My new name is Rawrgaret.

Title doesn't have to do with post. I just wanted to let you know that.

Chapel today. Speaker was talking about his six-year-old daughter having an accepting-Jesus-as-personal-savior experience (not sure what to call it when it's not baptism), and how that was great and all, but we're too old for that "cutesy gospel." Our gospel, apparently, is Luke 9:23, taking up our crosses and following Christ.

The Importance of Being Prepared

Halfway through Act I, our first performance with an audience...

Me: *sitting in the green room*
Aria: *rushing in* I found Margaret! Let's go!
Me: What?
Aria: Sean's pants ripped.
Sean: *out of sight*
Aria: You've got all of Agony and It Takes Two. There's thread in Jen's purse—
Me: I got some. *runs to room to fetch said thread, needle, and scissors, then to Sean's dressing room, where he has changed*
Sean's pants: *foot-long tear right in the back*
Me: *whipstitch with purple thread, because that's what was already on my needle*
Sean and me: *awkward chatting*
Me: Done!
Everyone, for the rest of the day: Yayyyyy Margaret!

Sean plays Jack, one of the main characters. He wears the same pants for the entire show, so he didn't even have another option to change into, besides, like, modern jeans.

The mouth of a wolf's not the end of the world!

Also, updates, not that you don't know them all already but rather just as a log to keep track of things:

• Got the part of Little Red Riding Hood's Granny in Into the Woods... another post or two on that later, if I collect my thoughts.
• Working at Kroger.
• Parents in Africa for the summer, me living alone for 6 weeks.
• Cyprian born, best thing ever.
• Car accident, not the worst thing ever (but still, would not repeat).

I think that's all the big stuff.

ETA: Also, 19? I guess?

with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

So as always I've got at least half a dozen blog posts I could be writing, but recently I actually visited this page and realized what the current post was… I think the fact that I didn't remember it at all is even more pathetic than the way it only lasted a day and a half. Anyway, I really need to update things, and I also wanted to wax for a while about Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons.

I was not optimistic about it. I'd picked it up at the library on a whim and was trying it out while sewing, as background music, but I don't do well with background music. If I don't already know it, and I'm not paying attention to it, it just doesn't work.

It turned out to be perfect. I listened to the disc several times in a row, and not because it was good casual listening—it was music that held my attention without my trying.

The general sound of the whole thing: The music is lovely, and has a strong style without each song sounding the same. What I also noticed is their impeccable technique. If anybody has ever doubted the importance of enunciation, direct them to these songs. Just hearing the way they hold the vowel as long as possible before saying the consonant (words "heart" and "meat-eater" come to mind) is enough to make me sigh contentedly, and you may notice how easy it is to understand everything they're saying. And then sometimes they take a look at how the rules are supposed to work, and say, "Nope, we can do better." Just the phrase "with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair" was enough to make me love them for eternity. The way they pause in the middle of 'flowers' somehow holds so much personality it conveys so much more than the words alone.

I start catching these amazing little phrases, even without context:

Love it will not betray you/Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free/Be more like the man you were made to be//There is a design, an alignment, a cry/Of my heart to see/The beauty of love as it was made to be

I won't let you choke/On the noose around your neck

And my head told my heart/Let love grow/But my heart told my head/This time no, this time no

It seems that all my bridges have been burnt/But you say that's exactly how this grace thing works

Can you lie next to her/And give her your heart/Your heart, as well as your body/And can you lie next to her/And confess your love/Your love, as well as your folly/And can you kneel before the king/And say I'm clean, I'm clean

If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won

Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all/But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall

Awake my soul/For you were made to meet your maker

Death is just so full, and man so small/I'm scared of what's behind, and what's before

But there will come a time you'll see/With no more tears/And love will not break your heart/But dismiss your fears/Get over your hill and see, what you find there/With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

I can't help singing along with much of it. My favorites right now are The Cave, Roll Away Your Stone, White Blank Page, Dust Bowl Dance, and After the Storm.

Finally, I've been listening to it frequently for the past 3 weeks, and I am definitely not tired of it. The only complaint—track 7, Little Lion Man. "Little sisters" of mine, do not listen to that song. It is not shy on swearing. (I don't have the authority to tell anybody else not to, but I might just say that really, it's not something we need.)

Okay, well, I can't think anymore. I think this was coherent, even if I skipped over some of the amazing parts I don't know how to describe. I know not everybody who reads my blog will like this music, but really I'm just secretly hoping Marcus Mumford et all are going to read this and ask me to record a song with them. (Answer: yes, always.)

NoWriMo – May

Okay, so I'm going to use this post to chronicle this month's progress in novel-writing. Hopefully the publicity of it will be an incentive to do well.

May the First: 1678 words. It's a murder mystery based on Cinderella. Today's excerpt:

Once upon a time a man was murdered.

Okay, so today was pretty bad prose-wise. I think that's why I got so frustrated last night and why I wrote barely minimum for the day. I think my plot is working out alright but maybe I just got out of the habit of writing prose like this. I dunno. Anyway, not entirely dreading tomorrow.

May the Second: 2324 total. I think May is not the right time to be able to focus. I just got out of school and the weather is just starting to let me take walks again. Prose still dull as dirt:

"Did you know that I have been invited to three balls this year and could not attend a single one because of my fatal lack of a proper ball gown?" Her dresses were all taken from the closet and strewn across her bed and floor.

"I'm sorry," said Eviri quietly.

"Don't be." Dell smiled cockily. "The gentlemen who invited me were idiots anyway, and will invite me again."

Plot didn't go anywhere, but I'm figuring out more of where it will go, if I ever make myself get there. Hopes are not high, which are not helping. Oh yes, and my characters are all named randomly because I decided it's too complicated trying to research names from a single era and area, and find ones that I like. Never mind that there's also magic.

Anyway, I don't really care, which is probably the worst of it.

Teal paisley tights, rhythm, and candy-coloured lights.

Also, Scribblers. A writing group of Bethel people. I pretty well enjoy hanging out with them, so that's good. Proof: I read them a short story tonight, and you guys (might) know I don't do that much. (Ethan, Robin-- it's the Santa one. They laughed.)

This would be a perfect time to use my habitual song-lyrics-that-hardly-relate, but I got nothing.

I miss Little Women. Objectively it might not be my favorite show (in writing or music) but there is something about being in a musical, even with just a small part. Something in the combination of story and music and people you are kind of forced to be friends with (because, short of knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll, surviving wet tech together is pretty much the best way to forge a bond).

Then, last night (at the Earl Awards, Bethel's theatre award ceremony), I missed having the nerve to just sit next to some of those people because we were working together or because we had a joke that made no sense or because we were too tired to care. Now it's just those people I did stuff with once. I don't know. It feels awkward now, and I don't know if that's just me.

Anyway, it's now one of my life-goals to be in a musical with actual friends.

Fame for Despina who shows the way!

1. I auditioned for and got into The Collegians, a show choir at Bethel. I'm excited because (watch out, meta-list): a) it's an opportunity to actually sing in ensemble songs (which I love) without being in the entire musical (which is a huge commitment and, for me, a rare opportunity); b) it's something I'll be learning from for at least an entire school year; c) as I am now a vocal performance major, I really should do stuff like this; d) getting some dance experience will no doubt be invaluable when I do audition for musicals; and e) the other people in the choir are some that I actually get along with, so maybe it is progress on having friends?
   
2. Vati asked me to be in his chamber opera next fall. It's called Così fan tutte (Women Are Like That), it's by Mozart, and it's Vati's own translation and abridgement (so that it can be done without a chorus and in two hours instead of three). I play Despina, the maid. It's one of the smaller parts but none of the parts are actually small, and if you know the story you'll probably agree that it's the best part.
   
3. If I enjoy eating animal crackers more when they're mini, even when they taste exactly the same as regular, am I secretly a bad person?
4. Today's chapel was, besides the initial prayer, entirely the giving-out of awards. In the introduction, they said it was because (quoting from memory) "here at Bethel we want to integrate chapel/faith/something with learning or whatever." Okay, I probably paraphrased that more than a little bit, but my point is that they think that replacing worship with something secular is the way to live a Christian life. I can't pretend I missed singing praise songs this morning, but it's just so backwards.
   

Wie gerne einmal spazieren gehn!

Here is the message I gleaned from today's chapel: The second birth Jesus spoke of to Nicodemus (John 3) was not baptism but when it feels like you have the Holy Spirit in you. Furthermore, that causes you to be inherently good. If you still have a bent toward sinning, you cannot be assured in your salvation.

Angry face.

In other news, Steel Magnolias was a good show and trying to help with strike when one is wearing a dress is idiotic.

Angiol mio caro, non mi lasciar.

Before anything else: Sita had surgery yesterday for her urinary reflux problem. Minor surgery, but general anesthesia. Everything went well but she still has to wear a catheter until tomorrow morning.

Okay, anyway.
Performing makes me think existentially. (At least, I think it's existentialism I mean. If not, whoops. I'm too lazy to check.) In Little Women, for instance, it always struck me in the middle of Weekly Volcano Press, when I'm looking at Becki, singing a story, pretending I'm in my forties and I own a boarding house and she's the daughter of my friend and the governess of my daughters and she's talking, not singing, and meanwhile a bunch of other people are playing the characters in her story; not just a fair maiden and an evil aristocrat and a tired knight and all, but a hag and a troll and a swamp. (Yes, a swamp.) I have to pretend that they are what I see and hear in my head as I watch Becki and listen to her telling the story. Add the mics and costumes and make-up and lights and set and props and dialects and the way we never turn our backs to the audience, and suddenly all I can think is, "This is ridiculous. Why do humans respond to this?"

But today in performance class I sang Il Sospiro, and even though it's in Italian (which I do not speak) and tells a completely fictional story, my thoughts were more along the lines of "I am sharing this because it is beautiful music, and singing it to the audience is more personal than pulling up a YouTube of it, even if the YouTube wouldn't shake so much."

And that is why I am not a theatre major; I may know it's amazing and everything, but when it frightens me, I abandon that thought.

This was written up very quickly between classes. Let's hope I said everything the way I meant, because I'm (again) too lazy to do any more work on it.