After an unplanned vacation from blogging, I have returned to find wordpress sporting a new layout. Usually I would say New AND Improved, however, I’m not sure if I feel wordpress has improved… it’s making me feel quite wordpress-illiterate right about now.  [What in the wordpress is a "trackback" anyway?]

Anywho. A week and a half into second semester of my 3rd year up here in Tallahassee. Today the temps were in the mid-30s. A nice wintry (word?) day, and a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of fun scarves, hats, and jackets. If I could wear one “genre” of clothing all year long, it would have to be winter clothes. There’s nothing like being able to layer green over navy, bittersweet orange under dark brown, little touches of color with a beret or a knit scarf. It makes up for the skies being grey and the trees bare.

Enough about clothes. Miami people, I have odd, funny news.

So FSU requires all students to take 3 credits (usually 1 class) to fulfill a “multi-cultural” requirement. A class called “World Music Cultures” is a mandatory course for all music majors, but apparently that class isn’t “cultural” enough, so we are also required to be apart of a “world music ensemble (Irish fiddling, Caribbean Salsa, Viola da Gamba, Andean, Mexican, Chinese, and Steel Pan). Apparently music majors just aren’t cultured enough. So, guess which one I signed up for. … Salsa! It sounded the coolest, and also was the only ensemble that did not display an “audition only” warning. Well. Unbeknowest to me, it is actually an audition only band. haha. So I found this out when I met “Papo”, our Salsa instructor, at the first day of class. When I told him the “experience with salsa” aka NONE, he told me to prepare a salsa song to audition with for the next class. haha. I searched the library, couldn’t find any authentic salsa. I almost resigned ask if I could just shake an egg, but then a friend from the band encouraged and lent me some salsa music. I learned “‘La Vida es un Carnaval” by Celia Cruz, only to find out that it’s not “real salsa”. So the instructor had me sing “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess in a very low uncomfortable key. I sang horribly, and then he was like, “yeah, you sing BGVs now, and then we’ll see about doing “summertime” salsa- style.”  So far it has been a blast just being in an ensemble that’s so chill. Just listening to the instrumentalists jam with the different beat patterns and improvisations has opened my eyes to the possibilities. Totally different life-style than I’m used to, and it’s a nice change from my other rehearsals. Tomorrow we go over a song called “That’s Okay” by Marc Anthony. Since I haven’t known any of the music they’ve rehearsed so far, Papo assigned this song to me and dude to sing tomorrow as a duet. I’m no Marc Anthony, so I’ll let you know if he kicks me out of the band after rehearsal.

Alright! Time for me to hit the sack. Have a fun day ahead… gym, class, lunch date, voice lesson, meet with friend, and salsa rehearsal. Let’s see how long the gym routine lasts….

Enjoy the week!