the final stretch!

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the absence,,, I just finished my recital preview this morning, and let's just say that I've had, and will have, no life until my recital is over.  Actually, no,,, until everything else is over... but let's not think about that right now...

Though the preview was a bit rough around the edges, I passed!  In case you don't know what a recital preview entails, you basically run through your recital program for the panel (in my case Mr. Lin, and Mr. Kantor), and they decide if you are ready to give the recital or not.  Scary and really stressful because that means you have to have your recital ready to go at an earlier date, but in the end, a very useful and helpful practice!  Now, I have a week and a half until November 2nd to really polish the pieces I'm playing!  oh, and breathe... and chill...  haha both Mr. Lin and Mr. Kantor told me that I need to relax after the preview today. =p

So this is the final stretch until the recital on November 2nd at 3 pm!  If you are in the Houston area, you are all invited!  Would love to see you there.  It will be an intense recital of Bach g minor Sonata, Struass Sonata, and Ravel Tzigane!  =)

Then, later that evening, at 8 pm, the Shepherd Symphony is giving a concert of Dvorak 7th Symphony and Hindemith Mathis der Maler, and yes, I am playing in this one too.

Then, the next day we start rehearing Golijov's Last Round for Mr. Lin's recital which is happening that Wednesday!  And I'm so sooo excited to be performing with Mr. Lin!   =D =D =D!!  what! so stoked for this concert!

Then, we have the chamber marathon in which I'm playing the Beethoven Trio Op. 70 No. 2.

 *excuse me while I go hyperventilate a little bit about the sheer amount of music I need to learn*

BUT THEN!!! I GET TO GO TO CLEVELAND!!!  to see my MEADOWLARKS!!!

It's going to be such a hurricane of performances and activities and then BAM. chill time. at least for a weekend.  I can't wait! =)

In the meantime, I've been having cravings for anything munchy or greasy. For example, last weekend, I just really really wanted a burger!  yup, I do believe it's the stress-eating syndrome kicking in.  I'm the worst about chowing down my stress..  haha

but hey, this burger was pretty darn tasty, and sometimes, you just really crave a good, juicy burger, ya know?  no harm done, I'll probably feel the intense desire to detox and go all vegetarian as soon as I can breathe again, but until then, bring on the munchies!

I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far!

--Janny

Wonderful Weekend =)

Hello everyone,

Happy Columbus Day and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

We had a really great weekend (funny how much you enjoy everything more when you're less stressed! haha)  Though we still worked some throughout the weekend, having today and tomorrow off really took a lot of pressure off of my shoulders, and man. this weekend was such a relaxing and happy one  =)

We started off the weened by watching Gravity in 3D.  We tried to go to.. 9:30 pm showing I think? but when we got there, it was all sold out!  Thankfully, we were a little late (per usual) so we only had 25 minutes or so until the next show, which ended up being only about half way full!  And since we were the first ones there, (a phenomenon we have never experienced before.. we usually get there right as the movie starts and we miss most of the previews) we got to pick the best seats in the house!  

And guys, if you haven't seen Gravity, you totally should!  Apparently IMAX 3D is the way to go, but even just watching it in 3D was such a visual feast!  They did an amazing job of creating the piece.  The story line was not something we talked about over and over after the movie, but the visual effects? Man, the visuals were beautiful.  and really quite amazing how they managed to capture outer space and incorporate the CG and the camera work so flawlessly.

Next day, we made our (almost) weekly run to H Mart to get some lunch and groceries.  I was strangely craving the Korean fried chicken, Tong Dak, which is soo sooo good.. well, not very good for you, but such a comfort food for me, so that's what we ended up having for lunch!  =)  I'm obviously so excited haha

And then, as we were shopping, an announcement came over the intercom saying that there's a traditional rice cake making exhibition happening at the prepared-foods corner!  so of course, we had to check it out!

This is how they used to make rice cakes folks!

And then, they asked if anyone in the audience wanted to try, so naturally, I stepped up to the plate to try my hand at swinging the hammer looking contraption.  How hard could it be? right?

well,,, let's just say that the hammer thing was much much heavier than I had anticipated.

me struggling.  especially in the last photo because the about-to-be-rice-cake mixture is super sticky!
but then we got to try the freshly made rice cakes, and that made everything all worth it.  so. good.  yum!

Later that night, we attended Houston chapter of USA Dance's social dance party, Second Saturday dance.  The theme of the night was the Masquerade, so I happily got my hands 'gluey' getting some crafts on  =p

David didn't want any bling on his mask for some reason, so I had to be content with just glueing some decorations on mine  haha

For a $2 and 5 minute project, I was pretty happy with how they turned out  =)

about to dance the night away~

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!

Thanks for stopping by!

--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

Houston Greek Festival!!

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the weekly Tuesday blog post!  haha  

I'm really not sure how I managed to blog multiple times a week last year...  but I am definitely busier this year with the doctoral audition prep and!!! my recital that is happening in less than a month!!!  AAHHH  I can't believe it's coming up so soon!  and the preview is in exactly 2 weeks!!  this preview business is something that Rice does that still really throws me for the loop.  It's like your recital date is actually that much earlier because everything has to be ready to go and in top shape by your preview!  For someone like me who likes to cram at the last minute, the previews are like the most stressful things ever!  haha  anyway, I had my recital last year during the spring semester, and moving it up to the fall semester has definitely amped up my work level this semester...  I even got a violin hicky for the first time in my life!  (if you don't know what a violin hicky is, it's the dark spot on virtually every violinist's neck where the violin chinrest rubs against the skin.  and sometimes, it looks strikingly like a hicky that you would get from.. not a violin)

Anyway, enough about work and practicing!  to keep myself sane (because I have a tendency to be totally fine with stress, or think I'm fine with it, until it piles up, and then I give myself ulcers or insomnia out of the blue) I've been trying to fit in non violin activities regularly.  It's good for the mind and the soul to get out of the practice room every now and again.  and what's more perfect for a practice break than a Greek Festival!!  We had so much fun at the Polish Harvest Festival that we decided to give the Greek one a try too  ;)

The festival was held at the Greek Orthodox Church, and let me tell you, it was insane how big this festival was!

not only is this their 47th year of doing the festival, but it's also held for 4 days!!  this has to be the biggest cultural festival I've attended, and even on Saturday night (3rd day of the festival) it was packed!

after being overwhelmed for a bit, we made our way to the Souvlaki stand because the line looked the shortest and we couldn't find the gyro stand  haha

 look at this intense grilling that's going on here!

It was really delicious, and of course, we had to try to eat it in the most barbaric manner because, I mean, how else do you eat a kabob?  eating in style is serious business people!  ;)

We had to finish the Souvlaki quickly because we wanted to catch the Greek dance performance, and at the last minute we realized that we couldn't bring food or drinks into the performance space.  Good thing we didn't buy a whole lot of food until after the performance! haha

I had been to a couple of different Greek festivals before because my friend Alexios is Greek (as I'm sure you could tell by his name  ;)  haha) and it was really interesting to me that I recognized some of the dances and the songs!

So many colorful costumes and different styles of dancing!  After thoroughly enjoying the show, we headed back out to get more food!  Most importantly, I was on the hunt for some gyros!  Ahhh I love me some gyros!  I know they're not the healthiest for you, but who cares, you're at a Greek Festival!  oh, and you can't forget Baklava! oh my goodness, I was so excited for these two, as you can tell by the photos I'm sure  haha

 and I have to say, the Gyros did not disappoint!  it was so good that David didn't even realize he had some of the sauce on his nose  =p

We also tried this rice pudding thing that was really good as well, but I'm not sure what it is called..

It was such a fun time, and we both left with full, happy tummies, and sore throats from yelling 'Opa!' so many times  =)

Well, back to practicing I go!

I hope you all had an amazing weekend as well, and thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Rice Gallery

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

It seems that Tuesdays are my blogging days  haha.  It's completely unintentional, but I guess Tuesday afternoons tend to be my freer afternoons!

Last week, David and I visited the Rice Gallery for their grand opening for the year!  The work is by the artist Gaia, and the installation is named 'Mashland', after the Rice University's founder William Marsh Rice. The work is a reflection of Gaia's perceptions of the Rice and Houston communities, and Rice University's relationship to the city.

The work consists of 3 floor-to-ceiling mural walls that reflect Gaia's views and perceptions of Houston, and a structure in the middle that mimics the architectural style of Rice (arches and bricks!) that has paintings of different administrators, faculty, and students.

It was so interesting to walk around the installation and to learn about how he went about working on this project through different video clips that were playing in the foyer.

We also had fun trying to see if we recognized anyone among the paintings.  =)

It was a neat little installation, and we recommend visiting (and mosey on out of Shepherd once in awhile if you are a Shepherd student  haha) if you are around Rice!  It's a good study/practice break, and also a nice relief from the heat... because yes, it is still soo hot in Houston!  hello?! it's October!  where's my fall weather!!

Another funny thing about my experience with the installation was that I automatically knew that the structure in the middle with all of the arches and brick was about Rice even before reading that the work was about Rice.  How did I know, you ask?  That is because all I see all day, every day at Rice is exactly that kind of architecture.  Like this one!   =)

We're so blessed to have such a beautiful campus, and I absolutely love, LOVE this type of architecture. David, on the other hand, Mr. Berkeley hippie, (=p) feels that the architectures seem all too similar and old fashioned.  I guess every person's entitled to his/her opinions!  haha

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful rest of the week!
--Janny

Harvest Festival in 3 different cultures!!

Hello everyone!!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Last weekend, we celebrated the coming of fall by partaking in 3 different Harvest Festivals!  The Korean kind and the Chinese kind (although this isn't labeled as a harvest festival,,, it's a Mid-autumn festival!) were planned, as I grew up looking forward to 추석 every year in Korea, and David brought back some Mooncakes from his travels in Taiwan.  The 3rd one, the Dozynki, was a Polish Harvest festival that was completely random, completely unplanned, and a detour that we thoroughly enjoyed  =)

Even though the full moon festival was supposed to have happened on Thursday (I think...) we were both busy, so we pushed back the celebrations to Sunday when we could make a nice dinner together, and eat the moon cakes and some Songpyeon (Korean rice cakes with sweet goodness in the middle).  So early  (aha ha ha,,) Sunday morning, we set out to get some groceries at H Mart, just like any other Sunday.  On our way there, we noticed an advertisement for a Polish Harvest Festival on the highway, and I jokingly pointed it out and said, 'Ooh, look! we should go check it out!!'  to which David replied, 'Ok!'   bless his heart..  he's always so game to go along with my crazy ideas  haha   ;)   but I had a rehearsal later that day, so I figured we didn't have enough time to check it out.. I mean, who knew where it could be! Houston is so darn large that we could probably drive an hour and not be outside of the city..   but I decided to look it up anyway on my Iphone, (which took longer than expected because I'm still not used to IOS7..  -.-) and lo and behold!  The festival was happening a block away from H Mart!!!!

So obviously, we had to go check it out.  It was a perfect weather for it too!

Everything was so colorfully decorated, and the atmosphere was so festive!  =)  The first thing that greeted us as we entered was a row of different Polish gift shops!

I loved seeing all of the Polish traditional clothing too! So colorful!  Have you noticed that no matter what culture you look at, the traditional clothing all tend to be super colorful?  perchance it's time to bring those back into our daily lives  ;)  haha.  anyway, I may have done more staring than is considered polite, but people were just walking around in traditional garments, and having so much fun singing, eating, and mingling, and I just had such a blast taking it all in.

Then, of course, the most important part came:  the food!!  I had never tried Polish food before, though David seemed to know a couple of things from the menu..  so, in the spirit of trying everything, we ordered the Polish Plate which had 3 pierogi, 1 golabek (the cabbage roll with red sauce), kielbasa (sausage), bigos (hunter's stew), and lots of bread.  I'm not much of a sausage fan, but surprisingly, the kielbasa was my favorite!!

 Then, of course we had to try some desserts!  There were so many amazing looking desserts, but we asked for the 'most traditionally Polish' dessert, and were given Angel Wings!  It seemed like a thin strip of fried puff pastry with powdered sugar?  whatever it was, we enjoyed it!  =D

I'm so glad we decided to visit this festival in the most spur-of-the-moment, random kind of a way!  After all, these random detours of life are what makes living so interesting and exciting, no?  ;)

Later that night, after working and rehearsing and practicing, we got back together to make dinner and have some moon cakes!  The box of moon cakes David brought back were so beautifully packaged that I had a difficult time tearing through them, but what was inside was totally worth it!

It's a little pastry with red bean paste inside, and in the center there's an egg yolk!!  I was so surprised when I bit into it  haha   

he's such a goof  =p

and then, we finished the night with some Korean part of the Harvest Festival, the Songpyeon!  송편! I used to loooovveee these as a kid!   =D

Did any of you celebrate the coming of fall with cultural festivities?

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

A Musical and Nature in Downtown Houston :: The Book of Mormon and Tranquillity Park

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!

David was in LA for a wedding for 23 hours (well, he spent 23 hours in LA, but of course, it was more like 2 days with traveling) so I logged some quality girl-bonding time with a few of my girlfriends both near and far!  I'm not the greatest at doing long distance of any sort, whether it's friendship or a romantic relationship, but one friend who has always been there--through growing up together to now going on 8 years of long distance friend-ing--is Linda!  (You can see a couple of posts of when she came out to visit me in Seattle here.)  so we did about 3 hours of Skyping one night, catching up and bonding over our shared terror of roaches...  aha ha.. ha...  eep.  unfortunately, we both live in areas at the moment where roaches roam freely, like they own the whole city!   Anyway, that aside, it was so nice to get to catch up, and I can't wait for our next Skype date!  =D 

Then, the next day, I spent the afternoon shopping with Lijia!  I know, such a girl thing to do.  But you know, sometimes retail therapy is necessary, especially when it includes thrifting!!  I have always found thrifting to be much more interesting than,, say, going to a mall. I mean, if I specifically need something on short notice, I will head to the mall, but when I'm just in the mood for retail therapy (when it's ok to just window shop and not get anything), then I much prefer thrifting..  perhaps because there's the sense of surprise? like a feeling of having found a treasure when you do get that amazing silk blouse or that amazing pair of leather boots because you weren't really going into the experience expecting to find something?  and of course, the usually lower price tag is an added plus  ;)

Anyway, having thoroughly enjoyed the girl time, I was happy to have David back on Sunday!  =p  It was pretty intense actually, because he had gotten the tickets to go see The Book of Mormon on Sunday at 2 pm back in March. Since the wedding was on Saturday, he had to fly back on a red-eye flight after the wedding on Saturday, and land in Houston around 6:30 am on Sunday, take a quick nap, and then go to the show!  poor guy..  lol but he handled it like a champ.  See? can't even tell he's sleep deprived in the photo!  haha  =p

and the show?  TOTALLY worth it!!

It was so good!!  the actors/singers/dancers were amazing, the music was incredibly catchy, and the story line was really funny. we highly recommend it.  However, if you are easily offended, this may not be the show for you..  I mean, it wasn't terribly raunchy or anything, and even I understood all of the jokes (I'm usually the one who has to ask 'wait, what's so funny..?' whenever a dirty jokes come up...  I pull out the Asian card for those instances, I didn't grow up here!  hmph  haha)

When we got to the theater, they had these binoculars in the front, and we got them just in case we would have difficulty seeing the stage from our seats (we had never been to the Hobby Center, so we weren't sure how everything would be set up)  and proceeded to play with them until the show started..  haha

However, the binoculars were completely unnecessary!  Because David got the tickets so early, our seats were amazing!!  We were on the second row of the balcony, right in the center!

Having thoroughly enjoyed our selves at the show, we headed back out into the Houston heat.  I hear all of my friends in other places starting to break out their fall outfits, beginning to enjoy the crisper weather, etc etc.  but in Houston, it's still 98 degrees.  People here seem to keep all indoor places at about 60 degrees though, so we have to dress like it's fall anyway when we go to these shows (or class.. Shepherd is always freezing too), and then suffer the consequences when you walk back to your car/home, etc  haha

On our way back to our parking garage, we stumbled upon this little park, right in front of the Hobby Center, called the Tranquillity Park.  Yes, it's actually spelled with two 'L's, and it's in honor of the first Moon landing!  you know, the first words transmitted from the Moon by Neil Armstrong was "Houston, Tranquillity Base here.  The Eagle has landed."  Since 'Houston' is in there and everything, the city of Houston had to have a park to commemorate the event  ;)

When we went, the fountain was dry (maybe they were cleaning) but we still had fun walking around the park and enjoying the greenery in the middle of the downtown.

While we were strolling around the park, we found this cluster of trees, so I went to see if I could be like Momo.  Momo is a border collie who is amazing at playing 'where's Waldo'. In my opinion, it's a much better version of 'where's Waldo' because Momo is soo darn cute!!  you can subscribe to Momo on Instagram here if you want a daily feed of puppy cuteness mixed with 'where's Waldo' ness.

Anyway, back to my attempt at being 'Waldo'. or is it 'Walda'? doesn't Waldo have a girlfriend of that name or something?  

hmmmm,,, as you can see, it didn't work very well.  something about those neon pink pants...   haha   

^^^ me admitting defeat and abandoning my attempt to be like Walda, or Momo...  

Oh, and look at that interesting temple looking building poking out in between all of the sky scrapers! =D  anyone know what it is?  We wanted to walk over there and check it out when we noticed it, but we didn't have enough time..  =/

We resumed walking around the park afterwards, and noticed these cylindrical pillars are everywhere!  Later, we learned that they are supposed to represent Apollo's rocket boosters!

It's a charming little park with a lot of trees (which seems to be a rarity in Houston), so we enjoyed as much of it as we could before heading back home for one of my rehearsals...  a musician's work is never done!! 

a better(?) attempt at 'where's Waldo' ing.

ahh.. so green.. and peaceful..

some more interesting architecture spotted on our way back to our car...

We have never really explored downtown Houston because the city of Houston is quite spread out, and the part Rice is located is not very close to downtown, but we're looking forward doing some more exploring as we go see more shows in the theater district  =)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful rest of the week!

--Janny