It never ceases to amaze me how well the human mind can trick itself. Throughout my life I have struggled with my weight. I understood to a certain point how much weight I had gained and I took small measures to quell its course. I recently finished a challenge I set for myself to walk everyday for 80 days straight. I finished that challenge and went on to the next. My next step will be walking the Seattle Marathon at the end of November.
Today was day two of marathon training which included going to the gym for an hour of strength training (I love that class and had done it for over a month last year and enjoyed it thoroughly, so it was a joy to rejoin the class), followed by a mile-long walk. One of the walls at the gym is completely made out of mirrors and it was the first time I had really looked at myself in awhile. I hardly recognized who I saw looking back at me, as clichéd as that sounds.
I had noticed my clothes getting tighter recently and food has always been my comfort strategy when I'm stressed out. These past two weeks have been really stressing me out, what with moving across state and having to start over from scratch. Even being on vacation stresses me out (I really like having a set schedule). So I had been eating a lot more than usual. But none of that knowledge prepared me for what I saw. And I realized exactly how fat I really am.
People have always been kind in saying that I carry my weight well and that I look really good, but recently I've been noticing how quickly my joints wear out, numbness when I sit in a chair (most chairs are far too small and hit my legs in the weirdest places), that sort of thing. But still I tricked myself into thinking that I am much smaller than I actually am. I got to the point where I could joke about my weight and actually felt at home in my skin. That was a false indicator. Now I feel even less at home in my skin because I do not feel as fat as I am. Now I know, more than ever, how hard I need to work to be healthy and how much time I really need to spend on myself.
I am not saying any of this to be down on myself or anyone else. It was simply an epiphany that I had today, and realized exactly how much time I hadn't been spending on my own health and well-being. At this point I understand how big my body is, how alive and ready I am to live, and how much I need to match my body to my mind. I do not see fat when I look into the mirror. I see me.
Now it's time for the world to see me, too.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Thursday, March 19, 2015
First Studio Album
To all of my wonderful friends, family, and fans:
I am working on a second album! However, this will be my first studio album, recorded in Seattle at a top studio with music composed by top up-and-coming composers. However, I NEED YOUR HELP! In 30 days I need to raise the costs of recording the album! I'll be looking for corporate sponsors for my recital tour and music video, but I like the idea of funding a grass-roots album with the help of family and friends.
There are some awesome rewards involved as well, so go check out my page and consider being a part of this next step in my career!
Gratefully,
Ira
A link to my Kickstarter page can be found right here.
I am working on a second album! However, this will be my first studio album, recorded in Seattle at a top studio with music composed by top up-and-coming composers. However, I NEED YOUR HELP! In 30 days I need to raise the costs of recording the album! I'll be looking for corporate sponsors for my recital tour and music video, but I like the idea of funding a grass-roots album with the help of family and friends.
There are some awesome rewards involved as well, so go check out my page and consider being a part of this next step in my career!
Gratefully,
Ira
A link to my Kickstarter page can be found right here.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
The things we do...
I have reached that stage in my career. Yes, that one. The one where I'll take any job I can because my college loans are looming dead ahead and I cannot avoid them any longer.
I count myself lucky. Scholarships, loans, and grants covered roughly two-thirds of my private Christian school undergraduate education, and I had a teaching assistantship in grad school that granted me a tuition waiver and stipend. So I really don't have much to pay back, right? Except for the fact that I owe around $400 a month for the next 25 years. That's what I'm dealing with.
So how am I dealing with the Loans? Well, I have a wonderful job that I love and my coworkers are my second family... But that only pays for living expenses. Barely. So I just took a second job. Two jobs, you say? That can't be that bad. Many people have two jobs. And they do! And they manage them well! However, I am working graveyard shifts at my second job that make it so I don't get to go to bed between the end of that shift and starting at my first job. Factor in, then, my job as a church choir section leader, my private voice students, and my own personal projects, and I really don't know how I'm holding it together.
In fact, as I write this, I have been awake for the past 24 hours and will not be able to go home and go to bed for another six. This is far from ideal. I am not complaining. No, I will not kvetch. I am so grateful that I have the jobs I do, and that soon I'll be able to start saving some money, especially with a big move coming up in the very near future. So what's the point? Why do I need to tell you all about my grueling work schedule? To tell you that it's good. It's a season of my life that I need to have.
These past few days I have learned more about how to take care of myself and listen to the needs of my body. I have hydrated more (though, imbibed a bit more caffeine than I would like to admit to), laughed at great tv shows (the two episodes I've watched), and allowed myself to cry while listening to Beethoven (go read the Heiligenstadt Testament while listening to his seventh symphony and you will, too). I have realized what it feels like to be truly sleep-deprived, and that water will often serve me better than another cup of coffee or Mountain Dew. I've also seen kindness from my coworkers and managers that I never would have seen otherwise.
Beyond that, though, it's showing me that my career is not going to be all rose-petals and fairy tales. I'm going to have to work hard for what I want out of life. Everyone has to take jobs they don't particularly enjoy in order to get where they're going. I have great things on the horizon and I cannot wait to tell you all what is coming up in the next six months for me. But for now, for this season, I will be tired. I will have the most purple bags under my eyes that you'll ever see. I will have some nasty acid reflux because of caffeine consumption. I may even be grumpier than usual and more business-like. I apologize now and am so grateful for the grace I know I'm going to receive from those around me.
Let this be my encouragement to you: It will get better. Keep your chin up, sternum raised, and aim into the sunlight because there is always going to be something to look forward to and some way to endure and, perhaps, enjoy the crazy circumstances in which you find yourself currently.
Buck up, pal. We are all there with you.
I count myself lucky. Scholarships, loans, and grants covered roughly two-thirds of my private Christian school undergraduate education, and I had a teaching assistantship in grad school that granted me a tuition waiver and stipend. So I really don't have much to pay back, right? Except for the fact that I owe around $400 a month for the next 25 years. That's what I'm dealing with.
So how am I dealing with the Loans? Well, I have a wonderful job that I love and my coworkers are my second family... But that only pays for living expenses. Barely. So I just took a second job. Two jobs, you say? That can't be that bad. Many people have two jobs. And they do! And they manage them well! However, I am working graveyard shifts at my second job that make it so I don't get to go to bed between the end of that shift and starting at my first job. Factor in, then, my job as a church choir section leader, my private voice students, and my own personal projects, and I really don't know how I'm holding it together.
In fact, as I write this, I have been awake for the past 24 hours and will not be able to go home and go to bed for another six. This is far from ideal. I am not complaining. No, I will not kvetch. I am so grateful that I have the jobs I do, and that soon I'll be able to start saving some money, especially with a big move coming up in the very near future. So what's the point? Why do I need to tell you all about my grueling work schedule? To tell you that it's good. It's a season of my life that I need to have.
These past few days I have learned more about how to take care of myself and listen to the needs of my body. I have hydrated more (though, imbibed a bit more caffeine than I would like to admit to), laughed at great tv shows (the two episodes I've watched), and allowed myself to cry while listening to Beethoven (go read the Heiligenstadt Testament while listening to his seventh symphony and you will, too). I have realized what it feels like to be truly sleep-deprived, and that water will often serve me better than another cup of coffee or Mountain Dew. I've also seen kindness from my coworkers and managers that I never would have seen otherwise.
Beyond that, though, it's showing me that my career is not going to be all rose-petals and fairy tales. I'm going to have to work hard for what I want out of life. Everyone has to take jobs they don't particularly enjoy in order to get where they're going. I have great things on the horizon and I cannot wait to tell you all what is coming up in the next six months for me. But for now, for this season, I will be tired. I will have the most purple bags under my eyes that you'll ever see. I will have some nasty acid reflux because of caffeine consumption. I may even be grumpier than usual and more business-like. I apologize now and am so grateful for the grace I know I'm going to receive from those around me.
Let this be my encouragement to you: It will get better. Keep your chin up, sternum raised, and aim into the sunlight because there is always going to be something to look forward to and some way to endure and, perhaps, enjoy the crazy circumstances in which you find yourself currently.
Buck up, pal. We are all there with you.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Composer, Lyricist, Book Writer
I am a singer. But I'm also a composer.
It started when I was ten years old, or so. My sister was in the most advanced group of a western Washington orchestra organization and was on retreat with said orchestra. My mother was a chaperone, so that left my father and I at home. After forcing my dad to watch Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace about six times through in one day ("because I want to memorize it"), he decided that he and I should drive out to the orchestra retreat and visit my mom and sister, and listen to the orchestra rehearse. Being the rather... enthusiastic kid I was, as soon as we got there I was bored. The conductor of the orchestra took me aside and handed me his laptop with an early version of Finale on it. After writing two bars-worth of a subject, he turned the computer to me and said, "finish the piece." I labored over it for a couple hours and finally finished a single-page, fugue-like, two-part invention for piano.
While I haven't seen the piece in over fifteen years (it's floating around somewhere on the piano in my parents' basement), it served as a milestone in my life. After that I would run around finding manuscript, writing random music notes, rests, clefs, time signatures, and key signatures, throw them onto my older sister's music stand while she was practicing her violin, then request that she play it, "now." She always made up something that sounded good, though it definitely was not the chicken-scratch I had written.
The next time I remember actually trying to compose was after visiting the Juilliard School during a trip to New York in 2003. I remember this vividly as we were caught in the Great Northeast Blackout at JFK airport. We had just found out that all flights out and in had been canceled and we were stranded for at least a day or two. My dad went to wrangle a free hotel room, my mom tried her best to be calm, and my sister did her best Monica impression. I sat down on my suitcase, pulled out the gigantic binder of orchestral manuscript paper I had just purchased at the Juilliard gift shop, and began to write "Gandalf's Song." The Lord of the Rings was very popular, and I was sure that I was going to ride that wave of popularity by being the first twelve-year-old to have a major work performed by the Seattle Symphony. Suffice it to say, "Gandalf's Song" still sits in a pile on that same basement piano with only about two pages written. Maybe I'll return to it some day, but probably not.
In college I turned to writing art songs as my voice major kicked in. I wrote many art songs my freshman year along with a requiem, which still sits unfinished.
All this to say, I have dabble quite a bit with composing over the years. But never as much as I am right now. I have begun work on a full-scale, five-act dramatic opera. I'm using the ancient story of Beowulf and adding in a few of my own elements. While it is still unfinished, it is scheduled for workshopping by mid-February, with the hopes of having it performed (at least in a concert version) by the end of May. This is my first, true attempt to write a piece that could be published and performed throughout the world. It's in English, with some bits of the original Old-English text thrown in, so as to reach modern American audiences, but also so I can act as my own librettist. I always held in high regard composers such as Wagner, Berlioz, and Berg, as well as musical theater composers like Sondheim who created their own text and music so as to create a cohesive whole. This is my aim: To create a work that shows the depth of the original poem, is relevant to today's society, and has music and text that work together to portray truly human characters.
If it never gets published or performed outside of my own attempts, so be it. But at least I know that I have accomplished something great and something that I have wanted to do for a long time. If it catches on, be ready for more. I have a list of ideas already growing.
It started when I was ten years old, or so. My sister was in the most advanced group of a western Washington orchestra organization and was on retreat with said orchestra. My mother was a chaperone, so that left my father and I at home. After forcing my dad to watch Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace about six times through in one day ("because I want to memorize it"), he decided that he and I should drive out to the orchestra retreat and visit my mom and sister, and listen to the orchestra rehearse. Being the rather... enthusiastic kid I was, as soon as we got there I was bored. The conductor of the orchestra took me aside and handed me his laptop with an early version of Finale on it. After writing two bars-worth of a subject, he turned the computer to me and said, "finish the piece." I labored over it for a couple hours and finally finished a single-page, fugue-like, two-part invention for piano.
While I haven't seen the piece in over fifteen years (it's floating around somewhere on the piano in my parents' basement), it served as a milestone in my life. After that I would run around finding manuscript, writing random music notes, rests, clefs, time signatures, and key signatures, throw them onto my older sister's music stand while she was practicing her violin, then request that she play it, "now." She always made up something that sounded good, though it definitely was not the chicken-scratch I had written.
The next time I remember actually trying to compose was after visiting the Juilliard School during a trip to New York in 2003. I remember this vividly as we were caught in the Great Northeast Blackout at JFK airport. We had just found out that all flights out and in had been canceled and we were stranded for at least a day or two. My dad went to wrangle a free hotel room, my mom tried her best to be calm, and my sister did her best Monica impression. I sat down on my suitcase, pulled out the gigantic binder of orchestral manuscript paper I had just purchased at the Juilliard gift shop, and began to write "Gandalf's Song." The Lord of the Rings was very popular, and I was sure that I was going to ride that wave of popularity by being the first twelve-year-old to have a major work performed by the Seattle Symphony. Suffice it to say, "Gandalf's Song" still sits in a pile on that same basement piano with only about two pages written. Maybe I'll return to it some day, but probably not.
In college I turned to writing art songs as my voice major kicked in. I wrote many art songs my freshman year along with a requiem, which still sits unfinished.
If it never gets published or performed outside of my own attempts, so be it. But at least I know that I have accomplished something great and something that I have wanted to do for a long time. If it catches on, be ready for more. I have a list of ideas already growing.
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