People frequently ask me what it's like to be colorblind. The other day, I got confused while trying to buy lemons and walked directly to the oranges before realizing they were the wrong size. Just to show that I am not an idiot, I decided I would take a picture with my trusty camera phone and run it through a colorblind filter. You tell me if you wouldn't have been a little confused at first.

Here's what anyone else would see:



And here is what I saw:



To me, those images look identical, so it's my assumption that the filter is an accurate representation of what I see, but it could be a little off and I would have no way of knowing. Either way, I think you get the idea.

Semi-Important Announcement Ahead

Many people who read this blog are very old friends or acquaintances. Others are newer friends, some are strangers, and others still are people who have almost no association with me but this came up in their Facebook feed because they're "friends" with me and that's the kind of thing that happens. The following applies to all of these people, but the apathetic among you may prefer to simply skip to the summary at the end.

For the rest of you, I have a little story. It might be just this side of cheesy, I don't know, but if you're interested in a brief summary of my musical life, then read on.

In my youth (and yes, I say this with the full awareness that it is odd for someone only 24 years old to use a phrase like "in my youth") I was primarily what was known as a "band kid." I didn't join choir until three years after I had started playing the trumpet. When I did join, it was mostly because I couldn't think of a decent reason not to and I had the time available in my schedule. For several years, this served as a precedent for my priorities: band came first, with voice following behind as a not-particularly-prominent second. I was decent at both, sure, but I liked band more.

So I came to college and wanted to be a band director. Then I found out how much time that would require me to stay in the practice room, and within a year I decided to change from instrumental to vocal music education, because I figured on that being less practice time. I was right, but being a music education major only made sense as long as I was going to be teaching band, because I had no interest in conducting choirs; so a year later, I changed to church music. That didn't really pan out either, so then I (seemingly randomly) became a business major for about three semesters before finally returning to the music school. I had decided that even though I hadn't been able to find a decent fit for my interests in the music school, I needed a musical outlet and I needed it frequently. So I came back as a general BA in Music, a more general degree that would look appealing on grad school applications if I decided to go with a post-graduate degree in another field. It was then that I met my current voice teacher, and everything got all messed up.

You see, this guy decided for whatever reason that I had a voice and just needed to be shown how to use it. So he went and got me all excited about singing. Then he told me I should be in the opera, and because he hadn't steered me wrong to date, I said sure. Now I've gone and gotten to where I love doing it. And coming up soon is my first opportunity to perform in an honest to goodness opera, and in spite of my desire to appear to be the embittered, disaffected college student, I'm pretty freaking excited about it. So if you're interested in music, or are just a friend of mine and want to see what I've been up to lately, you should come to the show.

And so here's the announcement the skippers were looking for. To get their attention, I'll use boldface.

What: Baylor Opera Performances
When: Sunday, May 11th; Monday, May 12th; Tuesday, May 12th, 2008k, 7:30pm (my performance nights will be Sunday and Tuesday, but there will be other fantastic singers on Monday performing the same shows, so come that night if you want to as well)
Where: Jones Theater in the Art Building on Baylor University campus
Why: Because you support the arts, and more importantly you support your friends

Hopefully I'll see you there. If you're curious, I'm "Bob" in Menotti's Old Maid and the Thief.


Listening to - Adelade by Anberlin