All kinds of updates...

Hi all, You may have noticed there hasn't been a blog post in a while. This has been for a few reasons, the main ones being:

1) I've been *really* busy with my singing competitions
2) Trying to balance the competitions/gigs with my blog has really been putting a strain on my voice
3) Add work to the equation and...unfortunately the blog has had to take a backseat.

Realistically, there will not be 100 songs in 100 days. But I hope to have 100 songs up here by the end of the calendar year. For me to foolishly assume upfront that I would ever accept quantity over quality was ridiculous. Even when I'm not doing a video every day, it's still hard to accept the quality level of the videos, because I know they're not what they "could" be if I were really focusing on them. But staying within the general spirit of the exercise, and now actually knowing what I got myself into, I'd like to have 100 videos up by the end of 2011. It'll still be a great learning exercise even if they're not all perfect. This should give me enough time to rest my voice in between videos *and* to think about things other than this blog. When you're doing a video a day, or even a few videos a week, it can be *really* time-consuming.

So...right now I'm actually without a singing voice. At all. It hurts to talk. (This is mainly because I'm sick, but singing only exacerbates the issue.) So while I couldn't sing to you if I wanted to, let me update you on the statuses of my various competitions:

-Claremont: The karaoke finals were Friday and I won!!!!! Soooo exciting!!! Quite honestly, I have only won one other singing competition in my life of the MANY I have participated in, so that was fantastic. My inability to win singing competitions has sort of become a running joke in my family. In case you were wondering, the one thing I won in the past was Collis Idol, my sophomore summer. (Yea!) Past failures...I'm sorry, non-successes...include: every school talent show ever, Dartmouth Idol (twice), and multiple casting processes throughout my life, if that counts. (And if it does, then I guess I have a few more "successes" than I named.) We can throw in the American Idol and Voice auditions too but those don't *really* count.

The best part of winning this contest was not just the cash prize (which was fabulous!), but I *may* have gotten a gig out of this as well, which is really exciting. The event itself was also a fundraiser for the Claremont Soup Kitchen, which was nice. I decided in advance that if I won the $500, I’d give $100 to the soup kitchen. You better believe that when my name was announced, $100 made its way over to the donation pile! (I’ve got too many competitions left, I can’t be greedy! I need some good karma!)

I have to say, everyone in the contest was *so* nice, which was refreshing. Also, a shoutout to Sal and Courtney Cania for driving down to Claremont and being supportive!

-Z Factor: is going swimmingly!!! Scores were made public after week 3 and I’m in 2nd place! Hopefully all will go well for the next two weeks (crossing my fingers that I can pull through this week), and then I just have to pull out all the stops for the finals. What that means, I don’t know. But I have a few weeks. I’m sure I’ll think of something. =)
(I have to repeat my sentiments from Claremont: the Z Factor people are awesome too. I’m loving that people aren’t being catty/ridiculous. I guess I should have more faith when not in NY. hahah)

-Country Showdown: performances are this Wednesday and Saturday. This is making me nervous. I’m just praying my voice is functioning on both days so I have a fair shot. I’ve also never competed in the Showdown before, just watched at Tunbridge. On a side note, I need to send in my app for the Froggy Country Throwdown soon, since *that* will be the show at Tunbridge this year instead of the Showdown.

I think that’s about it for now. Now I just have to finish my 5th cup of tea for the day before hopefully getting more than 3.5 hours of sleep, which is what I got last night, since apparently I couldn’t breathe and sleep at the same time. Good thing I had the foresight to take Monday-Wednesday off for vacation (I *only* get sick during planned vacations. Such a mess.)

Thanks for reading, and I may have some more non-vocal posts over the next few days/weeks as my voice mends!