Indulging The Music Nerd Within

To set the stage, I was a weird kid.

And by weird, I mean that I didn’t listen to popular music until I was 12 years old.  While all of my classmates were engaging in the eternal debate of Backstreet Boys v. N*SYNC, dressing up as their favorite Spice Girl for Halloween, and going to their first real concerts, I had the radio constantly tuned to Classic 99.  (Note:  I was totally allowed to listen to popular music… I just didn’t want to.)

While all this was going on, I started being more involved in music.  I started taking piano lessons in 2nd grade, joined our district’s orchestra program in 4th grade (the second I could), and dabbled in choirs and musicals off and on from kindergarten through high school.  I even had a brief stint on the pipe organ in 8th grade, special shoes and all.

So, it will come as no surprise that I am still (for lack of a better word) a huge classical music nerd.  I own the 50 Most Essential Pieces of Classical Music on my iPod (it was $6.99, how could I say no?), am completely obsessed with pieces like Serenade for Strings, the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 5th, Holst’s The Planets, anything by Aaron Copland (specifically Fanfare for the Common Man and Appalachian Spring)… yeah, you get the picture.

While I was an intern out in Seattle, I went to the symphony twice — once by myself for a performance called Disney in Concert, and again with my then-roommate Audrey, for The Planets.  Now that I am back in STL on a more permanent basis, I love getting dressed up to go to the Symphony at Powell Hall!  Janelle (former college roomie) and I went to see Fantasia & Fantasia 2000 in November.  And now I am super, super lucky to have this guy in my life who appreciates music. 🙂  It’s a good thing that he’s not obsessed like I am, because that is frankly just not healthy.

Kevin and I went to the symphony last Saturday, for a performance of Mozart’s 39th Symphony, among other pieces.  The program also featured selections by Rameau and Haydn, and as a nod to the city’s 250th anniversary, two of the pieces were from the 1763-1764 time period.  It was so wonderful to enjoy classical music with someone so great sitting next to me — and as I’ve said on multiple occasions over the past few weeks, you can teach someone to appreciate music, but you cannot teach a sports obsession.

I can’t wait to go to the symphony again! 🙂

Kevin and I at the symphony 🙂

Kate

P.S. Look for a post next week on my travels to Wichita!

Busy as a Bee

Without realizing it, I’ve managed to let my blog drift away, and my last post was about three weeks ago!  One thing’s for sure — time flies when you’re having fun.

Since my last post, I have been one busy bee.  Some of the highlights:

• Celebrating Angela’s birthday – Angela and I have known each other for so long, that it’s hard to remember a time when we weren’t yet friends!  We took piano from the same teacher when we were in elementary school, and eventually ended up in 6th grade orchestra together at Sperreng Middle School.  She must have endless patience, because she is still friends with me after I spent most of our freshman year of high school telling her “don’t leave me!” on the way to honors biology.  I really couldn’t be happier to have her here in STL now.  She’s one of the sweetest people I know, and I am so grateful to have her in my life!  We (Angela, Laura, and I) celebrated her 23rd birthday at the beginning of February, with dinner at SubZero Vodka Bar (highly recommend it), followed by dessert at the Cup (also highly recommend).  I hope we get to celebrate even more birthdays together 🙂
• Laughing my way through the Super Bowl – Trust me, if I had no ties to Seattle, I would have rooted for Denver with the rest of my family.  But in my case, I’d spent the majority of the summer of 2012 driving past CenturyLink Field, on my way to and from work.  So, I donned a bright green hoodie and decided to watch the game.  Let’s just say that I started laughing whenever the Seahawks scored…
• Seeing a long-lost roomie – My former roommate Amanda now lives in Pittsburgh, and I hadn’t seen her since Izzy’s wedding last summer in Columbia.  Luckily for Janelle (another former roomie) and I, Amanda’s dad was celebrating a big birthday a few weeks ago!  Amanda and her mom orchestrated a surprise trip to STL, and it was so nice getting to have dinner with Amanda and Janelle — made it feel a lot like old times. 🙂  We capped off the night in typical fashion, with Beauty and the Beast playing on the TV and hardly watching, as we talked about everything from boys to college memories, and everything in between.  The next day, I went out to lunch with Amanda, her parents, and a few other relatives, and it was great to see how surprised her dad was!  Glad I could be a part of it.
• Mamma Mia at the Fox – Through a series of awesome events, I got to be my friend Sarah’s “date” for box seats at the Fox, for Mamma Mia!  I’m so glad that she invited me to attend, because it was an absolute blast. 🙂
• Time with friends – It’s been really nice going to dinner with friends every once in awhile.  We tried out Mango (a Peruvian restaurant off Washington Avenue in the city) a few weeks ago, and kept it local in Crestwood tonight with El Agave Mexican Restaurant.  And Angela and I spent Valentine’s Day together, watching Aladdin!  It’s so much fun to spend time with friends. 🙂
• Throwback to my middle school days – I had the great opportunity to judge for a regional Science Olympiad competition at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville last weekend.  Though I was initially annoyed at being up at 5:30 am on a Saturday, I had a great time getting to see the minds of future scientists & engineers at work, and got to spend a lot of good quality time with my sister, who tagged along for NHS hours.  I also realized that my first Science Olympiad competition was ten years ago, and felt just a little old…

So, obviously, there was something else preventing me from keeping my blog updated.  And that something is (believe it or not) the fact that I just started dating someone.  He’s an engineer at the same company as I am (we do completely different things, obviously), and we essentially met through our company’s young employee organization.  I never expected this when we met a few weeks ago, but I really couldn’t be happier with the way things have turned out. 🙂  I’ll try not to get too sappy online for his sake, but I like him a lot and really enjoy the time I spend with him.  Pictures will inevitably show up on this blog eventually, but we look really cute together.  If you want to know more, just ask… I will be more than happy to talk on this subject, and if you don’t believe me on that, ask my sister…

At any rate, that’s where I have been.  The Battle Hymn of the Republic has finally exited my brain (just in time for Lent in a week and a half) and things are going beautifully in my life right now.  I really couldn’t imagine being much happier than I am right now. 🙂

Kate