Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The birthday celebration has begun.
Normally, my birthday celebration begins a few weeks before my actual birthday, but this year is much busier than past ones, so I guess the string of wonderful happenings had to wait until the week before. While the massive flood of work continues, here are some simchas to enjoy:
First, I got an awesome gift certificate to iTunes for my birthday and have already spent some of it on guilty pleasures. I spoke to Andy, Stacy and Mom all on the same night, which was lots of fun. Hooray for Skype! (Plug: call your family around the world for free from your computer: skype.com)
The next day, I got two more voice students, for a new total of four. Maybe I didn't mention that I'm teaching voice lessons. I'm not teaching for the income (although it is definitely bringing in some lunch money), it's just great experience. I'm expected to teach b'nei mitzvah kids next year, and I have very little experience teaching voice except for a few months when I was in college. We'll have to see if my schedule can hold four voice students, although at 30 mins each per week, it's not a huge amount, and I think it's a very worthwhile use of my time.
Later that day, I went to visit the coordinator of student services here at HUC, and got some even more excellent news: a scholarship I'd received from the Israeli gov't has been re-evaluated and--get this--more than doubled the previous award! This particular scholarship is not known for its timely arrival, but it's free money and will probably get to me in time to help out with my move to New York City.
Today, I had a fantastic voice lesson. No one will really understand what I'm talking about, so I won't bother to explain, but I had a breakthrough lesson. Breakthroughs are always exciting.
I'd also like to mention that I've now slept through the night two days in a row, which is the first time in a long while. I don't know what exactly wakes me up, but pretty consistently I'm awake sometime between 3am and 6am. Maybe not a big accomplishment, but definitely a big improvement.
Happy birthday to me!
Normally, my birthday celebration begins a few weeks before my actual birthday, but this year is much busier than past ones, so I guess the string of wonderful happenings had to wait until the week before. While the massive flood of work continues, here are some simchas to enjoy:
First, I got an awesome gift certificate to iTunes for my birthday and have already spent some of it on guilty pleasures. I spoke to Andy, Stacy and Mom all on the same night, which was lots of fun. Hooray for Skype! (Plug: call your family around the world for free from your computer: skype.com)
The next day, I got two more voice students, for a new total of four. Maybe I didn't mention that I'm teaching voice lessons. I'm not teaching for the income (although it is definitely bringing in some lunch money), it's just great experience. I'm expected to teach b'nei mitzvah kids next year, and I have very little experience teaching voice except for a few months when I was in college. We'll have to see if my schedule can hold four voice students, although at 30 mins each per week, it's not a huge amount, and I think it's a very worthwhile use of my time.
Later that day, I went to visit the coordinator of student services here at HUC, and got some even more excellent news: a scholarship I'd received from the Israeli gov't has been re-evaluated and--get this--more than doubled the previous award! This particular scholarship is not known for its timely arrival, but it's free money and will probably get to me in time to help out with my move to New York City.
Today, I had a fantastic voice lesson. No one will really understand what I'm talking about, so I won't bother to explain, but I had a breakthrough lesson. Breakthroughs are always exciting.
I'd also like to mention that I've now slept through the night two days in a row, which is the first time in a long while. I don't know what exactly wakes me up, but pretty consistently I'm awake sometime between 3am and 6am. Maybe not a big accomplishment, but definitely a big improvement.
Happy birthday to me!
