Well, I think I can honestly say I've had a successful start to the semester. I feel really engaged with the schedule I have to maintain -- it's going to be busy, but completely full of music and people I love to hang out with, so I think it will be great. We had our second Opera practice, and, I experienced "spit-crackle" for the very first time. For those of you who don't sing, or just plain don't know what I'm talking about, despite the strange and almost gross name, "spit-cracke" is a super cool and good thing when it comes to singing. And not only did it happen Tuesday, but today before my voice lesson when I was warming up. Yay! I feel like I have finally truly begun to improve as a musician. All the high singing seems to be kinda tough on my jaw and my voice, though, so I"m really going to have to be careful and cut down on extra chatter or yelling. This will be quite the chore for me.:)

Piano is going well, too. I'm working on my Rachmaninoff, and also a duet with Giles - it's going to be really pretty. Not too time consuming, either (well, the duet, at least.)

I'm going to post a pic above this post. It's my sister's new apartment building in Fairfax, VA! I'm so proud of her. Pray for her, I hear there is a lot on her plate right now when it comes to her job. Not only is she taking classes and working, apparently she's been given the position to teach some of the classes to her fellow interns. wow. Good thing i have just classes and music, music, music, and more music, to worry about.:)

Well, I'm out. I've got to clean my room (I've made my bed EVERYDAY since I've gotten back to school -- quite the feat for me) and then I'm up to the Snackbar to spend some quality time with Katie. Poor girl, I'm never around. So, we must catch up.:)

You'll be seeing a lot more pics on this thing in the future when my digital camera comes in the mail! oh i can't wait............