Fashion Police

I was questioned by a four-year-old fashion police officer this week. I think I've managed to recover from the trauma, but it will definitely make me think a little more seriously about my choice of outfits for school.

On Thursdays, my music class teaching schedule includes two sessions of the 4-year-old preschool. The morning class is large and very active. The afternoon class is small and very affectionate. I was enjoying the afternoon group when one of the little boys said, "Hey, those are the same clothes you were wearing last music time." Now, I have a feeling he's probably right. The last class was a week earlier, and my outfits for Thursdays are always chosen with consideration for the fact that I will be teaching the preschool classes which involve sitting on the floor. I don't remember what I wore last Thursday, so I had no reason to think he was remembering anything untrue. So, I said, "Wow, you must have a very good memory to remember that from last week." He fave a shy little smile. I could tell that something was still bothering him, though. Finally, he couldn't take it any more. He leaned in close to me and quietly asked, "Did you wash them?" I laughed and said, "Yes, I did." A look of relief passed over his little face, and he said, "Oh, good job!"

Well, from now on, I'll give a little extra thought to my choice of clothes for Thursdays. I don't want to be "that teacher" who always wears the same five outfits. However, I was relieved to have passed the most important test this little guy had to give me.

Hanging in there....

This has been a weird week so far, but I think I'm managing to hang in there. My quick update:

Sunday was pretty normal. The morning church service was great. Then, our morning Bible study was very challenging. Our group is doing a unit on the church and challenging why we "do church" the way we do. Sunday's discussion was about diversity in the church. Well, first I had to exercise all the self control I had to keep from laughing out loud. Diversity itself isn't funny, but I am a fan of The Office, and all I could think about when the leader announced our topic for the day was an episode from the first season when Michael held his own very misguided Diversity seminar. Needless to say, this Sunday's discussion was much more focused and appropriate. It was also much more challenging. Where do we draw the line between accepting others as they are and standing firm in our own convictions? We certainly didn't draw any hard conclusions, but it was a good reminder of my need to rely on the Holy Spirit's guidance.

I knew Monday was going to be rough from the moment I woke up. Of course that moment was 10:24! I couldn't believe I slept that long. I had felt a little off on Sunday evening, and I had been up a few times during the night. I'm still not sure if it's just my allergies or something else, and I didn't ever feel all that bad. My body must have gone into self-protect mode, though. I didn't hear either of my alarms, and I had set two. I didn't hear my housemate get up and leave. I only panicked when I finally did wake up. I was really wondering why the school never called me, but apparently they tried and I didn't even hear that. The rest of the day went pretty well. The faculty and office staff teased me an awful lot, but I think it was well deserved.

Tuesday's big event was a storm. The day was normal enough. The weather at the beginning of the day was beautiful. That worked out well because that meant both of my first grade classes were able to go on their field trip, giving me loads of extra prep time. After school, though, the weather got dreary pretty quickly. We kept our eye on the news of the impending big storm. I've been on the east coast for a while, and I'm having a little trouble adjusting from hurricane news back to tornado alley news. Anyway, we normally have a ladies Bible study meeting at my house on Tuesday night. The lady who leads it called me around 5. She had heard predictions of large hail and vicious winds, so we decided it might be wisest to cancel. I should add that this Bible study has been cancelled almost as many times as we have met, and I'm a little bummed about that because I've really been looking forward to this study.

In this case, though, it was a good thing we cancelled. At around 5:45 our power went out. It stayed out for around six hours. It reminded me of how thankful I should be for electricity. I take it for granted until I have to spend six hours in the dark. Life is boring when I can't read, watch TV, listen to music, or clean. I did go back to school for a little while. The power there was on, so I was able to get some more schoolwork done. (Tuesday was a very productive day for me for school stuff.) Then, when the power still hadn't come back on at 9:30, I called my parents who very graciously agreed to let me stay at their house for the night. I could have slept in the house without electricity, but especially after Monday's incident, I wanted to make sure I could get up on time.

Wednesday was considerably better. My mom woke me up since I didn't have an alarm clock, and my dad had a pot of brewed coffee all ready when I was ready for breakfast. I told them they need to be careful or I'm going to consider moving back into their house.

Tonight I get to enjoy the meat that I started marinated last night but couldn't cook without power. I'm also looking forward to an evening of being able to see, clean, cook, read, listen to music, watch TV, or any combination of the above. Then, I'm looking forward to setting my alarm and waking up to tomorrow's adventures. Of course, I'll have to spend this next little chunk of time resetting all the clocks, but I'm glad the power (at least for now) is back on so I can do that.

Music Teaching and the headlines....

A music teacher is fired for making his student hit himself in the head with drumsticks. Read about it here.

One down, one to go

The Spring Concert was last night. It went reasonably well. I had serious doubts yesterday morning. The concert involved my elementary choir, band, and chimes groups. Yesterday morning, the chimes group was missing two girls who were home with strep. So, I quickly recruited two band members who are especially good at sightreading. They filled in beautifully. We were also missing a couple other students from band and choir. We missed them, but substitutes were not as necessary (or as easy to find) for those positions.

The Friday morning dress rehearsal went well. The audience was in awe, and gave great comments. Of course, I should probably mention that the audience was made up of preschool and elementary students with a few adults in the mix. In all fairness, I think they would have been impressed with shiny instruments whether or not someone was playing them.

Friday during the day, two more students went home sick. One of them played chimes, so I called on the sixth grade teacher to fill in on his part. She did a great job. I think it went well overall. We all had a good time, and I can now focus all my attention on the sixth grade musical. The performances are scheduled for two weeks from now. In fact, I had a meeting with the set builder for that musical immediately after the concert last night.

That's my perspective on the whole thing, but I appreciated hearing a first grade perspective yesterday. A couple hours after the morning's dress rehearsal in chapel, my first grade class came in for their music class. They were saying things like, "I saw you in chapel this morning." These comments always make me laugh. In my head I badly want to say something like, "Really? I thought I was hiding very well." I mean, honestly, I was leading the program and talking in front of everyone in there-- OF COURSE they saw me. Since they are only in first grade, though, and I don't think they'd get it, I hold my tongue. The question that really threw me, though, came from one of the boys in the class. The conversation went something like this:

He raised his hand with a very serious look on his face

I called on him, "Yes?"

He asked, "Why is it called a spring concert?"

I paused slightly while my brain scrambled to figure out how to answer that. Then I said, "Well, it's spring right now, and we're playing music for people, so it's a oncert."

He had an even longer pause before he asked, "Well, does somebody win?"

I was even more confused by that point. Then, it clicked. I said, "Oh, are you thinking of a contest?"

He got a great look of recognition on his face, then a slightly embarrassed look. He said, "Oh yeah, that's what I was thinking." He went on to explain that he has a recital and a contest coming up in his guitar lessons. I explained that the contest is a little more like a recital.

Problem resolved. I knew my gift of randomness would come handy at some time. I guess this was it.

Long time, no post

Life continues to speed ahead here. Last week's spring break went way too fast. I ended up going to the only doctor in town who didn't take a vacation last week--MedStat. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection. So, that slowed down some of the productivity of my week off. I'm not sure I really would have been all that productive, but I'm blaming the fever and the antibiotics, anyway. I did, however, finally make some progress on that basement room that has housed many boxes since I moved into the house last November. With just a little more work, it will be ready to serve as a guest room. (That was the original intent, and, yes, that is a hint for any of you who might consider visiting.)

The next few weeks are packed full of activity. Next Friday is the school's spring concert. Then, two weeks after that is the sixth grade musical. Both activities will keep me hopping for the next month or so. Also, beginning band students just started learning their first songs. Thankfully, they won't be performing in the spring concert. However, my note to myself for next year has me starting those instruments much earlier in the year. The squeaks, squawks, and headaches of those beginning stages of the instrumental music are especially painful when the stress levels are already creeping higher. For now, I'm pressing on and looking forward to being finished with all of the those large projects.

SPRING BREAK!!!!!!

It's been a long, long, long, long week! After going home every night feeling like it was Thursday, it's FINALLY Friday. This next week will be used to do some work (sadly), but I'll settle for the fact that I get to sleep a little more than usual, and there will be some peace and quiet.

SPRING BREAK!!!! WOOHOO!!!

Why I love my job

I've survived the morning!

This morning started off in much the same manner as Alexander's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. You know, it was one of those "Murphy's Law" days. First, I hit the snooze a few too many times before actually getting out of bed. Then, while I was taking my shower, I remembered that I had struggled to get some of the last few drops of my body wash out of the bottle yesterday. Only, yesterday I had been in too much of a hurry to transfer a new bottle from my closet to the shower. Then, I had my breakfast cereal half-dry because I had forgotten to stop and get new milk yesterday. Since I was alreay running late, the discovery of the half-inch of snow on my car was not well received. It's not that I dislike snow or that this was all that difficult to remove. It's just that I hadn't expected it, and this was another thing to slow down my trip to school.

So, needless to say, I didn't spend any extra time on my personal appearance. At best, I probably looked frazzled when I finally did get to school. But here's the really good part:
(God really knows when I need those extra boosts.) Today, when I walked in the door, one of the 3-yr.-old preschool students was waiting for his mom while she dropped off his older siblings and talked to their teachers. Now, to put this into perspecitve, he usually only sees me at the beginning of the week (because PK3 only comes on Mon. and Tues. mornings,) and today is chapel day, so I'm wearing a skirt as per school chapel dress code requirements. Anyway, upon seeing me, he stopped his rambunctious play, and said to me (as if in awe), "You look BEAUTIFUL!"

Those three simple words turned my day around. They were also the little reminder I needed to remember the power of words. I love the little ego boosts my students can give me during my days at school. Yet, I very often allow myself to get too busy to say little words of encouragement that could just as easily turn someone else's day around.

Also, the "Murphy's Law Effect" that slowed down my morning so much seemed to turn around when I got to school. That's probably largely due to the fact that everything that went wrong while I was still at home was my own fault, and I was much better prepared for school. The fact that it's Friday and the countdown to the weekend is now down to just a few hours sure doesn't hurt anything, either.

Quotes and Fun Stuff you learn as a music teacher...

...from Music K-8 Magazine.

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." - Victor Hugo

In last centuries B.C., Egyptians considered enemy musicians to be honored citizens and did not harm them. All others were fair game for hideous treatment.

Musicians with Perfect Pitch.....
Julie Andrews
J.S. Bach
Bela Bartok
Ludwig van Beethoven
Miles Davis
Ella Fitzgerald
Glenn Gould
Jimi Hendrix
Yo Yo Ma
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Frank Sinatra
Barbra Streisand
Art Tatum
Brian Wilson
Stevie Wonder
Yanni

"Arguably the longest title on a successful pop tune is Hoagy Carmichael's 'I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues.' The composer later claimed the song title really ended with "Yank" and the rest was just a joke."

AKAs and Their Real Names
Cher: Cherilyn Sarkasian
LaPierCoolio: Artis Ivey
Grandmaster Flash: Joseph Sadler
LL Cool J: James Todd Smith
MC Hammer: Stanley Kirk Burrell
Queen Latifah: Dana Owens
Snoop Doggy Dog: Calvin Broadus
Vanilla Ice: Robert Van Winkle

"Melophobia" is the fear of all music. "Aulophobia" is the fear of flutes.

• Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
• Recent research confirms that male mice construct fairly complex songs and sing in the presence of female mice...or their pheremones.
• A cricket's song gets faster as the temperature gets warmer.
• Giraffes completely lack vocal chords.
• Termites eat much faster when they are exposed to loud music