Life Lately,,,

Hello everyone!

I'm back!! and hopefully I will get to blog more than once a month now that my doctoral auditions are finally over!!  yup yup.  everything is now out of my hands, and all I have to do is wait...  and wait some more..  haha  not sure which part of this process is worse, really; the auditioning or the waiting.

As you can imagine, I spent most of my breathing moments in a practice room during this time, but I did manage to leave it once in a blue moon and capture some of these...

Like this one, on an incredibly beautiful day in Houston.  a welcome change from the Polar Vortex, eh?

and this one, on an impromptu ice cream date with the boy on another beautiful day before the winter storm hit Houston...  Choco taco!  haven't had one of these since,,, high school?  haha

Walking around Rice....

chillin on a bench while people/squirrel watching..

Little did we know that only a couple of days later, we would have ice, rain, snow, etc...  and that I would be in Austin, panicking about my cancelled audition...  which was not so bad in the end because I got to catch up with Grace, have In n Out, and enjoy having some time in Austin before coming back to Houston.

And would you believe it, one day later, it was nice enough for an ice cream date...

This yo-yo-ing of weather has really gotten my wardrobe confused  haha  I put my winter coat away, go around in my sandals one day, and the next day I have to take out my winter coat and put on my Uggs..  

We are projected to have another winter storm tomorrow (even though today is incredibly beautiful!) so we may have yet another snow day!  yay no school!  =D

I hope you are all either bundled up or enjoying this beautiful weather (probably both, if where you live is anything like Houston) and have a wonderful week!

--Janny

FALL BREAK!!!

Hello everyone!

I know it's not Tuesday, but there's a blog post going up!  what?! gasp!    shocking, I know, but we're on fall break!!!  yay!!  hip hip horray!

ok, so fall break at Rice isn't really that big of a deal (just monday and tuesday off) but it coming right now, at this point in the semester, is really truly a godsend.  

now that I don't have to worry about classes, I can really focus on my recital cramming!!!  haha..  eh.. heh..

Anyway, before I go dash off for that, I wanted to share 2 photos from the last week or so.  It's been really wonderful because I've had visits by 2 friends from different parts of my life, and musical journey so far. One friend is actually from the Seattle area, but funnily enough (yes, I just used the word 'funnily') we didn't meet there originally.  We met right here in Texas, actually, at a place called Round Top because we were placed as roommates (along with Meredith) at the summer festival.  

Interestingly, Round Top at about the halfway point between Austin and Houston, and just guess where Grace is living right now.  yup.  in Austin. Funny how these things happen like this, isn't it?

omg! look how young we look!  ahh!! this was us 5 years ago! and you know the craziest thing about this photo of friends from Round Top?  3 of the people (me, Emily, and Christiano) are actually at Rice!  We're all at Shepherd School of Music pursuing our Master of Music, and Grace is also in Texas at UT Austin, and of course, Timmay and I are in the Meadowlark Trio together  =)  They say the music world is small,,, but seriously, I'm beginning to really experience how tiny it really is.

roomy photo at Round Top

 Anyway, she came to visit Houston, so of course, we had to go catch up and stuff  =)   (She's visited before and you can see the posts from her visits here and here)

It's always so nice to get to catch up with Grace, and I can't wait for the next meet up!  =)

Then, just a couple of days ago, I got a message for Julien saying that he would be in Houston!  He goes to school at Texas A&M, but was here for a conference, so of course we jumped at the chance to catch up.  I briefly took French while I was at UNL because I just really love that language, and everyone in my circle of my friends was taking French.  So I hopped on the bandwagon and took French 101 for a semester.  It was such an incredible class, and at the end we all really became a big family.  Our professor Monsieur Kwambamba would bring his son, his wife would bring us food while we were in class, and we would generally have an incredible time together.  Anyway, that is how I got to know Julien.  He was studying French (his Master's degree) and he actually taught Alexios.

Funny how we both graduated from UNL and then ended up in Texas!  =)  gotta love the Nebraskans! Nebraska will always be a very special place in my heart, and it's always nice to see people that I got to know there again.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!
--Janny

Full House!

Hello everyone!

Last couple of days at our apartment has been full of amazing company and food!

First, Amulet's friend Jessie came to visit, 

then April, who will be here with me for a whole week!! yay!!

and then Grace also came to visit!

As music students, we visit the prospective schools to not only check out the school itself, but also to take lessons with the teachers.  This is important because studying with the right teacher is perhaps the most important thing, and this trial lesson is used to see if the two could potentially work well together.

That's why all three of them were here, 

and awesomely, their visits coincided with the Rice Centennial celebration!

I'm so glad they got to see the Shepherd School Symphony perform/premiere William Bolcom's 9th symphony, as well as enjoy other festivities throughout the week.

One of our favorites was the Centennial Picnic.

(musicians and free food... of course, it was our favorite  lol)

I snapped this photo before we got too distracted by all the amazing food they had.

food truck after food truck, and tent after tent of food!

SO. Much. Food!

I should have taken a picture of how full the quad was with people and food, but I was too busy eating to remember to take photos  haha

Later that night, (because we didn't have enough food at the picnic...), 

April, Grace, and I went on a cooking/baking spree!

When April and I were together at UNL along with our friend Timmay,

we would ALWAYS cook so much amazing food together,

and not having seen each other for so long, a cooking spree was bound to happen  ;)

Also, Grace is an amazing baker!

You'll see here in a little bit what I mean.

Well, we couldn't just eat baked goods for dinner, so we made some falafels,

which ended up looking like cookies,,,  but hey! they tasted great!  =D

Then, came the real baking spree!

Surprise Brown Butter Brownies and Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls!!

April and Grace, so happy to be baking  =)

me, so happy they finally got to meet each other, and also happy to be taking pics  ;)

First we had the privilege of tasting the Surprise Brown Butter Brownies.

April had the idea of incorporating the Cayenne pepper into the batter,

and it was incredible!

It was so funny sharing it with people who wasn't a part of our baking spree team,

because the taste of the pepper doesn't kick in until the very end of eating the brownies!

So. good!

Then came the Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Greek Yogurt Icing!

Grace the master baker at work.

With our ghetto Snapple rolling pin...  haha

hey, but it worked  ;)

The final product!!!

Drooooolll.....

Grace said that we should wait for it to cool a little before we try it,

but needless to say, that did not happen  lol

wow...............

wow.........

wow...

Such amazingness calls for

food toasting!

Falafels                                        Surprise Brown Butter Brownies                 Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

 It was such a wonderful night,

with such amazing food,

and such amazing company!

 It was so wonderful having all of you here!

Come back soon!  =D

--Janny