The Waiting Game

There’s this job interview tomorrow… I’m in a nervous state. Sleeping poorly, waking in fright, minor panicking, that sort of thing.

The thing is, I want the job LOTS. I think I’d be great at the job, and it seems to suit my myriad skills. But the job is far, far away in a pretty Middle Earth* country, and I’m fearful of actually getting the job and having to move away from my husband and life in SE Qld.

I’m a little worried about self-sabotaging my job interview as a result. This would be the third job I’ve been interviewed for out of 5 proper jobs in the past year I’ve applied for. That’s a good result but kind of not. My first interview was diabolical. I was super well prepared for the presentation (which was awesome) but less prepared for the interview. And the interviewers were awful. I mean, not all of them: just the Chair. I couldn’t make head nor tail of the questions and the Chair clearly had not attended the presentation, so I was left thinking “hang on, I said all this already in the presentation” and rather inexpertly RE-explaining myself. Awful. Couldn’t give an elevator pitch – had never been taught how to, but also because I can’t reduce myself like that to a few dot points.

The second interview went really well but in the end I felt that they wanted someone who was a better fit for the job, someone with better electro-acoustic recording skills. I’m no good at that stuff. I had a look at their website today to see if there was a new member of faculty but I couldn’t see anyone. Maybe no-one fit the bill!

So this job. Fits my skill set. Hopefully they want me. A colleague said to me a few days ago: don’t try and anticipate what they want. You will sell yourself on your strengths and skills. And so it will be, I hope.

Third time lucky, eh?

 

*C’mon. You know where that is, don’t you!

 

 

 

 

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The critical gaze. Or: maybe I should practice more.

I’ve been fortunate enough to perform with a corporate events group this last year and recently a video was taken of our show. While there are plenty of things that are good about the show, there’s plenty there that needs work. I’m always thrilled by the performances of others and a little perturbed about my own and the video I watched was no different.

I’m used to hearing my voice but not at a live gig. One of the things I noticed was an ease on stage and a level of stage presence that I’m pretty happy with. I’m not a great mover but at least in this show I look comfortable.

But my voice. Oh dear. Oh shit. I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board. We sing a lot of pop based songs and I’m in no way a pop singer: I’m more of a jazz/country/musical theatre singer. I don’t hate my voice (much) but as usual it sounds very different to how I imagine I’m singing.

One of the main problems I have is that in pop music I’m a real alto. Not as low as my female counterpart in the show, but I thought I was keeping all my vowels bright, wide and forward. NOT THE FRIGGING CASE. My tone sounds like it’s sitting in my cheeks. Fine for classical singing when you’re trying to sound like Maria Callas, but not when you’re pretending to be a rocker from the 80s.

Also, where did all that vibrato come from? It’s not a lovely bright twangy vibrato: it’s a wishy washy OMG did I just lose my core vibrato and warble on the end of my phrases vibrato! Damn. And let’s not talk about frigging intonation. Now, I’m going to forgive myself in a live event where I can’t even hear myself, let alone pitch the notes correctly. But dayum, girl, get the first note right!

I admit, I’ve been coasting. Part of the problem seems to be the ageing voice. When you’re used to carrying a lot of vocal weight from classical singing, to go to a bright pop sound is actually quite difficult. In truth, we all sound like we could use a good clean up. Which is unfair when we’re listening to a live recording.

So I’ve just recorded myself doing a couple of my solos and feel better about them already. I’m a quick study and can work out pretty fast the issues with vocal reproduction, but I really need to practice consistently every day if I’m going to be an attractive soprano and not an elderly caterwauler.

 

So I’ve decided to do #2

That’s not a poop, folks. It means I’m gonna do the cabaret. Out of a list of 7 creative things, 2 was the consistent front runner. I did a straw poll on FB and my friends loved them all except the academic numbers, which I’ll save for quiet time. 

In the meantime I’m calling my cabaret “A Bagful of Crazy”: women on the margins. Or something like that. My problem is I’m not funny. I’m actually quite a serious person (which is why my husband is so good for me; he cracks me up every day). So it’s no good me doing a funny comedy show. I won’t be on my own; I’m roping in an ex-student, plus a woman in her thirties if I can get takers. They can do the funny songs and keep it fresh. I’m all tragedy. Pathetic really. 

I’ve already started the planning. Women in musicals are always written by men. There are perhaps 4 women I can name off the top of my head who’ve cracked the scene: Jeannine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie; Fun Home),  Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman (Secret Garden), and Cindy Lauper (Kinky Boots). Women in musicals can be written well. Sondheim is pretty good once he got over being lambasted for his poor portrayal of women in A Funny Thing…Forum. Marc Shaiman and Stephen Schwartz  draw women pretty well and each champion strong women such as Elphaba or Galinda. But there are a fair few women drawn as monstrous caricatures, such as Rose in Gypsy, or Margaret in Carrie. If played badly, they are rightly awful. I want to reclaim these women. They weren’t bad. They were lonely, sad, ignorant, prejudiced. Marginalised and maligned. They had their reasons for being awful. 

So the first challenge for me is to select the songs. I have about 10; I’ll need 12, and I’ll be culling as the cabaret takes shape. I’m thinking of doing a 2-week course in creating cabaret down in Sydney in July. Exxie but my business hasn’t had overheads this year, and I need a creative kicker to help shape the story and patter. 

I’m also writing some of my own songs. This will provide links to disparate songs and help shape the drama. 

For the first time in forever, this feels like a fun, creative thing. So, look out, folks. A Bagful of Crazy. Coming to a cabaret near you. 

Goodbye David Bowie.

Not much to say, really. I loved him, I loved his work, and he was the soundtrack and voice and face of my generation.

The Telegraph says it well.

Goodbye, Starman.

Whoops. Well, that was quick.

I quit my job on Friday. It’s a casual singing teacher job at the local university which pays by the hour. It’s well paid but without any entitlements such as sick leave. I was due to work 120 hours this semester which is a substantial amount of money for what amounts to 3 full-time weeks worth of work. Problem was, a student decided they wanted to quit mid-year and learn from someone else, and then I was informed my pay scale was being reduced by $24 an hour. The combination of those two events tipped me over the edge. They were the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

I have been struggling with teaching for a while now. I am not a vocational educator. That is, I went into teaching because it was convenient. Teaching allowed me to take school holidays with my kids, it stopped me from being really poor and it was a stopgap between what I really wanted to do and poverty. As a performing artist, teaching is a valuable means of support between gigs. Paid by the hour, it’s quite lucrative. Divided by the year it’s not, but my work is specialised. 

I’m a good teacher. But I’m not a natural one. I’ve had to work hard to be competent because it’s a draining and exhausting occupation for an introvert. I give a lot of myself. The relationship between singer and teacher is pretty intense because of the complex interchange of embodied instrument and soul urge and sense of self. So when a student decides they want to change teachers it’s heartbreaking. There’s a lot of trust that goes into the relationship. Last week that trust was broken by this student, 3 days before the start of semester. 

Now, in my private practice I don’t give a rats if students want to leave. We’re performing a transaction here and it’s a negotiated one with a financial basis. They come and go and I don’t mind. They originally chose to approach me and I agreed to teach them. That’s fine. I have the authority and responsibility to control and conduct my business as I see fit. You’re only bound by the length of the invoice. So if students choose to stay it’s a positive affirmation of your worth. At the same time, I can choose to cease teaching a student if they’re not up to scratch. 

But in my tertiary position I wasn’t able to select the students.  So when they wanted to shift teachers I had no recourse. It’s a finite pool of students and I couldn’t just fill the space with another student. When you take on a tertiary student you are basically taking them on for 3 years. It’s a long term arrangement. Therefore you plan their education accordingly, and you can only trust that they will accept this long term planning. It’s also about sustaining a positive relationship with the student over this time. So when a student quits, it feels like you’re being told you’re not worth the investment. That’s heartbreaking. 

I’ve had a few moments like this in the last 6 months, and it has been getting to me. Last week I was given a teaching commendation by the university. Awarded every year to the top 3% of teachers across the university (that’s about 60 teachers, so guess the size of our academic staff), it’s based on our student evaluations of our teaching. Students have said they like me. It’s now proven. But if one rejection can send me in a tailspin it’s time to reevaluate my priorities. 

I felt like I was the teacher students wanted to switch from. It became a trickle I couldn’t control and it was impacting on my mental health. Combine this drop in self esteem with a kick-in-the-teeth pay reduction 3 days before the start of semester and I was done. No loyalty to their staff? I felt no loyalty to the university after these events. Luckily as a casual staff member without a contract or entitlements all I needed to do was give an hour’s notice of intent to quit. 

What about your other students, I hear you ask. What about leaving the department in the lurch? Actually, loyalty to the department is only as good as the treatment of its staff. I was not being treated kindly or well. As for the students: I’ll miss them. But I had stopped trusting them. I never knew which of my students would decide to up and leave my studio. Every semester I would hold my breath, waiting for the axe to fall. The anxiety was too much. And too painful. Because as a teacher you love your students very much. You want the best for them and you give them every opportunity to achieve their goals. But if every semester you wonder if you’re going to be dumped you start to protect yourself emotionally and this is not a good place from which to be teaching. It burns you out.

On top of this was my desire to do something that filled my soul’s urge. I’ve finished my PhD. I have the floppy hat picture and the testamur and the conferral letter. What now?

Well, it was time to give myself a push. Take a risk. Take a leap into the unknown. Challenge myself and stop using teaching as my safety blanket. 

I have a book proposal to write. I have jobs to apply for. I have a house to renovate and children to care for. I have a supportive, loving husband whose salary can support us for a little while on one income, and I have some new directions to find. I have a mid life crisis to manage! 

Time for a change. 

Gigs! I got gigs! And happy/sad today.

Well, just as my life takes a turgid turn for the boring, a great thing happens: I start getting gigs! Not very frequent at the moment, but they are good for me as they pay for stuff and I get to have fun on stage with a bunch of great folk. This is important for a singing teacher, that my own performing legitimises my teaching practice. My gigs are seminars about happiness – I’m blessed to have some lovely people who think I can actually sing and perform, who have asked me to do this stuff with them.

And for the first-ever time I went to the physio today because I have a super sore shoulder muscle. Its from doing lots of piano playing and computer sitting – I’m doing some crap things to my alignment that affect my neck, which then affects my back – mostly sitting down for too long and for too many years while teaching singing. I’ve been strapped up to make me keep squeezing my shoulder blades together. I’m tired already. I really hate chronic pain, and my back injury is in no way a spinal or bone-based condition, it’s muscular and can totally be fixed through exercise. Meaning I have to go to the gym and work out a truck load so that I don’t feel all muscle-achy. I want a massage. Oh, the pleasures of ageing. Not.

On the dark side, my DH’s mother has taken a turn for the worse. She’s 87 and in frail health – has been for years. On Saturday night she had a fall (as you do at 87), and then a stroke. It’s relatively minor, but at 87 even a minor stroke can mean catastrophic events. We’re waiting with bated breath to find out the outcome. Meanwhile I’m in all kinds of grief because a stroke was what finally took my beloved Granny Moose at age 89. I know the outcomes of these things. I’m hoping my MIL recovers well enough to make it to Christmas but there are no guarantees. And I grieve for her husband, who has lovingly looked after his wife for more than forty years of ill health. He was distressed and sad and even though at age 87 he knows the end is inevitable, the shock of the stroke has surprised even him. I’m particularly fond of my FIL, and I worry for his health and happiness as his wife slowly declines.

So happy/sad today. But at least I’m writing my Post Doc properly now.

The Christmas special

This might be the last blog I write in 2014, as my time gets taken up with a ROAD TRIP south and Christmas celebrations with the family. I take a moment now to reflect on all the stuff that I have been through this year, and my plans for 2015. Take heed: it’s a long post. Grab a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Firstly, my beautiful daughter M. After coming out as transgender in September 2013, she moved unwillingly up north to Brisvegas in January of this year, to be cared for and supported by me and her step-father. This was a traumatic move for her, given her dislike of the hot humid state generally. She has been through a lot. So have we all as a family, now. M’s experiences as a transgender mtf woman have been typical of this marginalised group. She has been misgendered, she has suffered discrimination and abuse from trolls in Logan (a bogan suburb now proven beyond doubt), and despite help from health care professionals and a truck load of pills, she has suffered mightily from her own demons. These demons were the hardest to manage.

Before she found peace in her appearance with a stonking great new haircut and gorgeous red dye job, she was seriously depressed about it. Her male-pattern hair growth and male looks cause her great heartache, and she often thinks about suicide. My daughter is tall, model slender, and, to my mind, absolutely beautiful as a trans woman. As the female hormones kick in and the testosterone blockers do their work, she is becoming more feminine-looking, softer, and smoother, with clear, fine white skin and beautiful grey-green eyes. But she doesn’t yet see herself that way. She started hurting herself. It was a low point for me as a mother to see my beautiful girl cut into herself and hate herself so much.

It has taken quite a bit of encouragement to get her to see her health-care providers and manage her condition. She is not out of the woods yet. But already her increased medication is improving her well-being, and she is in contact with her health-care providers who have been very supportive. And of course, she talks to me, and I to her. Talking helps, and we are starting to see the triggers for her unhealthy behaviours. One of them is mis-gendering by strangers. She needs to call them out for it. Another trigger is her appearance and hair style. She needs to feel in control of that, and have enough funds to cover her look. I’m sure there are other triggers, and I’m sure one of them is me, when out of fear and concern I say things that might inadvertently hurt her.

But my daughter, despite living in the margins and interstices of life, can be incredibly black and white, and tends to stubbornness. Actually, she has always been as stubborn as a mule. Nothing there has changed since she was 2. And, bless her, she sometimes fails to give a little. We parents have to do all the compromising, and most of the time it’s fine. But there are some minor moments when we also need that compromise from her, and this is when the problems arise. Mostly it’s about the condition of her room, or her sporadic contribution to the housework, or the people she invites to stay over without asking us, or her clothing when she is going out with us. Stupid things. Adolescent things. Things that mean nothing in the grand scheme of life, but that mean a lot in the day-to-day living.

I finally snapped a few weeks ago and realised I needed support from others in a similar situation. I’ve contacted PFLAG in Brisvegas and already have had the most wonderful outpouring of support from parents with transgender adult children, who, like me, need someone to talk with and to share stories with.

But, more importantly, I’ve received the most wonderful support from my friends and family and work colleagues. They have been understanding, quiet, and caring. After all, there’s very little they can say or advise me on – they do not have the experience of this. Instead, they have listened, silently offered their friendship and love, and for that I am truly grateful. One great woman is Deb. Deb is M’s employer. M, with help from me, my boss and Deb, was given work near my work’s local coffee shop. M is fast becoming a great employee, given up to 25 hours work a week at the moment while another employee is on maternity leave. Deb has been a marvel of patience and love and I don’t know how to thank her enough.

Second on my list of 2014 happenings, I finally submitted my PhD. Today is the day when the reports are due back. As if. (Actually, I just checked online – one is already back. And now my stomach is churning.) But who knows? I certainly know I will be a Dr by this time next year, and with any luck I can call myself Dr by March next year, when it actually counts. In the end, the last gasp to the finish line wasn’t nearly so horrible as others make out. I took small vacation breaks to write in: 3 days here, a week there. And at the end, it was 2 hours here, a day there. After shrinking from my Lit review for most of the 5 years, I finally sat down to do it in July and found a way through. It was a rewarding, engrossing time of discovery and, once again, epiphany. The last 3 months of my PhD weren’t hard, as I have previously reported. On the advice of a friend, I compiled my entire thesis into one working document, formatted it early, got most of the frontispieces done (although obviously missed something as I had to keep going back and revising it for stupid bureaucratic reasons), and organised the appendices early too. That way, I was just adding to the lit review and the reference list as I went. My final weeks were about me reading the whole document through, finding tiny edits and enormous sentences and fixing both. In the end, I was writing as if I was dancing. It felt joyful.

But I didn’t really count on the grief I felt at finishing this big thing, and not having something else to work towards in the future. My job is peripatetic, without security, and I have no way of knowing what income I will receive next year. As someone who has struggled to get by for so long, I am rather sick of it. I have teaching at university since 2008, I’ve published and will continue to do so, I’m researching, I’m doing everything a good girl entering academia should do, but am struggling to convert all this work into a full-time gig. And I’m angry at the people who take the system for a ride and refuse to contribute while people like me are on the sidelines waving their arms about saying “pick me, pick me!” Anyway, grief and anger have been my friends the last month or two. Not helped by M’s emotional turmoil, of course.

Thirdly, work. Work has been engrossing, rewarding, at times frustrating and also heartbreaking, when the people you teach, care about and care for, sometimes reward you with insensitivity and thoughtlessness. But at the same time my expertise is getting ever better, my approach more thorough, my interactions with work colleagues more relaxed. It has been a good year. I teach too much and it is exhausting work, and it is certainly not something I would have wanted for myself when I began my performing career, but I’m pretty good at it. But there’s no denying I would like to balance my teaching work with research and more performance. All to come, I guess.

Fourth, travel. This year has mostly been about me escaping home for anywhere else. Noosa in QLD, Aireys Inlet in Victoria, Montville; all these places I have stayed at to finish my PhD. And of course, there’s NYC. A big trip but not a perfect one. Note to self – leave DH to his own devices so I can shop without him being all grumpy guts in the corner.

Fifth, house and home. We’ve been planning our renovations and we have money actually sitting in the bank gathering dust (certainly not gathering interest, FFS). But it’s not quite enough to do all we want to do, and the plans have stalled and my designer, who has great ideas, is very bad at staying in touch. DH and I are both annoyed, but I am particularly annoyed because I cannot keep teaching in my studio space – it’s just not good enough or quiet enough for the money my students are spending on me to educate them. The waiting around has become a pain in the butt.

Sixth, Poppy love. I love her, she loves me, nuff said. Oh! And I’ve finally worked out how to artfully clip her poodle fur using the right equipment, so it should be easier and cheaper now on to clip her ourselves. Huzzah.

Seventh, shows. Lots and lots of shows. So many shows. Many, many shows. Am I showed out? Nah. Love it. Bring it. My experiences make me more critical, but this is a good thing. Always aim for perfection, even if it’s impossible to reach. Highlights? Desh at the Brisbane Festival, Honeymoon in Vegas on Broadway, and It’s Only a Play, also on Broadway. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and Into the Woods at our place. Rigoletto at Opera Queensland and Frizstch’s last conducting gig with QLD Symphony Orchestra performing Mahler’s 3rd. Lowlights? Old, outdated and overblown: Aida at the Met, The New York Theatre Ballet with a turkey of a Swan Lake.

Eighth, DH and me. It has been a huge year. He has taken on the top job at our workplace, and I have been finishing my PhD, and my trans daughter has been living with us. It has been a bit of a rocky time, and at times we have struggled to maintain our connection to each other. It’s there, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes other commitments get in the way of a strong, loving connection with one’s life partner. But he is coming on a road trip with me, and we have to spend 3 days in a car together. That’s a good thing! And when we head to the beach house (my folk’s place at Aireys Inlet) I think he really will relax. Even his work colleagues are beginning to complain that there’s no evidence of tapering off at his work! In other words, he came dashing into the top job and everyone has been frantically dashing about ever since, trying to keep up. I think they want him to go away on holiday. For a long time. Me? Well, I long since stopped trying to keep up with my workaholic hubby. We pull together pretty well, and I bully him into stopping work every now and then.

I’m sure there’s more. But now I have to go shower, get ready and lunch with a fabulous friend. Happy Christmas, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing retreat huzzah!

After the craziness of last week’s Audition workshop in which I was course leader, it’s great to get away and have a peaceful time here in Noosa, finishing off the PhD. I don’t seem to have much of a sense of urgency about this week, which is weird because already one day is wasted due to travel and general sickness, and another 2 are nearly over already. I guess what I am now seeing is the very last bits of the thesis all slotting into place. I can now see that I need to add a concluding summary section at the end of my literature review that ties up all the loose ends.

I can also now see where there is a gaping great hole of research that I had completely forgotten about. I’m filling it in very fast now, really in my writing element, and writing and editing quickly – and at times, simultaneously. I’m filling and patching and removing and slicing and dicing my text, then reading it all through again to see if it makes sense. The ongoing problem is to ensure all the pieces slot neatly together, so I keep going back to my signposts to see if they are clearly marked. Linking phrases and passages are becoming clearer now, too. Especially if they are absent.

One of the things my precious book “Completing your qualitative dissertation” by Bloomberg and Volpe (2012, Sage) say is that there are steps to presenting your lit review. They are below:

1. Provide a statement of purpose
2. identify the topics or bodies of literature
3. provide the rationale for topics selected
4. describe your literature review process, report all your literature sources, and identify the keywords used to search the literature
5. present the review of each topic
6. present your conceptual framework
7. provide a brief chapter summary of the literature review and its implications for your study

Sadly, this does not seem to include a “what is not known” element that I am told by my supervisor and others is important – in other words, identifying the gaps that led me to the study. Also, I’m not sure a conceptual framework goes at the back. Or does it? I’ve put mine front and centre, and then again at the back, to link to the literature. In fact, this is the problem of my literature review: I still think it’s a bit all over the place.

Also, I’m not sure point four is really useful unless this is to delimit the search specifically for the benefit of the thesis examiners. One thing I probably need to explain is that I need to limit my search on pedagogical approaches in one-to-one music lessons to SINGERS, not other folk. Because the singing instrument is embodied and mostly internal and singers don’t hear what their audiences hear, plus we’re actually building the instrument at the same time as learning to play it, there’s a lot we have to do regarding simultaneous feedback between singer and teacher.

Anyway, I’m loving the quiet rush of the sea and the occasional sound of the seagulls – which are far less lonely sounding than those English ones. I can see the sea from the balcony and I am deeply, quietly happy about writing. Maybe that’s what I am now. A writer. One of my many identities, at any rate!

I read Anna Goldsworthy’s exquisite biography “Piano Lessons” (2011, Black Inc) this morning. Gulped it down in one enormous rush. Loved it, loved the beautiful, respectful way she wrote about her teacher, the enormously funny, wry commentary on being a child, and her struggle to become a musician. Mostly I love her trying to explain about feeling the music – the architecture, the small bits, the joy, the composers. All through the broken English of her beloved Russian teacher Eleanora Savin. What a joy this relationship reads as! And yet Anna does not resile from asking herself whether she was too dependent on her teacher even as she writes about her improved understanding of the music and how she functions with this woman. Will read it again once my study is out of the way.

And given that I am next to the ocean and have not even gone for a walk, I think now is the time to take a short stroll along the beach before heading out for a bit of food. And then, after dinner, Offspring followed by The Good Wife. Perfect.

 

Back to the grind, in every sense!

DH and I arrived home from our Christmas holiday and we’ve returned to the usual grind of New Year activities. Today, I’m talking about grind. The grindstone, hard work, honing and polishing and refining of New Year’s resolutions and other travails.

I’ve identified four main areas of grind for me. The first is, of course, my health and fitness. Like so many during this holiday season, I’ve eaten and drunk way too much, and I’ve done no more exercise than an elegant stroll down the beach. Well, ok, the stroll was 8 kms long. I’ve probably put on half a kilo, but I’ve stuck pretty well to a pared down diet, with dessert being the main culprit. DH and I were married 5 years ago December 28, right in the heart of the festive season, so all our revelries occur in one week. Cunning, huh. And, of course, far too much drinking. Less than I would have this time last year, but still! So it’s back on the diet wagon (and aren’t I relieved about that!) and I have my first personal training session tomorrow afternoon. Ugh. That’s gonna hurt.

The second grind is to complete the works on the house we’ve organised. For me, that means sanding and painting during VERY hot weather. It’s going to be vicious. But it’s important to get a start on it before our carpenter comes back to build the remaining fence.

The third grind, and probably the hardest, will be to start up my reading and writing for my doctoral thesis, which is due to begin again in February. I had a lovely break from it and I feel much better now, but it’s time to get cracking again. I tried some of it today and boy, all I wanted to do was get up off the computer and clean the house or literally do anything other than study. That was hard. But it’s a resolution I’ve made to myself to complete it this year, as expected. So I’m starting with my methods chapter, because I need to do the reading for Narrative Inquiry methods again, and start to shape the chapter from its rather bloated state at present.

The fourth grind, and one much easier to sustain, will be to begin my singing teaching again. I love my teaching and while I’m enjoying the holidays, I’m looking forward to developing my practice for the year ahead. My times are quickly filling up and then when uni starts: whew! It’s gonna be a challenge to maintain the study and the teaching, as I’ll be teaching about 30 hours per week. In fact, I have to do as much study as possible before teaching begins because it’s so hard for my brain to switch from one activity to the other. I’m dying to do some professional development n singing teaching but until I finish the PhD I won’t have the time – or the money! So I’ll have to content myself with some reading instead this year.

4 grinds. A big year ahead.