Random News and Pictures

Yay! I am once again sitting in an airport, this time headed to North Carolina! I love vacation...then again, I just love travel. I really think I could do a job with travel. Maybe when these girls outgrow me, I could get a job as a vacation nanny? Then again, you don't get to pick and choose the children...hmmm. I may have to do some thinking on this over the next couple years.
So back to the Phantom of the Opera story, I got my dvd in the mail and while watching the special features, I discovered it underwent many years of revisions and even rejection before becoming what it is today. The book was written over a century ago, and was not well understood. (From what I've heard, it's not well-written, but I haven't read it.) It was still made into several movies, only one of which is remotely remembered today (besides the most recent). Then when they decided to make a musical, it took a lot of struggling and re-imagining to get it together. A trial version of sorts was debuted at the composer's home in the country, and it was well received. But almost none of the lyrics are what we know today! And listening to them, I think "wow that's awful." But it's really not that they are bad, just that he thought of something better. (Well, there was more than one lyricist, so I should say they.) Finally after a couple years of trying, the show debuted and became a hit. But even when the movie was made over sixteen years after it debuted in London, he made more changes because he felt it could use improvement. This answered my question as to why some lyrics were different.

Circling back around to my writing, it encouraged me a lot. Good things really do take time. Sometimes a LOT of time. But you get there if you keep working at it. So I will. I got my evaluation back from my teacher and she had a lot of good things to say and really no negative. She also advised to just keep plugging away at it. We'll see what happens!

In other news, I have finally uploaded pictures of me in the van and have a couple new pictures of the girls. I can't believe I'm leaving them again already, but when I come back I have no plans to be gone more than a day or two for a long, long time.