My Recent Thoughts & Doings

Less than a week until school starts.

Been busying myself with lots of yoga, cooking for myself, staging arias, rehearsing, and all that jazz. I'm also holding myself to a stricter code of behavior lately. No caffeine after quitting time (read: after 5 pm). Sleeping around midnight. Restricting computer use late at night. Things like that. I'm definitely starting to feel much better than I did last week, so that's a good sign.

The big thing is really the restricting computer use bit. Rather than spending my last conscious minutes scrambling to catch up on the blogs I read and responding to Facebook posts, I've started meditating on a sonnet a night--that is, I'm analyzing and memorizing poetry. Surprisingly, it really doesn't take all that long. Then again, I've started with the sonnets that I'm already familiar with. We'll see if I can keep it up. I won't force myself if I eventually get to the point when I'm just too exhausted come bedtime, but for now it's a calming, pleasant, and satisfying way to entertain myself before knocking out.

What else? Currently in email correspondence with a Piano Masters candidate who wants to collaboratively tackle Rachmaninoff's Op. 38 (a set of six songs) in his Masters recital next year so that's an interesting commitment I might be taking on. It means more Russian and that'll be good to expand that section of my repertoire.

The masterclass I'm singing in is tomorrow. I'm not quite prepared... all of the music is there, but I can't seem to nail the dramatic portion of it all down just yet. It doesn't feel natural. But by gumption, it will be! I'm going to be Konstanze if it fucking kills me.