The windup

My last week or so in Melbourne was full of fun things, and really quite a wonderful way to end such an intense year. We had our last concert for Opera Studio, which was fantastic. It really was wonderful to see the growth of the singers across the year. I remember feeling very nervous and intimidated when I first got to Opera School; I remember being overwhelmed with so many new faces and people to meet. And now, after living in each other's space for a ten months, it felt weird to part from them, and to know that we weren't going to be seeing each other every day. It was like deja vu as we stood around having some supper - it was just like morning tea on the very first day! Except now I knew everybody (rather than just three people or so...) and they were comforting, supporting and loving faces. I will admit that I will miss the fun things we do at Opera School; I will definitely miss the people very much. But time passes, we enjoy and take as much as we can from experiences and move on to the next thing, whatever it may be.

I lived in some friends' house for the first two weeks of December as my rental contract finished at the end of November. I remembered again why I hate living in temporary accommodation - the packing, the unpacking, the packing, the unpacking!!! I really can't wait until I have my own house. Permanent. Bliss! The friends in this house were very generous, and much fun to live with, even as a temporary housemate. Couldn't complain about the location either - right next to the church, one minute from the tram line. Particularly convenient, as I had a few rehearsals for Carols, as well as for MYO. To tell you the truth, it didn't really feel like holidays until Sunday evening, when these were all over; but it did feel good to be keeping busy, doing things that I enjoy. There was even a bit of time to catch up with some people (though not enough time to catch up with everybody. There never is, is there?). There was a wander to Brunswick Rd to meet up with a friend of my aunt's (who is an opera singer!) and to peruse a few shops. There are some excellent, exciting discoveries to be made there!

After one rehearsal, we drove out to a friend's house, which was 'open'. Not in the sense of they were selling their house, but that their doors were open to friends and family. It was a very pleasant evening, tinged with all sorts of emotions.

There was a friendly Unichurch vs. City on a Hill soccer match; I thought I'd head along - not much else to do on that evening, and I perhaps thought I'd feel even the tiniest bit more sporty just by WATCHING soccer. Right? We had to make sure that the girls sitting on the sidelines in support of our male friends and acquaintances did not act in a particularly girly way. Example: when ball comes flying at us, not to scream. Instead, stay calm and dodge ball in a relaxed and cool manner. The first half was dominated by CoaH, but Unichurch did well in the second half stepped up their game and scored a goal! It was terribly exciting - we were worried that the result was going to be a goal-less draw. Our enjoyment of being in the lead was fairly short-lived as CoaH scored an equaliser goal. Not long after that, Unichurch had the real opportunity for a winning goal. Unfortunately, one of our players collided into the goalpost and required some fairly urgent medical attention (which did not come for nearly two hours, I'm told). The ensuing photos that appeared on Facebook of the injury were quite disturbingly bloody but incited great fascination! Maybe it's a good thing that there was a draw then.

Carols on Carlton was fantastic - I'd never done a St Jude's carols event before, so it was exciting to be part of it. I still felt pretty shaky going into it even though we'd had a few (long!) rehearsals. Of course, this was a big event and there was a large band to suit the occasion. It was good to be playing with some regular faces (even in different roles!), as well as some others from different congregations. The rehearsals increased in intensity as we neared the day and realised that we had a lot of work to do! We played 21 songs, which is quite a lot, really. Given the estimation of our leader extraordinaire of allocating two hours for four songs (or perhaps more easily put, half an hour or so per song), we should have rehearsed for 10.5hrs. I'm not sure whether we did. Or maybe we did in total, but begs the question of what the most effective way to rehearse is. Is it more effective to spend a concentrated half hour on each song, or to spend the time in a more fragmented way across weeks? I've just read part of Dan Ariely's The Upside of Irrationality which talks about adaptation and how we can apply that to periods of enjoyment (and how to maximise it) and periods of pain (and how to minimise it) given that humans are quite adaptable beings. This has got me thinking about effective use of time. There was lots of to-ing and fro-ing on the #1 tram, which still made me late for stuff, but I suppose you can't make the trams go any faster than they already do. I can't believe we did the entire set for the soundcheck (this happened to be quite a theme for the weekend) - when we got to the actual thing, I wasn't sure if I had enough energy to sustain through it all again! But the excitement of the whole night gives one energy, and we had a fantastic time doing it all again. There were some surprises, but otherwise, it was all tight. And I was quite impressed by everybody's touch of red :) It was a pleasant evening - lovely to see so many people - some friends from Unichurch, some friends of Unichurch (and ex-Unichurchers), others from St Jude's, and people from the community. The children who danced at the very front put a big smile on my face! Two friends even came by just to check it out for a little bit, which was cool.

Following the night, all hands were on deck to help bump-out. After this year of Opera School, I have definitely seen all the large equipment that goes into making things like this possible, and the testament to many hands make light work! Of course, much of the equipment is quite heavy and highly unsuitable for me to be moving or lifting; I therefore asked for 'helpful girly jobs'. After helping out as much as we could, a little bunch of us went to get pizza. Yum. So satisfying. There's something about downing hot tasty pizza after a long day with friends. (That's eating pizza with friends, and a long day with friends.) Oh, and definitely a cold drink to wash it down with :)

The next day was another busy one; MYO's final concert! I had been looking forward to this concert since the end of last year - on the programme was Dvorak's Carnival Overture, Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals and Stravinsky's Petrushka. I had agreed to play in the Stravinsky and to cancel pretty much everything else that may crop up in order to do it! The rehearsals had gone quite well and I was feeling pretty confident about it; I had practiced this part intensely for a little while. But today was the heat intensifying - ABC Classic FM recorded it, so there was that added pressure of it being preserved forever! And there was an audience - who paid to come! So, trying not to freak out, I did it. I remember thinking while playing, "Just get on with the job, you can totally do it!" I did enjoy much of it - perhaps apart from the high-pressure sections. And then there are large sections of tacet that I can sit back and relax and just listen to the music!

After that, I felt more on holidays. Apart from a few meetings the next day. Hah. Holidays?
The first meeting I had was about work next year. Unfortunately, not terribly exciting and unfortunately, possibly a little demeaning. Oh well. I'm just trying to suck it up, and just get on with it. I can't say that I'm looking forward to it extremely much at the present, particularly in comparison to what other things I'll be doing (!!!) but I think the way to get through it is just to suck it up. And to take heart that I'll be living in an area that I like (including close to my church and shops, and some friends), it's one tram to the Academy and that my flatmate will be a good friend of mine.

My other meeting involved me meeting my new piano teacher for next year! I anticipated that it'd take about half an hour. However, an hour and a half later was when we wrapped up the meeting. I had gone in with some thoughts, but came out with three more pages of suggestions, listening ideas and technical exercises. One of the most exciting discussions was about my concerto for the concerto competition. Can I just note here that he (my teacher) has only heard me play twice - once in the chamber competition heat, and the second in my audition, when I played the same piece, and one bit of sight-reading. And somehow, he knew what I'd like. We talked about Beethoven (which I'll be playing lots of next year!), and I slipped in a segueway about my proposed concerto. He said, "I know which one!" and he was right. Exactly right. Uncanny, really. So, now I have a VERY large pile of books to look through and decide what I'd like to play. I'm impressed with the significant level of autonomy I'm being given in what I'd like to learn. It's strangely and incredibly liberating! A photo may come sometime to show this big pile.

A bunch of us went out for dinner at Shanghai Dumpling that night. I don't think anybody really anticipated that there would be about sixteen people sharing this banquet. I had heard about this banquet from friends across time, but this was my first experience of it. And yes, they just kept bringing out food. Wow. I was well and truly stuffed. And of course, after that feed, we needed to go for a drink. I have to admit that I was getting annoyed that I was part of one of those groups of peopel who wander around the city looking for somewhere to have a beverage! We finally went somewhere that was open a bit later on a Monday night (!) and stayed for a little while to enjoy some friendly company. My flight was the following day, very early (at 6.30am!), so I had considered not going to bed at all. To my great surprise, a few friends were willing to stay up all night, for the amusement factor. We stayed at the bar until they kicked us out, we tried to go to what we thought was a 24hr Pancake Parlour in the city (and failed), and then went home to hang out for another few hours until I had to leave for the airport! I was well and thoroughly amused at the longevity of the night and its fun stuff.

We watched the sun rise as we drove to the airport. I made it onto the plane and back home to Perth safely. This summer was supposed to be just a time to rest; I think it will also be a time to learn lots of music (!!) and absorb some sun. I always have the first week of feeling a little panicked about not being around the friends that I see everyday, or every week, but they say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I hope this is true of this summer.