The fat lady finally sang.

Topic #1: Newswriting.
Let me start by saying that this class was one of the most demanding classes that I have ever taken. But I survived it, and on Thursday, "Dump Truck" Smitty informed me that I actually got an A in the class. Ok, it was an A minus, but it’s still on the A side of the spectrum. It’s not a B. Phew.
(I'm supposed to be an overachieving injun, remember? There's no room for B's, unless they are spelling bees. All Indians are good at those, are they not?)

Topic #2: More school stuff.
We had two projects due on Wednesday this week: the last newswriting piece, and the only project for Arts Journalism for this semester. The AJ one will be published in a special supplement in the Post-Standard on September 17. We are having a fancy launch party on the 15th, and it’s pretty exciting to have such buzz surrounding our work.

Sometime in the blur of the past weeks, I volunteered for the editorial board of the Mix (our supplement), and I have been appointed as the “Style Queen.” For those of you who have met me and have seen how I dress, you can stop laughing already. It’s got nothing to do with fashion. I get to memorize the AP stylebook and make sure that each of our 16 pieces has perfect style. (Checking grammar, punctuation, correct spelling of words, etc.) I blurted out that I am good with rules, so there you have it. The rest of the team are stuck editing the pieces this weekend, so I think I got off kind of easily. (Johanna, please forget that you saw that comment, if you read this blog. Thanks!)

Topic #3: The opera and Cooperstown.
And last, but not least, we ended the AJ class with a field trip to Cooperstown yesterday. Most people will recognize the town because the Baseball Hall of Fame is there. We found out that it is also home to one of the world’s premier opera houses, Glimmerglass.

Glimmerglass is beautifully constructed, with “almost-perfect acoustics” as we were told, next to a shimmering finger lake. I couldn’t figure out what the imperfections in the sound could be, because we all thought it was divine. The opera is quite a production, as we saw. There are so many people behind-the-scenes making it all work.

Every year, Glimmerglass has four shows running simultaneously during their summer season. So they have to rehearse, load-in, perform and load-out for every show. That’s a lot of work and coordination, but they manage it seamlessly. The idea is that opera fans who come out to Cooperstown for the weekend can see all four shows in two days. If you’re going to have a tourist business, that’s a good way to run it. Make it worthwhile if people come to upstate NY, and drive 1.5 hours from the nearest major airport to go there and make a weekend out of it.

We met Lola Goldring and Dean David Rubin for breakfast in the morning. Mrs. Goldring is the benefactor that gave life to our AJ program. She’s a lovely, spunky woman who talked about her grandchildren (who are the same ages as most of my classmates) and at the same time discussed the latest movies, fads and culture with us. It was quite amazing to meet her, and I think that we were all very impressed with how down-to-earth and delightful she is.

So we went out to Glimmerglass, toured the opera house and then broke off into separate groups to explore Cooperstown. It’s actually a village, which I found amusing. The Clark and Busch (yes, the beer people) families spent a lot of money preserving the ambience of the area. There are no chain stores – McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. It’s all local businesses, with baseball-themed store names. Doubleday Field is tucked away in the middle of the high street. Although, there was too much Yankee paraphernalia everywhere for my tastes.

During breakfast, the dean mentioned a hotel that had a scenic veranda, where we could sit and enjoy the view of Lake Otswego. After taking a stroll up and down the main street in Cooperstown, we went to the hotel, where most of our classmates were also enjoying the pleasant, but chilly, weather.

We ended the night watching Jenufa, which is a Czech opera that isn’t widely performed. We had learned about it earlier in the week, so it was much more meaningful listening for specific things in the music, and watching for certain things in the plot. The singers were absolutely amazing, and the music was really interesting. There were many aspects that reminded me of modern movie music, which was fascinating since Janacek wrote the opera at the end of the 1800s.

So that is the denouement of semester number one. I’m heading to Atlanta this weekend – hopefully will manage a visit to Charleston and Austin in the next two weeks, and I’ll be at CNN for a couple of days too. It’ll be nice to relax for a change.