OPERA!!!

I had the awesome opportunity to attend a dress rehearsal of the Grand Rapids Opera last night for free! It was so much fun!

Cornerstone was offering free tickets for the same night that I had made plans to go over to my friend Ryan's house to hang out. Ryan, being a lover of music and theater, enthusiastically agreed to alter our plans to include dinner and the opera! So yesterday I drove to Ryan's house where we enjoyed our creation of lemon-pepper chicken, parmesan mashed redskin potatoes, and parmesan-herb broccoli. MMMMmmmmmm!! Then we drove to the opera, where we discovered that our seats were basically ideal: in the orchestra, about 10-15 rows back, nearly dead center, and (the best part for me) no one was sitting in front of us which meant I could see the whole time! :-) I don't know how many peope realize that I can rarely see everything when I go to the movies or to a play or concert, etc. because I really am so short that even an average-height person in front of me effectively blocks a good portion of the screen or stage. So it was a real treat to have a clear view! The opera was called "The Elixir of Love" and it was quite funny! The singing was all in Italian, and they put some of the words up in English on a screen above the stage, but thankfully I could understand some of it from my knowledge of Spanish too, so between the English lyrics and my deciphering the Italian, I understood quite a bit! :-)

It was also a real treat to randomly run into one of my friends that used to be a Huddle Leader with me at Summer Games. He goes to Grand Valley, but we haven't hung out since our freshman year, so we've been long overdue for catching up. Hopefully we'll be able to spend some time together soon.

The Kiss-a-Cow fundraiser is going better....we found a cow! A man from my church has a cow that just had twins, so he's bringing one of them. It will be a baby cow, but that's much much better than no cow at all! :-) I'm ready for it to be over, though. I have little time for myself because I have to sit at the table during lunch hour. It has, however, pushed me into a regular wake-up routine, which I sometimes struggle to establish when I start a new semester. Now my days are generally: wake-up at 8:30, do some stuff on the computer, shower, maybe go to chapel, then head to the corum to set up the fundraising table where I sit and get a bit of homework done, eat lunch at the table, and head to either class or work depending on the day. After work/class I come back to my apartment for a bit, and three days a week I have Zumba classes (so fun!), then two nights a week I also have night classes. So it's a busy schedule. I'm glad I'm not working on the weekends again this semester.

On another side note, I found my camera!! I thought I lost it, but I found it in the bottom of one of the pockets in my backpack. I was very relieved. :-)

So I suppose that's all for now. I'm very tired today and wish I had time to go back to bed right now, but alas, my duties are calling! Farewell for now and blessings!