Back to College Life

So much going on in life right now, I thought it'd be appropriate to blog about my adventures in Colorado. Whether or not anyone cares enough to actually read my upcoming blog posts matters not. If nothing else, this will serve as a good journal for me.

In the past two weeks:

• I attended Harmony University for my first time
• My Grandma died and I attended her funeral
• My wife and daughters were in a bad car accident
• I moved to Colorado from Nevada
• I am starting back into school after seven years

Needless to say, I am busy.

Today was my first day on campus (University of Colorado, Boulder). School doesn't actually start until next week but I will be taking exams this week. Today I got my "BuffOne Card", met a few of the graduate students, etc. I also attended my first meeting, an informational meeting about a Graduate Teaching Program, and promptly fell asleep. ...and I was in the front row. Ugh. I need more sleep. Will someone please get that memo to my children?

Boulder is gorgeous! The campus is beautiful and the surrounding mountains are breathtaking. The weather here is wonderful as well (though that's not hard compared to Vegas). Ask me again in the winter and I'll let you know if I still hold this opinion.

Today I started my preliminary exams in Aural Theory, Written Theory, and Tonal Analysis. This afternoon I take Post-Tonal Analysis, and Counterpoint. Sound fun? Yeah, I'm pretty worried about some of these. I felt okay about this morning's exams but they are hard! I've spoken to some other graduate students and they have put my mind at ease a bit. They assure me it's not all that big a deal to fail the exams. Some of the material is hard because I was never taught the information in my undergraduate work. Other stuff is hard because I simply don't remember.

I can already feel that I will be extremely busy. My class schedule is a bit up in the air but from the looks of things, I'll be on campus from morning until night, working hard. I'm ready, though. Let's do this.

In other news, I'm extremely excited to be joining the Sound of the Rockies Chorus. They are a 3rd place international level chorus with the Barbershop Harmony Society. One of the biggest reasons I'm pursuing my advanced degrees is so that I have more education to bring to the society, so being a part of this chorus is a great thing on my barbershop journey. I am excited to see how I can contribute to this ensemble. Last Thursday (their rehearsal night) I was moving so I missed out on my weekly dose of harmony. I'm craving some locked chords right now.

So that's my introduction to my new life out here in Colorado. New house, new school, new scenery, and even soon to be a new car (because of the aforementioned totaling of our van -- everyone was okay by the way).