All the old has passed away....

And the new has come....thank God it's a brand new day (and time, and place, and hopefully a little bit of a new me).

Okay, I know, I know...it's been nearly a year since I blogged, but here I am now. Other than the fact that I have a migraine and feel like trash today, things are going well so far this new year.

I'm in Nashville at Belmont which is exciting and a little scary. I'm pumped to be in a new place with a kind of fresh start. I'm glad to be able to hang out with my best friend, Amanda, and go through this at least partially together. It's nice to be near my brother and I've had a lot of fun hanging out at Vandy games. I haven't spent hardly any time with him in the past several years so that's been pretty great...Memorial Magic rocks my face off! It may be a little bad for your heart but it's a LOT of fun :). So it's nice to be around people I love and can have some fun with.

As for school, I passed my theory and history test, so I don't have to review them again. I am supposed to (hopefully) get to transfer my bibliography and theory class from UTK, so that didn't leave much that I could take this semester. Which actually I consider a good thing since my main focus is my audition in the spring. My new piano teacher is Dr. Robert Marler, who seems like he is going to be a really great teacher, but quite frankly scared me to death when he told me to (already) start researching and deciding on my thesis. I mean, I haven't even been accepted into the program...I'm only non-degree seeking. Scary, scary, scary. They aren't messing around here...Amanda went through the same thing when she first got here too. We thought that might just be her professor pushing her students, but Belmont seriously pushes you to get everything done. Although that's scary and intimidating when you have no clue what you want to do, how to do it, or what they expect; it's also fantastic for someone like me who procrastinates. I really hope to start and remain focused. I came here to really work on my piano skills and I have a great opportunity this first semester to get that on track since I don't have much else to do.

I went to church with Amanda last week; she got a singing job at an Episcopal church in town. It's different than any chch I've ever been to since I've been involved in non-denominational and baptist (evangelical) churches. This is a liturgical church with a formal service which honestly I thought would be uncomfortable with. I actually liked it...it's probably not the denomination I would be invovled with forever, but the order of the service was actually comforting to me, not restricting like I thought. I think it might be the fact that I need that order in my spiritual life right now that made it comforting. Although I was out of my comfort zone since I didn't know the customs, prayers, etc, I still felt very welcome. The people were surprisingly warm and casual...I think, because of the set parameters of the service, I expected it and the people, to be colder and uptight, but that was not the case at all. I think that I will actually enjoy becoming more involved in the church and with the people there.

Anyway, Belmont, Nashville, etc. are all new and shiny right now and I like that. I'm sure that everything will lose that gleam to me at some point and get harder, but I still think I'm going to like it here (I just sang that song from Annie in my mind). It's a great change from UTK, which I really disliked SO much from the beginning. I'm excited about everything and hope I can keep most of that excitement or at least the happiness from it.