Word: grades
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...didn't sing outside of my house until I was in ninth grade. By that time, I'd been singing opera around the house for a few years and my parents thought that I had some sort of voice [a worthy voice], so they had me go sing for the school chorus teacher. He had good things to say and I started taking lessons with his father, who was a well-known local voice teacher. I started doing opera productions with the local [Long Island] company, Island Lyric Opera. The first opera I ever did was Bruno's Faust, where...
...There was an episode when I was in 10th grade [with the Island Lyric Opera] and in 2-3 weeks La Boheme was supposed to open up, and the director came up and said 'Lee--do you think you can learn Schaunard in 21/2 weeks. My baritone can't do it, he's cancelled on me.' So I was like, 'yeah sure, why not?' so I learned that role--it's a great role. I was nervous initially, but afterwards I was pretty confident. I got a lot of compliments from the audience...
...straight forward." The author also leaves the reader in unnecessary suspense about what happened during the crucial "perfect summer, awful summer," includes characters with dubious importance to the plot and tells the reader too much about them. This is Ray ostensibly talking about Jill Thompson, one of his eighth grade teachers and a character which could be eliminated with no harm to the book: "She used to play cribbage with us kids...[including] Jane Ellwey...Jane got killed in a car crash after the homecoming game my junior year...Lots of people died in cars out on those back roads...
...clubs come up and tell me that I should compete again. I have a family of conservative Southern Baptists in rural East Texas, but I told my mom about my stripping because she's a closet liberal. She encouraged me to get a leather jacket and earring in seventh grade when I attended a school where we weren't even allowed to have long hair--so I figured my new hobby wouldn't bother her too much...
Finally the first rodizio waiter came to our table, offering a skewer of beef. It's described on the menu as "Top Butt Sirloin--Chef Exclusive grade!" in fact. Um, how appetizing. Certainly better than a mediocre cut of butt, I suppose. However, the beef was disappointingly dry and fairly bland. Barbecuing usually gives meats a rich smoky flavor, but this was sadly not the case here. Still, the quality was not consistent across meat lines. The barbecued lamb and pork did have more flavor. And standout was the linguica sausage, which distinguished itself as the best of the skewers...