Category Archives: Home & Family

My daughter Jessica has been studying voice with Dina Mirskaya for four
years. She and Dina’s other four almost-High-School-graduates
presented their culminating Senior Recital at
Le Petit Trianon theater in
downtown San Jose last Saturday, on 5 May. Each of the performers had about
20 minutes on the program. For Jessica, this meant six songs, in two sets of
three.

• “Canción de la gitana habilidosa” – J. Castel (1761-1781) Spanish
• “Gretchen am Spinnrade” – F. Schubert (1797-1828) German
• “Lyubasha’s Aria” from The Tsar’s Bride – N. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
  Russian

• “Silver Dagger” (traditional American folk song) English
• “La mi Sola, Laureola” – F. Obradors (1807-1945) Spanish
• “Your Daddy’s Hands” from Ragtime – S. Flaherty (1960-present)
  English

As always, Simona
Snitkovskaya was the capable and charming piano accompanist. The wonderful
food for the reception was from the Russia Cafe and Deli (1712 Winchester
Blvd., Campbell, CA 95008, 408.379.6680). All in all, the music was lovely,
the event was a delight, and the friends and family in the audience were
pleased and proud.

I took the bottom photo of Jessica at the Pittsburgh, PA airport a few weeks
ago as we set out for home after she decided to accept Carnegie Mellon’s offer for
her to join their undergraduate class in September. The CMU nametag she has on
says “Accepted Student” and the poster behind her says “Carnegie Mellon,
Pittsburgh, World Class”. Dina will be helping Jessica pick a new voice teacher
this summer so that when Jessica moves to Pittsburgh at the end of August, she can
continue her private music studies.

Dina’s introduction:

Dina at the piano:

Simona at the piano:

Jessica’s opening song:

Jessica’s singing:

Jessica’s closing song:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

This morning, I mailed my daughter’s
CMU acceptance letter plus the $600 deposit. The first, I am
sure, of many college payments during the next four years. I also
mailed Jessica’s invitations to the 8 people for whom we have tickets
to attend the Harker graduation ceremony
(announcements go out later), plus the invitations to her Senior
Recital. Jessica has been studying voice with Dina Mirskaya for four
years, so she and Dina’s other four almost-High-School-graduates
get to show off their music in a Senior Recital at
Le Petit Trianon in San Jose.
We have ordered the food for the recital reception from the
Russia Cafe and Deli.

Jessica spent last weekend constructing a mailing list, designing
name insert cards, folding and stuffing invitations, putting on
labels and stamps and generally learning how to communicate formally
with her friends and relations. We had a long discussion of just
why there was both an inner and an outer envelope in a formal invitation…
I think I remember having this conversation with my own mother many years
ago.

After a difficult 100 hour college visit trip (starting just after midnight last Friday and getting back at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday), my daughter has decided she wants to attend Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) as an undergraduate in September. After 18 months, I am so happy to be done with the college application process and to have Jessica be
accepted by and decide to go to such an excellent school!

Jessica and I spent 3 days visiting the lovely town of Northampton, Massachusetts and Smith College and then went to the Hartford, Connecticut airport (BDL) to fly to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to visit CMU. We had
already spent several days at CMU last year (see my

“Warren Vache, Carnegie Mellon” blog entry). The
Delta flight was delayed in BDL
and by the time we reached JFK (New York City) at about 10 p.m., the connecting Delta flight had left (despite our being told in BDL that the connecting flight
was also delayed and we could still catch it). There were no more flights that night and Jessica had an 8:30 a.m. meeting the next morning in Pittsburgh, so that night we drove 400 miles.

I called my husband John from the Delta
gate and he reserved us a car with a GPS so it was ready by the time we took
the JFK airport train to the car rental counter. We started driving at 11 p.m.
through New York City (and every NYC borough so far as I could tell), crossed
the Allegheny Mountains (lots of tunnels with signs saying Blue Mountain, Tuskaurora Mountain, and Allegheny Mountain but nothing to see in the dark) and got to
the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Pittsburgh hotel at 5 a.m. This was the second time we have
stayed at the Wyndham near CMU; I recommend it highly. The
Garmin Where2 GPS in the rental car gave flawless
directions. Where2 lost signal in long tunnels (of which there were many)
and sometimes referred to roads by names other than what was on the signs
but the directions were perfect.

After sleeping in the car and for 1-1/2 hours at the hotel, Jessica visited classes and had meetings with CMU’s Admissions, Humanities, and Music departments. By lunchtime, she had decided that CMU was where she wanted
to go. I am very happy with her decision. My satisfaction was not even
reduced by Delta deciding suddenly to interrupt our (late again) flight home in Salt Lake City to change flight crews so we arrived back in San Francisco
3 hours late.

My 18-year-old daughter Jessica and I are on her last college selection trip.
I am writing from Northampton, Massachusetts, home of Smith College. Tomorrow evening,
we fly to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a last look at Carnegie Mellon University. Her
final decision is due to the schools on 1 May.

Jessica is staying over 2 nights with Kat, one of her Cantilena choir friends who graduated from
Harker last year. We arrived yesterday in time for Jessica to go to Smith’s Spring
Fling dance. Even though Smith is a women’s college with a vibrant lesbian population,
Jessica said the event had about the same 60% girl, 40% guy ratio she sees at most high
school dances. She observed that the drinking was less intense than what she saw during
her Rice University visit but there was more making out (girl-girl and girl-guy)
on the dance floor than she was used to. Tomorrow morning, Jessica will to sit in on several
music and Engineering classes and is going to meet Kat’s voice coach.

Today, I went to church at St. John’s Episcopal while Jessica and Kat had brunch.
Then, Jessica and I drove to nearby Amherst to tour the
Emily Dickinson Museum. Both Jessica and I are fans of her poetry and enjoyed seeing her
bedroom, cookie basket, and some of her things. Upstairs is a reproduction of one of the poet’s house
dresses with a special pocket for carrying writings on paper scraps. The reclusive poet stood well under
5 feet tall and (even though the famous picture is of her in black) our guide said Dickinson usually
wore white that showed off her auburn hair. We were the only ones on the 1:30 p.m. tour and our guide was
disappointed that we just wanted the half-hour version (which does not include the poet’s brother’s
house next door). Our guide was also bitter that so many of Dickinson’s possessions
and books had been sold to Harvard University in the 1940s and that Harvard was not going
to give them back. She ended the tour with all three of us standing in the warm sun reading
poems under the trees among the new white and purple crocuses. Because we share our last name with
the poet, I bought books, t-shirts, and other gifts for my family at the museum gift shop.

After lunch, Jessica and I returned to Northampton to buy Jessica’s prom dress. The town is full of
fun clothing shops, coffee and baked goods shops, craft and jewelery stores, plus at least
three shops only selling lingerie. I even saw a shop featuring ceramics by
Laura Zindel. I own two of Zindel’s dragonfly vases
and I admire her designs. Northampton reminds us strongly of Ashland, Oregon, home of the Shakespeare
festival. On Northampton’s Main Street, Jessica and I found a delightful shop called Ultra Gal which
sells new and used clothes as well as theatrical costumes. It has three basement levels to explore.
Jessica ended up buying two formal dresses – one white and one black – to use for both the senior
prom date with Matt as well as her senior singing recital. Together with a sparkly frog pin for me,
both dresses cost $106 (very reasonable!).

Much against my best judgement and personal preferences, last Friday
my son and I went to see
“TMNT” – the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. After several days
of working his way through all of his usual teenage tricks (puppy eyes, sulks,
showing me the trailer to get me interested, wheedling…), Paul finally got
around to offering me a straight trade. He agreed to watch two Shakespeare
videos before Monday plus giving me a shoulder rub in exchange for my taking
him to see that movie.

He absolutely loved “TMNT”. I have seen worse movies; there were some funny
bits. After picking over my Shakespeare movie collection, Paul dutifully watched

“Twelfth Night” (1996 – Director: Trevor Nunn, Starring: Helena Bonham-Carter, Richard E. Grant, Nigel Hawthorne, Ben Kingsley) and
“Richard III” (1995 – Director: Richard Loncraine, Starring:
Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey Jr.) the next
day. He said Richard III was evil and that he had seen worse movies.
The shoulder rub was lovely.

My brother Pete sent us a note today pointing out a New York Times
article published on 1 April called “For Girls, It’s Be Yourself,
and Be Perfect, Too” by Sara Rimer. It sounded depressingly like
my daughter’s recent experience.

Below are Jessica’s final college admissions results. She is spending
this Spring Break week hanging out with her boyfriend, baking, gardening,
and researching again the five schools which accepted
her. Her assignment is to decide if she needs to see any of the
schools again in person before she decides which to accept. CMU invited her
to join a special multidisciplinary program which sounds very
interesting. Other schools are sending her letters welcoming her
to look into their music or pre-law programs. I think Jessica is feeling
good about her college choices.

Princeton’s rejection letter said they had 18,900 applications for
an entering undergraduate class of 1,245 students.