Well, No One Told Me to be Quiet...

Guten tag everyone! I hope your weekend was swell. I had a great weekend, truly, but I have no idea where all the time went. I swear it was just Friday and now it's late Sunday night (remember, I write in advance now. Because I'm all like responsible and adult-like and stuff.) and I still haven't done much in the way of schoolwork. Oh well, guess tomorrow is another little-sleep kind of day. Just means I'll have to drink coffee again tomorrow morning. Oh no, how awful. However will I survive being forced to drink the most delicious thing ever to come in contact with my tastebuds?

I'm actually rather good at living and surviving on little sleep. I guess part of it is that I'm so much healthier now that I've changed my diet for how I need to eat and so I have a lot more energy. I'm not addicted to caffeine anymore, even though I still use coffee as the occasional pick me up. And because I love it. (See above: most delicious thing.) I'm completely off of diet cokes (I know, shocker.) And I'm just generally much healthier. So maybe that's why I've been able to deal with little sleep so effectively?

On Thursday night, I only got 5 hours of sleep, but I made it to the gym at a little after 8, worked out, and then showered and changed and drove to San Marcos to have lunch with an old friend. She drove up from San Antonio, so we were meeting half way and it was amazing. :) I've missed her so much, even though we try to keep in touch via phone calls, there's nothing like seeing her beautiful, smiling face. We have plans again for October 1st. I'm so excited!

After lunch I boogied my way back to Austin. That's a lie. I drove, like a normal person. I really need to work on my word choice. And also embracing the concept of editing. I had a little down time and so I did my quiet time and that was pretty much the last time I was quiet for two days, because then I went to the first leg of our Men's and Women's Chorus "Retreat." It's not a real retreat because really we all just take the Forty Acres bus to the music school. But I digress.

It was rather fun. I made a lot of new friends and got all SUPER! HYPER! because being in social situations like that turns me into a ham and I just feel the need to be the center of attention and tell all the funny jokes and then I'm like supercharged and have zillions of new best friends. It was funny because all the boys lined up on one side of the room and all the girls on another. Just like a junior high dance. I wouldn't expect choir geeks to be very adept in navigating social landscapes, though. Especially when those landscapes are ridden with *gasp!* the opposite sex. 


We played a few silly games and some of the social barriers began to fall down. Then we went outside and a mass amount of men and women played capture the flag. Those of us that were too smart- I mean tired- to play in the 9 billion degree weather stood on the sidelines and bonded over our mutual detest for most physical activity. It was a great time.

Then I went to the grocery store with Kendall and then came home and baked cookies until all hours of the night. 105 of them. Tomorrow I'm going to do a picture post with the recipe so you can all have hunger pangs and sugar cravings. You're welcome. After baking, I finished re-writing a scene for my screenwriting class, emailed it to my class, and then fell into bed a little after 4 a.m.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 8. That means I got a little under 4 hours of sleep. Let that sink in. And yet, I made it to day two of the retreat without coffee or any form of caffeine. We sang for 2 hours, took a cookie break (the cookies were a huge hit, as they always are) and sang for another hour. We were in this amazing old concert hall tucked back in what was the original music school on campus. The acoustics were stellar. You might not know this about me because, well, this is a blog and therefore there are no sounds, but I can sing. Loudly. I swear, I heard myself over the entire choir a few times.

But no one told me to be quiet, so I just sang my little heart out. I think our concert is going to be beautiful. We have some amazing music this semester. I'm very excited and blessed to be a part of a choir again. I took my first two years of college off, but now I can't imagine being without it again. No matter where I go, I'll have to find a community or church choir or SOMETHING to feed my passion.

Singing is such a gift to me. It's how I worship, it's how I work through a lot of my emotions, and it's pure joy to me. I love creating music with my voice and I especially love adding my voice together with other voices to create a choir. It's a wonderful feeling and I'm very thankful that God gave me even passable vocal talent so that I could experience all these years of choir.

Sorry this was long and blabby. Tomorrow will have a lot of pictures and a delicious recipe, so that you can take a break. Although if you take too long of a break while staring at the pictures of butter, your arteries might harden. Just a warning.