Excitement!

Life sure has its means of pushing you along.  I remember growing up, my dad asking me "what's wrong," and in the likely case of responding "I'm bored," he would say, "well, do something."  Now to be fair, my brother complained about being bored more often than I did, but I would just sit around depressed wondering why I didn't have something to look forward to.  One thing always leads to another, and we somehow ended up in time-out for fighting.  Boredom = Trouble.  Even today, when I get bored, I immediately find something to do.  This unfortunate compulsion has led to many months of performances, the stressful completion of my doctoral exams, and several seasons of Mad Men on Netflix.

The latter end of 2012 was definitely the most stressful and least boring of my life, and now after a long month off, I am back to furiously not being bored.  Last week, as you may recall, I performed in a children's opera, "How the Camel Got Its Hump".  It was a terrifically cute production, and most importantly the kids loved it!  Essentially, we told the Rudyard Kipling story in a 35 minute opera, where we opened a giant toy box and played "Make Believe."

I'm a sad Horse because the Camel won't help the other animals with their daily chores

Now that it is finished, my days are becoming increasingly involved in accomplishing other goals.  I have been furiously applying for jobs at colleges and universities all over the place.  I am preparing for a recital and several major Bach-related solo performances.  And yesterday, I was asked by the Kansas City Symphony to perform on six educational concerts, similar to what I did last year, starting in April!  I always love a chance to perform with the Symphony and in Helzberg Hall.  Amazingly, I will perform at Helzberg Hall 10 times in a span of only 4 weeks!

I also was invited back to perform and record with the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers in June.  It was an amazing experience last year, our next album will be released in the Summer, and I cannot wait to perform again with some of the area's best singers and with one of the world's great minds for choral music!

If that wasn't exciting enough, I and several other Kansas City Chorale members had a Skype session with our managing agent about the Grammy's next week (I can't believe it's already so close!).  It is an interesting and exciting experience as we received our red carpet schedules, press releases, a list of talking points for interviews, and the list goes on.  It will certainly be unforgettable and I will have LOTS of updates on my facebook page - www.facebook.com/pinkall - as well as on this blog.

BUT that isn't even the most exciting and certainly not the most unexpected news lately - the most unexpected news being that I stepped ankle deep, both feet, socks, and shoes, in wet cement.  The most exciting news is that I had an interview this morning with the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games via Skype from Moscow!  I applied in August for a leadership or Director position within the area of Ceremony Music and Protocol for the next Olympics in Sochi, Russia. They are the Winter Olympics of course - but it is a somewhat unknown location to people on this side of the pond.  Sochi is on the coast of the Black Sea and even in winter it is warm and green with palm trees and all.  Many of the outdoor events will take place on the slopes of the adjacent mountain ranges while the indoor events and ceremonies will be held in the beautiful coastal resort city.

The interviewer was efficient and asked questions from "Why do you want to be a part of the Olympic Games?" to "Describe a time where you went beyond what was asked to complete a task."  The group interviewing me was in Moscow, which meant that I was awake VERY early this morning to catch them during work hours.  I was very happy and excited to take part, so some of my answers were...well, I could have given infinitely long answers on some topics.  They wanted to know my organizational habits, accomplishments, skills, thought processes, and even what makes me angry.  They even paused to find some quite specific supplemental questions to ask including, "Have you ever performed in front of large masses of people?", "Are you afraid of large masses of people?", "Are you afraid of heights?", and "Have you been a part of a large scale production or media event?"  I have had many great experiences in the recent past and have a working knowledge of what they are needing.  Hopefully, they will want me on board.  I thought the interview went really well, I thought they were very interested in my responses, and I'm very excited and anxious to hear back from them.

With so much excitement and so many things to look forward to, I shouldn't get into any trouble anytime soon!