> 2) To sing in an unabridged production of Handel's Messiah. I'm not asking for a solo or anything, just stick me in the alto section and I'll be happy.

I'm not sure if this is limited to the Chicago area, but we have a thing here that is called "Do-it-Yourself Messiah". It's a concert you attend, but the audience does all the singin of the Messiah. You buy tickets and select a vocal part, and they send the music a few weeks beforehand, and then you bring it in and everyone sings it, along with a professional orchestra. I've heard it's very fun, and I'm not sure how I feel about people singing Handel haphazardly with no instruction or guidance, but he DID write it for a choir that was kind of amateurish, thus there is never more than four part harmony in the vocal score and it's not terribly difficult to sing. This past Christmas vacation, I got the chance to sit through a real performance of the Messiah along with an full score and read along as it was performed. Kind of like going to a play performed with a copy of it in hand, but it was quite fun because I'm taking a music theory class this year and I got to follow around the chordal stucture while listening. However, my version did differ slightly from the one sung; apparently, there are many different edits of the peice because Handel kept revising it. (silly Handel!) Anyway, it was really cool. Maybe I'll buy tickets to the Do-It-Yourself Messiah sometime.