Moving Day-July 8th

Pretend it's July 8th...(these are back blogs remember?) :) So it's 2AM and I just started packing because I spent the day before watching Michael Jackson's memorial...then I was too lethargic to pack... PLUS, I HATE PACKING. I had my list already made of what I wanted to take so that helped, I guess (not really). I had to leave @ 5 for the airport & it took all 3 hrs to pack because I'm slow and then my sister took me to airport to catch my 7AM flight from Philly to LA. It was a long flight but I finally made it there safely. *Disclaimer* AVOID SWITCHING AIRLINES MID TRIP UNLESS YOU HAVE AT LEAST...AT LEAST 3 HRS TO SPARE!!!
I had a two hour layover at LAX - an hour and 45 minutes of the 2 hours was spent rechecking/repacking my luggage - leaving me with about 15 minutes to get through security & get to my gates. Thankfully, a strong, tall-ish, dark, & handsome TSA guy saw me struggling with my bags and carried them down the escalator through the MOB of people for me to the check-in counter. I was sooo hot & tired. Anyway, I'm glad that I was in Zone 3 boarding! I crashed when I got on the plane....5 hr flight to Kona.

There were sooooo many kids on the flight AND they stayed awake...argh! Long flight short, we arrived in Kona and it was cloudy & muggy outside, and the baggage claim belt for my flight was broken. We had to wait for a truck to arrive with our baggage and then finally head to the car rental place & drive to Waimea, were the festival was. (We, meaning my car mates, Alysia & Chris).
(Kona Baggage Claim)

Finally done flying....off to the festival.

So....who goes to the Big Island for 3 weeks?!?!?

Ok, so when I found out that I was coming to Hawaii, of course I thought it would be in the heart of Oahu or Maui at a fabulous resort, where I would wake up to fresh flowers & pineapple smoothies every morning.....but then I actually read the program website and saw that the festival location was on the big island and I was kinda sad....only for a few minutes though. No one really vacations here (well nobody I know) so I just wasn't sure to expect....and so 3 weeks of unknown big island activities made me a little sad. NONETHELESS, it's Hawaii and who wouldn't want to be here, right?

In a nutshell...

Aloha folks...welcome welcome...

Soooo.....I probably won't go into extreme detail right now about how I got the opportunity to come to Hawaii for 3 weeks to sing because I want to catch you guys up on the more interesting details of my trip.

In a nutshell, I am a singer (developing artist) in the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival because of one of the voice faculty members who found one of my youtube videos "Joy" by Ricky Ian Gordon, and contacted me about applying to participate in this year's festival. I am assuming the voice teacher youtube-stalked Gordon and not me, but according to some colleagues, my video shows up 3rd in the list, so I guess that's where I became relevant. You're probably wondering what Gordon has to do with any of this...well he is going to be the Composer-in-residence at the festival this year - working one-on-one with singers at some point and coaching & directing his new opera Grapes of Wrath (concert version, I think). So I checked out the program details to see what else there was to do here - it's quite a musically versatile program so I decided to apply in Jan or Feb...I was accepted with scholarship and now *poof* here I am in July on the big island singing my little heart out. That's the nutshell...

Scoop on my flight over here, first few days, etc. to come shortly. (I'm debating on sharing a secret that I would like to keep suppressed, but it plays a big role in some events that took place...so we'll see).

Mahalo for reading!!

aloha.