20 years old!

So, today was my 20th birthday!!! The day went well, in general. I began it by being serenaded when I walked into Music History class. That was embarrassing...okay, I loved it. Then I had piano class, which is always a bit stressful for me because I struggle with it, but I always learn a lot. I then had lunch with friends in the union. And headed to Sight Singing/Ear Training class in which I got a test back. It was definitely a birthday treat to get it back and see that I hadn't failed miserably. After that class I came back to the room, did some math homework and then went to opera rehearsal for like a half hour. Then Alyssa and I had dinner. THEN we headed over to Minsky for the Women's Composer Concert which I was singing with Athena Consort in. It was a looong concert, but good nonetheless. After the concert Alyssa, Jesse, Lisa and myself went to Dysart's for a bit of a late night snack. I had never been to Dysart's, so of course Jesse (who works there) felt the need to tell every employee, trucker, and random person there that it was my birthday and that I had never been to Dysart's. I got many "Happy Birthdays" and many "Welcome to Dysarts!" tonight. It was really yummy though. I got the french toast. It was scrumptious. So, all in all I had a great birthday. It's weird to not be a teenager anymore. :)

Later, gators!

PS...Thanks to everyone who sent me cards in the mail, wrote blogs about me, called me, left me voicemails, text messaged me, IM'd me, and left me facebook comments. You all are wonderful and I love you a lot.

Pre-Birthday Festivities!

Tonight I spent some time with good friends celebrating my birthday which is TOMORROW!!!! Alyssa, Jesse, Cory, and I went to Chile's for dinner (complete with singing waitresses) and then headed to Jesse's for some laughs and good times. I also got some good gifts tonight. That's a picture of me holding the gifts I got. Cory got me that poster of Zac Efron, Jesse got me 2 shirts and a pair of shoes and then Alyssa gave me part of my gift tonight and I guess I'll be getting the rest of it tomorrow. She got me a toy microphone prop because I am constantly doing silly little interviews in our videos orrrrr singing. So, that was a cute present. :) I'll give you more updates on the birthday extravaganza tomorrow!!!! :)

Later, gators!

Money doesn't grow on trees, idiots.

Apparently stupid residents of my dorm think that money grows on trees and that pulling the fire alarm (FOR THE SECOND NIGHT IN A ROW) at 2:30 in the morning is a good idea. So, that's now $4000 dollars racked up to be paid by innocent people trying to sleep. Honest to goodness, you'd think that by the time people got around to college they'd be mature enough to not do stupid, inconsiderate things, but apparently not.

On another note, my birthday is in 2 days. :) Woooohooo. I have an Athena Consort concert that night. Athena Consort is the women's choir I am in on campus. Ya'll should come to the concert. It's the Annual Women's Composer concert and so all the pieces are by women composers. Athena sings last, but there is plenty of other very talented people. Including my friend, Sara Richardson who composed her own piece to perform in it. Which is beyond cool. So, check it out. 7:30 PM on Wednesday night!

Alright, I am in the computer cluster so I can get some math work done. Later, gators!!

Gotta love fire alarms...

So, last night Alyssa and I got home around 1:30ish from a fun-filled evening with good friends. We then preceded to crawl our way to bed and begin to drift off. But drift off is the only thing we could do because at around 2 in the morning the fire alarm started BLARING. When I say blaring I mean, BLARING. That little light on the damn thing was flashing too. So, I practically fall off my bunk bed, I grab my mainecard(key) and a jacket and we head downstairs and outside along with the 400 other residents of my dorm. It was a rather funny sight, actually. I wish I would have grabbed my camera. 400 college students standing around in PJs. Funny! So, about 15 minutes later the fire truck showed up (okay, seriously, if it was a real fire the place would have been burned to the ground by the time the truck got there) and they shut the alarm off and everyone began to cheer (most likely waking up the residents of our 2 neighbor dorms) and went back inside. And here's another fun little tidbit, the residents of the dorm will be having to split up a $2000 charge on our student bills for the moron who pulled the alarm. OY VEY.
Later, gators.

Chanticleer!

I just got back from a fun evening of listening to an a capella men's choir named Chanticleer perform at Colby. A bunch of us music majors made the trek down to see them, and it was WELL worth it. Especially since it was a free concert. They were amazing. 3 of those men are SOPRANOS. SOPRANOS!!!! AKA they sing just as high (and higher) than I do! Go to their website that I listed above and check them out! They are based out of San Francisco and pretty much spend all of their time touring. They're awesome. If they come back to this area ya'll should definitely check 'em out!

Okay, bed time.
Later, gators!!

RIP Seymoure...

My fish, Seymoure, died last night. He lived a nice long life. I had him for over a year, so I mean it's pretty understandable that he died. So, RIP sweet Seymoure fishy.

On another note, everything is going well. I had a nice fall break. I spent time with family and just relaxed.

Speaking of relaxing, I had an hour massage today at Cutler Health Center. Only I didn't relax the whole time cuz it was an old man doing the massage and it was weird. I mean, I guess it was nice, but I wish I would have had a woman do it. I thought it was a woman, but I guess there is a man and woman that do it and I got stuck with the man. Blech.

Okay, dinner time.
Later, gators!

Pandora=MY NEW OBSESSION

If you have yet to discover Pandora, please discover it. Right this minute. It's amazing. It's this FREE online radio created by the Music Genome Project. Here's some info about the Music Genome Project from the Pandora website:

"On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project"

So, how Pandora works is you create a free account and then you can create radio stations. You create the radio station by entering the name of an artist you like. For instance, the first artist I entered was Jack Johnson. The program then creates a "Jack Johnson Station" which plays Jack Johnson songs as well as tons of other songs by artists whose music is similar to Jack's or music that the Music Genome Project people think you would like if you like Jack. You can create as many stations as you like! It's a great way to learn about artists you don't know yet and to listen to only music you like, all the time, for free. You can also vote whether you like the song it is playing. If you don't like it, it'll skip to the next song and it won't play that song again. You can also do a "quick mix" which mixes all the stations together and you get an array of stuff. It's so much fun! Seriously, check it out! It's 100% free and I am all about free music. :)
ENJOY!
Later, gators!