What a hectic February!

Wow! It has been almost 2 months since I posted a new blog post. I have been very busy for the good and bad.Since December, I had worked on movements II. and III. in "Test Drive" for the honors competition. The deadline was yesterday (2/15), the same day as the Nebraska deadline. The good news is that I submitted the materials for both events, but at a bitter cost...Two weeks ago, I finished the second movement of Test Drive, however I did not have anything going for the third movement. Normally, I would think "I have two movements down, one more to go" right? WRONG! It turned out that on February 7th, I have a brief outline sketched in pencil and 10 measures that my professor rejected during my lesson. To top it off, I had 8 days until the deadline!!This was scary because I was very busy with Wind Symphony, which is going through a hectic schedule this month, along with other projects for school. Between the 7th and the 15th, I had lost sleep for four days, composed all day for the week while barely working on homework (and forgetting to assign new etudes to my students) and I injured my right elbow from falling on the sidewalk arm/knee first on the day BEFORE the deadline! Luckily, I was able to turn in my materials for the MSU competition early this morning. So after the intense week and a half, I am quite tired, though I have one more application to send: Brevard. My goal for my Masters degree is to build my résumé as strong as possible to study at a high-caliber college for my D.M.A. that is similar or better to MSU, but with a better composition studio to find a promising job (not that I'm saying MSU is bad, but I have been here for five years going on six. No need to stay for an extra three-four years). By applying to Brevard (and hopefully get accepted to Brevard), I will have the opportunity to make my résumé stronger than ever imagined, as I will learn to write five big projects per week, have my pieces performed AND recorded, and study from a superior level of composers (one of whom won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Composition on the American Opera "Elmer Gantry" this year)! I know that Brevard is quite competitive when it comes to applications, however I am willing to work and edit as much as possible to make this goal a possibility. The best case scenario would be to win the competition and get accepted to both Nebraska and Brevard. If one of these does not happen, then I will still be happy with whatever the outcomes turns out.