die wundervollste Zeit des Jahres

White Christmas is over. Thank the Lord and all that is Holy because I was about to develop severe homicidal tendencies.

All that aside, it went very well. We performed it five nights. Yes. FIVE NIGHTS. Which exhausted all of us. Props to the accompanist, Jennifer, for her superb piano playing. She pretty much carried the "pit crew". I stood up there in a ridiculous looking leotard/tux costume and waved my arms around pretending to be in control. They were nice about it and let me pretend to be in charge.

I am never again offering up my choir to do a production unless I am allowed to grade them on it. Getting them to practices and staying until the end was nearly impossible. I about had it with a few of them until I adopted a defeatist attitude and said "c'est la vie" to the whole thing. "Que sera, sera" for you spanish minded folks.

Our Christmas Choir concert is tomorrow. I left the school on Friday last week feeling very positive about it and left school today feeling nauseous. I'm trying to convince myself that it's just Monday and the dress rehearsal day is always bad. *clap clap clap* I do believe in fairies!!

My JazzCats sounded pretty good. I will say this for them. What they lack in discipline they make up for in confidence, and sometimes that's all you need to pull of a good concert. My concert choir did as they usually do. They're awesome in the classroom, where they're most comfortable, and timid in a new environment. Well, the girls at least. My guys are just loud this year. Makes me happy.

Women's choir needs vowel reconstruction. How many different ways can I say OPEN YOUR MOUTH and TALL VOWELS?

"ouvrez votre bouche" and "voyelles grandes" - french
あなたの口を開けなさい and 高い母音 - japanese
"abra su boca" and "vocales altas" - spanish
"apra la vostra bocca" and "vocali alte" - italian
"öffnen Sie Ihren Mund" and "hohe Vokal" - german

...well, you get the picture. (thank you Babelfish)

And here I am, snuggled up to my Delonghi heater with my cuddly bear, getting ready to re-read Jim Butcher's Alera Codex. (Great books by the way, love love LOVE!)

Ta Ta for now.

Meh

I wish my JazzCats would just shut up and sing. Honestly. The other classes do it! I feel bad for my Concert Choir, because they have to deal with me after JazzCats and I'm cranky. But they usually make me feel better.

Part of me wants to just let them do what they want and concentrate on the other two classes. But that's unfair. It's not their fault that it's 8:00 in the morning and they all have senioritis. Even the juniors. Ugh.

White Christmas needs to be over. My nights are not my own and I miss my laziness. No. That's kind of a lie, I like having something to do, but I will never EVER have my JazzCats help out again. They are perfectly capable and talented but getting them to come to rehearsals...well, bah.

I need a new author to read. A good one who doesn't have to deal in the cliche of werewolves and vampires. Whatever happened to good old fashioned fantasy novels? Thank God for Jim Butcher. His final novel should be coming out soon. Yay!!

...no more to say. Too tired. I need a loooong nap.

T.H.N.G.V.B.D.

I feel like the gum under a shoe.

And I feel like I deserve it.

Monthly Post

Oh dear oh dear, where to start?

I should really try to update more than once a month, but activities pile up and I dread reliving them all through blogging. *grimace* However, I'm so busy that I find I need to organize my thoughts and clear out the junk in my head.

Let's start with school. We have a concert in four days (October 6th). I actually think we're ready for it. Concert Choir - my youngest and most inexperienced choir - will muddle through their first performance with an A for enthusiasm if not for accuracy. I really love my concert choir, they are willing to do most anything and are learning quickly. There are a few in there that make me wonder why they decided to do choir to begin with, but for the most part they are coming along fine.

My women's choir goes as usual. They alternately delight and disgust me. Teenage girls....twenty-five of them in the same room for an hour and a half. That is the disgusting part. However, when you can get them to focus for a few minutes, they sound fantastic. It takes an entire cheerleading squad and bribery to get them to do anything, but sometimes it's worth the effort when they produce the sound they're capable of. I wish I could get them to do it without performing a circus act for them everyday, but I guess that's the nature of the beast.

My oldest and supposed "advanced" choir...makes me want to shoot things. Or make things explode. Or crush things with giant hammers. Or tear my eyelashes out one by one.

Okay, so I'm frustrated...it's not always bad, but I happen to be updating this blog after a very frustrating week. I shall stop here, as I would rather not re-hash the very things I've been brooding. I took a 40 minute walk and instead of listening to my iPod I ran through various scenarios in my head as to what I would do to fix things so I wouldn't have to commit myself. I think I'm too much of a chicken to pull it off. I like these kids outside of class so it's hard for me to give them a reason to dislike me...even if I am fully justified in my complaints.

I know it sounds sad and lonely, but these students are the closest people to me down here. It's not that I need more friends, or that I'm lonely when I go home. I love the alone time I have because of how many people I'm around all day. But when you see the same people day in and day out, for over three years, you get close to them. I'm having a much easier time disciplining my newest students because I've finally gotten the hang of keeping the proper distance. But since I started out wrong with some of these older students, I don't really think there's any way to fix it. Not if I want to keep the relationships I have with them now.

It's a conundrum. ...

co·nun·drum

Pronunciation: \kə-ˈnən-drəm\

Function: noun

Etymology: origin unknown

Date: 1645

1 : a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun
2 a : a question or problem having only a conjectural answer b : an intricate and difficult problem

Right, I'm also working on White Christmas. Which is out for public use (if you buy the rights) as of this year. The music is INSANE. But I'll leave that for another post.

It is time to go eat my Marie Callendars Meatloaf. Yum.

Healthy...??

Yay! I finally went for a walk today for about thirty minutes. Then I went to Sonic and got a Jr. Breakfast burrito and a small Cherry Limeade. I don't think I quite understand this healthy living...thing.

Recharge.

I'm wondering if I should just try to find a nice job at a bookstore. I think I'd excel there.

Engrish

So, I find it slightly irritating that I have to dumb down my speech to be understood around my students. I even find it offensive that our educational system isn't effective enough to teach young people that there is more than one way to say something. You can use "be aware of" OR "be cognizant" and it will still be right - but the latter sounds waaay cooler. I think the biggest problem is that I think of the bigger words before the simpler ones and when they don't know what I'm talking about my brain freezes and refuses to de-evolve. Text messaging has killed what remained of the young generation's ability to communicate using words longer than a syllable. Now they have been rendered incapable of moving beyond more than a few letters. OMG.

Am I spewing vitriol? Perhaps, or am I just being brutally truthful? Or did I just want to use the word vitriol to prove I know it? Could be any of the above.

I also heartily dislike when a teenager says (after reading through a Portugese piece), "why can't they just all learn English?" Oh, the arrogance. Nevermind outside of America, most teenagers are bilingual if not multilingual. It's okay to be stupid because we have the big guns. No, dad, I'm not being overly left-wing. Anyone with a knowledge of our educational system here should agree that we are sadly lacking in how we treat learning. It's a prison system, not a privelege, at least in the minds of the students. I don't know that it's truly a problem that can be solved because half the issue is that people these days would rather let a computer tell them how to sit, stand and brush their teeth before thinking for themselves. Kids don't seem to want to learn anything. They see no value in the information. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is definitely not the theme of modern day schooling. I don't even want to get STARTED with my thought on standardized testing. Morons and their perfect little statistic charts. Bah.

Enough ranting for one day. Now I get to go to church. It's hard to get too excited about choir when I've been in choir ALL WEEK. But hey, at least I don't have to be the one in charge.

Mondays. Suck.

Okay, so, I was feeling pretty good about coming to school today. I had a lot of stuff to do and even had it planned out - wow, huh? Apparently the barometric pressure has changed because they were insane. I am NOT a happy person when I feel like I haven't accomplished anything for the day. Freakin' kids. I'm lucky if I got one thing done on the list I had today because I had to stop and yell at them for talking so much.

I must be a pretty crummy teacher. Or at least only an average one. That's what truly depresses me, I think. I have no delusions of grandeur. I know that I'm not one of those people who are going to impact the world in a major way, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I do really REALLY want to be a good choir teacher though. Not just one of those "okay" teachers. And that's what I feel like on days like this. Being new really isn't an excuse anymore. Plus, if I had the talent to be a great teacher, wouldn't it have manifested itself by now?

Daniel should be done with the painting today. Which is probably a good thing for him, cause I'm sure that his head would have exploded if he had to come back here again. It kind of sucks living in a place no one wants to visit. It makes me feel like persona non grata. I guess my next residence shall have to be in a bigger city.

...anyway, sorry for the pity dump, but sometimes one just needs to vent. I'm calling my mommy next.

School Days

First day of school! Well, sorta. The freshmen came today and wandered around like little lost sheep. I actually really like freshmen because they aren't as cynical as the upperclassmen. I only had eight students during second block and nothing the rest of the day. I was way bored. :-(

At the moment I'm watching Emperor's New Groove while Daniel paints my choir room wall. It's looking good so far, he's doing an Art Nouveau thing with lots of swirly stuff. It'll look really nice when it's painted.

It's been good for me to stay at the school while he's painting because I've been getting a lot done in my room. I've even gotten my bulletin board up! ...nothing's on it, but that's beside the
point.

Llama face!

iPod Blogging

Fun fun! I downloaded an app on my Touch so I can post. The tiny keyboard makes for slow typing though. Ouch! Thumb cramp!

Need. Vacation.

I could burn the director's copy of Starmites and feel no remorse. ...well, maybe a little remorse, but it would be so small that you'd have to squint to see it.

Two months of rehearsal on this play and pretty much all of my "chorus" has ended up singing in unison. At least they're singing in unison on the melody. Small mercies. The boys are doing better than the girls, I have to admit. And they're singing in falsetto pretty much all of the show.

My day is out of wack because of the rehearsal schedule. We start about five or six and go until ten-thirty which means when I get out I'm wide awake and don't go to bed until two or three in the morning. Thank goodness it's summer and I can sleep as late as I want.

I'm growing used to my new hair color. I'm not sure if it's the most flattering color I could have but it's what I've got so I'll deal. I've managed to cut out caffeine since last week, but a steady diet of McDonalds every night before rehearsal is not helping my figure any.

Watching A Chorus Line right now. Interesting. I've seen it on sale multiple times in Borders. I've looked at it for years and never seen or heard it. But the music's pretty interesting so far. Michael Douglas' character seems to be a typical artistic jerk director with a worldly air.

I'm trying to read Jhereg by Steven Brust for the third or fourth time. It's not bad, I like his writing in the story, I just can't seem to get into it yet. But I couldn't really get into the first Dresden novel and I ended up devouring the next ten or so. I tried a Katherine Kerr novel called Daggerspell but I don't really like the whole reincarnation cycle. Too much baggage comes with multiple lives. Stupid star-crossed lovers. Plus, all the parents in the book seem so hard. I come from a very loving family, but I understand that not all families are like that. But when the entire culture seems that way? Uh, no.

I bought two new shirts at Lane Bryant for an absurd price. But I actually don't regret it much because they're very nice shirts. It stinks that if I want anything really nice I have to pay that much for it. I understand maybe $30 for a shirt, but $60?? Honestly. It's criminal.

Ooh! Finished Avatar the Last Airbender finally. Great show. I don't care if it's for younger kids, humor spans all ages and it's full of it. :)

Books and Stuff

In the past seven years or so I've had about three or four blogs/diaries/journals that I've tried to maintain. The most successful one was my diaryland account which lasted about a year-and-a-half. I abandoned it because there were a few people who knew about it that I didn't want reading it. I tried LiveJournal for awhile and then one of my friends pretty much vanished from the face of society and it was too painful to use since that was how I had kept track of her when we weren't together.

This blog is my latest attempt and one that I hope to maintain. I've been told my family actually reads it on occasion and since I'm horrible at correspondence it seemed a good way to let them know how I'm doing. (by the way, family, commenting on posts is fine - just hit the comment link at the bottom.)

...where was I going with this. Oh, yeah. Anyway, in all that time I rarely looked at any other blogs or journals, despite the popularity of following other people. I found one recently - which I may have mentioned before - called Book 'n a Mug that I've started to follow. The author is fun to read and writes about one of my favorite things. Books! The most recent post deals with book recommendations so I took a look at Random House's book recs. Ayn Rand showed up as one of the top authors of the list, which is funny because I came across her novels while organizing the bookshelves at the Parent's House the other day. I've never read her stuff and hadn't even heard of her, only to find out she's very famous and on a Top 100 Novels list. Perhaps I should give her a try.

Of course a large amount of these novels are geared more toward fiction and not fantasy, which is my particular preference. Therefore I shall list my own recommendations. ...in my next post. I'm typing in an awkward postion and my wrists are tired. (shut up...don't say it).

Rehearsals and getting ready for Bible School tomorrow. And I'm getting a digeridoo!! I shall annoy the neighbors greatly. Hee.

Graduation Blurbs

I'm at graduation. Squalling babies, no air conditioning, and long boring speeches. At least I don't have to wear a robe.

Cinderella

I'm heading to Corinth to watch a rehearsal of Cinderella. Apparently it's going to be bad. Should be fun.

Virtual Boredom

I know, just KNOW, that I could be doing something far more productive today than sitting in my classroom waiting for the higher-ups to say we can leave. I suppose I could make a last ditch attempt at cleaning my room, but my motivation and resources have disappeared.

Graduation is on Thursday so I'm a little stressed out. I think it'll be a great achievement if all the seniors remember the words to the song. At this point, it's up in the air. I got smart this year and assigned duties to the juniors before letting them leave the ceremony. I am certainly NOT carting all those risers back by myself. If I planned it right, I won't be doing much of anything except sighing in relief.

We've been having Starmites rehearsals. The blog they set up to let the students know about rehearsal times and such was so convoluted that I made another one just for me. Aren't I smart? ...the spell checker is asking me if I spelled aren't right. Seriously?! I know how to spell aren't thank you very much.

Back to Starmites...The two main groups of singers (aside from the soloists) are the banshees and the starmites. The composer apparently worked with very young boys or very high tenors because most of what the starmites sing are up in the treble clef. And I'm working with boys who are learning to work through their breaks still...

*chants* They'll be fine. They'll be fine. They'll be fine.*

Oooh!! The Assistant Principal said we could go sign out!! ...which may or may not mean anything really.

Ta.

Mobile Blogging

I'm trying out this new mobile blogging thing. We'll see if it works...


*one text message later*


Yup.

Banquets, Books and all that Other Stuff

Worries in order of importance:

1. Stupid Choir Banquet. Gotta make certificates, which means I have to think nice things about my students. ...it's going to be hard. I'm getting very cranky.

2. Auditions. I will gag if I have to hear one more mangled rendition of Happy Birthday. For the Love of all that is Holy, do people not TEACH this song any more? I've had two or three who didn't even know how it went!! Sad days.

3. Starmites. I don't know what the composers were thinking. And that's all I have to say about that.

On the bright side, I ran my Concert Choir and Women's Choirs through their paces today. I showed them exactly how I plan to run my rehearsals next year and told them that if they didn't think they could handle it to go change their schedules. I think I'll go all Machiavellian next year. Fear Me!!

And now for my discussion (brief as it may be) on Fanfiction.

Fanfiction, my closet obsession. I love to read good writer's interpretation on well-known characters. It saves me from having to get to know the protagonists. I'm re-reading the Sacrifice series by Lightning on the Wave. It's a Harry Potter fanfiction. Probably the only dark, angsty series I'll ever willingly read. The concepts the author comes up with for Rowling's world are amazing to me. Plus it deals with the issues of free will, child abuse, the gray line between dark and light and, my favorite, high society.

I love the concept of high society since we don't get much of it here in America. Granted, I don't think it's a practical way of life, but it's interesting all the same. European nobility had a code of conduct that they lived and breathed by. Yes, the rules were frequently bent and broken, but the concept is fascinating to me. Who on earth decided these rules to begin with? Where did society ever come up with the idea of the Language of the Fan? Bored nobles? Probably.

I like reading stories that deal with political maneuvering every once in awhile. Simon R. Green's Deathstalker Series is like that. Of course, I also like the novels with heroes who completely ignore the niceties of society and blow the pretentious nobles out of the water. Those are fun too.

The Mistborn novels I'm reading are pretty awesome. ...well, I'm listening to them, not really reading.

Okay. Back to pointlessly worry about the Banquet for Thursday that we have no money to decorate for. Ghetto Banquet. *sigh*

Tribulations

As completely boring as class is during the day, I have a ton of stuff going on at night. I wish that school ended sooner so I could just get on with my day rather than sitting in my choir room doing absolutely nothing. I swear, free days are overrated. I also swear that I will not let them watch Twilight ever again. I'll gag and die.

Starmite rehearsals will start next week. I'm a little nervous because as goofy as the show is, the music may be a bit challenging for teenagers. The main guy parts sing in mostly falsetto for heaven's sake. Geez.

The choir is supposed to have a Banquet this coming Thursday. I agreed to do a banquet as long as I had massive amounts of help with it. Unfortunately the senior who said she'd help has yet to do anything but tell the kids in each class what kind of food to bring. Yay. I suppose I'll spend the next few days having mini planning sessions with each choir and figure something out. I'd rather just do away with the banquet altogether. Bah. Humbug.

Spring Show...

It's almost over. Thank God.

After Experience Comes Wisdom...I Hope.

I've spent the last three or four years listening to experienced teachers give me and others advice on classroom management. Start strong, back off later. Yeah. Great in theory, but harder to put in to practice. Now I'm going to have to reinvent myself next year and try to undo the damages done. Nice does not a good choir director make.

I'll be doing well this week if I manage to keep my cool. I have a real problem with apathy though. For example; a student pierced her own ear in class today. Should I have stopped her? Probably, but all I could think was, "well, it's her own stupid fault if her ear falls off from infection." What a good role model I am.

Rants and Raves

Well, an entire month without a post. Typical me. So here we go...

My Life in the Last Week in Short Succinct Points:

-started choreography for Spring Show, my calves hurt.
-worked on music for Spring Show and Competition simultaneously causing my nerves to short circuit an making me consider a vodka run.
-went to Competition with close to 50 teenagers in tow. Vodka shots and drugs were considered but rejected in favor of massive amounts of chocolate to counteract the homicidal tendencies.
-Got bad reviews from the Judges from Hell during Competition and am considering a career change that doesn't involve destroying my artistic self-esteem with phrases like, "work on basic singing skills."
-performed a play, "Dead Man's Chest" after a week of rehearsal. Dress rehearsal resembled a natural disaster in which many lines were lost. Luckily the actual performance went relatively well, aside from the annoying baby that cried during most of the scenes. I'm never having children.
-In a possible back-handed attempt to compliment me, I was informed a lady from church asked who I was playing in the "Dead Man's Chest," and when informed who I was responded by saying 'that's too pretty to be Sarah." Thanks. I shall now go bury myself in quicksand.
-The man who mows the lawns of the apartment complex ran over my Directv cable. Now I have no television until tomorrow night. I miss my Animal Planet. Who knew tiny little flies like to plant their eggs in fire ant heads which in turn explode when the babies are born? Not I.
-Found my wreath, which had been presumed stolen. My faith in humanity has been restored and all is right again. ...what it was doing on the side of my house is yet to be determined. For now I will assume it was a strong wind. ...right...

I will be getting up very early for the next couple of days because the JazzCats are meeting before school to learn their dances. Yay for me. So I shall bid you adieu. ...which means bye. See, now you know a little french.

Green, green everywhere...so no pinching.

Spring break needs to be here now. The students are doing okay, but it's obvious that no one wants to be at school. Even the lunches at school are wearing down. I've lived on fries and fruit the last two days because hot & spicy chicken and fajitas are just not my thing. And the last time I tried the pizza there I had to close my eyes and pretend that the dough was supposed to be runny.

I went home for my birthday last weekend. Mom and Dad bought me tons of books for my present. Awesome. I also got a beautiful card from Gran&Gran (thanks!!). Scott bought me a DS game that I returned because of the weird tactics-like strategy that I couldn't wrap my head around. I was going to just get another game, but apparently Target stocks games for losers. Nothing cool anywhere. I mean, come ON. Who wants a game where you pretend to be a fashion designer? ...who will admit it anyway.

I actually put on green today in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I only remembered because of the massive amounts of green Walmart was sporting this year. I don't remember them carrying so much St. Patrick's Day stuff last year. They had big, obnoxious four-leaf clovers covered in glitter and green sparkly bowler caps. Yuck. I think I heard several students saying, "If someone tries to pinch me one more time..." I kinda wanted a student to try and pinch me. I'm not sure what I would have done, but docking points and cleaning my floor with their tongue was a part of my plan.

Currently, I'm "watching" History Channel International. There's a documentary about Ireland on and I thought, 'why not learn about my ancestors.' But documentaries are so boring to watch by yourself. I love them at school. ...I don't get it either.

Dollhouse is a good show, by the way. So all the stupid people bashing it need to shut up and find something else to watch. Bah.

Such Goings On

Let us see...where to begin?

We had the choir concert this last week. It went well. Not perfect, but not too bad either. The students were not thrilled with their own performances, that's for sure. I think we were just all ready to get on to new stuff.

I finally ordered our Spring Show music. It's a variety of things that the theater class is going to have to somehow work into a Fairy Tale theme. But I've actually got some funny ideas. :)

We're doing Footloose with JazzCats. Yeah, I know, how do you work that into a Fairy Tale? Why, the tale of the twelve dancing princesses of course! And Concert Choir is doing Higher Love by Steve Winwood...duh, Rapunzel. Ha!! They're also doing Go the Distance from Hercules, my one concession to Disney for this show. Oh yeah, and Joy to the World (Jeremiah was a Bullfrog). Melanie, our choreographer, said that would be funny paired with the Frog Prince Fairy Tale. :)

Women's Choir is doing Everybody Rejoice from the Wiz, It's Raining Men and Listen from Dreamgirls. I'm still thinking about those.

Aside from Choir, nothing much going on. I had dinner with Dad in Jackson pretty much every night the week before. It was nice being able to see him that much. Makes me wish I was closer to home. It's tough getting home much, but I guess better a few hours away than a few days.

Oh, and I read my bible during church today. Shocking, I know. But he was talking about a story from 2nd Kings I didn't remember reading. It was about Ahab and the goings on after the whole Mountain Showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Apparently there was an assassination made in order to aquire a vineyard and a war that God helped them win to show the bad guys that he was God of the valleys as well as the hills. Confused? Well it encompasses several chapters, so if you want to know what I'm talking about look it up.

Driving Me Insane

I had to go to traffic court yesterday because of my speeding/registration/new address ticket. So much fun. As a result I got up early this morning to go to driving school for the second time. I knew all the answers.

Actually, I didn't know the answers because of my previous experiences. I knew them because of Goofy's Motor Mania!! I think this dates me. I'm getting up there in years. *sigh*


I'm actually kind of at a loss as to what to do today? I'm usually not up on Saturday's until about eleven o'clock. I put in Final Fantasy XI to see if I could get through one of my "challenges" and spent about an hour and a half before I DIED. Without a save point anywhere nearby. I could just cry. So I'm doing the next best thing and ignoring the fact I own the game for another couple of months.

I'm excited that dad is coming over my way for a bit. I like where I'm at, but it would be nicer to be a little closer to the parents. And the puppy. AWW!! Part of me is glad I'm missing out on the nippy faze.

Thank God we got paid yesterday. I was about ready to resign myself to ramen noodles and chicken nuggets. Although, that's not too different from my normal fare...

Grinch

Someone STOLE my wreath. From my front door. They stole my WREATH!! Who does that?!?


...and yes, it was still out there even though it's February. I'm lazy.

Consider the Phone...

Karma is messing with me. I have proof.

My phone was stolen (I assume) this afternoon around the time school got out. I'm hoping some kid just picked it up accidentally and will return it later...but my naiveté doesn't really extend that far.

I feel as if I have lost my ability to communicate with the outside world. I think I'm suffering from phone withdrawal. I may begin convulsing soon. *sniff* My poor phone. I HAD JUST GOTTEN A NEW ONE!! And, AND!! My pictures of Binks and Toby were on it. I'm not happy.

Aside from that, it was a fairly good day. My concert choir got through a lot of Shenendoah without me playing their parts consistently. I'm having two of the guys from JazzCats sing with the guys in Concert Choir. It's amazing how much that helps. These guys are two of my best students, they're enthusiastic and willing to do just about anything.

We have teacher in-service tomorrow at Pickwick Inn. I've never been to Pickwick. Apparently it's about 20 minutes from here. Why we're having it there I don't know. There's also the final home game against Adamsville (the dreaded rival of the school) tomorrow. I have to stick around so the senior choir members can be recognized with their parents during halftime. Then I get to go home to Brentwood so I can play with the puppy. And figure out my phone situation. Sucky.

They introduced the senior choir members to the school during the sad excuse for a pep rally today. I don't know why they bother having pep rallys. Kids today have no pep in them. They have cynicism and mockery. The biggest reaction they get from them is when they have other students or teachers offer to humiliate themselves for their entertainment. All good fun. ...anyway. I had asked sent a student to ask the teacher in charge if they were going to introduce the seniors because I was going to give her a list of names. I was told no, they weren't. Which was a big fat lie because they introduced them anyway and managed to mangle at least three of their names. I don't know why they didn't just ask me to do it. I think it's because they have no consideration for choir AT ALL. Not that I'm bitter.

I had a puppy accost me at my house today. Cute and psycho. It wriggled around a lot and gnawed on me. It was kind of a cross between Lindy at her worst moments and Toby in all his puppy glory.

I think I'll make another quick trip up to the school to look around my room for my phone one more time. It won't accomplish much, but since my focus seems to be on that this evening, I might as well indulge in my obsessive behavior.

Dis-chords and Dat-chords

Gah! It's so COLD!! I think I've Tennessee has lowered my tolerance level when it comes to the weather. It's been a solid 35 to 40 degrees outside for the past couple of days. Yippee. We actually got out of school because of the "cold weather" a few Fridays past. Har. I really think it was an excuse to use up one of our accumulating snow days. We've had days just as cold this week and haven't gotten out. I think consistancy is what's needed here. As dumb as I think it is, I wouldn't complain if I got a call saying we were out due to sub-zero temperatures. Wusses.

Anyway, I had a fairly interesting day at school. My JazzCats keep whining about having to sing early in the morning, as usual. And, as usual, I ignore them and force them to sing anyway. I'd like to enjoy the fact that I'm torturing them, but I just find it annoying to deal with the same complaints every single day. Geez. No one should have to deal with teenagers that early in the morning.

My Concert Choir is second block and I spent a good deal of the time having them completely rearrange the seating. I have built-in, carpeted risers that barely curve inward. I hate them. I'd much rather have a flat floor so I could curve the chairs in more so they could hear each other as they sing. I decided to make an arch out of the chairs on the risers and angle them all in to each other. It's the best I can do and it actually seems to work. They sounded better once I told them to quit messing around and focus their sound. They're good kids, I just want to bash them over the heads sometimes. With love, of course.

And finally, my third block, Women's Choir. Oh the joys of having 25 plus women in the same choir room for an hour and a half. Don't you just wish you were me? The best part is that I have full length mirrors on my walls in the front of the classroom. Does anyone else have the phrase "I'm so pretty?" running through your head? Seriously, I covered up one of the mirrors with a rolling white board and I almost had a mutiny. Yeah, no joke.

We had choir practice at church tonight. I think my voice is about dead. I sing and shout all day in loud, sonorous tones so it's a wonder that I can even speak at night. *wheeze* I'm suppose to start learning how to do handbells on Wednesdays with the Forets (the band instructer and his wife) but they decided not to start up this week. It should be interesting. I've never played handbells before. We'll have to see if my hand-eye coordination is up to the task.

Home Again, Home Again...Jiggity Jigg

Ah, my own bed. It's the simple things in life you treasure.

So, I've been in Martin, Tennessee for the last two days herding around teenagers. Cattle drives had to have been simpler than this. You can at least use cattle prods with cows.

The upper part of West Tennessee has been experiencing major power failure the last few days because of the massive ice storm that swept through this past week. Colt's family only just got their power back today. The hotel we were staying at in Martin was booked up with families from around the area trying to get out of their houses until the power could be fixed. There were a bunch of elderly couples on the same floor as my five guys. I really should send a fruit basket or something to the hotel in apology.

It's almost disturbing to hear that all the guys tried to be the last to fall asleep in the hotel room because of what the other guys would do to them in their sleep. *sigh* Teenagers. I don't miss being one.

The honor choir went really well. Much better than previous years. I experienced honor choir from the college student standpoint. Obnoxious high school students would invade our building for two days and we would stay as far away as possible. The band students were always so much better than the choir students. I want to be able to defend the choir students, but it's a simple fact that instrumentalists are just much better disciplined. Go band.

This will have been the third time I've sung through Rutter's Gloria. I'll be singing "Cum sancto spiritu" for the next week or so. Thanks so much, John. But it was awesome to be able to sing with some of my college friends again. I'd almost forgotten what it's like to sing with people who can sing just as loud as I can. :) My little sis, Asha, was there. Yay! I stuck by her in the alto section because she's just that awesome.

I have tons more I could write about, but I'm about wiped out so I shall say adieu, sweet amaryllis, adieu.

iPod Blogging

...apparently doesn't work.

Blurb and a Half

I shall give a brief accounting of myself.

I am stalling going to bed, and thus have created yet another blog with which to amuse myself for an undetermined period of time. Whether this blog will remain of interest to me or my peers (none of whom know I blog anyway) is yet to be seen.

I have come to the conclusion that I have no capacity for correspondence of any kind. However, this blog shall serve as my vessel, yes! My vessel that will carry my thoughts and feelings to those I hold dear.

I hereby dedicate this blog to my Greats. And perhaps to my Nana and Papa. ...I suppose my parents too. Oh, very well, I dedicate it to anyone who bothers to read this inane thing.

Love and kisses. I shall update when I feel less inclined to speak as if I've stepped out of a Jane Austin novel. Toodles