Opera

It wasn't until gr 9 did I start truely to like much older music. My liking for classical music had always remained the same through out my life, though it did grow after taking up piano in gr 8. In the summer after gr. 9 Grad, that was when my interest in opera truely came alive. The cause was, oddly enough, the Phantom of the Opera movie adaptation. Coincidently a TV series called Bathroom Diva's started airing a couple months later. So every time my parents would leave the house, I'd practice hours and hours on end. The show greatly helped, but it was short and did not have a continuing season, which greatly disappointed me.

Anyways, since then I've embraced Opera fully, though no one else in my house really likes it, except my mom but she's not a music person per say. I've come to think of it as the most passionate and powerful forms of music known to mankind :P.

Pictures above of are: Juan Diego Florez (tenor), Charlotte Church (soprano), Federica Von Stade (soprano) and Paul Potts (tenor). Just a small sample of some opera singers I admire.

I also love and adore Beverly Sills, for her charasmatic enegery that comes out through her eyes and facial expressions when she sings. I do enjoy listening to Pavarati and Sarah Brightman (I fell in love with her 'Lucia di Lammermoor' in the film of Fifth Element. When I first watched it I didn't even know humans were capable for singing like that), and on the occasion I listen to Emmy Rossum's works from POTO.

~Eilis

Oh Arbor Per Lumen!

My family gots a new Christmas Tree! I LOVE Christmas, for ALL that it represents, from a Christian point of view. It is definitely the highest part of my year.

We set up our new train set and small town around the tree, then my mom and I stayed up until 2 in the morning decorating the tree. It was some good mother-daughter time. I have to say, it is the most beautiful christmas tree we've ever had!

Here's a photoshopped christmas card with a picture of our tree, I'll post more pics later. I have to get to sleep now, I have Cantabile in the morning and a memory test, blah.

~Elizabeth

PS: I am quite in the mood to watch and listen to the Nutcracker. :)

Jane Austen

Being a student in AP English I have come across many books that were forced upon me to read. Some of them have been decent, though I felt as if I had been dragged through them, page by page. Others were so quite abhorring I could never say I enjoyed them. Some, but very few, have been rather decent and I might even say I took some delight in them.
Now I must confess that I have been given a book to read that I am astounded at never having read before! Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".
This is the only book so far that I found myself ever so engaged that I could not, for the life of me, cease to read it. My fingers were glued to the book and my eyes to the words upon the many wonderful pages. I read about 85% of the book in one sitting, which resulted in my having end up going to bed at 4:30 in the morning! As of then, I have determined it as one of the best books I have ever had the pleasure to read and shall most certainly buy a copy as soon as I find one.
If you love a story that involves inter-weaving plots that shall always supply laughter, love, intense and anxious scenes, passion and an over all heart-warming experience, then this book calls to you! I highly recommend it! It had one of the most pleasant endings that shall fill you inside with a warm, glowing, happy bubble that shall be contageous to those around you, I'm sure. :)

~Elizabeth
PS: The character of Mr. Darcy has stolen my heart away completely! And I dare say, that I do not wish it back any time soon. ;)

Lovely

Took my camera out to a dinner my family was invited to by this other family. I snapped some pics here and there, and the most random one I liked the most. Funny how that works, huh? Photomanipulated it a bit, turned out cute me thinks. :)

Also I saw this image by a female Nude Photographer from India, who does photomanipulation and mixed mediums. The picture I posted above I found I connected to a lot, it really put a clear picture on how I interpret the fluidness of ideas/dreams/imagination. I really like the style, it facinates me by the amount of colors, designs, details and abstract surealismness she puts into her images, all of which have a symbolic meaning of some sort. They would make awesome posters and T-Shirt designs :D.

Check it out:http://archann.deviantart.com/gallery/
~Eilis