Remember That Blog I Was Writing?

My second semester and the beginning of summer reached unbelieveable levels of busy and my poor blog fell by the wayside a bit. It's not that I didn't have anything to say, just no time to say it! And I am soon to be on my way to Ohio to spend time with my sister and her five children so I am not sure my time for writing is going to increase anytime soon.

I have a lot of music to memorize this summer as well. Fortunately the first batch is over:

I loved, loved, LOVED the Bellini. Lovely, artful Italian opera that sounds as light as air but is technically demanding. Fortunately the chorus parts are pretty straightforward, but oh, how I did love listening to the soloists! Except for the one part where a huge moth the size of a bat decided to fly straight into the back row of altos and hang out awhile. Ah, the joys of outdoor singing!

Now the Requiem, on the other hand, just about did me in. The Latin was not so much an issue as was the way-too-high range of the female voices. It was like Extreme Singing for Altos. This made it feel very heavy and by the end of the rehearsals we were all pretty exhausted, not to mention the actual performance. Now that I have had my grump, I have to say that it is one of the most spectacular things I have ever sung. At one moment I actually choked up listening to the men sing the Tuba mirum and had to pull myself together before my next lines. So to sum it up, Berlioz: Stressful. Punishing. Hell on the voice. Sublime.

Now for the rest of the summer--Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

I sang some of Porgy and Bess in college, and thankfully have memorized the Beethoven already, so that will be just a brush-up, but I didn't realize quite how big Porgy and Bess was. I listened to the whole production on my way home from Tanglewood yesterday (3 hours) and realized there is a bit more to it than I thought. One song I remember from college brought me a hilarious memory--we sang this for some big BYU celebration in the Marriott Center (Homecoming?)  and Ariel Bybee was the guest soloist. I think it was like 1993 or 1994. When we were singing the chorus for the picnic song "Oh, I Can't Sit Down" there is a line that says:

Sure is dandy, got de likker handy

We had to substitute "hamper" for "likker". Ha, hah! Of course you can't have a bunch of Mormon kids singing about how much alcohol you have on hand! But remembering it made me laugh. All my choir friends from back then will remember that! I am hoping it does not work it's way into this performance, You know how your brain is about memorizing sometimes!

Just so you can see how many pages!!!!

 Anyway, hopefully I will be able to keep up a bit better in the future...hopefully.

True Love

Surpasses all boundaries: my laundry folding, Juan Carlos post-soccer-wound-treating, and any of our needs to walk through the room.

My Valentine

Juan Carlos asked me what I wanted for Valentines Day—mostly I hate that question because really, he makes every day Valentines Day. But I did want to see a smile on HIS face, so I said I wanted to go see our dog breeder’s new litter. I see this smile on Juan Carlos face only on certain occasions: when he is in Spain with his family  and friends, when Barcelona or the Spanish national team wins, and when he plays with dogs. This was the best Valentines Day ever—the only thing that would have made it better would have been to take one home.

 

Luna didn’t know QUITE what to do with all of these small, eager creatures wanting to play with her…

Uh…More Snow

We have lived in New England since 2006 and this is the first year we have seen any snow. And by snow I mean stuff that stays on the ground for more than a day. There has been a great deal of it this year, and the temperatures are staying low so it doesn’t melt. Now where I grew up this was just part of life, but here it causes chaos, mostly because there is nowhere to put the stuff, and it is in huge piles along the sides of the already narrow streets of Providence. In Utah there is lots of space and there are places to park your car other than on the street. Add to that that snow removal is not something that has to be done fairly often here. As one of my colleagues said, “this is Providence, we have two snowplows and a salt shaker!” 

I was dumbstruck on Thursday, watching the maintenance crew hacking away with shovels at the inch of ice coating the courtyard at school. It’s definitely a view of the school I have never seen.

Anyway, for the first time I am wishing that the sun would just come out and melt the stuff already. We went for our walk with Luna today and it was more of a half-walk-half-skate around Lincoln Woods.

But….it is February, which is usually the coldest month of the year here. Which means the snow may not be going anywhere.

Snow Day

 

We had a real nor’easter last night and got a decent amount of snow. Since my school was closed for the day, I got caught up with my grading and got some much needed rest. However, I couldn’t resist going out with the video camera to film Luna having fun with the snow in the way that only Berners can! Well, maybe Berners and Juan Carlos.  It’s been nice to see some real snow again.

Shoveling makes Juan Carlos feel manly—or maybe it’s because he’s manly that he feels like shoveling snow…I hope it will stop snowing at some point so he can stop going out!

Rhode Island Greenways: East Bay Bike Path and India Point Park

Today we took a walk around the India Point Park and part of the East Bay Bike Path. This area is right in the middle of Providence heading over to the East Side, so it was much more urban than the Blackstone. However, it was a lovely day and we learned some interesting things about the area.

Here is the view from our car back towards the bridge that connects I-195 West to I-95. As we explored the park we noticed this guy checking us out:

 

I half expected him to say “Mine!”

 

Here is Luna checking out the seagull!

  

This is the Seekonk River and since we do not have a boat there was only one way across….

The bike path actually runs along I-195, but fortunately we were separated from all the traffic.

Luna wanted her scenic view, too! As you can see, this is a pretty high traffic area and a lot of people seem to feel a need to write on a bridge when they cross it.

After we crossed the bridge we skirted the waterfront until we were directly across from where we parked. You can see the bridge we crossed in the far left of the photo behind the trees.

 

After we got back to the car it was time for a rest and for Luna to have a nice long drink. Then we went home and washed those dirty paws!!!!

Virtual

For the last year or so Juan Carlos and I have been supplementing his Spanish courses with a program called Second Life, where we hold lab activities and help sessions. This all happens online, so students can attend even if they are at home hanging out in their bedrooms. It is a lot of fun and helps the students feel more comfortable speaking the language.
Meet Eliza:
                    
Eliza is my avatar and she looks somewhat like me, if (gulp!) a few pounds lighter. And I admit readily that she does have better hair and a much better wardrobe than I do in real life.
Here is Eliza with Tanausu (i.e., virtual Juan Carlos)

Juan Carlos is actually better looking in real life, but we can’t all be gorgeous in real life, I guess, can we?
Here we are with some students:

More students:


It has been an experience learning how to teach in a virtual environment, and it is definitely an intriguing way to practice the target language. But I do have to admit that it’s also just fun to wear cute clothes and not worry about getting chalk dust all over them, and to wear shoes that are not sensible and not have to worry about how my feet will feel at the end of class!

Just That

"Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you...but be diligent unto the end."
D&C 10:4

 Since I am mostly continuing my goals for this year, I have decided to focus on this scripture and try to incorporate it more fully into my life. I think this means prioritizing the things that are important and giving my energy and attention to the things that are most important. In other words, it's time to cut out the rif-raff, because a person can only do so much. Some things I cannot cut out and they are going to be my focus this year:

1. Church stuff. Just can't cut it out. Don't really want to cut it out. So it stays.

2. Work. Must be done. (secretly love this, too)

3. Singing. All other activities get suckier if I don't do this.

4. Health.  Can't get away from it, and I'd like to stave off the aging for as long as possible.

5. Husband. This one's REAL easy to focus on, and good thing since #1-4 are going to be hard enough.

I often wonder how other people do resolutions, or how they don't do them. What do you plan for 2011?

Resolute

2010 has to have been one of the busiest years of my life. And while keeping resolutions has never been one of my strengths, it’s something that I like to do because at some point, I do actually make some progress.  This year the progress was good in some areas, but unfortunately I regressed in some areas. I have been thinking about what I want to focus on in the next year, but in the meantime, here is the recap of my resolutions for 2010:

#1: Paying off our debt: a
I have to say that the only way I could  be happier about this resolution is if somehow we managed to not have a house payment. However, all things considered, knowing we don’t have anything else out there hanging over our heads makes a huge difference in my peace of mind. And we have been very very lucky in that we are both gainfully employed and have never been in danger of losing our jobs. The way things are going these days, we are very grateful, believe me.

#2: Hiking all the Rhode Island Greenways:   a-
Next time I make a resolution like this I will look more closely at the map! We did a lot of hiking this year and made it through The Blackstone River Bikeway, the Ten Mile River Bikeway and parts of the East Bay Bike Path. We also did some walking and running trails around Newport. However, there are a lot more to go! So this one is going to be a continuing resolution, because we really enjoyed getting to know Rhode Island this year.

#3: Going to bed by 10:30 at night:   r
EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!
Now, I knew there would be nights where this wasn’t going to happen. Like anytime we were in Spain or someone from Spain visited us, for example. I don’t know how they do it. However, the rest of the year was not great, either. Not only did I fail to get to bed on time this year, but I ended up staying up later than I had in previous years.  The bottom line is we just plain bit off more than we could chew and we paid the price in tiredness. I haven’t decided whether or not I will make this a resolution for 2011. Maybe. Maybe not. Since it is now 10:34pm, I think I will sleep on it!

Newport News

This week our good friend Scott came to visit us. Scott lives in Newport News, VA, and so we HAD to take a trip to Newport so that he could say he had been to Newport in two different states.
First we went to the Brick Alley Pub for lunch, which is one of our favorite places in Newport. If you ever go there, be sure to visit the bathrooms. It’s an experience! As always, there is a lot of laughter and a lot of walking around fun places when Scott comes to visit.
 
Then we went for the obligatory run on the beach, and you can see that Luna found a friend but even that wasn’t enough to keep her from her wild dash!

Finally, too tired to run!

Sometimes that fur does come in handy!

We love Scott and can’t wait till our next visit.

And To All A Good Night

This Christmas season has been wonderful, but very busy! Most of my time was spent here:

All in all the Pops and the chorus did this concert thirty-seven times over three weeks, of which I did ten. You might think it would get old, but seriously, for me it never did. I did start to feel a bit vocally tired during week three, but I still felt very festive and excited for every concert. While I am glad I don't have to keep up the pace anymore, I will miss the sparkling, joyful Christmas music of the orchestra until next year. And I have to admire Keith Lockhart, who pulls off almost every single one of the 37 performances with the same routines and same jokes and same visits from Santa and still likes his job (although he does give us a good crusty look now and then when we miss an entrance).

Now I am ready for a few day's break before school starts again. May the rest of 2010 be joyful!

Kickoff

Obviously the sports terminology is infiltrating my brain. However, there is no better word for the carol-singing activity that we did this weekend at the Prudential Center. The idea was to break the Guiness World Record for amount of carolers. It didn't happen and I am not even sure it COULD have happened in the space that was available. But all that aside it was completely fun and a great way to kick off the concert season. Wednesday is the beginning of the Pops Holiday Concert series and therefore my next three weeks are going to be crazy.
But they are going to be fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5-0

So Barcelona played Real Madrid yet again in the never-ending rivalry that has JC locked in it's grip. I have to say I never heard of or cared about these teams before I married him, but now I am intensely interested in how things play out whenever these two teams play, because the result affects Juan Carlos' mood for days. There was a huge amount of hype on all the Spanish networks, so there was no way this game was not going to be big.
Juan Carlos is a Barcelona fan. Now, he is not a fan like myself. For example, if in college BYU lost a game and the University of Utah, their arch-rivals, won and went to a bowl game or a championship, I would root for Utah, of course, because they were the next closest thing to home. Real Madrid is the arch rival of Barcelona and JC hates them. Hates them with a capital H. It doesn't matter who is playing them, he wants them to be beaten. Even if they make it to the end of the Champions League and the other team is Italian or German or whatever, he will root for another country rather than root for Real Madrid. And the feeling for Real Madrid fans is mutual, they hate Barcelona with a passion and like nothing better than to see them go down.
I do not understand this, but over the years I have come to accept that Juan Carlos just needs Real Madrid to lose. I have even become a Real Madrid hater myself, but most of this has to do with the fact that I dislike some of their players, and that they just can't seem to help acting like jerks.
Real Madrid came into this game undefeated this season, and Barcelona had lost one. This was going to be the year that Real Madrid took Barcelona down.

It didn't happen that way. I have watched a lot of Barcelona games, but this one was completely beautiful, from start to finish. Barcelona won this one 5-0 and sent a very clear message to Real Madrid--they were not giving up that top spot in the standings.

Juan Carlos is the happiest I have ever seen him, apart from when Spain won the World Cup. We watched replays for a week afterwards. But I feel like I have done my wifely duty, because I have watched this Barcelona/Real Madrid game five times. Yes, five times, one for each goal. And while it's not what I would choose  to watch, I have gained an appreciation for the skill and athleticism of soccer players. Seriously. Beautiful. I really love most of the Barcelona players and they played amazingly well.



http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/photos?slug=834097fabfb06700d7ababaab4bbe07d-getty-fbl-esp-liga-fc_barcelona-real_madrid-clasico&search=barcelona

 If you feel like watching first class soccer, they have been replaying it for two days on the Spanish affiliate on ESPN, or you can watch the highlights here.

Whether or not you like soccer or you are just a supportive spouse, this was one for the record books, and pretty much means I will have a happy Juan Carlos for some time.

Thanks List

I know, I am a bit late to be posting on this one, but better late than never, right? Also, being married to someone who is not American kind of gives you a different spin on this holiday. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday though, so I have had to work really hard to get him on board. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Turkey: (Of course one reason had to be food) This is the only time during the year that I get to cook a turkey. JC is not terribly big on turkey, but he’ll go for it once a year. There are only two of us, so we freeze half of it and eat the other half for the week following Thanksgiving. Then I hoard the turkey and eat it bit by bit over the rest of the year. Tomorrow is soup day, hooray!!!!

2. Fall: Of course this HAS to be my favorite holiday because it happens during my favorite season. I love fall. I wish fall lasted six months. I like Halloween, but that seems to be more about the candy, the costumes, the ghosts and goblins. Thanksgiving for me is more about family and the joys of the season.

3. Holiday Season: I have never been big on the whole shopping aspect of the holidays. It’s just not that much fun for me. But the caroling, the time spent with family and friends, the concerts and the lights make me enjoy this time so much. Thanksgiving is the time that kicks all that off. We don’t have small children of our own but we so enjoy seeing and hearing about what everyone else does with their families. It is one of our favorite things about this time of year.

Juan Carlos and I have a tradition that we follow every year as we eat our turkey. We talk about the things we did during the year that made us the happiest and we talk about why they made us happy. Here are the top three from our list from this year. There were lots more but these were the ones that stuck out in our minds:

Annie:

1. Celebrating 10 years with Juan Carlos at the top of the Birigoyo volcano in La Palma. How beautiful. I will remember it for the rest of my life.

2. Seeing a new part of Spain and Portugal with my mom and dad for the first time.  I am so grateful my parents could share this trip with us.

3. Visiting the Rey family, who I met when I was a missionary in France. I had not seen them in over 12 years and I bawled my eyes out when I saw them again.  They are also some of the people I love best in all the world, even though we live so far apart.

 

Juan Carlos:

1. Okay, really, do I need to say anything?

 

I think this was the most grateful moment in Juan Carlos’ whole LIFE, not just this year. You ever want to see a bunch of grown men crying and hugging each other, hang out in the country where they win the World Cup for the first time.

2. This was also the year that Juan Carlos’ family and friends visited him here in the United States for the first time. It was so wonderful to have them and for them to finally see what it is he does over here, haha!

3. Visiting Acadia National Park in Maine. These were about the only three days we had to ourselves this year, and this was definitely a highlight of our year.

I hope your holiday was as wonderful as ours, and that you took a moment to think about the things that make you the happiest and most thankful.

A Random Act Of Culture

Usually I am not one to get obsessed with the holidays the moment Halloween is over, and this year in particular I have thought about the holidays in more of a "Oh yeah, Christmas, when I dig out from under everything else that is going on, I will think about that" kind of way, but this year I had a concert run in November and on the last night we were handed our music for the holiday concerts with the Boston Pops. So the season has come a little earlier this year. That, and one of the chorus members forwarded this to everyone in the chorus today:



I always love seeing these things. And this one had the side effect of making me fully in the mood for celebration.

So let the holidays begin!!!

Bittersweet

For the last three and a half years it has been my honor and pleasure to serve as Young Women’s president in the Central Falls Ward. For my non-Mormon friends, that just means that my “job” in my church congregation is to work with the young women ages 12-18 who live in the same area as I do, to teach them gospel principles and life skills and also have all kinds of fun with them. I was very nervous when my bishop called me to do this, since I didn’t know the area, the girls, or even very many people in the ward, since I had been working in the Primary  (3-11 year-olds) since moving into the ward. . My bishop is an inspired guy, though, and knew what he was doing, because the young women are possibly the coolest people IN the ward.
I have to admit that sometimes the responsibility was a lot to handle and sometimes when I was supposed to be running the weekly activity for the girls I really wanted to be grading papers or prepping lesson plans or taking care of one of the other thousand responsibilities in my life.  I mean, that’s life, right? Add to that that these girls are living in a world that is the polar opposite of the world I was raised in, so what on earth could I possibly have to offer them? But the kicker is that I was always so happy after those activities, and somehow all the papers got graded and lessons planned (and don’t forget music memorized!) regardless.
A couple of weeks ago we had an activity at my house where the girls came over and learned to make cake. It had been a long day, a long week, a long month. (More about that in another post) I was tired and discouraged and not really looking forward to it. At 7:30pm there was a knock on my door, and seven lively, giggling young girls swept into my house and their optimism and their cheerfulness blew in with them. It was a really fun night, and as usual, I was so glad that I hadn’t let anything take priority over them. The girls gave me my weekly lesson on what the latest lingo is around school, and hey, there was cake. How could it not be fun?
In the beginning I looked at this as a calling in which I was supposed to be serving and working for these girls, but the truth is that they have blessed and brought as much to my life as anything I was able to do for them, and very possibly more.

Of course there is a lot that probably wouldn’t have gotten done without my awesome counselors Becky and Kelly. They love these girls so much and it shows in everything they do. Kelly is taking over in Central Falls now and in my opinion there is no one better for the job. The girls are so lucky to get her and Becky.
I’ve been asked to work with the stake Young Women’s presidency, which is sort of doing the same job,  but on a more regional level, working with young women from all over Rhode Island and Connecticut. Again, I am a bit daunted, but I have already worked with some of those girls at Girls’ Camp, so it won’t be a total unknown. My life is teenagers, what can I say?
I will miss my Central Falls girls so much; even though I will still be seeing them, I won’t be working with them regularly. So, to Flora, Agatha, Myra, Cassandra, Victoria, Loriana, Lucia and Lucilia, thank you for being the most awesome girls ever and for bringing me so many smiles. Remember how special you are and how much I have loved working with you.

Mo' Music

Last week I went up to Boston for rehearsal of a new piece (for me) that we are singing with the Boston Symphony in November. The piece is Atlántida by Manuel de Falla. I was feeling pretty good about this because it is a Spanish composer. They speak Spanish in Spain, right? Well I got my music in the mail and it looked like no other Spanish that I have seen. Turns out it's in Catalan. Nice. Enough like Spanish that it doesn't sound totally foreign, but unlike Spanish enough that it gives me a major headache.

We had a two hour rehearsal last week to go through the pronunciation of the language and it was pretty grueling. Today I have surfaced from a super overloaded week and checked the rehearsal calendar. These sixty pages of Catalan have to be memorized by November 1st, which freaked me out in the extreme.

Also, last week I went up to Revere and went to a movie theater to see the Metropolitan Opera´s Live in HD broadcast of Das Rheingold. It. Was. Amazing. I can´t wait to see the next production. James Levine is back conducting after surgery and there is rejoicing among all musicians. Here is a review:
http://markronan.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/das-rheingold-metropolitan-opera-live-relay-october-2010/


Adéu per ara!