Whats new

Hey, folks.

Here's my opportunity to catch you up on the past couple months.

At the moment, I have a nasty cold, and it totally blows. I had my semi-finals for Nova Idol, the singing competition at my college, tonight and it was pretty rough. Some of my high notes were really scratchy and rough, and I was so light-headed. The judges were nice, and they said I still did a good job, and there were alot of strangers in the theatre who told me I did a great job as I walked by. I needed the ego boost, I was pretty deflated. I talked to Herb, the organizer of the competition and a former professor of mine, after performing.

I just sound rough. I have the sick voice. It keeps cracking and I keep coughing and hacking, so its not getting any better. Heres hoping they remember me from last year though, and pass me on to the finals.

My friend Lauren is in town, she flew up from Texas for the inaguration. We were best friends in Middle School, and she moved, but we've stayed in touch. Regardless, I haven't seen her for 3 years, so its wonderful to see her again.

As of December 21st, my very first CD was completed, and I'm very proud of it. I put alot of energy, heart, and soul into it, so it means alot to me. My parents and grandparents have been passing the cd around their coworkers and friends and the reactions have been fantastic. It really gives me the confidence to send it out to recording companies and producers to try and get it signed. You can listen to a couple of the songs from my CD at www.myspace.com/toryritter and I'm working on aking some music videos to put up on YouTube to get even more exposure. If you have a facebook, I've also set up a musician's page there.

I've started a new semester of classes, and I'm diving head first in there, so it should all be very interesting. Its all pretty laid back- Spanish, College Success Skills (required, ug), Psychology, and a Speech class, also required. I took two acting classes, but for some reason, that doesn't count as a speech class. Bulocks. I tried to get into the last required Math class this semester, but no dice. Theres always the Summer.

My former (and now, again, current) Spanish partner has turned out to be quite a guy. We're going to see a movie tomorrow night, I hope I'm not still feeling like death warmed over then. My sister is tagging along- she suggested the movie. Should be interesting.

Excited about the inaguration, and surprised that nothing bad happened, besides Ted Kennedy's attention grabbing seizure. The more interviews I hear from the inaguration the more impressed I am with President Obama. Even if I don't necessarily agree with some of his policies, I will admit that he is an amazing and personable guy, and at the very least, he has manaed to create hope in millions of Americans that i haven't seen in many years.

That being said, Cheezus Christ. I live in the DC area, and inaguration day SUCKED. Like every other local I know, I decided to stay in and watch the festivities on the telly. Now I'm irritated hearing peopole complain about the state of DC for the day. People don't realize that DC isn't really people-friendly, like Miami, or Chicago, LA, or NYC (I know, not the best example). DC maybe fairly 'touristy' but, its not designed for its tourists. DC doesn't normally issue warnings to its inhabitants about anything, so when they were saying stuff a WEEK before inagurations about which Metro stations to avoid, and street closings, blahdeeblahdeeblah, we took the hint. Tuesday was one big security SNAFU. I'm very irritated with people's reaction to police and security doing their job. How can anyone be surprised that the infastructure cracked here and there when we had an influx of nearly 2 million people who had little to no idea where they were going?

I have some papers I did for my english class last semester that I'm planning on dropping on here- just to give you some idea of what I've been working on.

For now though, I must be off to take some more cold meds. Fun fun. The stuff is supposed to be 'honey lemon' flavored.

Honey Lemon my ass.

See you on the flip side.