Believe

 Life has just flown by this week, and the holiday break was way too short! Work has definitely started to get busier, and the holiday season is now in full swing. This week was so busy, and I have much to share. During my insanely long work day on Wednesday, Curtis and Ben came to visit me on my lunch break! We went to Room Service, and found some amazing Thai food for an insanely low price. Their visit was so lovely! My dear Uncle Andrew came into town this week and absolutely spoiled Mary, Matt and I. It was great to spend time with all of them. On Thursday, we met him for brunch reservations at Aureole which was absolutely fabulous. The food was wonderful, and we had a great view of the Macy's day parade. Here are a few of the floats. It was neat! The brunch was so delightful. We started out with a plate of fruit and a basket of mini croissants and assorted breads. For the main course, I tried the eggs benedict, and finished with their seven-layer chocolate cake. I forgot to take pictures of the food, so you can enjoy the parade pics instead.

After the parade, we took a water taxi to the tip of the island and visited the 9/11 memorial. It was really neat to see. Where the two towers stood are two waterfalls, and they're fenced with plaques of the names of all those who died on 9/11. It was super touching to see, especially being in New York on the 10 year anniversary. It's been so long, but even so, I never realized the enormity of what had happened before coming to the city, and now it's unimaginable to me. In the early evening we went to Pure Food and Wine for Thanksgiving dinner. Pure Food and Wine is a completely raw organic restaurant. Everything that is prepared is plant based, and nothing is heated above 118 degrees in order to maintain the complete enzymatic properties of the food that is served. Mary and I split their entire Thanksgiving menu and tried the smoked corn pudding and brussel sprouts for appetizers, the pear carrot ginger soup, the shepherd's pie and celery root ravioli for main courses, and the pumpkin cheesecake and apple crisp as desserts. It was amazing. I did manage to snap some shots of dinner. 

Celery Root Ravioli

Shepherd's Pie

After dinner, we headed to Brooklyn and spent some more time together conversing and playing scattergories. On Friday, we had dinner at Laconda Verde and headed to the Nutcracker, which was great to see. The only time I saw it performed was in Idaho Falls when I was 8 years old, and my memories of it are so vague. The ballet is beautiful - it inspired me to dance more.Both Friday and Saturday I spent all day working, and afterward I rushed to dinner and a show with Mary, Matt and Andrew. On Saturday we had vegetarian Korean food at Hangawi - it was absolutely delicious. Upon entering the restaurant, they ask you to remove your shoes. Then they put them away for you and seat you on the floor. The restaurant has a really great philosophy. If you're interested in reading about it, there's a short section on their website: http://www.hangawirestaurant.com/ After dinner, we rushed back to Lincoln Center to see War Horse. It was incredible. The staging and the puppetry of the show was beautiful. You forget that people are actually operating the horses. The story was a little shallow, and I wished there had been a bit more substance to the plot, but for turning a children's book into this amazingly staged production, they did a wonderful job, and it's definitely worth seeing. 

So very thankful,

Emily

Christmas Countdown: 27 days!

The city wowed...

The NYU Steinhardt Vocal Performance Class of 2015 is such a wonderful group, and I'm so happy to be a part of their family. :) Our New Student Cabaret went over very well, and I'm so thrilled to be singing and performing with them! The weekend was amazing. I sang Art is Calling for Me by Victor Herbert. It's a fun song from the operetta, The Enchantress. The song is about a princess who wants to be a prima donna. It's really fun and showy. I was the first to sing after our opening group number, and my friend Ben Bartels said my song was like "eating ice cream at the beginning of the show". :) The purpose of the Cabaret is mainly to introduce us (the Freshmen and transfer students) to the way that our program trains us to build a character with motivation. We analyze who in the song is our 'other' - who we're singing to and why we're moved to sing - what it is we want and how we're communicating that. It was such a wonderful experience.

After the show on Saturday, some of us took a spontaneous trip to Hoboken. Although this picture isn't the best, the New York skyline is so pretty from where we were. After meandering a bit around Hoboken, we headed home. And what did I come home to? Possibly the sweetest thing in the world. :) My suitemate, Betty, had bought me a flower congratulating me on our performance. Unfortunately we were sold out all three performances, so my roommates didn't get to come. But basically they're all amazing, and they win best roommate awards.

Isn't this adorable?

In an awesome way, my good friend Dylan Landau collaborated our song names to a great little paragraph that I really want to share with you.

"Hey guys, I HOPE YOU CAN SEE THIS, 

ONCE UPON A TIME we all applied to NYU Steinhardt's Vocal Performance program because ART [was] CALLING FOR [us]. We thought it might be an unrealistic dream. People told us “IT'S NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT”. But HALLELUJAH! We all got in. We all travelled FAR FROM THE HOME [we] LOVE and made the transition between being ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE to singing the “la la la”'s of THE FRIENDSHIP SONG. Ever since the day MK said “COME ALL YE SONGSTERS and participate in the New Student Cabaret”, we have been working our asses off from EARLY IN THE MORNING all the way INTO THE NIGHT. And it paid off, because we were PRACTICALLY PERFECT. The audience loved us AS EVER I SAW any audience love before. THEY ALL LAUGHED at the funny parts. WHEN I THINK UPON THE MAIDENS and the wonderful guys in this program, I realize I would be happy here ONLY WITH YOU guys. IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO REALIZE that but now I understand how LUCKY I am. I'm A LITTLE BIT IN LOVE with each and every one of you. I ENJOY BEING A GIRL in this beautiful program. IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE, then we are all truly LUCKY IN LOVE. So everybody, keep DO, DO, DOing what you just did, did, did."

Missing home,

♥Emily

Christmas Countdown: 34 days!

First breath of Fall.

Good ol' Washington Square.

I finally stepped on the first crunchy leaves of fall yesterday. I was walking through the park the other day when I realized that the leaves were actually (and finally) falling off the trees! It was beautiful - a huge gust of wind sent a bunch of leaves raining down. The trees have all turned to beautiful oranges and yellows – that have been reflected in almost every outfit I’ve been wearing. I just can’t get enough of those fall colors.

 Mom and Dad sent me a package this week and it was so wonderful. They sent my last two winter coats, and some yummy cranberries, banana chips and a granola bar. Thanks, Mom and Dad! Miss you bunches. Aren't they so cute? I love the notes. :)










I haven’t been able to read Inheritance as much as I would’ve liked, because I’ve been so busy with work and school and rehearsal for New Student Cabaret, which is next week! On Wednesday the composer of one of the songs we’re singing, Joe Iconis, came to our rehearsal and worked with us a bit on the song. If you’ve never heard of his stuff, please go look up the song, “Last on Land – Joe Iconis” on YouTube. Even better, I’ll give you the link. Now all you need to do is click and enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-3b4JXDqJE.

Working with him was a great experience. I'm so excited for our show.

My roommate and I are hoping to make an artistic map of the West Village. We’re going to scope out the neighborhood, find our favorite restaurants, coffee shops, stores, buildings, and all the nooks and crannies in between. Then we’re going to draw up a map, create our own key, and hang it in our room. We’re very excited. Problem is… I’ve been so busy that we haven’t had enough exploration time. When we do explore some more, I’ll be certain to include all the new restaurants and shops that we discover.

Today I saw the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. It was, in a word, spectacular. Hah. Definitely worth seeing. This awesome picture was taken by Lauren. Uptown is almost all ready for Christmas! Store windows have holiday displays and (as you can see) Radio City is decked out in holiday gear. I'm going to the tree lighting at Rock Center on the 30th of November, so stay tuned! Because that will be a blog post you won't want to miss. Speaking of Christmas... it's time for a new countdown! My official Christmas count begins today! Last night I made a paper chain out of sheet music and it's currently hanging on my desk. Also, I'm soon going to purchase Christmas lights to hang around my window, and I just cut out some gold stars from tissue paper. I haven't decided what purpose they'll serve yet, however. Stay tuned for pictures of my cute decorations.

"Be joyful in hope, patient in trouble, and persistent in prayer."

With joy,
Emily

Christmas Countdown: 41 days. 

Inheritance

The wait is finally over! I decided to wait to publish my blog post for tonight because of the release of Inheritance! I went to Christopher Paolini's book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square. There were so many people there, it was insane. I captured a few photos, but completely forgot to take some close-ups when I was actually at the table because I was just so excited. I am absolutely thrilled to read the book. I'm practicing my self-control, and 70 pages in, I put the book down so that I could write you this blog post and proceed to finish my homework. This was the first book signing I've been to, and it was great. He signed everyone's books (and there were a couple hundred people there), answered questions, and did a short reading. He read a line or two from each one of the books, and his favorite line from Brisingr is "Die, you puny human!" which I found to be quite amusing. He is very quirky and he liked my poncho! During the Q and A section of the signing, someone asked him what advice he would give to blooming writers. (I took notes.) His advice was really inspiring, and I found it applicable to most career fields - not just in the literary arts.

Christopher Paolini to aspiring authors:

1. Read everything you can get your hands on.

2. Write consistently. Write everyday, and write with variety. Monotony gets boring.

3. Learn everything about the language in which you're writing. (except he said 'learn everything about the language you're writing in', which is incorrect grammar because you should never end a sentence with a preposition. I found it really funny that this was the one sentence that shouldn't have been incorrectly stated.)

4. Find someone to help edit your work.

5. Don't give up. (Along with this, he said to be certain to have fun and write about something that interests you as a person. Since there are 7 billion people on this planet, what you write about has to interest at least one other person in the world)

This was rather inspiring to me. The rest of his speech was interesting and kind of humorous, and he thanked all the people that helped him get where he's at today. But I loved this particular piece of advice, because it's relative to all aspects of our lives. We should be striving to live for something that interests us, to work consistently but with variety, to find someone who will help edit and sharpen our character, to learn the best and most concise communication skills possible and most of all to never give up. The book is dedicated to his family, but also to "the dreamers of dreams: the many artists, musicians, and storytellers who have made this journey possible." Beautiful.