I'll be Home for Christmas...

After my Saturday night birthday debacle, my entire body needed to recover.  Sunday was spent doing nothing productive, and it rocked.  But Monday brought the prospect of bad weather, and I decided to complete the second half of my journey to Gwinner.  The trip from Bowman to Gwinner went mostly wonderful.  It was snowing when I left, and the roads weren't amazing, but weren't horrible, either.  The driving life was good, until I got to Mandan. 

I'm a good, blinker-using driver.  It makes me quite angry when people don't use their blinkers, no matter the circumstances, but especially when there are pedestrians involved.  I always use mine.  Until, when just outside of Mandan, I passed someone on the interstate.  Before I re-entered the right lane, I, like the good, blinker-using citizen that I am, turned on my blinker.  

Bad idea.  The blinker blinked, but the blinker knob fell right off.

So there I was, still passing people (to the left) with my blinker on (to the right).  I'm sure people thought I was crazy, and I was so so so embarrassed.  I finally exited the interstate and made a left-hand turn, which turned the blinker off, but my knob is still out of commission.

Next, I stopped in Jamestown to visit my lil' sis.  After having dinner, I went to put gas in my car and to wash my windshield.  With the snow and meltiness on the roads, people had been spraying nasty onto my windshield almost the whole way from Bismarck to Jamestown.  Unfortunately, my windshield wiper fluid pump is broken (do you see a trend with my car here?), so it had to stay dirty during my travels.  I was looking forward it to cleaning it with those lovely squeegees that all gas stations have.

I had forgotten about the cold in ND.  None of the gas stations had windshield cleaner in the gas bays because it gets too cold and freezes, so I had to wash my windshield with a dry paper towel.

I was honestly surprised about how excited I was when I saw the bright lights of Gwinner through my newly-cleaned windshield.  I couldn't quite understand it.  My excitement has waned since, for a number of reasons that shall be discussed in later blogs.

Since I've been home, exactly what I had feared would happen has happened.  See, my parents have jobs and therefore money, and therefore keep food in the cupboards.  Plus, it's Christmas, so there is a large variety of sweets and other such nonsense readily available.  Aside from that, my friends from high school were only home for a few days, so I quickly ran out of things to entertain me.  In short, I've done a lot of sitting around at home, bored.  And alcohol is just far too prevalent. 

But I'm home, with family, experiencing a full-out ND blizzard.  Both of the interstates are closed from one end of the state to the other.  No travel is advised.  The wind is howling, the snow is drifting, and people are stuck in their houses IN TOWN.  Many families have been split up for this Christmas, and are scrambling to make plans with whoever can get together, while mine is here, playing cards, watching basketball, and (mostly) enjoying each other's company.

Oh, ND...

North Dakotans Know How to Party

Dear Colorado friends:

Please don't take offense to this post.  I'm only relaying an opinion based on personal experience.  And if you do take offense to this, you are the one who can change it.

Love,

Raissa

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I've recently been very annoyed by 2 traits that I've found common to people in Colorado.  Maybe my experiences have been uncharacteristic, maybe it's just the people I hang out with, maybe it's socially acceptable in Colorado... I don't know.  In any case, the prevalence of those two traits have caused me to be an angry, crabby person recently.  I'll cover the first briefly, while the second is really just an excuse to tell you about my birthday party.  The traits are:

• Flakiness
• The inability to party

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I am not a flaky person.  If I tell someone I'm going to do something, I do my very best to do it.  If, for some reason, I find out I can't do it, I make a point of telling them right away so that they don't expect me. If I make plans, I follow through.  If I don't know my plans, and there are too many variables to make a decision immediately, I will say, "I don't know what I'm going to do, but when I know, I will tell you."   I feel like it's just common courtesy.

It's apparently not common courtesy in Colorado.  I can't even count the number of times people have told me that they would love to come to an event, or even that they are coming to that event, and then never show up.  It's so unbelievably frustrating.  And hard to plan.  It's to the point that I'm accustomed to certain people saying that they are coming and not showing up that when they say that they're coming, I plan for them not to be there.  I'm getting used to it, but still hate it.

Maybe people in ND aren't flaky because if there's something to do that's even slightly out of the ordinary, we do it.  And there will be nothing else planned opposite of it: there are no other options for things to do.  In CO, there's always stuff to do, so it's possible that other things come up.  However, that's no excuse for not even calling to say you're not coming. 

I refuse to get used to this habit, and I definitely refuse to get into the habit myself.

On to #2: People in CO do not know how to party.  At least not in my experience.  North Dakotans, though... ha!

I spent over eight hours driving on Saturday in order to make it to Bowman, ND to party with my ND peeps for my birthday, which is today.  I was pretty bored along the way, which you can see from this:

Jettie had pink panty droppers waiting for me when I walked in the door.  We had 3 plus a shot before we even left for the bar.  At the rate that I've been drinking lately (read: never), I should have stopped after this:

We didn't.

We walked to the bar and had one shot and one more drink, and from there, the night goes, well, fuzzy.  This photo is from the first bar:

It was a kissy type of night.  A large percentage of the photos I have from last night involve someone kissing someong.  I gave both Jettie and Shauna hickies.  For fun.  As a joke. I'm not a lesbian.

We headed down the street to the other bar, where this happened:

I really, honestly, don't have much recollection of anything that happened in the second bar.  I talked to some guy from FL, Jettie and I danced provocatively, we drank more (I don't know where all the drinks came from), etc.  And we took a lot of pictures, like this one:

From there, we had an after-party at Jettie's house, which I really don't remember. I don't even remember getting birthday kisses from every person at the party, except that there is pictorial evidence (which you won't get to see). 

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Jettie had promised Bowman a shit show, and that's what they got.  All in all, we ended up with 102 pictures and a video (of Jettie in the bathroom... don't ask), along with lots of alcohol and tons of fun.  I've officially determined that I need more lady friends in CO: nothing beats a great girl's night out.

THAT, my friends, is how to party.  Ya'll can take lessons from us!

"So Come Home to North Dakota" - yay Medora!

Before I tell you about my journey home, let me tell you: I'M FAMOUS!!!

No, not because I'm such an amazing singer, and not because I rock.

Okay, I'm not actually famous at all.  However, I am mentioned in a book that was written by a couple who was traveling the 50 states and golfing.  At the time, it was late Summer 2008, and I was working in the pro shop at Bully Pulpit.

Read the google preview, which includes me, here.  Type "Raissa" in the search box, and I'll be there for ya!

In other exciting news, I have officially started the move over to Broomfield. I am currently sitting in my room in Boulder, which has only what wouldn't fit in my car during first trip to Broomfield.  All that is left here are things I need for life today.  I moved almost everything yesterday, and began the process of unpacking, which proved to be difficult in a mostly unfurnished bedroom.

I think that means, unfortunately, that I'll have to leave the bulk of my unpacking for when I get back from ND, but it's okay.  I'll have nothing else to do, really.  I'll have to bring back a few things from there with me to help fill up the space of my GINORMOUS room!

I'll finish packing today and will head for ND on Saturday.  I'll spend Saturday and probably Sunday in Western North Dakota, particularly Bowman and Medora, to see people out there.  Monday, I'll head east, maybe stopping in Bismarck/Jamestown along the way, depending if there are people there who want to see me.  I'll be back in Gwinner on Monday or Tuesday. 

If you are wanting to see me sometime during my voyage, please let me know!  There are many of you whom I want to see, but it's going to be really hard to coordinate schedules and driving, etc.  Please, please, please, please call or text: (701) 308-0495.  I just have too many friends to keep track of you all (hahahhahahaha.  Just kidding.  Mostly.)

I hope to see you all very soon!  : )  Wish me safe travels.

(Not really a) SURPRISE!!!

I turn 24 on Sunday.  I've not been very excited about the prospect of having lived for 24 years and not really accomplished anything in life. 

I was torn about when to head to ND for Christmas, because I felt like I should celebrate my birthday here before heading back.  But I wasn't sure who would be around, what we would do, etc.  And I most certainly didn't want to plan my own birthday party.

On Monday, I ran into my friend Anna, and she asked me what I was doing.  I'd recently become very noncommittal about a birthday party because of being drained at the idea of being 24.  I was trying to explain it to her, but she didn't get it, and offered to plan a birthday party for me.  I agreed that if she wanted to plan something, I would participate.

Not two hours later, Kenny texted me, asking me what my plans were for Wednesday evening.  I didn't have any, so he suggested I come over to cook hamburger helper for him.  If that seems weird to you, let me explain: Kenny can't cook.  He once failed at cooking frozen pizza by leaving the cardboard under the pizza while it was in the oven.  I've cooked hamburger helper for us before, so it wasn't that strange of a request.  But I knew immediately that there was a party being planned for me. 

I was determined not to tell them that I knew, but I really wanted someone to know that I knew so that when I told them that I knew they would believe me.  I told people at work, along with others about my suspicions.  One co-worker laughed and wondered what would happen if I went there expecting a surprise when really it was just dinner. 

When Dennis dropped me at my apartment on Tuesday night, I wanted to give him an appropriate goodbye.  If there was no surprise party, I should give him a hug and say Merry Christmas.  But if there was a surprise party, then I wouldn't need to do that.  As I got out of the car, I said, "Will I see you tomorrow?"  He said, "I don't know."  I said, "Well, is Kenny having a surprise party for me tomorrow?"  His face told it all.  I said, "Okay, see you tomorrow!  And don't worry, I won't tell that you told me."  He tried to tell me that he didn't tell me, which I guess he technically didn't, but he did.

Wednesday night, I was hanging out at my house, waiting to head over to Kenny's, when he texted me and asked for my roommate's number.  Weird, considering that they don't really talk.  Then, I got a phone call from a friend asking for Kenny's number.  Then, Kenny told me to hurry because he had cooked without me. 

If there had been any doubts about a surprise before, there wasn't anymore.  I drove to Kenny's and could see a number of legs between the windowsill and the bottom of the blinds.  I saw women's shoes in the window by the door.  I opened the door, walked in, and everyone yelled, "Surprise!" 

"Did you know?" they said.  "Of course," was my reply.  They were disappointed that I knew, but it was still very exciting.  It's my very first surprise party!  Of course I was excited!  They all had brought a potluck dish, and some friends got me flowers.  We drank mojitos and chatted until I fell asleep on the couch.

I guess I'm not depressed about a 24th birthday, after all...  Thanks, CO friends! :)

Finals Fun... err...

Finals Week: I had forgotten how much I love, yet hate this week of my life all at the same time.

You see, finals are a funny thing.  They are supposed to measure all that you've learned in one semester.  Really, all I think that they really measure are people's ability to stay up late and cram  an entire semester's worth of information into two days of studying.

In Jamestown, I was a hardcore procrastinator.  We're talking save a 10-page term paper until the night before it was due procrastinator (I got an A on it, in case you were wondering).  It never helped that I was always able to get good grades even though I procrastinated.  My procrastination was positively reinforced, and my grades never suffered as a result of my saving my work until the end.

During my second go-round, I decided to change my ways.  I wanted to get things done before they needed to be done so that I wouldn't stress out at the last minute.  I had it in my head to excel at my coursework without all the craziness involved in putting things off until the day before they were due. 

I succeeded at first.  I would actually read the assigned readings in my theory textbook, and did extra homework to practice, just for fun.  I did my listening assignments weeks ahead of time so that I could listen to them more than once before the quiz.  I wrote papers before they were due so that I would have time to edit and revise them. 

Things slowly deteriorated as the semester went on.  Music theory suddenly wasn't as hard, and I didn't feel like I would need to read the readings.  I didn't really do the listening assignments because we listened to most of the pieces in class.  I saved the papers because the ones I had to write weren't as difficult as psychology papers.  In short, I just got lazy. 

It's a bad idea to procrastinate studying for cumulative finals that make up a large percentage of your grade.  Luckily for me, most of my classes are cumulative in themselves, so it's not a whole bunch of review.  I mean, one can't study pieces of theory and have tests on it and then put it all together for a test.  It's like math: it builds upon itself.  And either you get it, or you don't.

I have had a decent finals schedule: 1 last week, 2 Saturday, 1 Monday, and 2 today.  Yes, final exams start on Saturdays here.  At 7:30 am.  No, I'm not kidding.  I'm grateful I didn't have one Saturday 7:30.  Gross.  Everything has gone mostly fine.  I take my theory exam in 20 minutes.

To me, though, the most important final exam isn't an exam at all.  It's a performance jury.  Every performance major in every area has to show the semester's progress by performing for all of the faculty in the department.  As a freshman, I had to have 6 songs prepared, of which I would sing 2.  The performer picks the first and the faculty picks the second. 

Needless to say, I was nervous.  Always am. I always feel like I'm not going to live up to the faculty's expectations of me.  I psyche myself out.  Strangely enough, though, I wasn't nearly as nervous as I usually am.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting more comfortable with performing, or with the faculty, or if I was just well-prepared enough, but the fact that I wasn't nervous freaked me out...

That's beside the point.  I walked in, and received a very warm welcome.  They asked me what I would sing, and I surprised them by introducing a musical theatre piece by Stephen Sondheim.  Upon the pronouncement, the opera director pumped her fists in the air with excitement.  I performed the piece nearly perfectly, and upon its completion, one professor told me never to sing that song again because it made her cry.  Another said that she was so happy that they had me here at CU.  The second song was technically great, but I have a hard time relating to it emotionally.  Most of the comments centered around my lack of emotion, which I predicted.  I'll keep working on it, though. 

The good news is that I earned an A for the semester in my voice studio, which is awesome.  That's what I'm here for.  I hope to continue improving, and look forward to the many juries ahead of me.

In the meantime, I'll see you fools in ND next week.  Prepare yourselves.  And your livers.

Christmas is in the Air...

Today is a day full of Christmas celebrations, and every minute has been exciting for me.

Last week, I went into the Music Development Office to pick up the Christmas gift bag that every Adopt-a-Student Scholarship recipient gets.  While I was in there, Scott, the director of the office, said, "Raissa, do you have a church gig for this weekend?"  I didn't.  He said, "Do you want one?"  I did.  He explained to me that it involved one rehearsal and one performance.  I was more than welcome to help.  Then, he said, "Is $125 enough?"  Yes, please!

So yesterday morning, Kenny and I drove down to Golden for a rehearsal with the choir, and then again this morning for the performance.  (I got up at 6:00 am... BLECH!)  Our role was to help fill the sound of the choir so that it could be heard over the full orchestra that was entirely composed of CU music students.  The church has its own choir, we were just beefing them up a bit.

The performance was excellent; we sang for a full house.  And the choir members were really cute old people.  There was one man who always knew the exact page number and yelled it out at the top of his lungs, the very nice lady who sat beside me and told me about her squished boob, and Peaches, the black female tenor who always had a wisecrack at the best possible moment, among others.

After the performance, Kenny and I headed to Denver for the 35th annual "Tuba Christmas."  I had never heard of such a thing, but Kenny had been to one in Aberdeen. Tuba Christmas happens when literally hundreds of brass players: euphonium, tuba, sousaphone, etc., etc., etc. get together and play Christmas carols and hymns arranged for a tuba choir.

It was awesome.  I literally got the goosebumps every 5 seconds, and it wasn't because of the chill in the air.  The performers were everywhere from 8 to 85 years old and included families, friends, and people who had performed in up to 34 Tuba Christmases in Denver alone.  There were about 250 performers, and the conductors were the cutest old men ever.  I can't even describe how cute they were.

I was a little sad that the audience wasn't a bit more excited to be there.  Kenny and I had a great time singing along, which the organizers encouraged, but not many were singing.  In any case, the two of us had a great time.

We had to park pretty far away from the location where Tuba Christmas was held, and I had worn heels.  On the way back to the car, we had to cross several roads.  At one such road, we decided to cross just as the hand started flashing at us not to cross.  I took a step onto the street, then another...  Thn, I suddenly had no shoe.  The heel had wedged itself into a crack on the road, and when I kept walking, I lost my shoe.  So there I was, in the middle of the street in downtown Denver, with only one shoe on my feet, and the hand getting ready to tell us not to walk.  I was laughing so hard I could hardly contain myself, and so was everyone around us.  I finally rescued my shoe and ran across the street.  All I could say was, "I hope everyone who saw that laughed really hard."  

Now, I'm getting ready to head over to my church, ULC, for our Christmas Hymns and Reading service.  Because there will probably be no students here on Christmas, we are celebrating today by singing and reading traditional Christmas Eve stuff.  I'm leading a few hymns, chanting some antiphons, and singing "O Holy Night" for the Recessional.  They are going to record the service and give copies to alumni, so I'm pretty excited about it.

It's finally beginning to feel like Christmas around here...

Life Update (It's a doozy)...

A few strange things happened this week.

Okay, a lot of strange things...  The strangest of them all, though, are as follows:

• I didn't blog for over a week. Shame on me.
• People still checked out my blog to see if I had written.  Go you!!!

However, those are minor things in comparison to the roller coaster that has been Raissa's life recently.  I'll do my best to sum them up below.

Last week brought a lot of hype with the much-anticipated and yet much-dreaded Holiday Festival.  I had (obviously) never been in the Holiday Festival, but had heard a lot of bad things about it from upperclassmen.  Thinking about it, I mean, what good could possibly come from 300-400 musicians in the same room, at the same time, putting on the same concert 4 times?

I thought that the JC Christmas Concert was a hassle and time-consuming, what with a dress rehearsal filmed by PBS crews and having to do your hair and makeup the same way two days in a row so that they could take cuts from the rehearsal and the live performance.  Ha!  Not even.

The HF involved one 3 1/2-hour rehearsal on Thursday night, which was awful.  Standing for almost the whole time, rehearsing instead of running pieces, people not paying attention, dealing with "Betelehemu..."  It was awful.  We performed on Friday night, which was pretty bad again, but it was nice to sing for a sold-out crowd of 2000.  We performed Saturday afternoon to yet another sold-out crowd.  (Guess who forgot to put their phone on silent and received a phone call during the concert.  If you guess me, you're right.)  They fed us, we drank a little, and had a Saturday evening concert, which was also sold out.  Then, we had a sold-out Sunday afternoon concert. In all, we performed to over 8,000 people. 

It really wasn't as bad as people made it out to be.  There was a great variety of music, what with an orchestra, brass band, percussion piece, monster choir, small choir, and a few soloists.  My riser buddies made life interesting, and there was never a dull moment on the risers.  Sure, it sucked to stand for an hour and a half without moving, but whatever.  That happens.  And we didn't even have to sing well half of the time because of the audience sing-alongs. The audience loves the show and come back year after year.  I love watching crazies in the audience.  It's highly entertaining.

What did suck about it, though, was how gosh darn much of my time it wasted.  I was in the monster choir, composed of like 200 students, so really, I was useless.  No one would have noticed if I wasn't there, and I wasn't really necessary.  Not that I'm saying I want to stand out, but it makes one feel unimportant in a choir of that size.  And I got absolutely no homework done.  At least it was the weekend before the week before finals week instead of the weekend before finals week.

In addition to HF, I had to attend orientation at BR, where I was hired as a shift leader at a new store that is opening in Superior.  This job, even though I haven't actually started yet, has been a run-around ever since the interview, and as soon as I find something better, I will snatch it up.  I had the interview in October and the owner-manager told me that I was a top candidate.  I expected to start working within a few weeks.  A few weeks went by, and I heard nothing, so I emailed and still heard nothing.  I did another job search.

I finally got an email saying they would like to hire me, but that the store where I would be working wasn't even built yet, and that we would be training soon.  Well, here it is, 2 months (almost) after my interview, and we finally started training last weekend.  Saturday morning, I had to be in Longmont (a 20-minute drive) by 8:30 am.  I got there to find that my co-workers are literally all high-schoolers (except one).  F. M. L.  I was talked to as if I was one of them: slow, stupid, and shy.  I'm not any of those things.  Well, slow sometimes.

We did the same thing on Sunday at 8:30 am.  I was told we would be working store hours during this week in the Longmont store, but when I asked her when and gave her my schedule, she said we wouldn't be working because of the weather.  When a schedule was finally made, I was scheduled to work during a time I specifically told her I couldn't work because of final exams starting THIS Saturday.  It's not been fun. 

Monday brought a surprise of its own.  I came home to a very upset roommate.  Her department had randomly decided that hall directors with roommates had to get rid of the roommates.  Presently, there is no rule against it, and they have known that I have been living here since August, but it only became a problem this week.  Why?  I don't know.  If the department had their way, I would be out on the street right now.  I apparently pose a security risk or something.

Surprisingly, I wasn't freaking out about it.  My dear friend Kenny recently broke up with his boyfriend and has been looking for a roommate, so I knew that I had that option.  Christina told me to wait until Thursday (today), so that they could make a definite decision.

I waited.  Today came, and they have decided to write a new policy for hall directors that requires that their roommates be either family members or domestic partners. Because I'm not Christina's domestic partner and because I have no desire to turn lesbian in order to stay in this apartment, I have to move out.  The department wants me out as soon as possible, but Christina said I could stay until after Christmas break.  I'll probably move out at the end of next week.

Kenny is staying in a condo in Broomfield, which is about 10 miles from Boulder.  It's not nearly as convenient for many reasons:

• I'll be commuting to Boulder daily (but we plan on carpooling).
• It's an unfurnished place, so I'll have to buy some furniture (unless anyone has anything they'd be willing to donate and deliver to CO for me).
• It's not nearly as convenient as living on campus because I'll have to get everything done during the day and won't be able to make random trips to the music building or library.
• My house was very centrally located for my friends, and a great meeting point.
• It was nice not to have to drive home after a night of too many teas.
  

However, I do think it will be awesome to live with Kenny.

• He's from SD, and we get along splendidly.  We already know where each other is every minute of every day, so this won't be weird at all.
• Rent will be about the same.
• I get to park right by my building instead of a 10-minute walk away.
• Broomfield is closer to work (if I keep my job at BR).

It's been pretty stressful, what with finals next week (starting Saturday) and random tests and recitations this week.  But there is never a dull moment in CO.  I hope to continue to update all of you more regularly this week, because there are some exciting things ahead!!!

Thanks for reading during my hiatus!

COMING SOON!

Wow... I can't even remember the last time I blogged.  Or had time to.

Coming soon: A replay of the weekend from hell.  Which I'm still suffering through.

Wish me luck.

The Performance

I love live theatre.  One never really knows what exactly is going to happen, no matter how well-prepared things are before the performance.

For the performance of Hansel and Gretel, things did not go as they were supposed to go. In an ideal world, Hansel and Gretel would be dancing and playing instead of working.  Their mother would come home and see that they haven't finished their chores, and would punish them by hitting their fingers with a broom.  In the process, the milk jug containing their supper would fall onto the ground and smash, causing the mother to be angry to say the least.

In the real life performance of Hansel and Gretel last night, Hansel and Gretel were playing and knocked the milk jug onto the floor before I even came in.  Doesn't seem like a huge deal, except that it totally changes why I'm mad and my reaction and the words that I say...  Thank goodness that the stage manager told me before I went on that it had broken and I had time to figure out how to react and what to say.

That's the beauty of live performances: the ability to think on our feet is essential, and one may as well not even try to be in this business if they can't.  It makes performances interesting, fun, and unpredictable for everyone.

Overall, the whole show went very, very well.  We had a packed house: standing room only, people sitting in the aisles, etc., and everyone was very excited.  They laughed and yelled and whooped and whistled.  I personally had a good crowd there, and it was awesome to get feedback from everyone.  I'm still shocked at the level of talent here: I don't think I'll ever stop being impressed with people...

Can't wait to perform again...

My first real performance...

... I'm peeing myself already, and the show doesn't actually happen until 7:30 pm tomorrow night in the music theatre in the basement of the Imig Music Building.  I expect to see you there, even if I do pee my pants.

Suffice it to say that things haven't gone as I had expected in my opera theatre class.  We didn't practice during class time as much as I expected, we had to provide parts of our own costumes, I sometimes stink at learning new music... etc.  I haven't ever really felt fully prepared and comfortable for it, and the performance is less than 24 hours away.

But I realized this morning how actually unprepared I really am.  Rehearsal did not go well.  (Keep in mind that I have ridiculously high standards for myself and that I'm always trying to prove myself to my peers.)  It had been over a week since the last rehearsal, what with Thanksgiving break and all. 

I didn't know my entrances, I didn't get the notes, I forgot some words, I missed some blocking.  Basically, everything that could possibly go wrong (aside from me crying) did.  I was very, very unhappy with my showing.

Dress rehearsal tonight was just as wretched.  We started out by blocking a new scene.  It's very easy, mind you, but still a little chaotic.  Plus, we practiced set changes, which was disastrous.  The lights during nearly every scene were all kinds of messed up.  I have a fast costume change that involves putting tights onto sweaty feet, and I didn't quite get the knee-highs high enough not to be seen from under my dress.

However, I only messed up one part of my scene, and managed my set change well.  I think that tomorrow will be fine, as far as I'm concerned.  And the show is actually pretty fantastic.  There's lots of variety, lots of fun costumes, some raciness, and of course, a ton of great talent.

It is my first solo public performance at CU, though, so I am a little bit nervous.  And my sponsors invited 50 of their friends and asked if they could bring me roses...  So embarrassing.

I'll let you all know how it goes, but if you have free time, be sure to stop by!