Indiana University

Last Tuesday, March 1st, Ben and I flew out to Bloomington, Indiana to visit the campus of Indiana University.  Unfortunately, we have absolutely NO pictures because the trip was SO fast.  We left our house Tues. at 4am to catch our 6:35 flight.  We flew out just as the sun was rising.  It was absolutely GORGEOUS and I kick myself for having the camera in the overhead.  We had a connecting flight in Chicago, landed in Indianapolis at 4:55 and drove an hour to Bloomington.  The drive was great - Indiana is so different from California.  I thought it was really pretty, even with completely bare trees.

Walking Albany Hill

The Bay area is fairly hilly and we live at the base of Albany Hill:

Our apartment is located approximately at the arrow.

I really like this hill because - though it's hard to tell here - it is cover with Eucalyptus trees so the hill looks as though it has a head of hair.  I also like it because it's a random peace of relatively unadulterated nature in the middle of the city.

Chicago - a big entry for a big trip.

Last Friday, February 4th, Ben and I flew to Chicago to participate in the Unified/Resident Theatre Association (U/RTA) - in other words: Grad School portfolio reviews, interviews, and auditions.  Despite the huge storm the country experienced a few days before our travels, our flights were not effected by the weather - but only just barely.

This was the first time I spent this much time in this much snow and cold since I was about six - and even that I barely remember, so it was pretty exciting.

Saturday was my big presentation/interview day.  Each design candidate was given a table on which they created a portfolio display.  The set designers most often than not, were the most elaborate in their configuration - they had some creative displays!

Posing with my Portfolio Presentation

Our First Christmas!

We should post about our first Christmas (or really, the  entire Christmas season) before it becomes embarrassingly late to do so!

We must preface with an apology for the lack of pictures and abundance of words... we unfortunately lacked a camera through the majority of these activities.  Future posts will be much more colorful.

Our first Christmas-y activity was going to the San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall to watch the dress rehearsal of the San Francisco choir and orchestra.  We have a friend, Sara, in the choir and she had two free tickets to the rehearsal.  It was so fun riding BART into the city in the morning; everything was chilly and crisp.  In front of city hall we saw this huge statue - a replica of a Buddhist goddess - and I just couldn't resist taking this picture:

The choir was rehearsing Handel's The Messiah - it was amazing!  I hadn't been to a choir performance in a couple years, so it was exciting; although, I do have to admit that I fell asleep during the second half - the music was just so relaxing...

The weekend before Christmas we were invited to attend three different Christmas parties!  The first party was thrown by a family in our ward who purchased Ben's reading of "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol" at an auction.  Ben sold this reading last year at the same auction and it was a big hit.  There were about 30 people who attended the party and reading.  Once again, it received great reviews: Jacob Marley's perspective of the Christmas Carol is a great way to see the story in a new light.

The second party was a dinner party/white elephant gift exchange with several couples without children and two couples with babies under 9 mths.  These couples are becoming our core group of friends.  We really made out at the white elephant gift exchange: Ben got a set of ear candles - you know, the tubes you stick in your ears and when you light the wick and they supposedly suck out the wax.  According to wikipedia they are "dangerous and ineffective."  I got a small package of things: a small measuring tape - which is extremely convenient for work, an old USB stick, and a deck of playing cards.

The third party was very different from the second.  This party was a potluck for a few families in our ward - and by "families" I mean those with several kids.  It was much more... noisy.  It was great, though, to get to visit with some people we'd previously only seen in passing.  And a group of pre-teen girls (and one outgoing 5-year-old) just loved having Ben's attention for a good half-hour.

The week before Christmas we got a tree!  We decided on a cute little 3ft tree perfect for our apartment:

A tree tiny enough to carry home with one hand!

It fit right on the dresser next to the tv.

On December 23rd we spent the day in the City.  We had been looking forward to this trip since we realized we'd be spending winter up here.  We had lunch at an Irish pub/restaurant, went window shopping at a few stores way beyond our monetary imaginations (including a really cool steampunk-esque store with floor-to-ceiling windows filled with antique sewing machines).  From there we went ice skating in Union Square... which was... just... perfectly romantic.  I had never gone, and if I do say so myself, I did pretty good for a first-timer.  We collectively only fell twice.  It was a great location for the rink - surrounded by three large department stores that were themselves all decked out for Christmas, and Union Square had a large tree and holiday music playing.

Ben on the rink.

Babs on the rink.

After ice skating we decided to walk to Ghiradelli Square.  We got there just in time to get free samples of their peppermint bark!  They were giving out samples at every door, so we were able to get three... just enough to satisfy our chocolate craving.  

Having had our dessert we figured it was time to get dinner so we walked to Fisherman's Wharf for clam chowder and crab.  From there we walked to Pier 39 which is (as Ben likes to refer to it) "San Francisco's version of Downtown Disney."  Needless to say it was a rather enjoyable place.

We caught a really cool street car (the car originated in Philadelphia) back to the BART and headed home.

Christmas Eve - after a full day of work - we drove down to San Luis Obispo where we spent Christmas with some of Ben's family.  Ben's sister and brother-in-law, MaryRuth and Dominic, were there with their kids, which was great because we've (or at least I've) gotten to visit with them the least.  It was great spending more time with them.  Christmas was wonderful - definitely a great first holiday together.  We only wish we didn't have to leave so soon.

Since we weren't able to go out to visit my mom, we sent her cut-outs of Ben and me that I drew and pasted onto cardboard - that way she could take us with her to the movies:

Year in Review

Happy New Year!

So Ben and I decided that this would be the perfect time to revamp "Ben's Blog" into "Ben and Barbara's Blog." We've made a resolution to update more often (I won't say how often I've resolved to update in case, you know, it turns out to be less than we've set out to write. Though, I must say, I'm pretty good at keeping resolution I make...).

With so much happening and so much to update at this time, we figured we would start with a simple Year-In-Review. So here goes our Top 12 (there were just too many to keep it to just 10) Momories of 2010!

So I've tried started to write this blog entry a few times but each time I lose focus and it seems to drag on and on and I don't know what to narrow down to.

I went house hunting in Berkeley this last Monday and Tuesday (my days off). Housing up there is very expensive and tough to find, but it's great to have God on your side. I went to FHE and found out about two guys that were looking for a third person to share a three bedroom apartment. It's a mile or two from campus, so not at all bad on a bike, and it's in a really pretty part of town. The best part is that rent is $500 a month cheaper than just about anything else I was finding. That's right. $500 hundred CHEAPER! That gives you an idea of the cost of housing in the area and what a great deal I seem to have found. I ta;lked to some people who've lived there before and they said it's a great place. Also it's with two guys from the ward who I talked to on the phone and who seem pretty cool. (Should I have used "whom" in that last sentence?)

Things hopefully will be official in a couple of weeks. Anyway the Lord sure seems to have had his hand in just about every step of all this. It keeps feeling like I'm just sort of throwing myself forward and then things work out better than I could have wished for.

Well that's all for now. More later, I promise.

Playwriting and Rehearsals

Well I'm grateful for the comments left on my last post.  Mostly it's nice to know I'm talking to people and not just out into the void.  I'm enjoying catching up on all of your blogs as well.  Golden rule and all that. 

So a couple weeks ago I agreed to have a play ready to read on April 27.  I didn't really work on it much.  Then this week the teacher who asked me, posted a sign up sheet asking for people who would be interested in reading new plays written by me and two other students who write.  Within an hour 20 people had signed their names.  I've been writing a lot since then.   

Erik Stein, whom I'm understudying as Javert and Marcellus, told me that last summer he spoke to Eric Hoit, the Artistic Director of the Melodrama, about an idea he had for a play called Under the Boardwalk.  They talked for a while about it and Eric Hoit told him that he should go ahead and write it.  Fast forward to December when the brochure for the next year comes out.  There in the brochure, the third show is Under The Boardwalk by Erik Stein.  Not one word had been written.  So Erik (Stein) told me that there's no greater motivator than seeing the play you're supposed to be writing there on the brochure with dates and ticket information next to it. 

Les Mis Rehearsals are going really well.  It's a blast learning the music.  We all already know it, but it's fun sitting at the piano with the music there in front of you learning the actual words and not what you think you remember.  The best part is hearing the actors not just mimicking  the way it is on the album, but making it their own the way the original cast did.  Roger (our Director) told us that we have the rare opportunity to present a west coast, American telling of this story.  Not that we're changing it, but we're not doing it as a museum piece.  We're owning it ourselves, and not copying other people's interpretations.  As one small example, we're not using cockney accents.  The play takes place in France, and we're in California, so where would English accents come into it?  I think some people may be a little put off that it isn't exactly the way they saw it before, but if we did that it would be dead.  Our production will be living and relevant.