a quarter of the way

I reached a milestone last night. I finished my first semester of graduate school. That means I only have three semesters left until I have a Master's degree. Three semesters until I will have completed a one-act musical and a full-length musical. Three semesters until I have to start paying back my ridiculous student loans. Three semesters in which to figure out how to get my work produced and make a living doing what I love. I think I can do that.

The past four months have been some of the best of my life. I feel happy in general, probably because I'm being creative every day, I'm proud of the work I'm doing, I'm growing more confident as a writer and even as a performer to some extent, and I'm surrounded by what I love most in the world--musical theatre. The program has given me so much already, that I can't imagine my life without it now. I've made new friends, I've learned so much about my own writing habits and how I need to work, and I'm shown every day that this actually is something one can do to survive. It's reassuring.

Okay, enough about g-RAD school and how brilliant and fabulous it is. Writing writing writing, blah blah. Let's talk about everything else now. I'm sitting on the couch feeling very relaxed as I had a mini-panic attack this morning when I opened some mail from Citibank saying my loan for next semester was declined. This confused me to no end and I had a good cry and sat on hold on a help line for a while. Then I realized that all my loans are fine and I will most definitely be continuing in grad school next semester. I do not and have never had a loan from Citibank, and they sent me a weird letter for no reason. My loans are through HESC, and are all still intact and will be dispersed the second week of January. No clue why they sent me a letter, but the person on the help line said not to worry about it, since my loans were never through them in the first place. Panicking was a nice little release of all the stresses from the past few months though. Even though, over all, these have been fabulous months.

I took a break in the middle of writing all this to call my dad and chat for a bit. It's always nice to talk to him. I don't call him often enough. I feel like I always just call my mom. I should talk to him more often. Anyway, I'm glad I called him, because he let me know I'm singing a solo at the church on Sunday. Mom sent me music ages ago, but I didn't realize I was singing solos the whole time I'm home. That's my own fault for not really looking through everything. Did a quick once over with everything at the piano, and was happy to learn that not only can I sing Gounod's Ave Maria, but I can play it! It's super simple, but it felt really cool to me to be able to play and sing something at the same time since I've never done that before. And while it is a really simple piano part, it's still a workout for me, as I suck suck suck at the piano. Anyway, I'm glad I looked over everything before getting back to Arkansas. That could have been embarrassing.

I have three big assignments to do over break, though I've worked on one of them on and off all semester (finding public domain materials). I think I can finish one of them before I leave on Saturday, and I'm going to aim to complete it before then. The other one is more difficult, and I probably won't put a lot into it until I get back on January 4th. So much to do! I need to mail Rob and Ashlee's Christmas presents, look for mom's perfume she requested, finish this writing project, clean the house, pack, celebrate Hudson's birthday like whoa, and write some letters all before I leave the city this weekend. It shouldn't be too difficult, but I was hoping to have a few hours of blissful nothing for napping or reading or something. I feel like I've hardly read anything this semester, and I miss reading. I'm always busy. I like being busy, don't get me wrong, but there is little in life as enjoyable as curling up with a lovely book. Thank goodness for those train rides to and from Vermont this past weekend.

Vermont!! I went to Vermont on Saturday to visit a friend who is playing Marius in Les Miserables at Northern Stage in White River Junction. First of all, I love train rides. Love them. I know that long train rides do not appeal to all types, but they appeal to me, gosh darn it. The ride goes through New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and for about half of the trip, the train runs alongside the Connecticut River. The sun set around 4:30 on my way north, and there was an almost full moon glowing brightly and reflecting from the river from that point on. It was really beautiful. Plus I was in business class and had posh accommodations. I did some knitting and some reading and lots of relaxing and reflecting. Once I was in Vermont, my friend met me at the train and we quickly ate some sandwiches before I went to see the show and he went to, you know, be in it. Les Miz... Les Miz is a big show. It's a big score and a big story and a big cast (sometimes). Northern Stage. Northern Stage has a 250 thrust stage space that's pretty much a glorified blackbox. It's like the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre doubled. So, not very big. That said, the cast sang their hearts out and really turned in terrific performances. Plus, I've never felt so physically close to that show before, so I was much more engaged in it than I thought I would be considering I've seen it more than any other show. The staging was a bit funky, but I'm just gonna associate that with the space and reflect on how nice everyone sounded. Mmm.

Snow. So much snow. Being from the deep south, I don't think I've ever seen as much snow in my life. Maybe the one time I went to the Double H Christmas party in Lake Luzerne, but I think there was more snow in Vermont while I was there. I hiked up a big hillside in some woods and looked out at the little town and all the hillsides around it. It was so peaceful and quiet, and I like the way the air feels when everything is frozen. It's clean. I wandered all around White River Junction and just enjoyed being outside in nature. It was a very nice and much-needed break from the city.

Oh oh! And I painted a mug! And I had a nice dinner and I drank some nice wine and I saw a movie. I really just had a lovely little vacation. It was so nice to see my friend again.

Okay. Now I must go get ready for Hudson's birthday dinner. I've not spell or grammar checked this. Whatever.