Why I blog.

WARNING: SERIOUS AND ALMOST THOUGHTFUL POST BELOW:


Many posts that I have written are strictly for entertainment. I like to make people laugh. I don't really even mind if people are laughing at me. I just find it extremely rewarding to make people smile. It is something that I can do without spending money and I seem to be pretty good at the making people laugh thing, because I feel that most of my days are filled with a fair amount of it!

As I write my 46th post, I realize that I don't just blog to entertain. I simply like to keep a blog. I like to write. I am not extremely eloquent and I don't have much to say in general, but I find that blogging is a good way to end the night and also rethink and mentally process through the day. Many times I find that blogging will leave a smile on my face and after many long, hard, STRESS filled days; this is a very good thing. I pretend to have an extremely cosmopolitan audience of 10,000 that revisits my site faithfully but truth be told, it's still only about 5 steady readers and I think only 3 of those actually know how to leave a comment! Comments really do help motivate me....so I encourage you to be bold and come out of the bloggy closet. It really is very safe in here.

Tomorrow is graduation day. I am willing myself to be tough. No visible tears. But I have been torn to pieces on the inside for days because I don't want to say goodbye to this group. They are so unique and fabulous and thoughtful and just cool. And now they have to grow up and many of them will move away. And choir will fade from their memories. And although it is selfish, that means that I fade too. I know that graduating and moving on is natural and I know it is right.....but it is really hard to deal with the grief of losing 13 kids that you have grown to love all at the same time. Maybe this is why some people choose not to ever teach high school. Anyway, please say a prayer for Cortnie, Toni, Nayt, Dillon, Kaitlyn, Nick, Felicia, Pam, Tara, Shameka, Jerimiah, Michelle, and Britt. Their future is now far away from the safe and predictable walls within our little high school. It is a really big step for most of them and a lot of them have already told me that they are really scared and very overwhelmed. And truth be told, I am really scared and very overwhelmed for some of them because they have a rough road ahead of them.

But tomorrow will be ok. And I will get through the cermony. And so will they. We will all be fine. And I will make jokes and laugh with them because that is what I do best. And laughing is more socially acceptable than crying....

End of the year!

You know that it is the end of the school year when:

1. You find yourself wearing jeans of different colors everyday and not caring. And then you wonder if anyone would really care if you wore your gardening shoes.

2. You constantly have to keep your thoughts in check and make sure they don't come flying out of your mouth! And a lot of times sometimes you forget and hope no one heard you.

3. You pray constantly that someone will pull the fire alarm....every hour.

4. Eating cafeteria food is no longer an "option". It will not ever happen.

5. You stash ice cream in the freezer because you know that it will waste a good amount of class time in order to serve it and it's too cold to eat quickly.

6. You keep rehearsing graduation songs daily even though they are already learned because you know that this will give you five minutes of freedom from excessive student talking.

7. You pull out the crayons and have a coloring contest....in high school. Believe it or not, this is usually a quiet day! I think that is my lesson plan tomorrow.

8. You threaten that seniors won't "walk" at graduation if they don't immediately turn in their tuxedos/dresses. You finally see a look of panic spread through the bass section!

9. You put on a talent show (aka Ham Day) and just your choir watches and participates. It's probably really lame to the onlooker. And then you tell them to bring in snacks for "munchie mania" which you creatively named on the spot today as you announced it. Because eating crunchy food will take up lots of time. ( I hope!) You secretly plan to bring in 4 ounce paper cups that they can fill to the brim with snack foods and then you tell them they can wait in line for the next round of food.

9 more long days and counting. Oh, did I tell you that for the last 3 weeks, the roofers have been reapplying tar to the roof? My roof--the music room and the auditorium. Yes....the sweet smell of pitch and tar. It is something that makes coming to work worth it!

Musical Madness

I teach a mini musical class at school every trimester (12 weeks long). I made up this class two years ago so that I would be able to have a large variety and amount of the student population be able to take a vocal music elective class that was not a year long commitment. It has allowed about 40 kids who I wouldn't normally know opportunity to take a class with me and it has worked exactly as I planned.....I get about 10-20 percent of them to sign up for choir the following year.

Each trimester, the class picks out a child appropriate 40 minute show to present to our 3 elementary shows. We do everything...from making up choreography, rehearsing music, assigning the roles, and creating any props and scenery that we may need. It is an extremely busy class but we tend to end up with a fairly good show. This trimester we did a show called "It's s'cool"--trust me, I can spell it much better than I can say it! The show is a blend of Rent, Fame, and Grease with a bit of High School Musical thrown in for good measure!

Today started our big performance marathon. After tomorrow afternoon, we will have performed the show 4 times! It is a high energy show and everyone will be exhausted by the end. Although it is not high quality, I am proud of my students. The dances are clean and the singing is good. The acting....we won't talk about that. (I need to find an acting workshop this summer). The majority of them have NEVER and WILL NEVER audition for any kind of community or professional theater. They don't have the money, a car, or enough talent to be able to be successful in that kind of setting. But I do hope that my little "garage" theater production with zero budget and limited talent is a real bright spot in their high school memories. It is for me.....every trimester! I will attempt to load a video of some of their performance but I make no promises that it will work!

A Roller Coaster Day

I am trying to find all of the great stuff to dwell on during the month of May but it is proving to be more difficult than anticipated! So a good old fashioned honest post will have to do for tonight.

School is really challenging right now. We are in the midst of layoffs and so far 6 high school teachers will be leaving our school system. We only have 2 teachers retiring so I am very sad that we are messing with people's lives here. It must be incredibly hard to deal with life changing news within the walls of your princiPAL's office. I stress "pal" here----I'm not sure I get how our English language came up with that one!

I don't have enough tech people on my auditorium staff right now so I am pretending to be the lighting tech person for 2 large performances. I have spent almost every free moment this week working on cues so that both shows will go well. I have hit a wall with certain parts of the programming of cues/scenes and I am frustrated because there is no one to turn to and I don't do well with manuals.

I was told today that I would be driving to Cedar Point with five seniors because they "overbooked" the buses for our June trip. It will be awkward enough to ask seniors to ride with me since if I were 17/18 years old, I would think this was not a "fun" option. Of course, my dream would be to be able to hand pick my "fab five" and they would just flock to my car door because it would be absolutely awesome to hang out for five hours in a climate controlled, quiet car with leather seats and stimulating conversations or naps o'plenty. Who am I kidding? I am a realist so I know this won't happen! And in reality, I know I will get stuck with five seniors that will be assigned to me the day of the trip that don't "fit" in and I will end up "acting" that the day will be great especially when they all turn out to be strangers. Yay....go me! I was excited to chaperone this trip but now I am wondering if this may be more of a stress than anything else. Maybe I should bow out gracefully now so that I don't have to deal with this?

I am tired and not in the best of moods and once again my day is pretty much done and I have only been home for less than an hour. Will May ever quit?

Tomorrow will be better.

Concert of Fun

Last night we performed in our spring choral concert. I think the kids had a blast. Let me highlight a few of my favorite moments.

1. I was able to get a Yamaha Clavinova this year for the auditorium/choir. Because of having a portable instrument that was lift-able, I was able to sit in the orchestra pit and play and direct without being on stage....it was good.

2. Each of my choirs performed an accappella (I don't know how to spell that word so double letters all over should work) piece last night for the first time in public. When I came to this school three years ago, the group couldn't sing a scale up or down without lots of help. Last year they couldn't sing a scale down at the beginning of the year and this year they can sing scales AND intervals. Boy oh boy, are we moving up!

3. My principal came without being asked....and then high fived me after the show. He's just like that!

4. My choir pulled off a song at the end with full choreography that was really fun to watch and listen to. And they were polished!

5. Although it is the final concert for 12 of my seniors, it was good to be able to recognize them because it gave them a moment of "specialness" to hopefully remember when they sit home and play video games all day next year!

Although it is over and things can calm down for a while, I am always reminded very clearly why I teach performing groups. It is my biggest accomplishment to see my students, especially the ones that have really pitiful home situations, be proud of what they do. It is a "bigger" goal that I work on all year through small goals like teaching stage presence, vocal technique, etiquette, and rehearsal attitude. We don't always achieve it...but last night it happened in a big way. And it was good.

Spring Break Beginnings

Finally, the beginning of break has begun! Today during my last block class, I had to refrain from yelling at my class to "leave the room immediately----I am done teaching you for 10 days" when the last bell rang. Fortunately, I masked my true feelings and just said cheerfully, "Have a great break!" while thinking, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" Needless to say, I am very, very happy to not think about school for a week.

But then again, who am I kidding? I will probably think about school a lot this week. I will miss seeing my students. I like them! I teach in a school district that doesn't have a lot of money. In fact, the students sometimes scrimp and scrape to be able to afford to do any kind of extra curricular activities. This is one reason why I chose to teach choir and not band. Choir has much less overhead for the typical student than band does. I like the fact that choir doesn't require a student to buy any instrument or reeds or valve oil, etc. I like the fact that everyone in choir can never forget their "instrument" since it is hard to lose your vocal chords! And I also like the fact that music stands don't create a barrier between the director and the performer.

So, this week I will miss school and the students that make up my classroom. But I think the break will be good. I can't wait to be on that plane!

Split Personalities

I have three jobs: I teach high schoolers how to sing, I manage a 730 seat auditorium, and I teach upcoming teachers (college students) how to teach music in their elementary classrooms. Today was a very interesting day because all three jobs collided at once! It was really weird....let me explain.

Part of my job of managing the auditorium is to oversee all of the school programs that come into the place. Today I had 150 Kindergarten and Third graders come in for a music concert rehearsal at 9:30a.m. We got started a bit late because of a thunderstorm. I'm not sure how that caused us to be late but it did. Anyway, the kids finally made it to the singing part and my student tech, Britt, and myself are ready to "tech" the rehearsal. I am waiting patiently for my light tech to arrive but he doesn't.....well, okay, he arrived at 1p.m. which was a bit late for a rehearsal that ended at 11:30a.m.! Since Britt is a student, I couldn't leave her alone so my first choir class had to "observe" the elementary kids in the auditorium while I managed lights and sound. Honestly, I think that they thought it was a fabulous way to spend a Monday before spring break!
Tonight during the concert, I had my elementary ed majors attend the concert for extra credit. They have to write a one page reaction and then submit it for a grade. I sat there and teched the show while people were calling me "Professor". It was very strange.
So, on to my fourth hat today.....time to tuck the babies in! Yay motherhood....that is my favorite personality of all.