Fall Concert October 20, 2009

Sorry about the short notice, but TONIGHT and TOMORROW the choirs at PLU will be putting on our fall concert.  Performances are at 8 o’clock in Lagerquist.  Tickets are, I believe, $8, free for PLU students.  I have a solo for one of the songs that we’re performing.  The concert is the same both nights, but as the choir concerts get a large turnout, we have two concerts in order to accommodate.

In other news, midterms are this week.  I have an essay due for French tomorrow and a group paper to write for IHON for our midterm.  😦  I hate group projects.  Especially papers.

Sorry about the lack of blog posts… I’ll try to update later if/when I’m not so busy…

College- Year 2 September 16, 2009

Sorry I haven’t updated my blog like I said I would… LOTS of homework. 😦

My classes for this fall are Islamic Traditions, French 301, and International Honors (IHON): 20th Century Origins of the Contemporary World (Mom really likes butchering the name of this class… lol).  My favorite class is definitely Islamic Traditions.  My professor is the same one I had for IHON during the fall of last year.  She’s really fun and definitely knows what she’s talking about.  I’m really glad to have her again. 🙂  My French class… has been alright.  I was really scared about the class before the semester began, because I didn’t think I remembered anything and, when I tried to read a novel on our book list for the class, I couldn’t get through the first paragraph, let alone the first page.  Luckily, she decided that that book was too hard and that we won’t actually be reading it this semester.  The class has been at about the right level, not easy, but not overly difficult.  My IHON class is pretty good, I suppose.  My professor is from Britain, so he has a fun accent and pronounces things in a fun way.  We have, though, had a great deal of reading for this class… 😦  200+ pages in one week at college is a lot…  Also, we’ve only discussed what the world was like around the turn of the century and haven’t really gotten into the 20th century history part yet.  It’ll be nice once we start that.  For choir, I’m again in chorale this year.  COW was made smaller this year and several people who had been in COW in the past were moved to chorale.  Apparently there’s a shortage of tenors, so the numbers had to shift a bit in order to make the numbers more even.

So… yes.  There is my life. Lots of homework, some clubs, etc.

Oh, and my address this year is:

Amanda Davis
Ordal 213
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447

(I love getting mail… 😀 )

First Day of Classes September 9, 2009

So today I got to wake up at 7 because the choir (any returning Chorale/Choir of the West (COW) singers from last year) sang at Convocation and we had to warm up beforehand.   After Convocation (which went well (we had only had 1 rehearsal on the song, the night before)) was the involvement fair, where each of the clubs at the school sets up a booth in Red Square and freshman and returning students can go around to the booths and sign up for the clubs (or for information about when they meet, etc.).  Since I didn’t have anything to do after Convocation (I don’ t have any class on Tuesdays or Thursdays until next week, and even then it’s just choir and a lesson on Tuesdays), I helped Alex out with his club, The Quest, which is a club for people to play Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot.  It’s an insane card game, but lots of fun.  Around noon they posted call-backs for the choirs; I made call -backs for COW!  As an alto!  After last Spring, I had wondered if they would try to switch me to the alto part, but at my audition the other day, Dr. Nance (the COW director) only asked to hear my upper range.  And when Dr. Brown (head of music faculty) asked to hear my lower range, I was shocked and perplexed to find that it wasn’t there.  I don’t know what happened.  So I was surprised to be called back as an alto after that.  However, I did notice that there seemed to be very few altos in our choir for Convocation, so I guess in that way in makes sense.  Dr. Nance and Dr. Galante were also two of the faculty who listened to me for juries last semester, so I suppose they remembered my ability to sing low and they quality of my voice in that register. *shrugs*  For call backs we have to go in 3 separate times: once for an individual call-back, once as a section (e.g. all altos), and once in small groups with each of the parts (soprano, alto, tenor, bass).  We’ll see what happens.  I’m happy either way.  More tomorrow when I actually get to go to my classes!

I can walk! September 2, 2009

Hooray!!

Yesterday, I got the stitches out.  The doctor told me I can walk and take showers now! Yay!  I had been instructed not to get my foot wet after I had the surgery, so I had to take baths with my leg draped over the side of the tub, which makes for a rather awkward and lengthy endeavor when trying to clean oneself.  Baths are lovely when used as a method of relaxation, but I far prefer showers for day-to-day cleanliness.

I went out to lunch at the Great Wall Mall with Sarah, Kenna, and Elaine today. 🙂  We had our usual lunch at the phở restaurant there, followed by bubble tea at the Boba place a couple doors down from the restaurant.  Mmm… Delicious! 🙂  *sigh* Food I will miss while off at college…

Speaking of college… I start moving in to my dorm tomorrow.  I will be living in Ordal this year.   My roommate, Sarah, was in choir and IHON with my last year.

Surgery August 24, 2009

The purple is from marking my foot before surgery, just to let you know.

Sorry for not writing this sooner…

So, the surgery on my foot was last Wednesday, August 12.  I was told to be at the hospital at noon for a 2 o’clock surgery.  We arrived at noon and had to wait almost half an hour before being taken to a room and told to change into a hospital gown.  Luckily there was a fish tank right next to me, so I spent the time watching the smiling puffer fish swimming laps from the top of the tank to the bottom and back up.  Puffer fish make me smile. 🙂  Anyway, once I was in my gown, it was another 20 minutes or so before a nurse finally came in to the freezing room to check my history and my vitals.  I had to wait again before another nurse came in to stick an IV in me.  That nurse saw that I was freezing and hooked up a heater hose thing to my gown to warm me up.  It was kind of bizarre, but very cool, and it did a great job of keeping me warm.  After almost an hour had passed since I had been sent back, my mom and Alyce were finally allowed back to see me.  For some reason they weren’t allowed back before then.  And so we waited…  and the TV died… and waited… and waited.  At some point Mom and Alyce went to get food, since they hadn’t eaten yet, so I read.  For future reference, if you are fasting or for some reason not allowed to eat or drink, do not read chapter 27 of Eat, Pray, Love.  Hearing Elizabeth talk of going to Naples to eat the best pizza in the world, which she describes almost sensuously, isn’t something you want to hear when you haven’t eaten in almost 20 hours.  It’s not as if I’m especially fond of pizza, in fact I’ve recently found it rather unappealing, but oh, those descriptions…  And so my grumbling tummy insisted that I stop reading.

While Mom and Alyce were still off getting food, the nurses wheeled me to another room which had a working TV, so I found House and watched that.

It wasn’t until around 5 that my doctor finally came in to see me and finish prepping.  Apparently the surgery two ahead of mine had taken 4 hours instead of the anticipated 1.  Luckily, my surgery was quick and uneventful and I was able to go home around 7.

The first night, I couldn’t sleep at all.  Since then, though, I’ve been sleeping pretty well (some nights better than others) and haven’t felt much pain at all.  I’m supposed to keep my foot elevated, and I’m not supposed to walk for 3 weeks.  The crutches haven’t hurt me, but I find them annoying when trying to maneuver around puppy gates or wish to carry something from one location to another.

The first few days on the pain meds I was really tired and couldn’t do much of anything, not even read.  I stopped taking them after a while because a. I wasn’t feeling pain and b. I wanted to have energy to do something.

So… there you go.  I’m doing fine.  It’ll be nice to walk again.

This is my foot… August 9, 2009

As you may or may not know, I have a ganglion cyst on the bottom of my left foot.  It has been there for years, but we had never gotten around to having it checked out.  Last summer, I finally went to see a podiatrist who took x-rays, did an ultrasound, and had two CT scans.  They told me it was a ganglion cyst and that I should have it removed, but since I was about to head off to college, we decided to wait until the timing was better.  Well, I will finally be going in to have surgery on my foot this coming Wednesday.  Because the cyst is on the bottom of my foot, I won’t be allowed to walk for three weeks and will need to use crutches to get around.

In other news, this past week Mom, Mom’s friend, Alyce, and I went to Friday Harbor.  We drove up to our family’s cabin on Lake Roesiger the night before and got up early in order to drive to Annacortes.  There, we got on a ferry that took us to San Juan Island.  It was the first time I had been to the San Juans. 🙂  The day started out kind of overcast, but the sun came out as we pulled into the harbor.  After we arrived, we went to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the marina.  Mom ordered mussels, Alyce got crab cakes, and I had a halibut burger, all of which were delicious.  Once we had finished our lunch, we strolled along the streets, popping into stores that looked interesting.  It was a very pretty, relaxing day-trip. 🙂

Summer!! May 25, 2009

As of yesterday around 10:30 I am officially done with my first year of college!!  Ah!  That hardly seems possible… It seems like we just moved me into my dorm, and now I’ve already moved out.  It’s crazy! 

My last final was on Tuesday afternoon but the choir performed at the commencement concert on Saturday night and commencement worship Sunday morning, so I had to stay for the weekend.  It was a nice start to the summer to be able to just relax and hang out with my friends, though. 🙂  

Now I get to start cleaning…  My job for this summer is to go through all of the stuff that we have accumulated over the years and decide to keep it or sell it on amazon/ebay/craig’s list or at a garage sale that we will hopefully eventually be having.  It’s a big project… 

Plus, now I’m trying to look after Mom and make sure she takes it easy after the seizure she had yesterday… (See her blog for more info)

Oh dear… May 10, 2009

…it would seem I’ve neglected my blog again. 😦  Zut.

 

So, this will have to be a quick update, since I have an essay that I really need to get back to (or rather I have to go back to finding quotes/ideas for the essay…).  It’s one of the last things I have to do before the end of the year, though, so I’m trying to use that as my motivation…  (Finals week is next week; I have one final and two essays due).

 

I went to my first midnight showing!  Desta, Alex, Jen, and I went to see Wolverine. 🙂

 

Hmm… Oh! On Friday I listened to a radio show, “Spiritual Smackdown,” of two of the religion professors here.  It was really interesting.  They were talking about an article that someone had written on the topic of death and the afterlife.  It was really interesting.  I wish I had been able to pay closer attention to it, but alas I had homework that I had to do at the same time. 😦  Oh well… I liked what I did hear.

A little bit after that, Alex, two people in his religion class, and I went to a coffee place down the street to meet with their religion professor (who was one of the people who did the radio show) about Paul Tillich (a christian theologian and the topic of their class) and other religious topics.  Since coming to PLU I’ve heard a lot of people talk about Tillich, so it was cool hearing what they had to say, since I don’t know much at all about him or his ideas.  We also looked at verses in the King James, NRSV, and NIV bibles and saw how verses have been translated in different ways in order to suit the translator’s purpose or beliefs.  It was really interesting and I’m really glad Alex invited me to join him. 🙂

 

Yesterday I went to see Company.  It was really good.  In it, the cast members were also the orchestra, each playing an instrument.  Most of them had never played their respective instrument(s) before the show and a few of them were clearly… uncomfortable with the idea.  Overall the show was great, though. 🙂

 

Well… I think that’s enough procrastination for now… back to work. 😦

 

Happy mother’s day!!! Love you, Mom! 😀

Choir Tour April 20, 2009

I can’t believe there’s only 5 weeks left of school!  It’s gone by so quickly…

This week my choir, University Chorale, is going on tour to Oregon, so if you’re in the area and want to come, here’s where we will be:

Wednesday, April 22: Vancouver, WA, Trinity Lutheran Church @ 8

Thursday, April 23: Eugene, Emmaus Lutheran Church @7:30

Friday, April 24: Salem, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church @ 7:30

Saturday, April 25: Portland, St. Michael’s Lutheran Church @7:30

Sunday, April 26: Longview,WA, Longview Community Church @ 3

Then on Tuesday, April 28, we will be performing in Lagerquist Concert Hall at PLU at 8.

The performances are free, so you should definitely come if you’re in the area!  For more information, see http://web.me.com/brian.galante/PLU_Chorale/PLU_Chorale.html

Well… I have to get back to homework… I have a 2-3 page research paper due in French on Monday, as well as a rough draft for a 5-7 page paper for my writing class.  (And, as you can see, I won’t be here for half the week or this weekend… ).

Sunshiny Day! April 6, 2009

It’s glorious outside today!  (And yesterday was wonderful, too! ) 😀  I’m also excited because it’s given me an opportunity to wear a sun dress I just bought the other day. 😀  Yay!  Yesterday EVERYONE (at least it seemed like everyone) was outside on the grass, getting a tan, doing homework, reading, or playing frisbee.  There were also a number of girls who were out there in bikini tops, which I think is a bit much, but whatever floats your boat.  I, luckily, found a table in the shade to sit at.  It was a bit cooler in the shade, but I didn’t end up with the ridiculous burns some other people had and it was the only way I could be outside and still work on my laptop (I was working on an essay).    

 

The other night Lisa and some other friends were discussing religion and their personal beliefs (I wasn’t there… 😦 ), and now Lisa is really interested in learning about religion, what people believe, and why.  So yesterday as I was sitting working on my essay, she came over and sat down with me and we talked about religion for quite a while and I did my best to answer some of the questions she had.  Then, later last night, we were down in Pflueger (a dorm… oh, sorry “residence hall”), and we started talking about it with Jen… and then Chris… and then David.  I loved it. 🙂  Sometimes religion can be really hard to talk about because people get really defensive about their beliefs, but it was a really tension-free environment and we just listened to each other’s views without passing judgement.  🙂

 

Oh, also, last night I went to the 24-hour one acts!  So there were 10 (I think) members of the theater society who, in 24 hours, wrote, rehearsed, and staged a one act play (or two, rather, since there were two groups of 5).  They were given an object, an action, and a word that they had to say 5 times during the play.  It was awesome.  The first one took place in a in the waiting room of a doctor’s office where three people were sitting.  Each of them, it turns out, was waiting to hear about the status of the same person.  The guy happened to be suffering from a severe case of the hiccups.  lol  Anyway, the three people were his best friend, his ex-girlfriend, and his dad.  The play mostly consisted of the three conversing and trying to figure out their relationship with the patient, and the horrible thing they did to him.   His dad had tricked him into eating his pet cow (he was a vegetarian).  His ex-girlfriend had knocked his dead mother off the table at her funeral when he asked her to marry him.  The best friend ran away when the guy came out that he was gay and in love with him.  So, how they did that was they had the main conversation in the waiting room, then did a quick scene change to show exactly what happened in each of the scenarios, a different person playing the hiccuping guy each time (he was characterized by a red cap).  Anyway, it was really cool.  I liked it a lot. 🙂   The second one was a musical.  It was about four people who went to a speed dating restaurant on Valentine’s day.  One guy kept having people think he was gay, one girl was still obsessed with her ex, the other guy was looking to settle down, and the other girl just wanted sex.  It was about their interactions and how they learn that who they are is ok.  It was good, but the fact that it wasn’t memorized detracted from it a bit (yes, I know it was only 24 hours, which is a ridiculous amount of time, but after the first group didn’t use scripts it was a bit disappointing).

 

I think that’s about all the excitement I have to share for now… Hope everyone’s out enjoying the sunshine! 😀