Busyness Strikes Again
Thursday, March 29

So, I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting my return. I was under the impression that I'd have time for several updates during spring break or certainly afterwards, but was gravely mistaken. I did, however, have lots of time for stripping wallpaper, playing with my new friend the paper tiger, priming, and painting. We didn't quite get done while I was there, but my mom finished it up during her spring break. Here are some pictures she took along the way:

This is what it looked like to begin with. Well, all the furniture wasn't squished up in the middle of the room to begin with, but you know.

We thought about leaving it like this for decoration.
We decided not to.

And here is the (very nearly) finished product!

Things have since returned to normal, which means busy. The Monday after spring break I went to the nief-norf project concert, which proved to be very good. nief-norf is a group of five musicians who play modern percussion music, and if you like you can visit their website and hear some of their songs. On Saturday the French club and some of the voice studio went to the Orpheum in Memphis to see Carmen, which was well-worth the trip. May I just say that it is an adventure in itself to try driving through Beale Street at late-o-clock at night.

Aside from that, things around here have been relatively uneventful and, of course, increasingly busy. One such source of stress is my new-found position as an accompanist. I've been recruited by Rachel and Blair to play piano with the ADPi's for All-Sing. I was given the score right before spring break, All-Sing is this Saturday, and I've had very little time to practice the music. Fortunately, we also have drums, saxophone, trumpet, and bass, so it's not as if I'm entirely alone. Last night, in fact, they were all situated right behind me so that I couldn't hear anything I was playing! I've come to the realization of how glad I am I'm not an instrumentalist all the time.

Just when I'm glad I'm a vocalist, another very good reason for being stressed comes along — opera. Our performance is in roughly two weeks; we just started staging last week, and have very little (if any) of the score memorized. We have no props, no costumes, no set, and no stage to rehearse on. So, that's always fun.

I'm sure there are more things to complain about (like theory, you know, the bane of my existance?) or registering for fall classes, but you don't want to hear about all that. Just breathe a sigh of relief that you never had any intention of being a music major.

-Karen

Spring Break
Sunday, March 11

It's here — spring break has officially begun!

Matt and I got back to Jackson Saturday afternoon, did a bit of shopping, and played at Granny and Pop's house. I just so happened to be the supreme champion of Oh Phooey. Today we enlisted Matt's help in moving some furniture out of the study in preparation for wallpaper-stripping.

After he left this afternoon I got to take some pictures, which will hopefully be making an appearance around here sometime soon (if a certain someone isn't to busy at work to slack off and work a little html magic for me).

Tomorrow I'm heading over to Granny and Pop's again to install iWork on Pop's new iMac. After years of Windows and subtle hints from me, we finally convinced him that mac is the way to go. Let's just admit it — he now has just about the best desktop on the market right now. So, I'll be giving him a crash course on all the great things he can do with his enviable compy.

Stay tuned for those ever-important spring break updates, including (but not limited to) new photos, study makeover updates, and game scores.

-Karen

Birthday Day
Friday, March 9

I knew today was going to be a good day as soon as wunderground.com told me that the high would be 73°. Cause as far as I'm concerned, pretty much every day should be that temperature.

I began to have doubts about whether or not it would be a good day when A building's fire alarm had a conniption at 8:15 this morning. Fortunately, I was not clad in a towel like several other unhappy University Village residents who found themselves standing outside.

We were soon joined by the campus police in their flashy cars and the Village maintenence in their golf carts; and it wasn't long before we heard sirens and a few firefighters came scampering up to find out what was going on. They went in and out, up and down, over to B building just for fun, and apparantly weren't quite sure why they were there. The police guys pulled out their walkie-talkies and looked important and the maintenence guys gazed around for signs that University Village might burst into flames.

Matt was dissapointed that he hadn't brought down his camera to document this remarkable demonstration of the smooth authority with which UTM Housing handles such situations.

We had somewhat of a birthday party for Matt tonight at his house, which involved some very good veggie pizza and ice cream cake. Rachel gave him this "exploding box" — a photo album of sorts.

My mom gave him Rummikub, so we ended up playing that twice (I won both times...). And that was that!

-Karen

A Relatively Uneventful Week
Thursday, March 8

Well, I guess it's about time to update again, seeing as how it's been a week since last time. I was kind of waiting around for something exciting to happen, but have had no such luck. This week has been going fairly smoothly; nothing too out of the ordinary. The most note–worthy thing that has happened is the cancellation of choir Tuesday - Thursday, since Dr. Simmons has gone (very unwillingly, I'm sure) to Florida, where the ACDA convention is being held this year.

Diction has been interesting lately, since we started French. For the first time all year, I've found a use for the textbook. Our main focus is on writing the phonetization for songs that Dr.Gatwood hands out. Italian and German were easy for me; they somehow came naturally. I knew how to pronounce almost anything at a glance without any thought, and could simply write the IPA that matched what I was saying. French, on the other hand, is just not there. I can't look at a line of French and read it flawlessly — the letter combinations are like puzzle pieces that refuse to come together. Perhaps this is the frustration that everyone else has been feeling in diction all along? Time to go watch a couple episodes of M*A*S*H in French.

Matt's birthday is tomorrow — he'll be 20. Now that's a weird thought. Finally, officially not a teenager. (My birthday is exactly two months from today.) We're having a birthday party at his house tomorrow night, and he's hoping that Shanna doesn't forget we're vegetarian...

On that note, the vegetarian thing is going well; I'm thinking of sticking with it after Lent is over. Matt thinks he might be a "most of the time vegetarian," to accomodate those odd social settings where the only food is, for instance, bar–b–que. Like Noonday yesterday. This leads me to wonder, how did I pull that off? This is someone who formerly characterized himself as a meat–and–potatoes kind of guy. And I wasn't even trying. I guess the switch was easier than he thought, especially with the inclusion of our new favorite, Boca. We've recently discovered their Italian sausage, which has become a standard for my flatbread pizza. It's amazing what you can do with a few soybeans and some wheat gluten.

Matt and I will be heading back to Jackson on Saturday, the first day of UTM's spring break. I'll be sticking around the whole time to embark on a redecorating project — turning the "study" (better known as "junk room") into a guest bedroom. Apparantly, pretending to be redecorating divas from HGTV is a girls–only project; and the only way I could keep Matt there is to stick him under my bed and feed him scraps from the table. I have a sneaking suspicion that he would complain about all that, so he's being sent back to Martin on Sunday.

It seems I had more to talk about than I thought. I have a choir–free afternoon, so I think I'll finish up my English paper on "The Fish" and start studying for the music theory test we have tomorrow.

-Karen

Cats and Dogs
Thursday, March 1

Well, here are the events of the week, all condensed down into one blog for your convenience, kind of like a multi-vitamin.

On Tuesday the New Pacers went to Huntingdon to sing at the first annual thingy of the West Tennessee Higher Education Consortium, Dr. Dunagan's brainchild. It was even Dunagan's idea to kick the consortium off with this choir festival, an idea which made us of the choral persusion very proud of him. The other colleges currently in the consortium sent their small ensembles too. Word on the street is Union, The University of Memphis, and UTM were the best ones there.

A funny thing happened in the middle of the Pacers' rehearsal... Dr. Simmons had gone down to the aisle in the middle of house during one of our songs to check our sound and this tech guy came walking along. All of a sudden, the tech guy tripped, came flying down the aisle, and pretty much tackled Dr. Simmons, sending him tumbling into the seats. We were alerted to the abrupt loss of our conductor by a yell of, "Oh my God! Did you just attack me?!"

It was the highlight of our day and the butt of our jokes well into the night. Simmons later commented, "I think I bruised my kidney."

The forecast for today said rain, rain, and more rain, so last night Matt and I made a Wal*Mart run, primarily to get me a rain jacket. The only sort of "rain coat" I have is my big, warm, waterproof coat, which does not get along with 72 degree weather; and it just so happens to be physically impossibe to carry an umbrella while riding a bike. We just about turned Wal*mart upside down looking for that rain jacket, and after circling the entire store finally found it in the exercise section. They had plenty of colors, but only one small, so my choices were...limited. I was glad I had that jacket when I went outside today and was pelted by the cats and dogs falling from the sky.

Unfortunately, I was mistaken in my assumption that my pants were waterproof.

The only other exciting thing that has gone on around here lately was grand opening of our new coffee shop, Baroque DX. Matt and I stopped by this evening to try it out. They were just about to close, but they made us some coffee anyway. Apparantly they really stuggled to get the thing open on time (they made some mention of two hours of sleep last night), so I think we can expect some improvements once they're a bit more settled in.

Goodnight!
- Karen