Hits and Misses (September 3-9, 2017)

Here's a look back at the week that was......  

HITS

• I enjoyed the last few lazy days of the Labor Day holiday in Oklahoma City. It was nice to get away and rest. I enjoyed some good food and visited a few of the "less popular" sites in the city, but mostly I huddled in my hotel room and enjoyed doing some reading and binging on a couple of television series. It may not sound like an exciting vacation to you, but it was exactly what I was looking forward to.....and just wish I could escape away a little more often.
• Once back in Plainview, it was time to get back to work. It is always a joy to have productive rehearsals with students that lead to successful performances. I love watching our students try new things in their craft and achieve great results. It makes it fun to get up every day and see what is going to happen next.
• The week ended with a very successful Jump Start choral camp at WBU. I ended up working mostly with students from the "small schools" as they prepared auditions including Haydn's Little Organ Mass. It was a long day of hard work for everyone involved, but it was enjoyable nevertheless.

 

MISSES

• Like clockwork, the end of August and the beginning of September means that I am going to have a nasty head cold. This year is no different. I'm congested and dealing with a nagging cough that I simply cannot shake. It has sapped my energy most of the week and just made me feel crappy. I think hope that I am almost over it and will start to feel (and sound) normal again very soon.
• One of my favorite tasks in my job is getting to play for opera workshop. However, putting singers and accompaniment together for the first time is like quickly and violently ripping off a band-aid. It's a necessary part of the process, but no matter how prepared I think I am.....there are still moments where I will fall flat on my face. I ran out of time to fully prepare this week and I paid the price when reading through a scene I *thought* I knew with the cast. It was an humbling experience. Needless to say, I know one portion of the opera that is definitely on my radar this week!
• I have always been an organizer and normally have lots of to-do lists scattered around my desk in various forms. Recently, it has felt as though the lists were not working -- and that has been terribly frustrating. I know what needs to get done, but I can never seem to get to the important things because of all the other fires that I am putting out. It's not that the immediate things aren't worthy of my attention; I just hate to see what I had planned to accomplish get pushed further down the line so that it has now reached "crisis" mode as well.  Oh well -- c'est la vie!