Long Awaited Update

Hi everyone! I know its been months since I've been on here, but there is good reason. Life is crazy! My husband is auditioning for a major symphony orchestra at the beginning of June, my first year in the Master of Music program is ending in less than a month, and I've started a new job that is quite demanding. Overall though, life is good. I'm finding different things that I like about Seattle, specifically:
1. The food! The food! The food! No matter which town you visit in Seattle there is always a good restaurant to eat in.
2. The scenery. Aside from the typical cloudy backdrop, the foliage around here is spectacular and it beats seeing concrete everywhere.
3. The shopping! There are a lot of boutique shops everywhere you go in Seattle. Also, the outlets in Marysville are not too far away. :)
4. Our church. Westside Church has been really great to us. We've met some wonderful people and they have been so supportive in their prayers and otherwise. It's made the week by week trek a little easier.
5. Everyone here has a dog! Some days this makes it easier to not have a dog, but other days it makes us want a dog that much more. Either way, seeing so many puppies is a good thing.
I do miss the familiarity of California and all of our friends and family, but learning how to cope with the distance between us now will make things easier as people move and spread out later in life. I just hope that we're all within a single day's travel of each other - I've heard that overseas flights are the pits. :P

Puppies are fun! See below :D

Seattle Life

It's been raining a lot and it's been cold a lot... I'm told this is the norm. *sigh* I miss the sun. :P
Anyway, school is wrapping up - all ready! There are only 3 more weeks of class then a week of finals. I've already ready signed up for two of my classes: a seminar on American Musical Theater, and a seminar on Sondheim (West Side Story's amazing lyricist). I'm supposed to take a seminar about music research, but the teacher won't send us an add code in advance, we just have to show up on the first day of class. Then I'll also be taking lessons and be in an ensemble. I hope that I get into either group really: their schedules work well with mine (with one group meeting only 2 times a week), the conductors are both okay, and the repertoire for both groups is alright (one being far easier than the other). I think I get a week off in January from my Seattle Opera gig, but I'm not sure... the fundraising campaign I'm working on now stops at the end of the year and subscription renewals don't start until mid January, so we'll see. I'll be TAing for the Music 185 class as long as I have work study so that'll go thru the rest of the school year. Then, in January also, my husband and I will be starting another community group at our church. We're going to try to be in the same group as last time. The teaching will be about marriage this time, so that'll be good. :)
Something music related...
This is a caricature of the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim studied with Oscar Hammerstein II from a very young age and the playwright/lyricist had a great impact on his compositional/writing style. His big break came with West Side Story. He wrote the music and lyrics to Sweeney Todd. Good stuff... good night!

Jobs and Life Update

I'll be starting my fifth week with the Seattle Opera on Tuesday. I cannot believe I've been working there for a month, now! The job is interesting to say the least. I speak to a lot of different kinds of people on the phone: students, die-hard opera fans, Wagner opera fans (which are a special kind of opera fan), baby boomers that go to the opera to be seen, and people who wish I had never called them in the first place. There are so many ways to say, "No, thanks. I'm not interested." Some people go out of their way to avoid saying it while others shout it after I say that I'm calling for the Seattle Opera. I would say its similar to telemarketing, but I have no experience doing that either, so I have no idea if its similar or not. :P

My TA job is going really well. The first quiz I made only had one "questionable question" with more than one answer being okay, which I'm told is good for my first time. I haven't gotten any angry emails about how hard the quiz was either, so that's good. :)

The Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra is having their first concert of their 11th season this Saturday. If you're in town, you should check it out! Click here for their website.
I wrote the program notes for the concert. Once the concert is over I'll publish them here for all to see.

School is winding up. Teachers are really cramming to teach everything they left out the first few weeks of class. In German, things are moving at lightning speed and sometimes the vocabulary just feels like too much, but that's what I get for taking an accelerated German course. So, I just have a lot of studying to do before my next test.

Our apartment is finally starting to feel like home. I look forward to spending time in the space now after a long day and we were able to buy some much needed furniture for storage and display (a huge shelving unit being the key item). Hopefully, once loan money for the winter quarter comes in, we can afford to buy some decor to brighten up the place and some warmer winter clothes. We found out recently that Seattle gets colder and stays colder much longer than San Jose does. :)

Westside has been great to us. Our weekly community group meetings are going well and we're making some fantastic friends. We cooked vegetarian chili for everyone and they all loved it! We're going to be meeting with the Pastors this weekend before the PSSO concert during a "New Comers" dinner. So, we're really looking forward to that and getting some one-on-one time with Pastor Richard and his wife, Valerie.

I think that's all for now, here's a cute puppy picture just for fun. :D