A Little Rambling

Alas, poor blog.  Neglected is your state!  Would that I had more time to devote to cherishing you. On this cheerful Friday, I wanted to take a moment and share a glimpse of my first quarter as a *real* teacher.  It's been insanely busy, especially as I am still keeping all my weekday private students and I just started dating.  JW and I laugh that my first semester teaching and his last semester of law school is a very silly time to start a relationship, but some things are worth the effort.  "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value . Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods."  -Thomas Paine. Here's an adorable picture of us, just so you can see.  :)  Except now JW has shaved off his beard with no warning, and I'm still adjusting to him looking like a totally different person.  But anyways.  We're cute. So far, teaching has been fun.  Stressful, fo...

My friend Matt has this fun blog idea, wherein his blog topic each day comes from the song stuck in his head that morning.  Sometimes they're silly, sometimes he turns it into something quite profound.  Inspired, I thought I would try that. Problem: the song song stuck in my head this morning was "The Mitten Song."  ( listen to it here )  I'm not sure there's much useful storytelling I can pull out of "Thumbs in the thumb-place, fingers all together/this is the song we sing in mitten weather."  It's an adorable song, and I don't really mind it cycling around my brain, but there's really not a whole lot of purpose behind it except that kindergarteners will look precious as they sing it with their reindeer antlers and missing teeth in the Christmas sing-a-long. However, it does lend itself well to talking about my favorite classes - the Ks.  They're so flipping adorable!  I have one class in particular on Tuesdays and Wednesdays that I...

1.  hearing students excitedly telling their parents what they learned today 2.  my boss telling me I'm a saint 3.  getting new students who are already pretty good 4.  getting new baby students excited to learn 5.  students wanting to hear me play 6.  making silly faces and yet still having 'classroom management' abilities 7.  brownies, cake pops, cupcakes, cookies, and raspberry lemonade 8.  a photocopier! 9.  listening to my students make up their own music 10.  when I can tell my students actually like me :) I am so blessed in my job!

Today is one of those really good days. The kind where the sky is perfectly blue and the shuffle on your ipod works just right and your a/c stays cold while you nap in your car in the parking lot. I got to do homework by interviewing a friend, making it seem not very much like homework. More importantly, it was my LAST homework assignment for an actual class for my undergraduate career. (Lesson plans during student teaching don't count.) I got to listen to pretty music and be DONE with mandatory concert attendance FOREVER. I got to eat food with some of my favorite people on my last day in Schola Cantorum. I got to hang out and talk about exciting possibilities with Chantel. I had a great day at work, one where my students all listen and show that they're actually learning, and I have fun with them and realize how truly blessed I am that I LOVE my job. The best part, though, is a beautiful coincidence at work. 1) Someone rented my keyboard for the weekend, which means I get...

Job is one of those words that starts to look really silly if you type it too many times. Job. Job job job. It's so short and silly. It should be some kind of exotic fruit - a jobjob berry or something. Maybe I'm thinking of jujubes. Maybe I should go to sleep. Anyhoo, if I could have any job in the world... Well, I'm going to school for music education, I'm already teaching piano and voice, and this week I got to conduct in my first concert. It's very much affirmed my career choices - I love this! People often ask what direction I'm going to take with my degree, and I honestly don't know. Elementary general music is fun; high school choir is fun; private lessons are fun. Middle school choir is a no-go. I think if I could design my life, I would be a stay-at-home mom. I would have a [sound-proofed] music room at my house out of which I could teach private lessons and still keep an eye on my chillins. Maybe once the kids were a bit older I could e...

I've been back in the USA for a whole week now, and what a week it has been! Jet-lag coming west isn't too bad, and the wide-awake-at-7-am thing launched me into a good schedule for school. I hit the ground running, as it were, and it has been a wonderful and busy week. Friday, I got to go see Shantel's horse show, even if I didn't get to see her ride. I still got to get out in the sunshine (walking around with no jacket? incroyable! ) That night, I got to celebrate my cousin Hunter's wedding to his beautiful bride Andrea. Saturday I was back to work, and oh how I have missed it! I really am fortunate to love my job so much, and it was nice to be back. After work I headed over to a choir party, and saw a bunch of my friends. I have MISSED them so much! Germany was wonderful, but no where in the world is good enough that I'd want to leave them behind for a long time. My heart was full and happy to be among such excellent and admirable folk. After the pa...

Tonight was my 2nd annual holiday recital at work. It went SO WELL!! the festive stage set-up This event has been a mild stressor in my life for the last two months or so, and slightly more than mild in the last week. I had enough students this year that I was able to split it into two recitals, one piano and one voice. I've been working with my kiddos (and adults!) for weeks and weeks, practicing their songs and talking about stage etiquette and microphones and making sure they knew exactly what to do once the recital was finally here. They definitely didn't disappoint! There were SO MANY PEOPLE there! We brought in extra chairs and still ended up SRO for both recitals. Last year it was just kids and their parents, but this time there were grandparents and friends and teachers and extended family members and who knows who else, all crowded in till we completely filled the whole studio. In between recitals there was hot spiced cider and lots and lots of cookies and treats...

So much Christmas music! I am quite the stickler for not listening to Christmas music before the day after Thanksgiving, but alas, as a musician I am forced to make the music long before the season. I'm getting ready for my studio recital coming up in December, so I've got all my students working on their performance pieces, a larger percentage of with are Christmas carols. It's cheery and delightful, but it makes me long for the season - and for weather that doesn't even come close to 90 degrees. In my next to last piano lesson of the day, we were working through Carol of the Bells. I was trying to convey the idea of thinking about the music as more than just notes on a page, but imagining the imagery behind it to help bring life to the music. (I doubt I sounded quite that stodgy about it though.) I was talking some nonsense about snowflakes whirling, bells over hillsides, that kind of thing, and she suddenly turned and said, "That's not what I see at al...

If you've never been to the Music Instrument Museum - and you live in Arizona - you should definitely make a visit. 'Tis a fascinating place, divided up geographically and taking you through worlds of music. The best part is, it's not just a place to go and look at the instruments, though their collection is remarkable in itself. The fun is that it's an audio tour, so you actually get to hear all the different musics. There was an Native American water drum song that captivated me, and a Samoan haka that was just exciting. There were many, many, many more that were wonderful, but those two stand out particularly. Anyhoo, the museum partners with my studio, and I was asked to perform there yesterday as part of their 'museum encounter' series. I was rather filled with trepidation, as I have mentioned before that playing piano in front of people scares me to death. So, I figured out my songs, spent a lot of time rehearsing, found myself a wonderful accomp...

So, Monday came and went and I forgot to do the next installment of my "Multitudes on Mondays" growing list of 1000 things I am thankful for or blessed by. But I'm improving - I'm only a day late, instead of a couple weeks (or months!) To continue on... 9. a steady job 10. really enjoying that job! 11. only having one piano in my studio instead of the old broken one taking up space 12. a friend who hung my mirror in my studio 13. tuition for the semester being paid...and having more than $2 left to my name! 14. time in my schedule this semester to keep hiking 3 days a week 15. a text at 2:30 am from a friend across the world 16. ham and avocado sandwiches 17. movie night with Amy 18. did I mention my amazing parents? 19. free shipping on a textbook 20. a good audition yesterday for a new choir

So, today was my last day working at Jamba Juice , and I have once more become a "normal" person with only one "real" job. I am thrilled beyond saying. The last couple semesters have been kind of insane. Last fall, I had 22 credit hours at school and was working two "real" jobs (teaching and nannying), as well as all those little odd jobs - babysitting, housesitting, tutoring, modeling, donating plasma (not a job, I know) - that start to add up. Besides that, I was doing the school musical, and dating, and living on my own, and paying my way through school. Unfortunately, school proved to be a bit more expensive than I could handle, so I ended up taking last semester (mostly) off to work instead. So now, I only had two credits at school (voice lessons and my junior recital), but I had three "real" jobs, plus the odd ones. At first, it was not overwhelming. I had a lot of close friendships, and a boyfriend, to help share the stress and mak...