First Week of College Down!

I apologize for the late post.

My first week of college was fun. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, especially the 8 am classes. I think I just need to get into a schedule and I'll be fine. Maybe I should try going to bed slightly earlier as well...

I love my ballet class. Starting the day off with MK is so great, she makes getting up at 7 am completely worth it. She's so energetic and enthusiastic that it rubs off on my and makes me excited to dance at an ungodly hour. So far we haven't done any actual "ballet", we've just been moving around and getting our bodies used to movement again, but I appreciate that. It's been a while since I've danced seriously, with structured warm-ups and exercises.

My speech and diction class is going to be fun, I can already tell. My teacher is super relaxed and chill; he told us to call him Evan. He's so adorable, because on the first day he told us that he'd been married for exactly one year and two months, which of course all the girls aww-ed at. We played a name game to get to know everyone's names and I think I've got it down. It's similar to the summer program in that for most of our classes we're split into two roughly even groups and for the rest we're all together, but the groups aren't always the same from class to class.

English diction isn't going to be fun, I don't think. For one, it's the last class right before lunch, and we're all exhausted from being up so early. I think at that point the energy buzz from ballet/our Starbucks run in between dance and S&D wears off, so we're all kind of tired. It's also kind of a boring topic--I think I know how to speak English. But I understand the necessity of it, so it'll be a good learning experience.

I LOVE my choir class! I love the teacher, which is such a foreign concept to me. He's this fabulous gay man who's super bubbly and friendly. We've already started two songs, "Under the Willow Tree" and "Cindy", and they both sound amazing. He told the girls that we'll be singing soprano half the time, and alto half the time. So for "Under the Willow Tree", I sing alto 1, and for "Cindy" I sing soprano 2. Singing alto 1 is actually really enjoyable, because even though it's lower it's still harmony which I love singing. It's challenging but it sounds so good when we all sing together.

On Wednesdays we have New Student Seminar, also taught by MK. I'm not entirely sure what this class is yet, but I automatically love it because it's led by MK. I love that I get to start and end my days with her.

So Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are good days for me because they're all my musical theatre classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays are not so fun. I start out with 8 am basic musicianship during which I always have a hard time staying awake. My teacher's voice is pretty monotone and he's hard to hear, so sometimes I kind of just give up on trying to hear what he's saying and work on the homework for the next class. So far it's been fairly easy, just basic stuff, but it's all stuff I know I need to practice and work on. I actually really do appreciate my basic musicianship class because I've never gotten any specific training in music theory. I always felt that that was something I was missing out on, so I'm really glad that I have a class dedicated to just that.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are also the days where I have insanely long breaks. I have musicianship at 8 am and then my next class isn't until 11. So sometimes I take a nap, or I actually get ready for the day (if I decided that I was too tired to put effort into my appearance for musicianship). My 11 o'clock class is unfortunately my African Diaspora lecture, so if I'm tired (which I usually am), it's bad news. I have to fight to stay awake in that class if we're not taking a lot of notes. If the teacher decides to talk more and give us less notes then I really have to focus on staying awake. There's one girl in my lecture who lives in my building, and is actually someone I kind of knew through Bellarmine theater from back home, so I sat with her today. Now I have someone to go to if I miss a lecture or something.

On Tuesdays I have my voice lesson at 2 which I really enjoy. My teacher, Dan Lawler, is super friendly and doesn't care if I make a mistake. He's very encouraging. He gave me two new songs to sing, "I'll Know" from Guys and Dolls and "Out of My Dreams" from Oklahoma. I sight read "I'll Know" a lot better than I thought I would, which was pleasantly surprising. "Out of My Dreams" was a bit more iffy because I know the tune, but I kept thinking it was in a lower key than written, so that threw me off. But I'm excited to work on my music and get to know the pieces. Dan wants "I'll Know" memorized for next week so that's my big challenge for the week.

Finally I have my Writing the Essay (WTE) class. I actually really enjoy that one. It's a small class, maybe 16 or so people. I made friends with this girl Elle who lives on the 16th floor of Brittany, so I have someone to walk to and from class with. We've been getting dinner together after class too. She's super sweet, and she said I could use her printer whenever I need it. That'll be nice, for the times when it's kind of late and I can't walk over to Bobst to print something out. My teacher for WTE is pretty nice too. She's fairly young and very New York, is the best way to describe her. I don't feel nervous or intimidated to share my thoughts or opinions because whenever I say something she seems to really think about it and take the time to formulate a response to my statement. So far we've had a few homework assignments for the class, but it hasn't been anything super hard. We've done a few quick writes in class which I enjoy, because I like to write on a subject for five or so minutes to see what I come up with. I always look forward to that class.

Fridays are an entirely different story. I get to sleep in, for starters, which is super exciting. I don't start class til 10! And I begin my day with vocal production with Prof Heldman so that's a huge plus in my book. She's a great teacher, and I can't begin to describe how lucky I feel to be able to work with her again this semester. The subject matter should be interesting as well; it's all about how the voice works and how sound is produced and how we can use this knowledge to our advantage as singers.

After vocal production I have program seminar, which I was very shocked to discover meant everyone in the program, and I mean everyone. It wasn't just freshmen, it was sophomores and juniors and seniors too. From my impression, it kind of seems like just an hour where they can have us all in one room and make any important announcements or talk about whatever. There might be some performing going on at some point too, which could be cool. I like it because it means I get to see my upperclassmen/sophomore friends.

Most of my peers are done after program seminar but lucky me, I have my recitation at 2. It's not so bad I guess, it's in some dark-ish room in the lower level (code for basement) of the cultural center or whatever at NYU, and its about 18 people. However, we were missing some thing like 6 people last week, which I thought was kind of funny. My TA is a grad student in the history department and her specialization is African Diaspora, which is really convenient for us. She had us turn to the person next to us and interview them so that we could start getting to know each other. I met Will, who's a sophomore transfer student from some school in Indiana. Apparently, he used to be a professional ballet dancer for 10 years but he had to quit because he got injured, which I guess is why he also transferred over to NYU. Our TA tried to have a discussion with the class but she decided to let us out early because it was Friday and it was gorgeous outside. It was a really pretty fall day and she wanted us to be able to enjoy it, which was really nice of her.

Other than school, I've just been trying to figure out a good schedule for myself, a new routine to get the hang of. I need to figure out good practice times to work on my material for my voice lessons, and the whole printer situation. Buying my own printer is starting to sound reeeeal appealing right about now. It's just so convenient, especially since I'll be printing stuff for WTE all the time, not to mention endless amounts of sheet music.

I plan on seeing Sweet Smell of Success on Thursday, which I cannot wait for. It's being put on by the VP program, so a lot of my friends are in it. I'm excited to see what the people in our program are capable of!