Many holiday newsletters feature lots of information on pets and babies. Since I have neither, I will tell you about other people's babies in this paragraph. My sister had a daughter in August, bringing my total of gorgeous, brilliant niece/goddaughters up to TWO. Yes! My friend Cat (who is like a sister) is expecting a baby next year. Steve and Colleen continued to raise their adorable children, April and Michael. April is about to turn one, and Michael has grown into quite a little man.
That's all I got on babies and I didn't even mention animals, so the rest is about me. Sorry about that.
Okay, job stuff: I continued to work at LACC full time. It's a great job and I am really thankful to have it--and not just because the economy sucks. It's one of the most fulfilling, amazing jobs I could imagine, and I'm thrilled to tell you that I passed my last tenure review earlier in the fall. I won't get tenure officially until March or so, but it appears to be a fait accompli. I hope it's accompli, anyway. In addition to the regular job, I also wrote program notes. I wrote for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for the third year in a row and began writing notes for Camerata Pacifica. I did a couple of little jobs for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra too. I began a tutoring job at Compass Education Group. I now tutor the verbal side of the SATs. Can you believe that? It's a terrific job and I've met some fantastic young people. I cantored at St. Brendan's until November, when I took a leave of absence, but I'm planning to start back up in January.
Other work-type stuff: I decided to try to kickstart my voice-over career by doing some radio broadcasting. For about six months, I did a half-hour weekly music show on KCLA. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. It turned out to be one-thing-too-many, so I decided to stop for a while. I have some good clips of myself, so that'll be good when I get around to making up a demo CD for voice-over work. I still hold out hopes of voicing a cartoon character someday. I've been writing as well. In addition to this blog and the LACO blog, I finished writing my second YA novel. In the new year, I hope to start looking for an agent...again. Perhaps I will be more successful this time. I proposed an academic book to a publishing house, but have not yet heard their rejection, er, response. I'm not holding my breath, though. What else? Oh yeah! I wrote and presented yet another Anthony Burgess paper, and that brings me to my next paragraph!
Travel: The big adventure this year was going to Malaysia. The Anthony Burgess people had a symposium there because Burgess used to live and work in Malaysia (we actually got to see the school where he taught and even his old apartment!). It was a terrific trip, and my paper went very well. It's going to be published in a book at some point. Which reminds me, I forgot to mention that another Burgess article I wrote made it into a very new, very expensive book called Anthony Burgess: Music in Literature and Literature in Music. You can buy it if you have sixty dollars (or forty pounds). Anyway, back to Malaysia. It was very hot, but the food was excellent, and I ate roti prata every chance I got, including at the KL airport on the way home. I could not get enough of that stuff! I didn't fly straight home from Malaysia, though, I flew into San Francisco and drove five hours up into the mountains to see my friends Kevin and Sara get married amongst the tall pines. Lovely event. A couple of weeks later, I was visiting New York and my family. I was there when my sister had the aforementioned baby. That was also a terrific trip.
An added bonus of that trip was that, while I was there, my roommate visited New York for the very first time. I showed him around and got to do New York-y things I never get to do when I'm visiting family. We even got to play chopsticks on the FAO Schwartz floor keyboard featured in the movie, Big. The trip was a lot of fun even though I visited during the hottest, most humid part of August. I forgot how much humidity sucks. I did get to hang out with my old friend Michele, which was brilliant. We've grown back together somewhat, and I'm very happy about that, same with my old friend, Lara.
I went to a conference with my work colleagues in November. It had been a while since I had been to San Francisco and it was nice to go back, although upon arrival, I caught a terrible cold and spent most of the weekend resting up. One HUGE bonus was getting to hang out with Cat, whose husband Kevin now works full time at a community college in Fresno. We did a lot of catching up. I also did a lot of sneezing.
I'm still lucky enough to live with T, who is a great roommate and an excellent cook. This year, I got back into eating beef and pork (after 18 years), and T has helped me ease back into it with pork chops and steaks and pot roast and a lot of yummy things I missed. Food aside, T continues to be a wonderful, supportive friend. Another amazing supportive friend? Cael. We meet for ice cream dates at Scoops (AMAZING ice cream place by school) as often as possible. Their vegan banana oreo is to die for.
Still staying social, but trying not to spread myself too thin. The year had plenty of parties and opportunities to meet new people, and I made some new friends. I'm not back in the dating game, per se, although I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. In other news, I sang a recital in March which went very well. I'm happy with how I sounded and I got a beautiful response from my students and colleagues. The auditorium was packed with people, and it felt wonderful to be sharing music with such a loving group.
I feel like I must be leaving out a hundred things, but I suppose that's all I can think of at the moment. That's 2009. It was a very good year. I hope yours was similarly filled with love and friends and work. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a very Happy New Year!! Let's make the next one even better.
I'm still lucky enough to live with T, who is a great roommate and an excellent cook. This year, I got back into eating beef and pork (after 18 years), and T has helped me ease back into it with pork chops and steaks and pot roast and a lot of yummy things I missed. Food aside, T continues to be a wonderful, supportive friend. Another amazing supportive friend? Cael. We meet for ice cream dates at Scoops (AMAZING ice cream place by school) as often as possible. Their vegan banana oreo is to die for.
Still staying social, but trying not to spread myself too thin. The year had plenty of parties and opportunities to meet new people, and I made some new friends. I'm not back in the dating game, per se, although I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. In other news, I sang a recital in March which went very well. I'm happy with how I sounded and I got a beautiful response from my students and colleagues. The auditorium was packed with people, and it felt wonderful to be sharing music with such a loving group.
I feel like I must be leaving out a hundred things, but I suppose that's all I can think of at the moment. That's 2009. It was a very good year. I hope yours was similarly filled with love and friends and work. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a very Happy New Year!! Let's make the next one even better.
XOXO
me
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