Ugh!

I can't believe I last posted on TUESDAY!!!

Does the fact that this was tech week for the opera, as well as opening weekend, excuse me even a little bit?

Eh... I doubt it.

I'm not excusing myself, in any case.

*sigh*

Tech week has gone well, however busy it may have been, and opening night was fantastic. We had a very receptive audience- they laughed at all the jokes, appreciated the ballet (which I finally got right... mostly), and loved the singing. It was a nice payoff for all of the hard work we've been doing. Now there's only one performance left tomorrow night, and then life will settle down for two short weeks before school starts again.

It's a good feeling, knowing I'll be to bed at a decent hour for a change. Or at least until Sophomore year begins...

In other news, I finally figured out the ending to the angst-y piece that was driving me crazy. Yahoo!! *does happy dance* I'm so thankful to feel like I've got a bit of my sanity back.

I was a little worried about publishing the piece however, because it is pretty dark and very creepy. Intrinsically, that's not so much a problem, except that the darkness and creepiness centers around a much-loved character and focuses on a recent development that hasn't gone over so well with most of the fan-base.

I did post it yesterday all the same, and so far the reception has been pretty good. *crosses fingers*

Those who like Star Wars and/or are interested in perusing my vignette can find it here: What the Heart Longs For- http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/31169687/p1/?9

Grave news...

Sunday at Mass, Father Braveheart announced something terrible and terrifying.

It seems that someone broke into a local Catholic Church with the sole intention of stealing the Blessed Sacrament. The thief entered the church through a window, opened the tabernacle and stole the ciborium containing the Holy Eucharist. They did not take anything else from the church, although there were plenty of other valuable items. The theft of the Blessed Sacrament desecrated the church and the bishop had to re-consecrate the parish.

The news was utterly shocking and, even now, thinking about it makes me want to cry. Clearly, whoever stole the Blessed Sacrament has dark purposes, the likes of which I don't even want to imagine.

Satanism isn't something that I think about often (which is good), but when it does come up, there's always this feeling of detachment. It's like I always thought, "Oh, it'll never happen here. It can't really happen that often, anyway."

But now that this has happened in my own backyard... ugh. It makes me shiver.

And it makes me wonder... if the Satanists believe in the True Presence, why do so many Catholics deny Our Lord? Especially when the Great Mystery of Transubstantiation is central to our Faith?

My heart is so heavy...

----

The Divine Praises
(To be said in reparation for blasphemy and profanity)


Blessed be God.
Blessed be His Holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man.
Blessed be the name of Jesus.
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
Blessed be God in His angels and in His Saints.

May the heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time. Amen.

Exhaustion...

...seems par for the course this weekend.

I am so exhausted after today's rehearsal. Three and a half hours of singing, one hour of ballet rehearsal and then an hour or so to assemble the set.

Yeah. I'm beat.

Hopefully I'll have more energy for a longer post tomorrow... sorry.

Again...

trying to sneak a post before midnight.

I completely missed a post for Friday, unfortunately, but what's one day lost, right? If I manage to get to the end of August and I've only missed one day, I shall be very happy.

This weekend has been completely insane. And that's not a bad thing at all! It's been full of awesomeness thus far, and tomorrow promises to be more of the same.

Friday, I worked all day, but it was a slow day at work. And while I didn't use the free time to blog, I did, however, manage to get rid of one of the plot bunnies gnawing on my brain.

My muse has been throwing really weird ideas and challenges at me, and I'm not sure what to think. First it was the 'fic in second person (which I'm still working on), then it was the extreme angst piece (which I just got back from the beta [YAY!]), and now there's this newest one, which is in third person, present tense. Gah! Talk about confusing and difficult! It's even harder than second person, I think.

I'm not quite done with the piece either. I wrote a solid four pages, and I think it's pretty good, but I know there's more story to tell. I'm thinking the piece may have a few installments, given the complexities of the plot line and such. It's actually a promising little thing, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, after work, I drove an hour for ballet rehearsal and then drove back home to have a (late) dinner with my sister and a friend. I didn't get home until 12 o'clock, and I was beat, so blogging was the furthest thing from my mind. The only thing I could think was "Sleep... pillow... zzzz."

This morning, I intended to take full advantage of the fact that I could sleep in, but I was wide awake at 8am. I stayed in bed for another half hour, but then my stomach was crying very loudly for food, so I pulled myself out of bed. I'm glad I did, because it meant that I got to have tea with Scot! A very good morning, indeed!

After tea and breakfast, I did about an hour of ballet practice, did some cleaning, and then I had to head out. I stopped and got the pink ballet slippers I needed for the Opera and then went to my voice lesson, which was amazing as usual. I've been making so much rapid progress, and it's doing wonders for my confidence. Deo gratias!

Then I had to go grocery shopping for a few last minute things for tonight's dinner party. My awesome friend, Nini, came over and made authentic Chinese food. The company consisted of myself, Nini, my sister, Husband and two of our priests, Fr. Braveheart (the young, Scottish priest) and The Man In Black. (The Man In Black also sometimes goes by Fr. Wesley... both names are given because he can quote the entirety of The Princess Bride. And he does all the voices, too!!)

It was a very good time and Nini's cooking was spectacular! I don't think I've had such a good meal in a very long time. It wish I could say something more than that it was fantastic... but there are no words to describe the awesomeness of her cooking. Yum!

I made dessert, which was quite fun. To keep with the Chinese theme and to keep the dessert light after such a heavy dinner, Nini and I decided on Fried Wonton with ice cream. Then, I tweaked the recipe to make it even more fun and original. After frying the wonton wrappers, I dipped them in cinnamon and sugar. Then, I scooped the vanilla ice cream on top of the wontons (2 per serving, since they're small), and drizzled caramel on top. It made for a very artistic presentation, and it tasted terrific. The best part was that it was so easy to make!

It really was the perfect ending to a perfect meal with absolutely splendid company.

Hopefully I'll have more time to blog tomorrow... but for now, I'm off to bed. I must be up early for Mass!

Rushing...

...to make the post before midnight. ;)

Today was another long, busy day at work, and then it was off to Opera Rehearsal right away, again. It really stinks that the company I'm singing with is a whole hour away. Those two hours of driving really cuts into blogging time. C'est la vie.

Not much exciting happened today. I did get bitten by another plot bunny and this time the whole 'fic is in my head, but it's making me moody and pensive until I can get it out on paper. I'm not sure why everything I'm writing lately has been angst... I should probably try to write something more lighthearted and funny to break things up...

I have been meaning to share this link with you all for the last week, but I kept forgetting to post it or I haven't had time. The story that follows is very cool and extremely edifying. There are some skeptics that will try to pass it off as superstition and an over active imagination, but I don't think it made international news by happen-stance. Divine Providence is trying to remind us all of the power of prayer, and especially the power of Our Lady's Psalter. Perhaps the story struck home for me because I lost a cousin to a landmine in Afghanistan no more than a month ago...

All the same...Our lady of the Rosary, ora pro nobis!

Soldier Saved By Rosary 

Quick post...

...because I'm too tired for anything more.

Today was a killer day if there ever was one. Things just never stopped. And yes, I know it's after midnight, so technically I've missed a day of blogging. But you know what? I haven't gone to bed yet, so to me this is still today, not tomorrow. It won't be tomorrow until I wake up in the morning. So I'm counting this as today's post, regardless, and technicalities can go jump in a lake.

So there.

Interruptions...

... they're multiplying like rabbits!

It seems I'm going to have to really manage my time well if I'm actually going to complete a whole month of blogging... Interruptions keep springing up where ever I turn!

Work has been exceptionally busy lately and tonight I had to leave from work right away to drive to Opera rehearsal...

I'm stealing a few minutes during break to write the post... and already I have to go! Places!!\

More later!!

In Which An Account Is Made...

... of Soaring Soprano's Reading List.

So, now it is Day Two of AugBlogWriMo... and already I'm out of topics. Okay, well maybe that's an exaggeration. I do have things to blog about, but some of them are borderline on complaining, and if there is anything I don't want this blog to become it's that- an online outlet for my (oftentimes ridiculous) frustrations. As it is, complaining is hardly a good habit to get into, because it usually indicates that we're not accepting the crosses that we've been given as our means to sanctity. As the wonderful Jean-Pierre de Caussade points out in Abandonment to Divine Providence,

"...to attain the utmost height of perfection, the safest and surest way is to accept the crosses sent [them] by Providence at every moment, that the true philosopher's stone is submission to the will of God which changes into divine gold all [their] occupations, troubles, and sufferings..."

But despite this lovely bit of spiritual reading, I do still have the tendency to complain... but I'm determined not to do it here. When speaking with friends, however, things get a bit trickier, as evidenced by a conversation I had with a good friend of mine earlier this evening.

"I don't know what to write about..." I sighed via GoogleChat. (My friend lives on the other side of the pond [Scotland to be exact, and by virtue of this he will gain the appropriate, although hardly original, nickname of Scot for the purposes of this blog], and so Google has become the most convenient and inexpensive forum for our conversations.)

Anyway, I sighed, to which Scot very kindly replied that he was sure I'd find something. "You always seem to cover your bases," he said and despite the distance I could hear the confidence in that statement, for which I was grateful. (Sometimes GoogleChat is invaluable for increasing your self-esteem...)

So, I promptly started wracking my brain for ideas. I almost decided to do a bit of blogging about Husband, who was trying to eat an artichoke for the first time without knowing what he was about. It was quite hilarious to watch him actually, but I hid my snorts of stifled laughter behind the screen of my netbook. No, no extensive blogging about Husband today... it wouldn't be charitable, even if he was laughing about it too.

I went back to the drawing board again for about another thirty minutes or so... And then I had a scathingly brilliant idea and started collecting the necessary materials...

At which point in time, Scot pinged me again on GoogleChat. "How's it going?" he asked.

I bit my lip. "Okaaayyy..." (Oh, yes. I was going to be mysterious and hesitant.)

"What does that mean?" (Hee hee, I could feel the tension already getting to him.)

"It means," I replied, baiting the hook, "that I'm doing research..." (I couldn't help smirking to myself at this point. Scot is a very academic type of guy, into reading ancient manuscripts written in obscure languages and stuff, so research is like... well, I'm not sure what it's like, but it's pretty awesome.)

"NOW I'm intrigued!" he exclaimed, grinning. (And yes, I know he was grinning; one, because he's Scot and two, because he typed it. In bold font actually, like this: grins)

So, amidst all this intrigue, I really did discover what I meant to write about tonight, and I promise I'm getting to it. And, wait for it... here it comes...

SoaringSoprano's Reading List

I've always got a bunch of books that I read simultaneously, and so my idea is to blog a bit about what I'm reading. It'll help give me stuff to blog about for the next month, and maybe I'll even finish a few of them by the time September rolls around.


1. I've already mentioned Book #1, which is actually my *coughdailycough* spiritual reading: Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. My parish priest had recommended it to me when he learned that I had enjoyed Conformity to God's Will by St. Alphonsus Liguiori. Both are full of fantastic little bits that you can mull over all day... which is the whole point of spiritual reading, I suppose.

2. Trianon by Elena Marie Vidal. Now, this is a fantastic little gem. It's an account of the events leading up to the French Revolution, centered, of course, on Queen Marie Antoinette. The refreshing part is that the story has been carefully researched and for a change we can see the life of the Queen and her husband, King Louis XVI, from a truly Catholic perspective. And what a perspective! Nowhere are their faults excused or the mistakes that were made glossed over. Rather, they are addressed honestly and straightforwardly, but through the light of grace and Catholicism.

This is probably my fourth time reading the historical novel, and I love it even more every time I read it. Last night I got through the Prologue and Chapter One. What's interesting is that Vidal changes the point-of-view every chapter, giving a multi-faceted view of the Royal couple. The Prologue is from the perspective of Madame Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who was the portrait painter of Marie-Antoinette, while Chapter One is from the viewpoint of Madame Louise of France (Louis XVI's aunt), who was also known as Mother Thérése of St. Augustine.

Each of these characters reveal interesting little pieces of information: Vigée-Lebrun muses about the change in the Queen over the years, how her eyes changed from being "large, bright and expressionless" to having "a warmth, a light, a genuine amiability," which the young painter attributes to the Queen's love and approaching motherhood.

Madame Louise prays for her nephew and his bride, contemplating the difficulties the couple are facing. She remembers how her heart went out to the pair when Louis XV died, and the twenty-year-olds fell to their knees, weeping, and begging God to save them because they were too young to reign. And still, thirteen years later, Madame Louise knows they are still scared and beset with troubles and decides to send them brown scapulars and Sacred Heart badges, knowing of the Royal couple's devotion.

3. Okay, well, I need a little segue before revealing the last book, which will come in the form of more dialogue between Scot and I, since it is more than fitting. (Honestly, the double meaning here was intentional... but he didn't know that.)

"I want to work out what you're doing!" Scot says, grinning again. (Oh yeah, the research bit really got to him... go me!)

I laughed. "I'm glad your curiosity is piqued..." I replied, smiling mysteriously.

He grins again. "So am I..." (Aww, how cute! But now, for the set-up...)

I laughed again. "You may be disappointed however..." (Oh, I'm clever...)

Scot shoots me a wry smirk. "I rarely am." (Well, I'll admit it. I giggled at that.)

"Well, don't get your hopes up too high..." I warned. (I was grinning like a Cheshire cat by this point.)

And I really meant it... because you do know what they say about Great Expectations, after all... (I'm so witty sometimes...)

So yes, Book #3 is Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I've never read the book before. I've only seen the film adaptation with Ioan Gruffudd and Justine Waddell, which I enjoyed, despite the very Dickensian weirdness in places. So, I'm going to tackle the novel finally and see if I can't get my head around it.

I read the first two chapters today, and I must say, for all the complaining I did about Dickens and his descriptions while in High School, I'm really enjoying them now. He's not just describing stuff for the sake of filling up page space. His descriptions manage to lend flavour to the scenery and insight into the characters. My favourite by far is Pip's description of his sister, Mrs. Joe:

"My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front that was stuck full of pins and needles."

 In one short paragraph, Pip establishes for the reader that his sister is not a very refined woman. She's rough and ready, and the pins and needles in her apron very subtly set up the sharpness and prickliness of  her personality. Mrs. Joe certainly isn't a very lovable person, at all...

I couldn't help laughing at Pip's descriptions of things either, as his voice seems so fully to have captured that of a young boy. The narration aptly puts you into the world of this young boy and the uncomfortableness with the circumstances he's found himself in. The best bit, in my opinion, is the relationship between Joe and Pip, the silent camaraderie of two men who both suffer under the iron rule of Mrs. Joe. It's just priceless and an honest picture of human interaction.

And I think that it's time for me to end this very long blog post. Honestly, I applaud anyone who actually read it all the way to this point...

Here I had nothing to write and now I've got a post a million pages long! Oh, the irony...

I'm back...

... but not without some troubles.

After a lovely dinner with the relatives, my sister, my cousin and I went to go see Charlie St. Cloud.

It was actually a very good film, all considered. Characters were well developed, the plot moved along well, the cinematography was beautiful, and the acting was really well done. There was an implied sexual encounter and some kissing, but otherwise the film was surprisingly clean. There was no religious blasphemy and there were actually some very pleasing religious overtones, which was kind of surprising. The religious aspect of the story was definitely toned down, but seeing as how it does play a pivotal part in the plot, it still had a large impact on the story as a whole.

It makes me want to go search out the book at the library, which may not be a bad idea, actually...

...blast. A quick search reveals that there is only one copy in the library system, and it is checked out.  So, I guess I'll have to wait. I'm really just curious to see if the Catholicism hinted at in the movie is more prominent in the novel... never mind the fact that often times the book is much better than the film.

Anyway, I'm back from the film, and I have more time for a longer blog post! Yay!

Even still, I'm feeling conspired against. I got on the laptop when I got home to find that the ISP was totally flaking out and wouldn't let me connect. I'll admit that I had a very tiny moment of freaking out, but then I remembered that I had posted the mini-post, and it's hardly my fault if the internet provider decides to be stupid. So, I took a deep breath, offered it up for some poor soul in Purgatory, and did some other work on my netbook.

And what do I find twenty minutes later? The internet has been restored, and I can write this blog post! God is good, is He not?

I feel like I'm kind of floundering with this post, however... It's probably because I have so much to say and also probably because of the nice glass of Catawba wine that I'm currently enjoying. I think I've decided that wine and blogging go very well together, actually. Almost as well as blogging and tea go together... Well, except for the wandering bit, but I suppose that can't be helped.

And before I do any more meandering though the random shuffle of information that is my brain, I am going to bid all and sundry a good night. I shall now finish my wine, read a good book, and go to sleep.

I'll see you all tomorrow, God willing!

Day 1 of AugBlogWriMo...

...and already I'm being derailed.

I meant to blog after lunch, but after our busy weekend (which I shall report about later), I couldn't help falling asleep. Then again, I probably shouldn't have stretched out on the comfy black sofa amidst a bunch of pillows either... *sheepish grin*

And now, I'm off to have dinner with some relatives and possibly head to the cinemas. I'm hoping to be back at a reasonable enough hour to blog when I get back, but just in case I don't, this short post is proof that I at least intended to write a longer, more worthy post!

And now I'm off!