Summer begins

I've done a bit of sprucing up and updating of the various pages here, including uploading some songs from my recent doctoral recital to my Performance page. Drop by and give them a listen!In other news, I survived a pretty busy semester of doctoral studies, in which I did quite a bit of performing—in addition to my recital, I performed a role in Love Games, a new musical by Joseph Turrin based on a play by Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler. This was lots of fun and involved my character, the Actress, being a total bitch and seducing two very different men. Oh, and singing a song about infidelity while jumping on a bed! I also took a songwriting class this semester, and in addition to performing the songs of other students in the class, I wrote lyrics and composed music for some songs as well. On our final recital, we performed the compositions members of the class had composed and also some of our favorite American songs we had been assigned to sing over the course of the class. I am now very close to completing my doctoral coursework, which is exciting!Stephan and I and family took a wonderful trip to Jamaica earlier this month, in which, among other things, we did some backcountry caving which involved slogging through an underground river up to our waists for quite a while, crawling on hands and knees, climbing, and generally getting very wet and muddy. I've always wanted to do something like that as opposed to the tamer cave visits with handrails and walkways and electric lights that we have in southern Indiana. Actually, I can't wait to do some more rough caving! With an experienced guide, of course. Other highlights of the trip included swimming in the absolutely perfect waters, shopping for fruits and veggies in the Falmouth market, jumping in a pristine river at Blue Hole, and relaxing, eating great food, drinking rum and Red Stripes. I absolutely love Jamaica and especially love getting off the beaten path and outside of the major tourist areas.I'll be teaching at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp again later this summer. In the meantime, I'm catching up on some writing and submitting (submitted two short stories and one scholarly article over the weekend) and doing some freelance grantwriting and editing projects.