Boston dreaming on a sunny Boise day

so i am looking at flights to Boston for my sister's wedding and suddenly i'm imagining flying into Logan and seeing my friends and my family and the ocean and going to RoL Church the next day. i'm getting all itchy with anticipation just thinking about it and it's 5 weeks away. i guess i'm just gonna have to visit boston.com to tide me over for the day.

i'm so excited to be going home.

Mission Trip Story

For all you folks who keep asking to hear more, here's a taste. Because I don't know how to say it better than this, here is what Curt and Sara Hobbs, the missionaries we worked with in Krakow, Poland, wrote on their blog. Some brief background info: the Hobbs hail from Wyoming, where they were campus ministers with Chi Alpha before going to Poland about 4 years ago.


Bucking Broncs + Jesus!
May 28, 2006

This past week we finished up our time with the Chi Alpha team from the Big Sky Region. God showed His amazing love and the way He draws people to Himself. Maria was one such person He drew to us. She is a lady in her mid-late 30's like us. She had left Poland and traveled, checked out Buddhism, and New Age stuff. She has mixed it all together with the Catholicism of her childhood. But she saw our group praying and worshipping in the Blonia (field/meadow/park) near the student hotel. She said she saw "white light" around us and joined in. She showed up the next day even though the rain kept us from doing "devotions" in the Blonia.

Then several days later I was waiting to pick up the kids from school and I saw SOMETHING straight out of the Cowboy State! Across the street I see an automobile that had a WYOMING bucking bronco sticker on it So being the rude, loud and brash American that I am not, I went up to the car and knocked on the window to a surprised woman. I tried to assure her I was not going to hurt her or rob her.

I asked her where she got that wonderful bucking bronco WYOMING sticker and during the conversation, Maria came up. She was as surprised to see me talking to her friend as I was to find out that someone in Krakow has even been to Wyoming and liked it so much that they'd buy such a sticker.

So that was an exciting confirmation for her that God is indeed working and drawing her to Himself. They joined the group for our last outing with pizza and waiting to see a glimpse of the Pope. Please pray that we can connect her with some Poles in the next couple weeks before we go [on furlough] so that God can continue to work on her.




Waiting for the pope after eating pizza, Maria and her friend chat with members of the Big Sky team.

quiet weekend

so i'm back, in Boise and just about adjusted to the time zone, the new apartment, and my new roommie who likes to keep our suite at about 65 degrees fahrenheit year-round. these days i am really enjoying tall glasses of 2% milk and Boise sunshine and sleeping in my own bed. but i miss my "team" and Europe and the red-tiled roofs and green rolling hills. i think that the hardest thing to get used to now is how quiet it is. for three weeks, i was hardly ever alone. i was part of a family of 22 and most meals and bus rides were accompanied by chatter and laughter. we were almost always loud enough to broadcast "We are Americans!" to all the folks around. more often than not, this was quite embarrassing, but now i miss that, too.
okay, enough melancholy. i have a full summer ahead of me and the trip to Poland and Slovakia got it off to a wonderful start. up next, working at BSU's week-long chamber music camp for junior high and high school kids. and soon my 7 rolls of Poland/Slovakia pictures will come and i can have a blast remembering and sharing the memories with folks. so i'm off to enjoy the quiet of my own, somewhat chilly, room. :)

hello from Krakow

sorry it's taken so long to post. here is the e-mail i sent out last Friday...

On 5/19/06, Sylvia wrote:

i'm here! i have only a few minutes in this internet cafe. wish i could send you the picture i just took, looking out to Ryneck, the market square, in the center in Old Town. full of people, old and young. they are shopping, chatting, eating, flirting, biking, etc. it feels good to be in a city again! Beautiful, old, buildings; so much history; good food; crazy language; kind people. check my blog for pics later.
do widzenia.
-sylvia.

good day

at first, it was quite hard for me to open up and talk with Polish folk. most of those my age and younger speak English, so the language barrier is not as big a problem as the fact that they are introverts and so am i. anyway, Saturday my team broke intsmall groups and we spent the afternoon touring the city with a handful of Poilsh university students and so i got more comfortable. what did we do? well, we ate "pancakes", more like crepes, for lunch and then toured the main Krakow attraction, the Wawol castle, which dates from the 13th century. beautiful. before meeting up with the rest of the big group for supper we behaved like the locals and strolled along the Wisla, the river that runs through the center of Krakow. unlike the locals, we taught our Polish guides how to play cribbage. :)
while it is still not easy for me to walk up to people and chat, today i was able to overcome some fear and talked with a lovely young lady, Ange, at our first outreach at her university apartment complex, what they call a "student hostel". my teammate Crystal had been talking with her and a few of her friends for awhile before i joined them. after i asked them where i could find a "toalety" - public bathrooms are scarce in Krakow - she lead Crystal and i up to her dorm room. over the tea and small sandwiches she offered us - gotta love European hospitality! :) - we continued our conversation through broken English, French, German, Polish and gestures. Ange is in the midst of studying for exams - ten of them! - and said yes when i asked if we could pray for her about these. Crystal told me that she and Ange had talked earlier about the Pope (big dude here!) and Jesus, and that Ange said that the old pope was in her heart while the new one is in her head. And Jesus? he is in here heart. hmmm.... there was a sweet presence in the room when we prayed and after we finished she placed her hand on her heart and smiled at us. i did too. i felt like we had found a sister...
more to share, but gotta run. paying to use the internet so need to keep it short. hope ya'll are well. blessings from the other side of the world. and thanks to all of you who helped me get here. :)

You know it's gonna be a fun week when...

...the power goes off campus-wide on the first morning of finals.

I arrived at the Morrisson Center around 9:20 to meet up with my accompanist. I noticed that the computer lab was dark and thought "that's odd", and as I walked in further I smelled something funny. Then I went to get my violin out of my locker and found the instrument locker room pitch black, and I was like, "Oh dear". So glad that I had my bike light in my backpack. "Always be prepared" means I'm usually carrying more than enough junk to keep me outfitted for the first year after a major disaster, but it has its advantages at times. After I got out my violin and music, I chatted with the department secretary who told me that she had heard about a professor giving a test orally, and maybe "he sang the musical examples"? I headed up stairs to warm up and find my accompanist in her usual practice room. Instead, I found the conducting class crowded in the hallway, using the electricity from the room to power a boombox CD player so that they could do their final exam. I sought out another practice space and was about to get warmed up when the power died in there, too. Groans of exasperation came from other rooms where students were getting ready for their performance juries (kind of like finals for private lessons). I finally found my accompanist and we rehearsed to the "mood lighting" from the small amount of sunshine that made it into her husband's office. After a good little rehearsal - my jury isn't 'til Wednesday and I think it is gonna go well. :) - I left the office and found a bassist reharsing in the hall with his accompanist. They had pushed a piano out from a window-less classroom to utilize the emergency hall lights that were still on. Probably the best scene of all was of the aforementioned conducting class. Now without power from the practice rooms, they had migrated out-of-doors. When I rode past the group on my way to work, Mary was conducting her final to band music blaring from someone's car with the rest of the class and the prof seated on the sidewalk watching her. Hey, that works!

I love it when people are forced to improvise. While it can bring out the worst in some people, it brings put the best in most and makes for this fun, quirky atmosphere. I love the smiles passed between folks who usually walk past one another without so much as an acknowledgment, and the laughs, the sense of comraderie. Makes for a good ending to a good semester, don't you think?

flight

wow. today is the last day of classes, the end of the semester, the end of my first year at Boise State. where did the time go? just flew away i guess. yesterday i performed some solo Bach in String Area Class. i played a movement of the E major Partita from memory, which was a little nerve-wracking, but it turned out all right. in Area Class, as in Studio Class, the profs and the students in the audience give feedback after each person's performance. one guy said he liked the dynamics in my performance, that my fortes were loud and strong, and my pianos were soft but they didn't disappear. that made me so happy to hear, especially since in the past i have had a tendency to get weak whenever i try to play softly. somebody else said i filled up the room, and since i was playing in a 200-seat recital hall, that's a pretty sweet compliment. i had a couple little memeroy lapses and, in those spots my tone got funky and i made up a few notes in order to just keep going, but overall it was a good performance.
wow. i remember at the beginning of the semester looking at the performance calendar for the violins and seeing my name at the bottom on the last Area Class and wondering how it would be; it seemed so far away, and now it's gone.
now on to another project, another bunch of stuff to finish before the i am done for the school year: performance juries and a 10-page paper and accompanying presentation and a pedagogy final. then there's getting ready for the trip to Poland/Slovakia and moving and a little recital with my students the day before I leave Boise for three weeks. after a road trip up to Bozeman, MT, i meet up with my team on Monday the 15th and then head out of the country.
wow. i'm really going. i can't wait to fly...

long quote

It's been a long while since I posted, and even longer since setting up a decent quote. Please accept my apologies, or at least this excuse: I'm quite busy now, with the end of the semester just a few weeks away. I have lots of projects and a paper and performances to play and others to watch... And then it is a beautiful spring out there, and I want to enjoy that, too. Also, in the past month I have begun to make friends here, and suddenly I have other stuff to do besides homework on weekend evenings! So, yes, been busy. But, fear not, faithful readers, the posting may falter, but it will not fail! :)

That said, I wanted to share with ya'll a quote from a sermon a few weeks ago by Paul, the pastor of my church here in Boise. We were looking at Acts 2:14-21 and the quote there from Joel, concerning the end times, when Paul said, "There's indication in the Bible that there's going to be more disasters... People look at last year and go, 'Man, what a year: the tsunami and hurricanes. Now, tornados and all these different things - Windows on a Mac...'"

snowshoeing - the real pics

just in case you haven't tripped on over to my photostream at flickr.com lately, here are a few of my favorite pictures of that snowshoeing trip, these from my real camera. enjoy!

proof...

...that Google is letting success go to its head, - er maybe heart.

"When you thnk about it, dating is just another search problem.And we’ve thought about it. A lot. Google Romance™ is our solution."

oh dear.

randomness

so it's that time again, time to write, and i am glad to do so but a warning: this post will be less focused than most, just a bunch of little things to say.

first, i finally broke down and joined MySpace. ahh, sigh. i am almost ashamed to say that i am really enjoying it... mostly beacuse i have friends - oh, yes i do have friends! oh dear. i mean, two of these friends make music and they have some of their stuff on MySpace so it is superfun to hear it, 'specially cause one of these guys is back in Boston, and hearing his so-called "jambient" brings back happy memories of dancing with friends. and then there is the fun of finding music by other folks via friends' friends. all this to say, if you are on MySpace, check out my little space here .

next.
i feel i little embareased about the pig thing. i posted the present "quote" on my sidebar on a day that i was buzzing with sugar, caffiene and seriuos sleep deprivation. not sure which day that was cause the past few weeks have been a blur of such days! yes, i'm so glad it's finally spring break. i took a three hour nap today. sweet. anyway, that's my excuse. when i have a better quote - and i'm looking hard now! - i'll post it ASAP.

finally, i had another intriguing "home" moment. i was watching the weather channel a few nights ago, you know the "Local on the 8's", and they were showing the satellite view of the Northwest and i had this thought, that, yeah this - Boise, this corner of the Northwest - feels like home. it was a sweet, fleeting contentment. Thanks God.

"follow this bike to..."

my bike's rear fender is now a rolling endorsement for my church. not that i've actually ridden it there, but, theoretically, i could. it's just that i'd end up all sweaty and gross after the six miles from my house. might make the "meet and greet" time over donuts a little awkward.
not sure how long the sticker will last on the plastic. looks cool for now though.

snowshoeing

yesterday i went snowshoeing for the first time. i remember being a little kid and first hearing how Native Americans had used snowshoes and thinking, "wow, walking on top of snow! i wish i could do that". so i guess the trip was a little dream come true. we - me and some folks from the Pursuit - went up to Morse Creek past Idaho City and hiked up the side of a mountain. we stayed on the trail where the snow was pretty packed down, so next time i wanna work even harder and practice "walking on water".
as i have probably mentioned before, living here in a desert valley i really miss the snow. so it was great to see lots and lots and lots of it. beautiful. Heather and i both took lots of pics, her with her fancy, schmancy digital SLR and me with my trusty film SLR. i shot a whole roll on my camera - kind of a splurge for me - and mailed the film in this morning. i can't wait to see how they turned out. til then, here are the two pics i took with my phone.


Heather and i say "cheeze"

kudos

just a quick thanks to Kate for helping me get the "Just for Kicks" section up and running on the sidebar. she is finishing up a long stint of involvement with the Marching Band, first as a student marcher, then a GA and most recently part-time staff, before heading off to bigger and better things. check out her blogs. she's seriously addicted to writing!
anyway, Kate did the template thing quickly this morning at work. no, I'm not reading Curious George. and I actually like alot of the music on her office computer. it's an eclectic mix, to be sure, but keeps me humming as I file band pieces with titles like "Ferocious Fanfares" and "Born to Boogie".
so tommorow I will update "...Kicks". I gotta find a cool quote. hmmm. maybe it will be quote of the month.

still under construction

okay, so now my brain hurts. i can't yet figure out how to finish what i started but eventually i want to have a little section where i periodically update silly quotes and list books and music i've discovered recently. til then...

another quote i came across the other day, this time on a bumper sticker:
MONEY TALKS
mine says goodbye

and a cool book, especially for you Russia aficionados:
The Fire Escape is Locked for Your Safety: On the Road in the Former Soviet Union, Molly J. Baier

happy weekend!

under construction

howdy faithful readers.
just an fyi:
for the next hour i'm going to be experimenting with my template, so things might look wierd for a bit.

victim

ah, the music stand. when it works well, we pay it no respect, just grab it by the neck and drag it around. then when it isn't functioning correctly, we groan and abandon it. worse, it is an easy target for fits of rage that come upon the frustrated musician practicing challenging pieces. looks like someone lost it one day in the practice room and this stand was the closest object at hand.
what a pity.


:)

Quote du Jour

Heard on The Effect this morning:

"Two things we know for sure.
One, there is a God.
Two, you are not Him."

:)

sunny days

"Today is a beautiful day to be a college student", I find myself thinking as I walk across campus, passing crowds of other college kids doing the same. The sky is blue with just a few puffy clouds, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and there is a gentle spring-like breeze. And while I am working on just a measly nap (less than six hours of sleep since yesterday), I have finally sent off my applicaiton for Big Sky Expeditions' summer missions trip to Eastern Europe. Ahh, it feels good to get something done. Now where's that cheap caffeine in the form of 25 cent can of Shasta Cola...

Gatherings - Part I

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, and my blog isn't going to die out, either. Guess I have been experiencing a posting dry spell. Anyway, I'm back, and here is the second installment in "what I did over my winter vacation". I'll try to finish it before June. :)


Decmeber 25th is Happy Christmas and Merry Birthday for my dad. In the evening, after finishing the traditional Christmas stuff, we do Dad's B-day and, inevitably, there is a "surprise cake". Here he is with his 61st.


My sister Therese and her fiance Chris, aka, "Chrese and Tris, I mean Chris and Therese."




It was great to see Nate and Tina and the new addition, Anastasia, as they visited friends and family across the US during their summer break from work and school in New Zealand.


My favorite "expecting" couple, at a cafe in Central Square, Cambridge.


For a family outing, we drove to Fitchburg and then to... some other Massachusetts town where we ate supper at this buffet. Favorite part: singing Christmas carols all the way as we drove through the dark, pointing out impressive Christmas light displays every now and then.

Par-tays

Here is the first round of pictures from my three weeks in Boston over the break between semesters. The time was full of gatherings so I decided to theme these blog posts around those meetings. Enjoy!

For Holly's b-day she wanted to eat out and do Karaoke so Alice directed us to Cathay Pacifica. After stuffing ourselves with Chinese food, we headed to Pacifica's lounge where Alice, Holly and the latter's "little" brother took turns serenading us.





New Years Eve, Adam and Jack were co-hosting a party at the Reel Bar in Allston with another DJ dude. At first unable to decide whether or not to trek out, the five of us ladies in the Yuill Circle house finally started off to the party at 11:20 pm and made it to the bar just in time for the count-down. Then we danced another hour to the smooth sounds Jack was spinning.




Jack and the Ladies

Finally, a few days before I flew back to Boise, the White ladies invited folks to join them at Matt Murphy's pub for a goodbye dinner before their move up to Anchorage, Alaska. Lot's a laughs, some hugs and pictures, and promises to visit someday. Good times.


Brenna and Cait

more pics of this shindig

quick post

howdy folks. just found it humorous that Boise State's library now has a blog on blogger.com. someone even left a comment on the first post. :)

Hallelujah, Hallelujah...

Choirs are singing!
Angels are dancing!
Bells are ringing!
Organs are resounding!
(big gulp of air)
I got a Graduate Assistantship!

I will be working in the office of BSU's Marching Band greeting folks at the front desk as they visit the office and answering phones and organizing the music library, etc. It's not the most glamorous job in the world but I'll get all my tuition and fees paid for as well as receiving a stipend. One thing that I'm looking forward to is helping the office move into their new digs in the newest building on campus - a multi-million dollar monstrosity that will be the indoor practice space for the football team as well as holding offices for athletics and cheerleading and Marching Band. It opens at the end of this month and so a lot of my job will be helping with that transition.
So that's the big news of the new semester. Since I'll be working 20+ hours for my GA and also teaching a couple hours a week, as well as being a full-time grad student - yeah, I think that's it - I am hoping to get a room in a Suite on campus. I don't feel like I'll have any time to commute, especially since I am still car-less.
I start this new adventure next Wednesday. Check back here for more episodes of this particular drama. :) And thanks, gentle reader, for taking the time to share this good news with me!

Boise again

so i'm back. i had another funny home moment on thursday, in the middle of my day o' travel "out West". i got my awesome parents to drive me two hours from Boston so that i could fly out from Providence, Rhode Island - much cheaper than flying form Boston's Logan. (Thanks again.) i spent the 3 hours from Providence to Atlanta reading a book i picked up at Salvation Army. i tend to "get lost" in fiction, whether it's a book or a show on TV or a movie. it's like i live in that place/time/experience for a little. so after i "deplaned" the jet from Providence and started walking thorugh the Atlanta airport, i tried to orient myself: "Where am i going? oh yeah, i'm going home" and the image in my mind was Logan airport. then i had to smile to myself and remember that "home" this time was Boise...
but it's good. i'm looking forward to classes starting again and i love looking out and seeing mountains. i already miss having friends nearby, but i've got this stubborn hope that i can and will make real friends here. one promising thing: i think i've found a church. it's called the Pursuit and meets in a movie theater cause, although it has about twice the number of folks as River of Life, my church in Boston, the Pursuit is only two years old. i've gone twice now and so far the folks at this church seem real cool and so i feel very hopeful.
what else... other than trying to get back into practicing and working at Interlibrary Loan - very excting! - i am not terribly busy. which is fine. oh yeah, i am also catching up on past episodes of "Lost". yes, i too am a "Lost" addict, thanks to my roommate. i fell into it at the beginning of the season last fall and now i suffer from withdrawal if i miss an episode. to make matters worse - better? - Chica got the first season of the show on DVD for Christmas so i've spent a few hours nearly every night since getting back to Boise in front of her big TV catching up with the show. well, i am still on vacation, kinda...
well, gotta run. til next time.

"home" is a relative word

so when i am at my parent's apartment, i say "home" and i mean the house at Yuill Circle where i lived for three years with some of the awesomest roommates ever before i had to move closer to school and later out of state. over my Christmas break i am spending most of my nights at this house, aka "the art house." but when i am here i find myself thinking, "i need to do such-and-such when i get home", that is, my house on Centennial in Boise. on the other hand, a few weeks ago when i was on my way here from Boise for the break and i said i was "going home", i was referring to the city of Boston, but it felt most appropriate to start off my stay at my parents' place, cause that's kinda "home", too... anyway!
i have been really, really, really happy to be here. it's just great to be around people who love me and know me and still like me, too. sure e-mail and blogs and phone calls are great, but since i think of "home" as where my relationships are, it's really good to be here. so, to my friends in the other "home" places, sorry i can't visit just now, but i'll try to keep in touch.
and to everybody, happy new year!

back to the future - part III

I open this post with a picture of me and my other human housemate, Chica. A picture of her son Zeek and the most-beloved cat Sammy can be found in part II .



Here is a picture from Thanksgiving. I spent it with Tot, her family in nearby Meridian, Idaho, and the inimitable Chris. Tot her mom and I had just finished the most annoying Scrabble game ever. We each had trouble getting good letters and it just never got exciting. But we persevered, and took the picture to prove our success at finishing! Oops, I blinked. Oh well.

Finally, a follow up to my last
post. (I guess I finally figured out how to make the link thing work. Can you tell?!?) Basically, a fellow grad student of violin, J, needed another violinist and a violist for a quartet gig at a wedding in McCall, a ski resort town about 90 miles north of Boise. Since it's a pretty good distance, J decided to make a vacation out of the trip, so she rented a hotel room for the night before the wedding and asked if myself and the violist, K, would like to join her. She didn't exactly have to twist my arm. Sunday morning before the wedding, we took a drive up into the mountains near Cascade to visit a primitive hot spring pool. After soaking for about an hour we drove to McCall, met up with the cellist, and played happy wedding music at the stunning White Tail Lodge. The wedding took place in a room that overlooks the lake, and beyond that mountains, just after the sun set behind those mountains. Wow. To finish off the fun, after we finished playing we took the tip a member of the wedding party gave us and used it to eat at the Mexican restaurant Chapala. Fast, cheap, good. And then J paid us $100 each and thanked us.
"No, no, thank you!"

ummm...

It's been awhile so I guess I should post something. Not sure what to write since not much is going on. No, let me re-phrase that. A TON is going on, but none of it makes interesting blog material. Basically, I am practicing alot and studying and practicing more and trying to get some sleep, too. One piece of good news is that I passed the Theory Predictive Exam so I am very, very close - just 1/9th of the History Predictive - to being a regular status grad student. Yay. I've got my classes set for next semester and I'm looking forward to them. I'm also excited that the solo piece that I've been working on since September - 1st movement of Mendelssohn's violin concerto - is finally starting to sound like music! I will perform it in early December then play it again for my jury (like a final for private lessons; a pretty big deal) a week later. So, nothing exciting...
I do get a whole week off of classes for Thanksgiving. That's pretty sweet. I also have a pretty cool weekend ahead of me. I don't want to give it all away, yet. I'll just say it has something to do with hot water and mountains and getting a paid mini-vacation.
:)
Pictures will come soon, I promise. Til then, Happy Thanksgiving!

back to the future - part II

Here is the much anticipated sequel to part I. I will flatter myself in the belief that I am not the only one anxiously awaiting its arrival. :)
If you want to see more, click here. Enjoy.

I (usually) sleep at home, but this is where I live


Theory homework on the banks of the Boise River

I call this my "super commuter" look


Zeek and Sammy, two of my housemates

at the end of one of those days

i'm thinking, it feels so random to be here,
in this little city
in the desert...
looking up to a clear sky, a moon
and a host of stars,
a quiver of a moment of faith

i'll take that.

"Someday my prints will come..."

Actually, I am still using up the last of a second roll of film of my exlporations of Boise so I can post cool pics of the city for ya'll to enjoy. Til then, here are a few pictures taken by other folks and posted on flickr, hand-picked by yours truly, for your "touring Boise by internet" pleasure. enjoy.


an outline of the state of Idaho



















somebody's picture of the
football stadium at my school









the Friendship bridge, a footbridge across the Boise River, near the BSU campus




























the water fountain at Boise Center on The Grove, in front of the tallest building in Boise

oh, those Sox

My favorite phrase last year regarding our Red Sox was "The Hunt for Red October," with "red" in the old fashioned font like the B on the baseball caps. And then, wow, what an October it was! But now... it is with great sorrow that I acknowledge the end of of the Red Sox reign as world champs. They fell to the White Sox in the ALDS yesterday, swept in 3 games. Ah, sigh, there's always next year... now, where have I heard that before?

Still, I can't help but grin at the high drama we Bostonians feel for our sports, with a healthy does of cynicsim, of course. To sum it up, here's a quote from the Globe's website : "Certainly, the 2004 Red Sox took us on a ride that we can’t possibly ever expect to enjoy again." For more of the sob story: http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/slideshows/alds

And now, I guess it's "Go White Sox!" Hey, they've been waiting since 1917 for a World Series win, so it's only fair right? :)

obsession

Inspired by cuchillo's and la falda's musings on the subject, here are some quotes I use to psyche myself up for another day of sleep deprivation.

"There's no rest for the wicked
and the righteous don't need it." -my dad.

"to sleep is weak." -magnetic poetry on my fridge.

"Caffeine is cheaper than sleep." -when weighing Coke v.s. nap

"Sleep is for wimps." -today's thought.

"Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation." -Author Unknown

"To Sleep, Perchance to Dream; ay, There's the Rub." -Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

When I told her about my crazy schedule of late, my roommate said, "Welcome to grad school". So it may only be October, but I'm really looking forward to vacation. 'Til then, I guess I'll be chuggin' along... "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."

back to the future - part I

Unlike my friends who have digital cameras or cell phones with cameras, I have to wait a bit to get my photos onto my blog - wait for them to get developed, then posted online, then i have to transfer them to a disk and find a copmputer that will work with flickr and blogger and me! :) A few weeks ago I sent a few rolls to be develpopled and now they are online. hooray. I'd love to share them all but instead i'll share a few here now, spacing them out over a few posts, and encourage you, my fair reader, to check out flickr. so this first episode of the trilogy will be a look back at the last weeks and days before i moved out here to Boise. Click on the pictures to see the descriptions and more exciting pics on flickr.com. and enjoy!

Poetry on the first floor fridge at 22 Drayton


Holly, Kate and I after a night at WaterFire.


Hot sticky wednesday night, sayin goodbye to some dear friends over an outdoor dinner at 18 Yuill Circle.


Jack's Party

glory vessel

"i get so clumsy
i get so foolish
i get so stupid
and then i feel so useless
but You're sayin' you love me
and You're still gonna hold me
And that you wanna be near me
cause You're makin' me holy
still makin' me holy"

yesterday was one of those days when nothing seemed to be going eaxctly right. i got a whopping 3.5 hours of sleep sunday night/monday morning, trying to get this killer theory homework in on time. that didn't work, so i was a zombie all day and for almost nothing. after scraping through a Violin Litereature class for which i was semi-prepared, i found a spot on the old couch in the music student's lounge and slept like a dead thing for about an hour, revived by the sounds of kids and parents coming out of after-school private music lessons. after chowing down on a couple nuked burritoes for supper, i headed to orchestra where i had a not-so-succesful rehearsal, making a glaring mistake on this same spot i have yet to get right (it's one of the soli spots, so yes, everyone hears it!). as orchestra ended, and my day at school came to a close, i was looking forward to jumping on my bike and riding home. i love the biking and, tired as i was, i was looking forward to sleeping in my bed. that's when i discovered that my bike light had been stolen. arggh! i mentally kicked myself for not storing it in my locker during the day, and then had to admit, "oh well, it's all God's money", a phrase that i am relying on big time these days! so yeah, i was feeling pretty clumsy.
this morning, i was praying and remembered that yesterday - or was it sunday - i had had a revelation: i realized that in settling into a new place i had forgetten that God could use me to share His grace and truth with my new "neighbors", Boiseans. remebering again made me think how awesome God is, so patient and faithful, even when, especially when, i am niether of those things. i mean, not only did it take me 4 weeks look up from my own little life, but then when i did remember the God perspective, i promptly forgot about it a few hours later! then this song came back to me, about God still making me holy...
so here i go on another day. my efforts to please God are, in of themselves, useless, but somehow God is growing me into a vessel for His glory. my hope is that i can remember to keep my eyes open enough to see it.

good to be here

Last night I did something kinda crazy. Today I led a rather solitary existence, but my day was a full of exploring and music. Crazy, exploring and music. Good things. Where to begin?
Well, this morning I checked out the weekly Capital City Public Market I've heard so much about. Described as a European-style open market in downtown Boise, it boasts locally grown and crafted food, art and music. Unlike Boston's Haymarket, which is the cheapest place to buy fruits and veggies from April to October, the Market here is more upscale, more about quality food at decent prices. And it is definitely an Event. Boise is funny that way, very conciously building its city-ness. It's kinda cute, really, like a nine-year-old glaring up at his 6-foot-2 cousin and insisting, "but I AM big!... or, well... I WILL be!"
Anyway, I liked it, the morning downtown. For the first time since landing in this little piece of desert, I had the thought, "it's good to be here." Another thing I am enjoying is riding around the city on my bike Joe - he's basic transportion, a working bike, an average Joe; gotta love him. Then there is food gathering. I do most of my grocery shopping at this awesome store called WinCo that's near campus. It's set up semi-warehouse style, and they don't accept debit or credit cards beacuse the fees assocaiated with those would "cause a Price Increase", as the sign ouside the front door says. I go at least once a week and get a couple bags, just enought to carry on my bike, then store the food in my instrument locker at school til I go home. It's great to open my locker at the end of the day and get a whiff of blueberry/apple granola and ranch salad dressing mix! :)
Anyway, last night. Basically, it rained. This was the first time I'd seen precipitation since I got here, so it was a new thing for me. My first or second day here I found that I loved the smell in the air in the morning. I realized that it was the smell of dew on the dry ground and grass - a wet hay smell, I guess. Yesterday, it was a lovely evening, cool and windy, and some pretty clouds. Then it started raining and I decided I just had to be out in it. By the time I got out on my bike after supper, it was around sunset and the raining as hard as ever. I was soaked after just a few minutes and thought, "Sylvia, what are you doing? you're gonna get sick or run over because it is dusk and raining and the people here do not know how to drive in the rain..." Then I saw the rainbow, so clear and close it looked like solid thing, a beautiful sight with one end of it touching the yellow-brown foothills and the other melting into a tree straight ahead of me. At one point I looked up and realized that could see the whole rainbow, then looking back to the road I saw a deer just to my right. Frightened by my presence, she scampered off, and I was like, "Thanks God; this so great. I'm wet and freezing and tired and sore, but it is definitley worth it!"
So I made it back home all right, took a hot shower and slept like a baby. Today, after experiencing downtown Boise, I got a dose of Boise State community when I went into the Student Union to make a couple photocopies and the Food Court was set up as Bronco football central. The weekly game, this one against Oregon State, was being watched by a roomful of blue and orange clad fans. Already being a football fan, I found the atmosphere infectious and I took a moment to watch a play - two minutes left in the 1st half. 4th and goal. good guys, up only by three, on offense. could they get it??? "Ohhh." great defense by OSU. Palpable dissapointment, but not yet worried, still up by three points, right?
So, I headed back to practicing my violin - 3 and a half hours today; not bad. Then later, I attended the recital of a young Russian pianist brought into town for the Student Union's Classic Performances series. His name is Vasilly Primakov. He gradauted with his BM and MM from Julliard, and now at 26 he is an up-and-coming performer touring the globe, even including Boise, Idaho. A real handsome dude in the head shot on his bio, he is also wonderfully dorky in person as only artsy folks can be, pianists in particular, I think. He wore these great pointy shoes and made faces while he played and he performed Chopin and Beethoven like nobody's business. I laughed, I cried, I sighed - not out loud of course, but I did do a "woo, hoo!" whem he finished the last piece, a stellar rendition of Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata. And we all gave him a much deserved standing ovation.
So that was my day and a half. I'm not sure what I'm doing for church tomorrow. I think there's a little church near by that I can bike to, so more exploring first thing in the morning. Better get some sleep then, eh? So thinks for reading and Guten Nacht.

Good blog day

So, it's September 1.
September 1 is a day that seems to require recognition. It's not up there with December 25, or January 1, or July 4, but still, it has a certain weight to it, like - dun-dun-dun - "the End of Summer is Here!" or "Here comes autumn", if your glass is half full. Either way, the day is significant in my brain for some reason, so though I have nothing particularly exciting to say, "Here Is A Post".
Some good news: I have allergies, so a dose of Alavert a day has made me feel mucho better!
The bad news: I have allergies, which I have never had to worry about before. Blech. The worst thing is that I seem to be at least slightly allergic to the cats that I live with. When she first advertised the room in her house, my housemate - henceforth "Chica" - said that a renter would have to be ok with cats and kids, cause she has three cats and a kid - henceforth "Zeek". I told her I was cool with both and, no, I was not allergic. So here I am... with itchy eyes and ears and the occasional sneeze. Other folks have told me about similar experiences when first moving here. It's a drastic change in environment, from a humid, coastal one to the desert, so I guess it's not surprising that I developed allergies all of a sudden. My reactions are mild now that I'm taking the Alavert, so I am planning on staying with Chica and Zeek, but I am running my new Holmes Air Purifier 24/7.
So, as warned, this really wasn't exciting at all, but... oh! It's my mother's birthday! That's what it is! So this is why writing is important, boys and girls: it develops the Mind, it stretches Creativity, and it helps you Remember Stuff You Forgot. Anyway, gotta run and make a phone call.

Thursday, Week 2

Today I took the bus home from school. Wow that sounds like I'm in elementary school, doesn't it?! Seriuosly, it was not a big yellow one, but a city bus, part of the Valley Regional Transit system. I got to talking with another new grad student in the Music Department, a pianist. Neither of us knew anyone when we first arrived in Boise, and she had just been in New York for a year after moving from Russia. We both got into our conversation and she missed her stop. Oops. Anyway, it was great to make a friend, ya know? On the other hand, the bus doesn't run all that frequently and stops altogether before 7 pm, so one of the one of the highlights of this week has been having an independent mode of transport - a bike. I found it Sunday at the Idaho Youth Ranch (a thrift store) for $30. It isn't exactly high quality but I find its issues somewhat endearing. Half of what makes riding a bike fun is the road traveled. Lucky me, I live just a few blocks from the Greenbelt, a bike path that goes along the Boise River, all the way through town and right past the Morrison Center, where I have most of my classes. It's a pretty sweet way to commute, riding next to the rushing water and under trees and past joggers and walkers.
A couple other highlights:
+ When attempting to checkout a "Current Periodical" from the BSU library, I was told "a graduate student can check one out for two days. Are you a grad student?" with a little thrill in my heart, I was able to say "Yes, I am"
+ I was pretty discouraged by my performance at the Orchestra seating audition last Saturday. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that I ended up where I had hoped to be - prinicipal second. And I even have a cool little soli part with the other principal string players in one of the pieces. (fyi: "soli" means that the four of us play like a quartet with all the other instruments in the orchestra silent for a little while)
+ Eating my luch on the lawn in front of the Morrison Center, people watching the students and faculty - theatre, dance and music.
So I am slowly settling in to this new place. Can't wait til my cold has finally cleared up and I can really enjoy the mountains, the sunny days and this great opportunity to study music at the graduate level. I will not be sick forever...

Day 4

My brain is smushy. I have had a cold since Tuesday and I am only starting to feel alive again today. Not real fun to move to a new place and have to introduce yourself as your nose drips and your hands are grimy and your head feels like a bowling ball... "Hi, my name ith Sylvbia..." Well, considering I survived two placement exams during the height of the cold Wednesday and Thursday, I think I'm gonna make it, with a little help...
Here's to "PBS kids" and "Insider" and DVDs of sappy chic flicks! Here's to Puff's Plus and the faith that my cold won't last forever! Here's to getting my cold out of the way before the semester starts! Cheers! (with little plastic cup of Nyquil)

New home, new life - Day 1

Right on schedule I woke up this morning at 6:30 am Eastern Daylight Savings Time. Unfortunately, I am in Mountain Daylight Savings Time now. Ah, the joys of flying. Another funny thing about flying is that because you travel so far so fast, your mind takes awhile to catch up with being where you are. As I was landing at the Boise airport last night, I found myself thinking, "woah, am I really here? This place is so far removed culturally and socially from where I was just a few hours ago. crazy." After dropping off stuff at our place, my new housemate took me out to eat with some of her friends. This was an awesome treat but it was late for me - 11:00 pm Eastern time. I was so blasted tired I felt like I was in a dream. After I had some food, I started feeling a little more human and really enjoyed the company of the folks.
So here I am, heading off to my first day in my new life. Suffering from a lack of sleep and way too much of a cold - allergies? - I'm a little woozy but excited. I'm going to meet with my new violin prof in a few hours and then get my new student ID and ... new, new, new. Here I come, world. I have landed and I hit the ground running!

I'm gonna fly

Tomorrow afternoon, I fly "out west". No postings recently because this past month has been super busy, packing and studying for placement exams and practicing my violin and learning to drive. Yes, folks, I have a license. Drivers of Boise beware: a Bostonian will be on the road in 48 hours! :)
This past week has been full of saying "Au revoir" to people with last-minute hangout out times, including a "Mini Vac" to New Hampshire's White Mountains with family and a dance party hosted by my friend that went into the wee hours of the morning. So I am really tired and my brain is fuzzy, but I wanted to post 'cause I get envious when others have new posts and I don't. :) silly me.
See you soon, from the other side of the country.

about dorchester

every once in a while - between the stenches of inner-city pollution and trash, mingled with aromas from Puerto Rican, Virginian, and Liberian cooking - i'll get a whiff of the sea. sometimes it is so brief that my mind registers "ocean" without my properly smelling it at all. still, i get a sudden happy memory of sand and salt, and i hope for a stronger sea breeze to pass me. in the city, you can't seek the smell of the sea, and if you sniff too hard it is gone. so when it finds me, it is always this pleasant surprise. i'll miss that.

Lawn Party

In the tradition of the great parties thrown by the Green Street Girls (Sept. '97 - July '01) and the Hyde Park Honeys (Aug. '01 - July '04), the Daughters of Yuill Circle (Aug '04 - present) hosted a smashing success of a Lawn Party this past July 2nd. I helped out as the event's official Office Administrator - that is, I made up and sent out the evites! :) Of all the years I've helped with these parties, this was one of my favorites. It wasn't the largest, nor were there as many activities as other years. I just found myself walking around, seeing little groups of people lounging here and there in the house and outdoors - it was a gorgeous day - and I felt really happy, like an acute case of joy and thankfulness for the relationships that surround me. My favorite part any of our large parties is when people from different parts of our lives came together and got to know one another. This party lived up to the expectation. There was my Aunt Brenda and Uncle Glenn (visiting the Northeast from their retirement home in Las Vegas) chatting with the woman I work for and a guy from my church. And then Bev, a lady from my church, was talking with another party hostess, Kate, and Jim, a young man from the Christian fellowship at my school. Then there was an art friend, a guy who paints sheep and lives with musicians I know from my school, eating and talking with my sister and a high school friend of ours and some folks who went to art school with my former housemates. And there was... it was just so cool! There's this line in a song by Sarah Groves that sums it up: "I wish all the people I love the most / could gather in one place / And know each other and love each other well" I guess I won't see this completely 'til heaven. So, until then, there will be parties, once, twice or maybe even three times a year. So if you are around Boston or Boise (or Missoula?), don't forget to look us up and find the party. And bring a friend.

Holding Pattern

Smaltzy music and "all representatives are busy helping other customers" in a voice recording by a guy who sounds really annoyed and then finally it rings and rings and rings and rings... Hey, I think they hung up on me. Harrumph. Another try and the line is busy. Now, a half-hour later, I have gotten through to the voice recording again, so more holding and why not post a blog while I'm at it! Nothing exciting, of course, just a hot, sticky day. When I was a kid, summer was my favorite season because it was when I could go swimming. Now, I don't seem to have time buy a swim suit, never mind actually swim. I really need to do that, though, as it is my last summer close to the ocean, for a couple years at least.
Oh, oh! It's ringing... and ringing and ringing and ...click. hmm, maybe I'm not gonna get through to these people this morning. grrr. I'll give it one last try.
July 4 was good, spending time with family, including my aunt and uncle who now live in Las Vegas. They were back here in New England visiting friends and family for the holiday weekend. My mom, dad, brother and I spent the afternoon with them at the campground in Littleton, Mass. where they like to stay in their fancy little RV. Then, since I got back to Boston later in the evening than I had planned, my friends didn't feel up to getting out of the house and joining me to hunt down some fireworks, so I just watched the Boston Pops concert/fireworks on TV with my parents. My brother, ever the social one, spent the evening in front of the computer. But the highlight of the weekend - and of my summer so far - was the lawn party on Saturday. That was a blast. More on that in a future post since I have no more patience for the annoying Muzak and voice recording.

picture picture on the blog

graduation

so i think this might work. i've finally been able to work on a computer that will let me upload my ol' fashion film photos onto flickr. so this first pic, a long awaited graduation one, is a test. Beth, Vanessa and i pose for the camera in the cavernous gym where us grads-to-be lined up before marching out to the lawn where the ceremony took place. the three of us are string players who survived the umb orchestra, with about 9 years of rehearsals and concerts between us. oh, the memories! so here goes, a post via flickr.

Oh, oh that's my cue!

Yesterday, I finally received the official letter from Boise State University affirming that the Music Department will give me $2,000 in scholarship money. While this will only be a small amount compared to $12,000 in tuition and fees for an out-of-state student (ouch!), it's better than what that very-cool-but-rather-expensive-school in Wisconsin offered me - nada. So the other day, I sent them the little "I will not be attending U. Wisc-Madison" card. I was truly honored to have been admitted to that program in the first place, and the audition out there was definitely worth the money and effort for the experience alone. So, Boise...
Any time I tell anyone here in Boston that I'm going to Idaho they look at me like I grew another head all of a sudden, and they say something about potatoes. Never fails, because potatoes are all we New Englanders know about Idaho. And the funny look is because we are raised in a snobby intellectual atmosphere that says, educationally, there is nothing worth visiting between here and California. This isn't terribly encouraging to me, as you may imagine! Still, I think it's where God wants me... though I'm not sure how I'll like it, and after six years of not liking my schools (except for the four awesome months at UM), I really, really want to like my school. So I am pretty ambivalent and not a little scared about the move. On the other hand, my violin teacher here has visited Boise and she thinks I'll like it, and both she and my parents believe that I'll flourish outside out of the stress of this city. And then this morning, reading an e-mail from my advisor at Boise State, the Graduate Program Coordinator, I started to get an inkling of excitement, reading how "there are several incoming graduate violinists" - woohoo! peers! - and there may yet be money for me as a Marching Band Assistant ("No marching required") and seeing the dates for the predictive exams in Music Theory and History and seeing how supportive and friendly both my advisor and future violin teacher have been already and noting the audition date for the orchestra and... It's happening. I'm going to a real music school. I'm going to get a Masters of Music. Wow. Thanks God.

Calling All Word Nerds

Since finishing classes and my recital, I've found myself loving books again. I've been devouring a wide range of non-fiction, and I am presently on the hunt for a good summer novel. My reading list thus far: Fast Food Nation (fyi: just added to my profile as a fave; yes, it's that good); Adoption Nation; Blue Like Jazz (I think this makes three times?) and just today at the library I found a new brand new book called Do You Speak American?. I knew I'd picked a winner when I opened up the first page to a "map of the principal dialect areas of the United States and Canada, as identified in the new Atlas of North American English..." cool! sweet! uber... something...
Speaking of being a nerd, it seems to me that it should be "principle dialect areas", not "principal", according to my elementary school Spelling class - "the principal is my pal", so, generally, a principal is a person. I just looked the homonyms up in the dictionary and I still can't decide which should be used in the case of the "dialect areas". What do you think?
Happy reading!

a rambling of happiness

daaa-ta-ta-ta-taa-daaaaaa-daaaaa....
if i were real cool and smart and if had a cell phone, i could do an audio blog. if i had a digital camera, i could snaz up this post with a picture or two. sorry folks. just words again! so the translation of that opening? ahhh, it is the processional march for commencement. you know, the processional march. see, i graduated today. i'm done with my BA, i'm done at UMass Boston. wow.
daaa-ta-ta-ta-taa.....
it was a gorgeous day, sunny with a nice breeze coming of the blue, blue ocean. still, by the third hour, i concluded it was not the best day to find oneself sitting under the open sky in a black cap and gown! from a combination of little sleep, baking in the heat, playing a gig at a reception and the a mini cookout party at "the girls' house" in Hyde Park, i'm exhausted. still, i wanted to get this out, that i'm a graduate. pardon the archaic Bostonian, but i'm psyched. i yelled and whooped at the end when the president conferred the degrees upon my class. and during the long, long reading of names - one after another after another - i cheered for the few of the 2700 other graduates whom i actually know. i was able to run into a few others and get pictures and i even got a surprise congratulations from the accompanist at my recital right before i walked. (i guess he was on the organ with the daaa-ta-ta-ta - oh, sorry.) all in all, it was surreal: to hear my name read, knowing that my face was simultaneously broadcast on the jumbotrons on either side of the stage, then to walk up to the platform, get that empty diploma case, shake a hand - did i shake the chancellor's hand, too? - walk down the stairs, "hold up your diploma and smile", and then ...it's done. phew.
well, i hope to have some pics up on this blog soon. until then, here is the link to the UMass Boston site and one pic of the president and chancellor and that lady who gave the longest speech. oh, that's not what she's famous for?
daaa-ta-ta-ta-taa-daaaaaa-daaaaa....

freedom and rest

i feel like a giddy six-year-old, just finishing her first year of school , experiencing her first summer break... i feel like a bird set free from a cage.. i feel like a little like a three-toed sloth...
I have finally finished my year, and thus my time, at UMass-Boston. The last component was my recital on Monday. It was quite the learning experience, to say the least. How did it go? you ask. Well, I played okay. I am my own worst critic, however, so I must also say that my audience of family members, friends and classmates enjoyed it. That's a good thing. And now it is done, I am done, and I am feeling blissfully lazy (see three-toed sloth). To do list: eat, sleep, read, chip away at the huge cake my parents bought for the reception after the recital. That was fun - tons of food, people from all different parts of my life. I spent the hour or so going around making sure I chatted with everybody and introducing this person and that - "being presidential", as someone said.
Graduation isn't until Friday, June 3, with Honors Convocation two days before. So by the beginning of June, the close of this chapter will feel official. And then I'll be ready to head out West... kind of. I'm planning different ways to say goodbye to all these people who are dear to me. I hope these lame attempts to say how much "I love..." and "I'll miss..." will be understood and appreciated, seeing as they are coming from someone who doesn't say these things nearly enough. And just yesterday, I found myself wondering, again, why am I not only leaving everyone I know, but also going somewhere I know no one? Sure, it was the Montana trip that made this seem possible for me, and yet now I ask myself and God "Wouldn't it be safer to stay here or go back there?" Then I think of Narnia and Aslan and the response to Susan when she asked if the great Lion was safe.
"Safe? said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King..."
It follows, doesn't it, that life in the midst of His hands will be a wild adventure, never easy, but good? So, in the coming days, I will attempt to be human again - from cheetah to sloth to human, what a week! I must restore order to the trash heap my room has become, get a summer job and earn some serious cash, call people I haven't spoken to in months, and take time to smell the roses and such. And, last but not least, I have the privilege of getting ready to "Go West, young [wo]man!"
...speaking of lame...

Stress

In the days and weeks leading up to my audition at the U. of Wisconsin Madison, there were a few times I found myself thinking, "This is it. I am going to go mad." My mind was reeling and the pressure to succeed was greater than any I had ever experienced before. There were too many things to coordinate, too many people to keep up with, and too much music to learn. Well, I didn't lose my mind, the audition went well enough that my first thought afterwards was, "hey, I want do that again", and I even got accepted to the program for which I was auditioning. Best of all, right afterwards, I got to enjoy a great mini-vacation in sunny Missoula, MT. Sigh. Those were the days.
Now, here I am back in a place where I am questioning the strength of my sanity, whether that be when I decided I wanted to do a senior recital or now that said recital is almost upon me. There are just too many things to coordinate, too many people to keep up with and too much music to learn. When I tell folks about my recital, I vacillate between (one) really wanting them to come 'cause "It's gonna be fun" and (two) panicking, which makes me think I should say "You don't have to come" and/or "Don't tell too many people about it." Actually, I did say both of those things today... hmmmm. So I don't make a great self-promoter, eh?
In the midst of all this, what I really want is for God to be pleased with me. And I want Him to get some kind of glory out of me and my playing, or despite me and my playing, if need be! So back to the woodshed I go, with a prayer that He give me both the wisdom I need to deal with people and the grace to be a Glory-to-God-producing musician. That's really all any of us can do, right?