Last year of College...

College was not a picnic for me - I worked hard, but had a hard time ever feeling satisfied with much of what I did. However, I had some extremely fun times and grew a ton, despite what I thought at the time :) The last year was so amazing being married to my wonderful husband, but it was probably the hardest year of them all! Lots of unexpected opportunities for growth, change, etc. For one thing, I planned to be in BYU Singers again - I loved it so much - but during the audition I felt very differently. My voice was going through some serious changes and I didn't feel like I could blend well with the other girls and also feel free and go in the direction vocally that I was hoping to that year. The time spent in choir needed to be spent on individual study, and I'm glad I chose that. After the call-back (where I was hardly ever asked to sing - not a very good sign), I walked up to Dr. Staheli and told him to not worry about putting me in the choir - I figured he might feel obligated to give me another shot and I wanted to free him from that. For all I know I mixed with the girls really well and he didn't feel the need to experiment with my voice much because he knew what it could do, but I felt very strongly that I should not be in the choir that year. Over the summer when I told Dr. Staheli that I would be getting married soon, he said, "And how does that affect choir?" At the time I was surprised at the question and thought - why would getting married affect anything? Then he mentioned the baby thing - they were going to England on tour that year and pregnant people weren't allowed to go. Makes sense, but it took me off guard. I'm very grateful I listened to the Spirit during the call-back though, because just a couple months into the semester I felt very strongly about having a baby and that's what we decided to do! So no Enlgand tour for me, and no choir for the first time in years, but it felt right however much I missed it.
I had the opportunity to play a lead role in the opera in the fall! I was so excited but more terrified than anything... absolutely terrified. The music was in English (which is hard to sing opera in, believe it or not, though it made the memorization much easier), there were some very high notes I needed to hold out on difficult vowels, unusual melodies, etc. The opera was "Help! Help! The Globolinks!" by Menotti. Really fun show that was written for children, but pretty modern (60s) and... weird in the best way. It was such a huge challenge for me though. I didn't practice much over the summer (dumb dumb), and had a TON of work to do. I learned so much and had a few vocal breakthroughs which was amazing. I have to give a huge shout-out to Dr. Reich and Dr. Hopkin for letting me drop by their offices on a few occasions to get tips and have a good cry (a couple times). I felt so small and wanted to give up for so many reasons, but they believed in me and helped me believe in myself.

One afternoon I stopped in to get help from Dr. Hopkin, and at the end of our mini-lesson he said something like, "I don't want this to be weird, but you know I care about you very much right? I think you deserve this role, you'll do a wonderful job, and I believe in you." My eyes welled up and he gave me a big hug. That meant so much to me! What a sweet memory.

Here's a photo of me and the hilarious, amazing, Brandtley Henderson who played Dr. Stone. Basically, in this opera the world is being invaded by aliens and if they touch you you turn into one of them. As much as I'd love to divulge the whole plot on this post, I'll just post a link to where you can read about it if you really want to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help,_Help,_the_Globolinks!
It was such a fun show - after all the learning curves, drama, etc - I loved it and had a blast. The performances went great, and my mom was able to come to town to see one of them!

The rest of fall semester was spent picking music for my Senior Recital, managing not to let senioritis overtake me, and being overjoyed about the baby on the way :)

Winter semester was so crazy! The first half anyway... I was in a block class of French 101, planning to do the second block in the last half of the semester. I couldn't believe how hard that class was... I loved the language and had a knack for speaking it thanks to my previous study of French music diction and such, but wowie, the French department is super intense. I also moved up the date of my Senior Recital, so memorizing/polishing the last of my songs, trying trying TRYING to find the happy place in my voice, mixed with blasted French 101 (and an uncontrollable nesting phase) made for a very difficult 2 months. I pulled it off though!! I lived! Still alive, too! "That's a mercy, anyhow..." - Eliza Doolittle
Oh yeah... I also directed and was in a scene for BYU's Opera Scenes, which was performed a week or two before my Senior Recital :) Lots of work, but so so fun!! Here's a youtube video of the scene I was in:
My scene partners were Victoria Olsen and Mason Gates Niepp - aren't they fantastic?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=c4-feed-u&v=KZrcCRD4UeY&app=desktop

Because French 101 was so hard, I opted out of 102... as much as I loved studying the language and wanted to, I just couldn't handle the way the class was designed (pop quizzes, inconsistent homework collections, other tactics to not always hold you accountable, but keep you on your toes). It didn't meld with my personality OR my post-Senior Recital official diagnosis of Senioritis. That's such a lame word to describe the phenomenon - seems like only lame high-schoolers suffer from it - but it's real, folks. At least it was for me :)
So, I replaced French 101 with a pass-fail calculus class, a tutoring class, tennis, and (wait for it.....) a Powerpoint class!! Seems like more trouble than just taking the French class, but it was fun to have a lot of variety in the last bit of college... I especially enjoyed the math class. So now I can officially say that the very last test of my college career as a music major was for a calculus class. It felt great to walk out of the testing center for the last time and see a 98% up on the results screen (buh bam!).

And then it was over. Now I'm a BYU Alumni, and it feels so great. At the time I experienced a bit of a let-down... sure I was about to have a baby, but that wasn't for a couple months. I didn't have a job, or any official prospects. My "ideal" near-future plan was to get a job working as an on-site manager at a storage facility to provide a free apartment plus some extra money each month (not every facility pays their employees on top of free rent, so that was very hopeful thinking). It was a trying time, but not without its highlights, which I'll go into in future posts. I loved school. I still love learning. :)