Soprano's Anonymous

Hi. My name is Megan, and I'm a soprano.

(No doubt some of you are now saying "Well, duh, Megan!")

I've been in denial for a long time, in spite of the fact that my choir directors and voice teacher and multiple music directors have been telling me for 15 years that I am. It bugged me. I have a really nice, rich, low voice, and it's so much more FUN to sing the harmony! I love to sing the second line at church (and the tenor an octave higher) because I love playing with harmonies and hearing how all of the lines of music blend together. Soprano is so BORING! And there are so many sopranos why did I want to compete with more talented and experienced singers in my own range? Pffft! Forget that! I sang alto every chance I could, and buried myself in ensemble and choir roles. I sang the alto part in a trio my senior year and was thrilled when my choir teacher said, "You are a really good alto? Are you really an alto?"

I pretended not to notice that during Sleeping Beauty, whenever my character would start riffing into some random line of music it was always a coluratura. I really am always honestly surprised when I am able to hit a high A through C (the C is infrequent, but it happens).

Well, a month ago, I hit rock bottom. After years of denial and six months straight of singing alto and second alto in Kiss Me Kate and Seven Brides, I didn't want to do it anymore! Give me a melody to sing! I grabbed my iPod and put on the Secret Garden musical and the Pirates of Penzance and anything else I could find where I knew the soprano songs. I haven't sung alto at church for weeks now. I'm a soprano! I want to sing soprano somewhere! I may not have the most accomplished voice, but it's a nice little one and I just want to sing, sing, sing!

This is no way takes away from my enjoyment of singing the Milly songs in Seven Brides. All singing is good singing. But I often wish that I get to sing "Wonderful Day" a third higher, just like in the movie. Every time the pianist plays the introduction I think "Ack! I forgot how low that is! Can I really sing that?" I can, and it sounds good, but I sure do wish it were just a little bit higher! Just wait until you hear it. Such a good song.

Last week I auditioned for the Music Man at Rodgers Memorial, and I sang the tail-end of "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady. I completely rocked it! That last high note felt so good to sing and I was proud of the tone. Too bad I would have to miss half of the rehearsals, so they didn't call me back (let's pretend that's the reason, okay?). But just knowing that I can sing like that made me happy. It's the little things that count.

I'm a soprano. No use denying it anymore. Now just to stop limiting myself and create opportunities to sing in my natural key.

Look out, World!

Weird Stuff After Work

Work today was fairly normal. Did some work, struggled to stay awake during meetings, avoided work, ate a lot of food, and did some more work before calling it a day.

I decided to get some food at the adjacent mall so I could just hang out for an hour before heading to rehearsal, rather than driving home to be there for just half an hour. That's when weird stuff started happening.

Weird occurrence #1: As I was leaving the food court, there was a woman pushing a stroller in front of me. I ran up before she could get to the door and offered to hold it open for her. As she stepped through the door, I realized she was my Visiting Teacher from a congregation I was in four years and four wards ago! We chatted for a few minutes while I walked her towards her car. It was nice to catch up and see how happy she is with her cute little boy and her husband. Singles Wards do work, folks!

Weird occurrence #2: While driving to rehearsal, this police car zoomed past me in the HOV lane on the freeway. Then, it decided to start weaving back and forth in front of all of the lanes, quickly causing a huge traffic jam that lasted for about three minutes. We inched forward together, confused because since he was weaving around we couldn't tell if we were supposed to be merging into a particular lane, or if there had been an accident or what. And I will never know, because as suddenly as it began the jam cleared up and we were all free to go the normal speed limit unhindered.

Weird occurrence #3: After rehearsal, I noticed I was driving behind one of my cast members. On a normal day, it's not a big deal or even surprising since he lives near me. Today, as we were plodding along, all of a sudden a police car merged in between the two of us, and then the lights went on and he pulled my co-cast member over! What the--? He didn't seem to be speeding and his lights were on, so I'm going to have to ask tomorrow what it was all about.

Actually, that's not the first time I've been right behind one of my friends when he was pulled over. But it was still weird.

Also not weird: My DVR randomly decided not to record Glee tonight, even though it's set up to record every new episode and there was nothing hindering it, like two other recordings at the same time. At least it got the Dancing With the Stars finale this time! Thank goodness for Hulu. I want my Gaga/Glee fix!

WEIRD!!

LOST is Over :(

My favorite show has ended. I don't have much to say. I just felt that this was an important enough event that I wanted to say Good-bye. I don't care that they didn't answer a lot of questions. I am thrilled with just about every choice they made in the finale (especially since they almost lost me with the third-to-last episode. SO LAME). I was glad to see so many of my favorite characters and the resolutions of so many storylines. I was glad to see Locke be himself and be awesome again. I was glad to see all of the heros that emerged because they knew they had to step up.
I guess I'm being vague and cryptic; just like the show always was. Mostly I'm still trying to process and accept that it's really over.

I miss it already.

Good-bye Jack. Good-bye Kate-of-the-perfect-non-frizzy-yet-curly hair. Good-bye beautiful, beautiful Sawyer and Desmond and Sayid. Good-bye adorable Hurley. Good-bye finally-happy-couple Jin and Sun. And good-bye deliciously-complicated-and-unpredictable Ben. I'll miss you most of all.

There are those who might scoff and say that I have no life because I cared so much about these fictional people and their wacky and confusing adventures. To those people, I say go back to watching the NBA play-offs as if you are playing yourself and it matters who wins and leave me and my imagination alone :P We all have our silly fantasies. This show made me think and encouraged me to care. I did both. It's been a good six years.

Are you the demolition man?

I don't know what's funniest about this video. How deadly serious the little girl is, or her accent, or her consternation when everyone starts laughing? Perfectly brilliant.



Coming soon, an actual post...

All I Do Is Dream of You

I watched my first Marx brothers' movie today, A Night at the Opera, and it was really funny! I have to admit, though, my favorite moment in the movie was this:

It makes my fingers itch to play... I haven't played in about 5 years and am pretty rusty. Chico is inspiring, though! I keep watching it over and over to watch his hands. He doesn't use conventional fingering, and it is so cool and entertaining! And, of course, I love the song. Now I may need to watch Singing in the Rain for the Debbie Reynolds version.

Who am I kidding? I don't need an excuse to watch Singing in the Rain! I am happy to watch it anytime!

It's just fun to find different versions of songs that I like, and this is a particularly good one!

That Written-by-Committee Flavor

For those of you who always wondered what I do for a living (and why anyone would find technical writing interesting, let alone fun) take a look at this article from the Harvard Business Review. This is only part of my job, but this article is so funny and so true!

A Real-Life Ironman

To be clear, the Ironman is not a superhero with a super-cool metal suit and power source.

That's Iron Man.

The Ironman is a crazy-hard triathlon where the competitors swim 2.4 miles, bicycle 112 miles, and then run 26.2 miles. In one day.

My brother Aaron made it a goal to complete the Ironman before December of this year, and last Saturday he did it! He invited me to support him, and keep our parents and Aaron's friend Brea company.

I must say, I forgot how much I enjoy road trips! My parents and I drove down Friday afternoon and met Aaron and Brea for dinner at the Brick Oven. We chatted for awhile, and then retired to our rooms so we could be in bed by 9pm. Well... 10pm.

My alarm went off at 4:45 the next morning. Aaron was already gone -- the competitors had a shuttle bus to the Resevoir where the swim was to start at 7. My parents and Brea and I caught a bus at about 6:15 and made it in plenty of time. We were thrilled to find Aaron and get to wish him luck before the big race! Look at his arms! They're massive! Goooo number 916!

We cheered as everyone ran to the water. Of course, we couldn't pick out Aaron's orange swimcap from everyone else's swim caps. This is what 2500 people look like in the water:

We all wandered over to where the bicycles were stored so that we could cheer for Aaron when he made his Swim to Bike transition. Mom and Brea saw him come out of the water after about 1 hour and 27 minutes, and I managed to grab a really, really brief video of him grabbing his bike and heading for the bike start. Then we all waited around for another hour before we could catch another shuttle to our car. (I feel like I spent the entire day on buses!) We briefly went home to check on Aaron's time (he had already finished the first leg of the bike course at that point), then found the center of all of the festivities in downtown St. George. It was there we discovered they had another shuttle to a spot where Aaron was supposed to pass twice.

I have never been a person who goes to a lot of sporting events, but I really enjoyed sitting on the sidelines and cheering for everyone who came by. The athletes and the fans were all so excited! Makes me want to go to random races and read and applaud and cheer for everyone. I would totally do it if I didn't have to get up so stinking early!

It turns out, Brea is a math whiz! Since we knew how long Aaron had taken on the first part of the course, she was able to pretty accurately estimate what time Aaron would pass that spot; her time was only about 15 minutes off.

We then took yet another shuttle back to downtown St. George for some lunch at a deli before finding a prime location where we could see Aaron finish the bike portion and start the run. He looked pretty chipper as he made the change!


It sounds ridiculous, but at this point in the day, my feet hurt and I was tired! I was wound up tight as a pin searching each competitor's face and jersey, afraid I'd miss a good photo of my brother as he achieved a dream. We drove to another spot Aaron was supposed to pass multiple times, and he jogged past us at milemarker 7. He was still chipper, and even joked: "If you would let them know that second loop isn't necessary, that would be great!"

We moseyed to IHOP for dinner, then back to our spot, which the second time around was mile 20. At this point, it was about 9pm and the athletes looked beat. A lot of them were walking. Aaron jogged past, but wasn't quite so jovial. I think at this point his only thought was just to keep going. He was exhausted, but so close to the end!

We hurried back to downtown St. George. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the people at the finishline because of the mobbing crowd and helpful volunteers. And unfortunately I wasn't prepared to take a photo of the Aaron on the big screen when he jogged under the arch. All of a sudden, my mom and I heard, "Aaron Smyth (pronounced "Smith") of Arlington, Virginia. YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!" We started jumping up and down and screaming as we watched him on the screen, but we weren't half as excited as Aaron was. He paused under the arch and put his arms up in the victory "V" and yelled! After 14:47 (or so) hours he did it! It was such a perfect moment!


We found Aaron some food and all sat on a park bench while Aaron talked about his experience and his emotions. It was a nice, quiet end to a busy, busy day.

The next morning we all slept in just a titch, ate breakfast, and headed home where we celebrated my nieces' first birthday. I can't believe the little girls are one already! It was nice to have so many of us at the party.

Congratulations, Aaron! I know I said this earlier, but I am so proud of you! I am so impressed with your dedication and desire to succeed. Good luck with the rest of your goals!

You ARE an IRONMAN!

Crocs