Ugly but useful.

I take voice lessons from a teacher I've had for four years now.

It has been a long, painful road, rediscovering my singing and loving my voice. I had a bad experience in college which left me completely in doubt of my ability and even enjoyment of singing. This teacher that I have now is... what can I say. An amazing teacher. Skilled, capable, and loves singing and performing and helping people to get better, even if they have absolutely no ability to carry a tune. In his mind, singing is a whole package: voice, performance, feeling, execution. He has this theory:

there are two kinds of voices in the world. Oops voices and Ubu voices.

Oops: the One and Only Opulent Sound.

Ubu: Ugly but useful.

He describes it as a continuum; a famous opera star like Placido Domingo or Pavorotti would be close to the Ooops side, and someone like Bernadette Peters would be very much on the Ubu side.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I will never be an opera star, or even a noticeably skilled classical singer. My field is belt, and I do it well. And I love it, and people like to listen to me. It's a different skill set, not one usually appreciated by a college voice teacher, especially if you're trying to get into a classical major.

Anyway, lately we've been singing Christmas songs. It's magical, that music. Hearing it, sitting around at about 7pm after the sky has become black outside. Everyone's faces are lit by the lamp over the piano. Somewhere, a pine-scented candle is burning. The familiarity of carols and other songs: Lo How A Rose E'er blooming. Jesu bamino. Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella.

My sister has a beautiful, sparkling soprano voice. I listen to her sing and a piece of me is jealous and a piece of me isn't.
The largest piece of me just loves to listen to her.

As soon as you say you've seen a UFO...

People probably aren't going to take you seriously ever again.

Dennis, I respect your honesty. Really, I do. The public can be brutal about certain things. But then, I guess it wasn't the greatest chance that you were going to get the nomination, anyway, so, nothing lost.

I just hope that, should I ever have a similar experience, I won't be called upon to admit to the experience on national television.

Mormonism, UFO's, Cleavage... this election is really spiraling downward, IMO.

Wonderful link

This website is devoted to humanitarian projects and Ethiopia. I've really been touched by a lot of what I've read here. And I agree with their mission and means of carrying it out. Help someone to help themselves, that's the way to go.

You all should check it out!

Some more new links

So, I have found some more cool people to keep on my sidebar. Mostly, the sidebar is for me... I go around and look at my favorites from the comfort of my own webpage.

But you all should check them out, too.

Jer is a friend of mine that I grew up with in high school. His professional blog is already on my sidebar; this is his family blog, co-written with his accomplished and lovely life-partner, Rachel.

Denice is a silly, fun, warm person whom I happened to room with at Ricks college. She's been through some of the same stuff I have (who knew such things would happen? We definitely didn't imagine it, living there in our innocent little world of hotchicks 306) And is a strong, resilient woman.

MarlaJayne is a person I have never met in real life, but I already like. She's a wise person with great advice, given in a very ingestible kind of way. And she posts about a lot of interesting things, and I find that I agree with her almost all the time.

So go check them out!

Update on Covenant...

So I checked in with them by email the other day. They wrote back saying the the review of my manuscript is taking a lot longer than anticipated, and I should hopefully hear from them as to their decision within a few weeks.

I'm trying to take this as good news (why would they spend so much time if they weren't planning on accepting my book) but a piece of me is dreading what I think may be an extensive and full revision. If, for instance, they decided for me to switch the perspective of my story from first person present to say, first person past or third person present, holy cow.

I would do it, of course. But dang it! Well, Ok. fine. Being an author is hard work, and I ought to expect hard work, right?

Well, at any rate, this experience has been VERY good for me. And while they may still reject my book, at least I will get some extremely valuable feedback on my writing at the end of all this, which is almost as good as getting published. And they'll be aware of me in future, and more willing to consider any manuscript that I may send in.

So already I'm happy, grateful, ecstatic, etcetera.

I can put off my nail biting for another three weeks, too. That's also good.

Facebook woes...

I wish people wouldn't flirt shamelessly on facebook using SuperPoke. Because every one of your friends gets notified every time one of their friends SuperPokes someone else.

Seriously, I don't want to know every time one of my friends throws a sheep at, moons, or offers beer to someone else. It was fun while it lasted guys, but...

I'm done.

I do, however, think that the application Pirates Vs Nijas is very useful. Unfortunately I accidentally signed up as a Ninja when CLEARLY I am pirate material, so now i must convert ten people to my Ninja army so I can make the switch. Any takers?

And where, some of you may ask, do you find time for these sorts of vital actitives when you clearly have more important things to do? (Like make little sandwiches for your kids and fold socks, for instance?)

Lightning fingers, friends. Lightning fingers. Facebook updates are a matter of seconds when you've got the goods. And bloggetry, too. You may notice that I don't spell check a whole lot of my blog entries... this is efficiency and multi-tasking in its purest form.

Little Big Brother

My little brother is preparing for a mission right now. It is so strange to me, because he was 11 when I left home. His voice changed shortly thereafter; I remember calling home from college my freshman year and mistaking him for my dad.

John grew up fast. In a lot of ways. And in lots of other ways, he's still a kid. For instance, he doesn't think he's too cool to exchange witticisms with his older sister, and he still gets REALLY excited about things that he likes and good things that happen to him, and he still doesn't always put his underwear away like he's supposed to. (He'd probably exchange more than witticisms with me if he knew I posted that. And with my mom, who by all rights shouldn't be telling ME things like that but, that's what family is for, right? Unwelcome intrusion).

John, John, John. When I went home to visit a couple of years ago, we all went out on the town for some window-shopping and theater-going. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that no less than FIVE girls approached and flirted with him as we walked past. One of them actually ran out of her HOUSE and across her LAWN and practically leapt a FENCE in her quest of flirtation. The shameless hussy, flirting with a boy when is cackling older sisters are walking right behind them.

John knows women. He's one boy out of six kids. We surround him; he's number 4. John has had plenty of opportunity to study the art of kissing since he was a freshman in high school. (He's been in a lot of plays. don't get me wrong, my brother is lily-white. I'm sure he's only REALLY kissed like, maybe 3 girls so far).

How will the mission change him? Will he fare well in the company of overwhelming maleness, after being suffocated it estrogen for his entire existence?

Will he come back wanting to be a construction or electrical engineering major instead of opera and music performance, like he's opting for now?

Will his intensive study of ancient texts, foreign languages, and volumes by Hugh Nibley prove to be helpful or hurtful in his quest to teach the small, simple doctrines to his investigators?

I see John as a seedbed of compassion, empathy, strength and intelligence. He grew up before his time, and so people have sometimes misunderstood him. A small dose of humility (I mean, a large shock of humility-- this is the mission, after all) will serve him well; make him into something more than a precocious teenager. He'll come home a man. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. I can't even begin to imagine how my mom feels.

Here's the real question, though: Will he let me play his Gibson while he's gone?