Coldest Day of the Year....?

According to someone famous, today was supposedly the coldest day of the year. I think I can pretty much agree with that person because it was so. Frigging. COLD!!!!! I wore a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a peacoat, a scarf, gloves, a beanie, tall boots, jeans, and I was still cold. I couldn't feel my face or my thighs. To be quite honest, I wasn't sure I had a face because it was so frozen. I wasn't out and about much today, just walked to and from lunch, a couple of senior recitals, and then dinner. The senior recitals were absolutely amazing. I saw my friends Rose and Stephen, who were absolutely phenomenal. I'd never been to any kind of senior recital before so this was a neat experience because I got to see how the format works and everything. Basically the first half is composed of three "sets", each with three or so songs (I say or so because you can sing a cut from the song, you don't have to sing the entire thing). You have to sing both classical and MT sets, but because both of my friends were MT, they sang one classical set and then two MT sets. Then the second half is a character study, which is actually really cool. Basically, you choose a character from a show and do a very abbreviated version of the show with a few other people. Rose did her character study on Nellie Forbush from South Pacific, and Stephen did Billy Crocker from Anything Goes. It's such a cool idea because you basically get to star in any show of your choosing for like twenty five minutes or so. It was also cool because other people get to be a part of it, other people from the program. I'm excited for the point where my older friend's are doing senior recitals and ask me to help them out.

New Student Cabaret

This past weekend was New Student Cabaret, which was such an amazing experience. Everyone in my program is so ridiculously talented and I'm so honored to know them all and to be able to perform with them. All three of our performances were packed, which was also super exciting. My voice teacher came on Friday night and sent me an email afterward that said I did a fantastic job and that he was very proud of me. Prof Heldman and Bill Wesbrooks were also there, which was just a little bit intimidating. Bill Wesbrooks is the program director so he's a pretty big deal. Caleb told me that after the show Bill couldn't stop raving about me and about how great he thought I was. Saturday all of my VP friends came to support us, because they're all also in another show right now. It was really nice of them to come and support our class. A bunch of upperclassman (and some random people who I don't know) came up to me and said how great of a job I did was I thought was really nice, because I didn't know half of the people who were there.

Overall this was a really exciting experience and I'm glad I got to be a part of it. I'm trying to upload the video of my performance but our internet is being extremely faulty so I'm sorry if I can't get the video to you as fast as you'd like it. I'm pretty sure one of my classmates' family recorded one of the performances in its entirety and once that's up I'll post a link to it. 

First Weekend of Rehearsals!

This past weekend was our first weekend of rehearsals for New Student Cab, and I'm beyond excited to open next weekend. Yesterday we got our two group numbers and they sound absolutely fabulous! The people in my program continue to amaze me with how talented everyone is. The opening number sounds so cool, it's very Rent-esque and it sounds kind of like rock-pop. My teacher described it as the musical theater piece, and our closing number is our classical piece, because the two songs are such opposites of each other. But it's cool because it shows versatility and that, in her words, we're effing awesome.

Today we ran through the show from top to bottom, except for the group numbers. We basically just ran everyone's solo pieces in order. There are four groups, and I'm in the last one. They alternate between Classical Voice and Music Theatre. For the most part the people in my group are good friends of mine; there's just one guy who I don't know very well. I like my group the best because everyone stays on stage throughout each other's songs, and the way that my teacher organized our group is that everyone's song pairs up with someone else's. My song is called "I Think I May Want to Remember Today" and it's about wanting to remember a particular day, a particular moment, and then the song that comes after me is my friend Dexter's, and his is about looking back and wishing he'd appreciated the little moments more because moments are fleeting and you don't realize what you had til it's gone. There are two other pairs of songs in my group, and then my friend Mitch sings "Something's Coming" at the end, which actually pairs pretty well with our closing song, "Hope".

This week we have rehearsal every night from 7-11 in preparation for Friday. I'm not too concerned about the short rehearsal process because I've had to put a show on in about two weeks before, and it's not like we have many super involved dance numbers or anything. There's some movement but this performance is more about showcasing our voices. Plus it helps that two of the four group numbers we're doing we learned in choir, so we already had some of the work done.

Weekend in Pennsylvania

   This weekend I had the opportunity to go home with my roommate Caroline to Pennsylvania. Even though it wasn't my home or my family, it was still really nice to be out of the city and out of the dorm, and to be in a non-college environment.

   We got on the train around 2 pm on Friday after my last class of the day and arrived in Lancaster at around 5. Caroline's mom Elaine picked us up from the train station and took us into downtown Lancaster to walk around their First Friday. Lancaster is a really pretty town, it's bigger than Los Altos I'd say with a more historical feel. Caroline's mom told me that Lancaster was the nation's capital for one day a long time ago before Philly got it. They have some cute little shops and we stopped in at this one really yummy ice cream shop. I got black raspberry oreo and it was delicious!
I think we got to First Friday before it really started because it wasn't super crowded but Caroline's mom mentioned how it was more crowded than she'd ever seen it before. Caroline got tired after a bit so we drove over to their house.

   They live in Litiz, which is a small town outside of Lancaster, and she literally lives in the suburbs. I thought Los Altos was bad, in terms of having to drive to get to most everything (e.g. malls, food, etc) but where Caroline lives they absolutely have to drive just to get to the heart of Litiz, and then to Lancaster. It's about a ten minute drive to the nearest Starbucks, if that says anything. They also have a lot of drive-through Starbucks', which is pretty cool in my opinion. There's only one drive-through Starbucks that I know of and it's over by Bellarmine. Caroline's backyard is HUGE!! There's a small stream behind their house and I guess their backyard is considered a flood zone, which is why their property is so large. It's all grassy and pretty because the leaves are turning color on the trees and it was so refreshing and nice to see green and to be able to breath in country air. They built their house in 2008 and it's by far one of the nicest houses I've seen. Think Los Altos Hills worthy, but slightly larger and more land in general. They have two stories and a basement, and in the basement is a really neat movie room, in which we watched Admission on Friday night. Caroline and her siblings' rooms are on the second floor, and I stayed in her brother's room. They all have their own bathrooms, and the entrance to their rooms are cool because they've got a set of glass doors in addition to the glass doors that lead into the rooms themselves. Caroline's room is really pretty because she has something similar to a four post bed, except all the posts are connected at the top, and she wound lights around the top so it looks really pretty. All of their beds are huge, and it was really nice to sleep in a bed other than an extra long twin.
   The kitchen area is also really nice, they have lots and lots of windows which look out over the backyard. Caroline had mentioned how everything is white, and that the only walls that are painted are the ones in her sister Olivia's room. Walking into their house I definitely noticed that; everything was white and clean and open. There was just a lot of open space in general, which was nice. I think what was really cool was that the way that most of the windows in their house faced, you saw the backyard. Not many of the windows faced the other houses in their court, which is nice because it feels a bit more private.

   When we got back to Caroline's house on Friday, I met her dad and sister again. We hung out for a bit in their living room, just talking about various things, and then Caroline drove us out to dinner at this restaurant called Fiorientino's. It was pretty good! I really liked that place because it's attached to the smallest airport I've ever seen. Caroline's dad used to fly out of there a lot and he says it never has many direct flights for what he needed so he always had to connect in Baltimore or somewhere. It was so cute though, the security area was maybe the size of my room at home, not even.

   After dinner we drove around Litiz so that I could see a bit of it (even though it was dark outside) and we stopped by a grocery store so that Caroline's mom could get some fruit and other food for us. She got us something called whoopie pies, which are supposedly a Pennsylvania thing. They're so yummy! They're like oreos, but the cream inside is more like whipped cream, and the cookie part is fluffier, kind of like cake. Then Caroline and I went downstairs to watch a movie. Her mom made me this mint white tea that I really liked. I should ask her what kind it was, I kind of want to get it for myself.

   The next morning I woke up and got a shower and then headed downstairs. There was a note at the bottom of the stairs that said "Melissa, be right back!" so I thought they'd all gone. But I walked into the kitchen and saw Caroline's mom sitting at the kitchen table. They'd gone to the drive-through Starbucks and brought me a dirty chai latte, which was so sweet of them. I was touched that Caroline remembered what I order at Starbucks. We were originally going to go to yoga, but the night before Caroline changed her mind, so we just went to Pita Pit instead. Oh my goodness. That place is so good. I need to find the one that's supposedly near us in California because it was absolutely delicious.

   After that we headed back to the house and got ready because Caroline's dad was picking up her sister and her sister's friend Olivia so that we could go to Hershey Park. First we went to Chocolate World and went on this ride similar to the Haunted Mansion ride that took us through the history of Hershey and showed us how Hershey chocolate was made. As we left the ride they handed out little packs of Rolos, which was awesome. Free chocolate! Then we walked over to Hershey Park. I told myself that since it was highly unlikely that I was ever going back to Hershey Park, I might as well go on all the rides they drag me to.
   My overall impression is that the rides on the East Coast are SIGNIFICANTLY more intense than any I'd riden on the West Coast. My favorite was one called Lightning Racers. I've never heard of a ride that does this. There are two tracks with two coasters than run side by side simultaneously. They race each other! Apparently the ride ops can decide to start one slightly later than the other, and they can speed them up to a certain extent throughout the ride, which is how one wins over the other. I rode on Thunder with Caroline's sister Olivia, and Caroline and other Olivia went on Lightning. Now, Caroline is extremely competitive, so when Olivia's and my side won, Caroline's reaction was the best part of the night by far. We went on again and switched sides, and Caroline's side won that time. We think they rigged Thunder to win because it won something like ten times total while we waited in line to get on both times. I also really liked this one ride, Comet. It was a pretty standard rollercoaster, but I thought it was pretty because they had Christmas lights all along it and it was dark outside so the track was lit up by the lights.            
   The ride I liked the least was Stormrunner. Ugh. This ride has a very large incline at the beginning, and then drops you almost straight down into the rest of the ride. Caroline had told me about another ride called Fahrenheit that does the same thing, where it takes you up at a ninety degree angle and then drops back down almost into itself, that's how extreme the angle is. I hadn't seen that ride yet so when we were on Stormrunner and I saw a really tall, extreme drop in the distance, I said to Caroline, "That isn't us, right?" and she looked at me and said "Yupp." I just about died. It was one of those rides that brought you around to the starting point and stopped for a few seconds before launching you, and those seconds were the longest, scariest seconds of my life. I was so scared. I kept saying "No no no I don't want to do this anymore" and Caroline laughed and said "Too late now!" The ride went backwards a little bit before shooting you forward and as soon as we went backward I started screaming my head off. I absolutely, one hundred percent, hated that ride, and I'm never going back on so long as I live. But hey, I did it! Sure, I might have been shaking really badly and had to hold back tears, but I survived.
   As I mentioned before, Caroline is super competitive, and she's also super good at skeeball. There was a little skeeball arcade attached to the food court we ate at, and Caroline went crazy! I've never seen that side of her before. She had this technique down pat where every game she played she won at least one ticket, and to win one ticket you needed to get 240 points. She won enough tickets to get one of the bigger stuffed animals on the wall.
    Before we left the park, we stopped in at a shop toward the entrance to the park and I got a Hershey sweatshirt and some chocolate. We also got some candy to bring back for the rest of our suite.

   The rest of that night was pretty mellow, we just hung out in their kitchen and had tea. SNL was on and Caroline loves that show so we watched. I've never really sat down and watched that show, but it's really funny. I think at some point in her life Caroline should try auditioning for their show or something, because she's hilarious.
                                                           
   This morning I woke up and went downstairs and had English muffins with Caroline. She's also obsessed with Keeping Up With the Kardashians so we watched that too. Her parents came in with Starbucks again and got me a caramel brulee latte. On the ride over to Hershey Park the day before I'd mentioned how I love those and wait the entire year for Starbucks to bring them back, and I even called Starbucks to see when they'd start selling them again. Turns out they were selling them that day! So this morning when Caroline's mom walked in with a caramel brulee latte I was so happy and so touched that they remembered! Caroline's mom made a funny comment, she said "Yeah I was talking to you and as soon as you took your first sip you had this look on your face like Ohhh I'm so happy right now!" and she wasn't at all wrong. The first caramel brulee latte of the season was absolutely amazing.

   After breakfast we hung out for a bit watching tv, then Caroline, Olivia, and their mom and I left to go get lunch. It took us soooo long to decided where to eat, because Caroline and Olivia fight like cats and dogs (not unlike Katherine and myself), but we finally ended up at Panera. After lunch we drove over to their mall and shopped around for a few hours. They've got some cool stores over in PA, they have something called Bon Ton, which is like crossover between JC Penney's and Macy's. I ended up getting my dress for New Student Cab there. Caroline took me to this one store she'd mentioned before called Francesca's. It's dress heaven. And accessory heaven. Oh my goodness they have sooo many dresses. And when I walked in the first thing I noticed was how much jewelry they have! They have necklaces and bracelets and earrings in every single color you could imagine. I really wish I'd found something there that I liked because I can guarantee there are no Francesca's near us. It's a little boutique-y place, kind of like something you'd find on Castro St in Mountain View.

   We left the mall around 5 and headed back to Caroline's house for a bit before we left for the train at around 7:10. It was a 7:40 train, but we left early so we could stop at Five Guys to pick up some food for the train. I felt bad taking a family of vegans and vegetarians to a burger place, but Caroline's mom made brussel sprouts (which were suprisingly amazing) and soup for Caroline to eat on the train. I kept trying to pay for things this weekend but they refused to let me pay, because I was their guest. I paid for the stuff I got at the mall though. This entire weekend Caroline's family was so sweet, and I kept thanking them profusely for letting me stay in their home and for taking me places. It was just so nice to be able to get away from the city for a bit, and to be in a family environment again, even if it wasn't my own. And I was also just constantly amazed by their house.

   So now Caroline and I are on the train on our way back to NYU. We've got about an hour left to go, which isn't bad. There's wifi on the train which is awesome, so I can surf the interwebs and whatnot.