week for me. In previous weeks we had been staging the first half of our upcoming opera, Postcard from Morocco, and it was easy because my character didn't have that much singing or elaborate staging. This week, however, we've been staging the second half, where my character hardly stops singing. Learning the staging has been fine, but the music is just plain difficult and the other singer with whom I share the role (the whole show is double cast, so I do 2 performances, he does 2 performances) was out of town, so I had to fill in for him and do twice as much rehearsing. Factor in all the other stuff I've got going on this week and I have just been exhausted. Fortunately, next week is spring break and I'll have no rehearsal at all. I cannot wait for the break. I just have to make it through tomorrow, because...

• I have a paper due tomorrow that I really should be working on instead of writing this blog. Blog break's over. Back to work.