Back to Reality

After a twelve-and-a-half-hour drive on Monday, I am finally back in Ann Arbor. Aside from a 4-day layover here before heading to New York state, I have been away since the beginning of June. With all the adventures that I've been on this summer I haven't been thinking about school at all for a few months, but the reality of the encroaching school year sank in fast this morning as I sat squirming through a retake of a music theory placement exam. Bye bye Seattle, Brazil, and New York, I have to go back to my real life now.

This semester should be fun because I will be teaching a class: Voice 111, a class that is designed to teach undergraduate theater majors the basics of singing. In past semesters the school had assigned me eleven private students as part of my GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) position, but now that I'm teaching this class they have cut my private students down to just three. I was thrilled when my advisor offered me the class because although I enjoy teaching private voice lessons, teaching in a classroom is what I really love and where I thrive. My advisor has left everything about the class up to me: what material I want to cover, what textbooks (if any) I choose, the construction of the class syllabus, etc. I taught a similar class at the University of Utah, so I feel really confident and excited going into this.

So the performances of Così Fan Tutte came and went, and I was pleased with how the show turned out and with my performance. It was a great learning experience for me. And I got a really nice review in too, if you are interested. (If you click my name in the review, it links you here to my blog. I guess they just googled me and found it, and I was a little weirded out by that at first. This blog is not intended to be a portrayal of me as an artist of a professional, but as a quirky outlet for my musings aimed at my friends and family. However, I guess when you write a blog you have to accept that it is out there for anyone to find and I haven't ever posted anything I regret on here. Besides, maybe some people who liked me in the show will be further impressed with me when they discover my status as the Mario 2 world record holder.)

P.S. - Speaking of Nintendo, my roommate Seth came back from Mississippi with his old Nintendo, named Vicky (since it was purchased in Vicksburg). So there maybe some romance in Conrad's future.