Finals

Hey All! I'm a day late and a dollar short. Actually, thanks to my student loans I'm way more than a dollar short. It must be a common problem because President Obama was in Iowa City today talking about it. I'm afraid I didn't go hear him speak. I hope he doesn't take it personally. It's just that I'm busy studying for finals, and I don't like large crowds of people. Several of my classmates went, though, and I'm sure they said "hi" to him for me.

Finals are here. I think finals are both exciting and anxiety inducing. They are exciting in the sense that I finally get to put all the pieces together from each class and see the big picture. They are anxiety inducing for obvious reasons. My first exam was yesterday, and I felt good about it. Of course, that doesn't mean anything thanks to the curve. I have two more exams and a 30-page paper to finish before I can fly off to Germany.

Speaking of Germany, my wonderful wife has been very busy with rehearsals lately. It sounds like things are going fine with the rehearsal process other than a few people getting sick. Brenda has also been rehearsing for a party (a birthday party, I believe) in honor of the former mayor of Frankfurt. I think that's a few weeks off. In fact, it may not happen until I'm in Germany. Maybe Obama will be there. I could apologize for missing his speech. Come to think of it, I'm not invited to the former mayor's party. The President and I just can't get our schedules to line up.

Well, I should probably get ready for bed. I'm looking forward to a night filled with dreams about Civil Procedure. I hope you all have a great week, and I'll talk to you next Tuesday!

with fragrant odours and with notes of cheer...

Hello everybody! Well, it's that time of the semester again! Finals are drawing near, and Chad is buried under a mountain of case books, so I'm doing my wifely duty and taking over the blog for the week! His first exam is a week from today. However stressful the exam period will be, I'm personally happy it's here, because that means Chad will soon join me in Germany! In about three weeks from now, he should be completely stress-free, perhaps enjoying an aperitif on our lovely balcony! Speaking of our balcony, we have a new addition growing on it! Last spring we were delighted by the green vines that decorated the posts, but they apparently grew a lot during the summer, and now there are little purple flowers blooming! I believe it's wisteria, and once they're in full bloom, our balcony will be so colorful!

The current state of our wisteria.

I have been busier than usual this past week, since I'm involved in two shows at the moment. As Chad mentioned, I started rehearsals for a new production in Frankfurt called The Rake's Progress, and have been in rehearsal pretty much every day for that. I'm also still doing performances of the Magic Flute, and since the cast has changed, I've been rehearsing with the new cast members. Yesterday I was literally running between rooms at the opera house, going between one rehearsal and the other! These operas were written more than 150 years apart, so you can imagine that the musical styles are quite different! I must admit, I was rather tired by the end of the day! My last Magic Flute is on Sunday, and even though it's a delightfully fun show, I will be glad to focus on just one opera!

Since The Rake's Progress is a new production, that means most of our rehearsals take place in a special rehearsal hall which is not at all near the opera house. I won't say it's in the middle of nowhere, but it sure feels like it early in the morning and I want to buy a coffee on my way, and there isn't anything nearby... Anyway, it prompted me to go out and buy a new (to me!) bicycle, since the subway can actually take longer than biking! I went out bike shopping with the American tenor who is singing the lead role in the opera (and with whom I went to Juilliard!), since he saw a used bike store in his neighborhood. There were two bikes that fit our price range, and I tried the pink and purple one, since it was more "girly". Of course, the other more "manly" bike didn't actually end up fitting him, and he started coveting my pink bike as we were on our test drives. Too bad for him, the bike suited me just fine, and I ended up buying it! Don't worry, he got a different bike the next day, but not before giving me a major guilt trip! :-) So now we're all getting in great shape by biking to rehearsal! If I bike to each rehearsal, I end up biking about 1 hour and 40 minutes each day! Not bad! Now the weather just needs to warm up... Those mornings are cold!

My new bike! Her name is Dazzler. I don't know

why I felt the need to name my bike...

So that's pretty much my life right now! All opera, all the time! I'm very excited for Chad to arrive in Germany, and am very happy he'll be around for the premiere of The Rake's Progress. He'll probably arrive about 10 days before we open, so he won't have to deal with my busy schedule too much! Then we can just focus on being together - one of our favorite pastimes. :-)

Have a beautiful week!

May it please the court

Hey All! Once again I owe all of you, my wonderful and devoted readers, an apology. Brenda posted a mini blog entry last week and she said that I would write a full post the following day. Well, it turns out that I underestimated the amount of time I needed to spend on a big paper due last week and I neglected my blog duties. The budding lawyer in me wants to create a defense by arguing what the words "write a post tomorrow" actually mean, but I think I'll do us all a favor and not do that. The bottom line is that this law school stuff is really interfering with my blog duties. Good thing summer vacation is just around the corner.

My wonderful wife is once again on the other side of the pond. In fact, she has already performed an opera and has started rehearsals for another one. She doesn't waste any time. The rehearsal process for this new production (The Rake's Progress) will take six weeks which means I get to see the premier. It's a great opera and I'm really looking forward to seeing Brenda perform it.

There are eight more days of class until finals. (Uh oh. Is that true? I have to stop writing this right now and go study.) I'm excited to have this semester behind me. It's been great and I've learned a lot but I want to be in the same country as my wife for a few months. Speaking of which, today I submitted my application to study abroad in Hamburg, Germany for the fall. If it works out then Brenda and I will only be a 4-hour train ride away from one another. Cross your fingers for me.

Well, I had better get some shut-eye. I am doing an oral argument tomorrow for my writing class. Basically, I will talk about my paper for ten minutes and field questions from the court (my professor). I plan on using my operatic training during my argument. I can only imagine that singing my arguments will get me extra credit. I'll let you know next week how that works out for me. Until then, have a great week!

the eve before a great journey

Hello all! It is my last night here in the States, and since the splitting of the "Ch" from "enda" makes me sad, I've declared that there will be no real blog posting today! However, Chad has informed me that he'll write a post tomorrow, so I do hope you enjoy that! To tide you over, here's a picture of a kitten.

Have a great week!