I�m tired and I think I have an infected finger from where I tried to tear off a hangnail.

My students performed their juries and I survived, just barely. Firstly my baritone was excellent, except for a bad habit he has of shaking his head from side to side at the ends of phrases. I was very, very proud of him. Woo hoo! Then my Mexican whose second instrument is voice was as good as I could have expected, except that her only language that sounded even faintly like it was supposed to was Italian. Her German was bad, her French was worse, and her English was �interesting�. Then my sweet soprano who thought she was a mezzo sang very sweetly, but started to dry out towards the end of her Debussy. And then David got up and sang Schubert, Faur�, Warlock and Hughes totally a capella. I was frankly amazed. He was not nervous, or embarassed, and did a not-bad job of it. I just hope that his jurors don�t penalize him. Mind you, his French was even worse than the Mexican�s. Seriously bad. I spend so much time coaching them, and they just don�t get it. Oy.

All this was preceded by a quickie visit to Costco where I spent lots of money (as usual). I�m supposed to be saving money by buying in bulk, right? So why does it seem as though I�m spending more? I arrived home and had to leave right away, so Buddy Boy got the job of putting the perishables away. After the juries I had lunch at Java with one of my other students who already did a half recital. She graduates this spring but will still be around next year and wants to continue studying voice privately. Then I tried to get into the sculpture studio, but again (because Easter Monday is a holiday) it was locked up tight and I had to call security so I could retrieve my lamia, which I brought home and worked on on the back deck.

My lamia she is finished now, and while it isn�t as wonderful as I had anticipated when I was forming it out of clay, it is still damn good. I couldn�t get copper paint at the local paint store (and L�ville has sadly lost its only hardware store, sniff), so I ended up using burnt umber acrylic paint on it. It looks like some kind of tropical wood, or more like the clay I originally sculpted it out of. I think this actually works out better than a metallic paint in the end. If I can get someone to photograph it digitally you can judge for yourselves.

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