Getting Started

It's past 11:00 on a Tuesday night. Just like any other Master's student in the country I have plenty of things that I could be doing; homework, picking up the stuff that has accumulated on the floor, finally doing some laundry... But instead I decided to start a blog. Because, as any student would tell you, doing this is infinitely better than all the other things I could (and probably should) be doing.

So a little bit about me. I am a 22-year-old graduate student at Arizona State University. I am almost finished with the first semester of my Master's, a Master's of Music in Opera Performance. While this degree may seem really unusual there is a surprisingly huge number of people that want to do the exact same thing that I want to do. Saying that music is my life is kind of a given; the fact is anyone who is crazy enough to be an opera singer has to be insanely in love with music, singing, and performing. Being an opera singer is certainly not an easy career, and it would not be worth all the sturm und drang if you didn't love it. But I've been raised by parents who stress that you should do what you love, even if it means not getting the biggest paycheck in the world.

I come from a family of people in the performing arts, so I guess you could say it was inevitable that I end up in the arts as well. My dad, David, is a choral conductor and works at ASU. My mom, Susan, is a high school dance teacher and my older sister, Elizabeth (or Lizzy as I often call her) is finishing up her Master's in Theater for Youth at UT Austin. My family is incredibly close. We're probably one of the few families in the US that actually enjoy family vacations, Thanksgiving, and other normally painful but necessary family activities. It's partly my great relationship with my family that has made this first semester at ASU so awesome. I did my undergrad at Ithaca College in NY, and while I loved my time there I definitely missed my family a ton. I still can't get over the fact that I can grab lunch with my dad on a weekly basis (which I do), eat a home-cooked meal in my house, visit my pets Buddy and Figaro (the cutest dog and cat you will ever see), or see my parents' performances live. I feel so lucky to be close to my family, doing the thing that I love most every day. It really doesn't get any better than that.

So what is this blog? Well that is a really good question. I started this tonight as I was thinking about how I should eat better and exercise more, thinking that keeping a blog might be good motivation. Then I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, and chuckled a bit at the stereotype of opera singers being fat ladies that wear horns. The funny thing is opera singers do have to be healthy and fit. We are in a way athletes, plus all the HD broadcasts kind of require that us opera singers be easy to look at. On top of that, a couple weeks ago the artistic director at AZ Opera visited one of my classes to do his spiel on how to be successful in this tough business, and one of the things he mentioned was social media. He suggested starting a blog as a way to make yourself visible in the big bad world of the internet. So I thought why not? Why not track my progress towards a healthy lifestyle while also talking about my somewhat odd living, trying to make it in this crazy world as a performer? Though I won't beat myself up too much if I get a little off-topic :-)

Now I am getting started. I'm starting my very first blog. I'm jump-starting my way into a healthy lifestyle, full of good home-cooked food, exercise, and a free mind. And of course I am getting started on real life as an opera singer, which is scarily just around the corner.