Nothing is insignificant.

This week went by so quickly! I'm still sick, and absolutely exhausted. It rained this entire week, which was lovely. It was so cloudy and foggy, that the Empire State Building wasn't visible from the park as usual. On Tuesday before dance I went to Argo Tea and read a few chapters in "The Inner Game of Tennis" - our required reading for vocal production. There is nothing like drinking a warm cup of tea while it's raining. It was quite comforting. We're currently learning 20's style dances (i.e. the Charleston, etc.) in Johnny's dance class. It's unbelievably fun. I also started piano lessons this week, but I didn't have my music since it was en route from Idaho, so we worked with what I had. I have a feeling lessons are going to be extremely beneficial, and I've heard that I can actually take them in place of Keyboard II next semester... fingers crossed. My goal for the semester is further improving my sight-reading and learning a new Beethoven Sonata. I just can't resist them. 

This week I also checked out The Bean, a very quaint coffee shop very near my humble abode. They have vegan muffins. :) With which I celebrated my Saturday morning. I'm sure I've said it already, but shopping at Whole Foods is extremely overwhelming. It's so crowded and crazy. Academically, not much new is available for report. Except my nearly finished theory homework is resting beneath my elbows as I type... On Friday, my floor had our first artists in development workshop. We were grouped, given criteria and basically told to create. We could perform, write, sing, dance, or draw - anything that somehow met the criteria. Then we had 3 - 5 minutes to present it to the rest of the group. The results were so creative and amusing. 

This weekend was Parents' Day, and our new student chorale was asked to perform at the Steinhardt morning session. It went very well. Afterward, I finally finished Brisingr (with much anticipation for Inheritance). Then Curtis and I met up for dinner and gallavanted around the East Village! We went to Butter Lane and tried their lovely cupcakes. To my delight, they also brew Stumptown coffee. So I bought half a pound of beans. Butter Lane is adorable, and great - they let you choose your cake and pair it with any kind of frosting. Then we browsed the various antique stores and clothing boutiques. My favorite that we stumbled upon is called Tangdance – they gave me a business card, otherwise there’s no way I could’ve remembered their name. Every necklace, headpiece and scarf was my style to a tee. The expression, "to a tee", was first recorded in a satire called The Humours and Conversations of the Town, written in 1693 by James Wright (recorded as 'to a T'). However, the spoken origination remains unknown. It's assumed to be a reference made to either the sport of golf - where the tee is your starting point, or the sport of curling - where your goal is known as a tee. After I used the phrase, it piqued my curiosity, so I figured I'd find out where it came from. Home you enjoyed this small tidbit of knowledge. 

So many sabers.

Saturday night there was a light saber "flashmob" in Washington Square. It was quite the amusing spectacle. 

We were there for about an hour, watching a couple hundred people wave their light sabers in the air. Half of them were Jedi, and half of them were Sith. The Sith broke out some silly string as "Sith Lightning". 

The guy with the red saber won.

Then some groups broke out and began to "fight". This guy with the red saber (left) was pretty impressive. Apparently, he was part of a group that does saber fighting legitimately.  

This morning, Lauren, Curtis and I took a trip uptown and went to the 25th annual Broadway Flea Market! It was very exciting. Every Broadway show had a booth, and there were tons of old playbills, signed posters, raffles, and every sort of Broadway paraphernalia imaginable for sale. Someone was selling maple syrup autographed by Daniel Radcliffe. I bought a few playbills. They had this amazing auction going on, and people were paying insane amounts of money for like, "the corner of a paper from the original score of Hairspray." (Alright, I exaggerate... but not by much). Someone paid $400 for Julia Murney to belt "Somewhere". $400, folks. I felt it necessary to try to capture the essence of how crazy it was - hence the picture to the right. However, it doesn't really suffice. 

We had lunch at an Italian place somewhere on 46th, where we practiced our Italian diction and ordered some yummy food. but I can't remember what it was called. We stumbled upon a signing table - where we spotted Anthony Rapp, Beth Level, and Marin Mazzie, to name a few. After mulling about in Times Square some more, we finally decided it was about time to come home. But not before checking out Colony, a music store that sells karaoke CDs, and tons and tons of Broadway sheet music. It's any music theater lover's dream. They also have a relatively decent classical sheet music section. It was a delightful day. 

Ridiculously exciting news: Christopher Paolini's book tour starts November 8th in Union Square - just blocks away from my dorm. 

Official Inheritance Count: 43 days.