Upcoming stuff part 1

The last two years have gone by really fast: Moving, getting settled, trips to Cancun, Japan, Seattle two August's in a row for weddings, and we just got back from Denver/Rock Springs and visiting Toshi's family. Things have been busy. It's nice to have time to be away from here because I like to be off Long Island and I like vacation and a change of pace. 

Toshi is big on planning. I am too but I think he more so than I. We've got a good idea about the next couple of years at least (assuming it all goes as planned and we are of course prepared for it to not and for plans to change.)

The first major thing that will happen is me getting done with school. Although I thought that I might want to see about a year and a half instead of two I have realized that might not be what's best for me. Fall semester would be very very full and on top of that I would be preparing for a recital and I want to make sure it's awesome so I think I'm going to do a full semester and then be part-time in the spring for my recital. That will help me have extra time to get ready for my recital. I haven't had a chance to talk with my advisor yet about this but the oboe player in my quintet is doing it so I'm pretty sure I can make it work. 

Also upcoming is my trip to Seattle and playing with Cascade! It seemed so far away when I agreed to it and now it's actually coming up. I have been getting great encouragement from Pascual which is always amazing and so I think that when the time comes - just about 6 weeks away! - that I will be ready. It will also be great to be home for two weeks! The first on my own and the second with Toshi. 

Starting to Post again - last two years update

So I haven't posted in over two years. Two years, nearly three I think! And I thought that it might be time to start posting again. A lot has happened since that time and I think it would be good to have some place to vent to or just tell what is going on. Earlier in life I wrote in journals and I really enjoyed doing that so this will just be the updated modern version of that.

The last couple of years have been kind of crazy when I go back and think about it. The last time I posted Toshi and I had just recently gotten engaged and I was down in Atlanta visiting the boys. Since then the boys have started to grow up, they are now nearly 5 and 7! Toshi and I have gotten married and moved to Long Island for his residency. Toshi is a planner and not knowing about residency and where he was going to go and having to scramble I'm sure was torture on him. Now that we are here and life is moving by so fast, he has started to plan again and I'm just rolling along with him.

We got married April 11, 2009. This April we will be celebrating two years! I can't believe it's gone by so fast and that we are just a few weeks away! We never really got a honeymoon because I had to go back to work. We just spent a few days in then rainy Cannon Beach. It was nice to have a few days post wedding to just relax but soon we were both back at work. Toshi had wanted to take a solo honeymoon to New Zealand and I told him he wasn't allowed to do that. It seemed crazy that he should get to spend his nearly two weeks off without me after we had just gotten married. So he didn't and since then he's always wanted to go... more on that later.

At the end of June movers came and packed up both apartments. Toshi worked while I sat in the apartments while they packed. We stayed for the last week or so at the house with mom. It made it that much harder to leave since we had been staying with her. We were headed off to somewhere unknown with no family and no one we knew on Long Island. We ended up staying in an extended stay hotel for nearly a month because there was no apartment for us. Once we finally had keys my dad came out and helped up clean up and and paint. If we were going to be stuck in the small apartment I wanted it to be our own. Bright fun colors in all rooms including the kitchen made it eventually feel like home. All our stuff came and the movers moved it all in. I was in tears. We had so much stuff and so little space. Toshi was working and wasn't going to be around and since I had nothing to do it was my responsibility to take care of it all - first married being a wife moment! So even though it felt impossible I started organizing boxes and working on figuring out how to unpack. The plan had been for Francine to come out and help but with all the issues of getting keys and then waiting for our stuff to get out of storage she wasn't able to be there yet so I was on my own.

The first night when Toshi came home from being on call his only task was to put together the bed so we could have somewhere to sleep. Our bedroom housed our bed and a piano and the room was not very big. I took as many boxes as possible and stacked them against the wall so where would be space to move. Then I had to unload and figure out what to keep and what to give away or sell. I quickly realized that our living room was going to be a multipurpose room and having a coffee table or stand for the TV was not going to work. Those were the first things to go. The dining room table became our multi-purpose table, we at there and it's where our computers lived. Above it was the flat screen TV we mounted on the wall. We had been in NY for just over a month and I was still completely overwhelmed. I was so glad we had a GPS and I used it to get everywhere - the grocery store, Target, Costco. I would have been lost without it.

Francine came and helped me with the rest of the unpacking and the organizing. We got some more shelves and that really helped with the kitchen and it's lack of space. By this time we had bought a couch as well so she had somewhere to sleep.

At this point I went to CW post to meet with the man that would be my advisor. I went in and met with him and asked about the program. I knew almost right away that this was not the program for me. There were no options of classes to take and it sounded as though I was going to be the best performance major they had ever had. I did not want to be in that situation, I wanted to be challenged. After being at Michigan where I had to work, I wanted a place where I was going to improve. So I decided not to go. I then realized that although I would be able to go school the following year I was going to need something to keep busy, a job, and lessons to get me ready for NYC school auditions. I got both.

Starbucks. I have now worked at Starbucks for over a year and a half and am now a supervisor. A little extra responsibility and a little more money - now I make $10 which to me is really sad but it's better than nothing. I'm working 2-3 days a week during school and I've just been transferred to a new store. I was annoyed at first but now I actually think that it might be a good thing - a new manager (not my crazy one that I've had) that I know and that appreciates my work.

Last October I started taking lessons from David Gould - a friend of Cassie's from Michigan. He teaches at Queens college and also runs a Vandoren Studio. He really helped get me ready for auditions. I auditioned at Manhattan, Mannes, Stony Brook and NYU. This fall I started my masters at NYU where I'll be for the next year plus.

Things are busy but going well for us here in New York. It's really nice being in school and being not only busy with something that I love but also being back in a place with people like me. The only interaction I've had with people is at Starbucks and as nice as some of them are, I don't hang out with them and they aren't like me. I didn't realize how much I missed being around music people until I was back with them. I really have missed it! I love school and being back where I feel like I belong. That may sound horrible but that's the case. I have missed being among music people and it's great being back.

So that's where I am now - Living on Long Island with Toshi, working at Starbucks and going to school for my Masters at NYU, preparing for the concerto competition in April and performing with Cascade in May. Copland take 2.