Fall Concert, Round 2

Since I teach at two different schools, I get to direct twice as many concerts. The first one was for the giant choir program where I'm assisting. For the most recent one, I was on my own. The entire choir program is my responsibility.

We had the concert in the choir room, which is big for a classroom, but it's lots smaller than the cafeteria and gym. The acoustics were great. I didn't have to move the baby grand piano or risers, which are on a small stage the end of the room opposite the door. It was really quite a nice venue. I swept the floor before setting out chairs. I got the first 45 or so chairs set out by myself before the after school rehearsal, and then Mom helped me afterward. She came over to accompany the rehearsal, and then she helped with the last minute setting up. She saved me at least a half hour, which insured that I got to eat dinner! YAY!

The concert went very well. The room looked great. The girls filed into the room in line and straight onto the risers. They sang pretty well. I was quite pleased. You could distinctly hear two parts throughout the whole thing (where there were two parts, of course). Seventeen girls performed, which is remarkable because I only have thirteen students in the class. There's one boy in class, and one in the after school club, but neither of them showed up for the concert.

One of the fine arts department administrators was there. Her comment afterward in an e-mail to me was that we "kicked it up a notch" with the choir program. What more could I ask for? My principal seemed impressed also. It was a success.

The struggle does make success a little sweeter. I don't think I'll ever forget that night, from the sweeping of the floor, to the last minute purchase of cookies for a little reception afterward... Someday it will be a, "remember that time I had to sweep the floor and set up all the chairs?" kind of thing. For now, that was just this week, and I'm planning to do it again in December. I set out about 65-70 chairs, and the audience was pretty full. Not every chair was occupied, but it was comfortably full. I think that until we get to standing room only, I'll keep using the choir room.

I'm rambling because I'm tired... sorry. I should go...

7 Year Olds Are Easy

At least my almost-7-year-old is pretty easy when it comes to birthday parties. She did go back to the idea of doing a special something with one friend... although her friend that she chose for that special something was unavailable for this weekend. No problem. We were going to have Hubby's family and my parents over for a family birthday party. But Hubby's family couldn't come down to our house, so we ended up doing a "party day" at my mother-in-law's house with Hubby's sister and her family and us.

My mother-in-law did everything, which really took a lot of pressure off of me. She got a cake, party plates, cups, napkins, and party favors for the four kids even. I'll probably still make a cake for Big Girl in the next few days, since her birthday isn't until Wednesday anyway.

I'm way behind on stuff around the house, and I didn't get to make any headway on that front, but I wouldn't have been able to do any of that if I'd had a houseful of party guests anyway.

I have no idea how I'm going to get laundry done... I should have done it last weekend, but that concert (really, the rehearsal Saturday afternoon) threw me off schedule. I've been trying to get a load done here and there, and so far I've only done 3 of my 6 loads. If I didn't do much of anything else tomorrow, I might be able to get the rest done.

A classmate of Big Girl's has a birthday party tomorrow afternoon, and we're going to take her to that, especially since it's at one of those bouncy house places. She just loves those... One of these days she's going to realize that she's never had a birthday party at one of those places. Oh well, she seemed pretty happy with the family party she had today. Like I said, she's easy. Easily excited, anyway.

It's been a big weekend. And it's not even over yet.

And Big Girl gets another "celebration" with my parents still. Maybe she'll think she has 2 birthday parties this year. See? EASY!

Full Circle

Today I had another "full circle" moment.

My mom is accompanying my choir concert for my tiny choir, and she came over today to practice. So there was my mom at the piano, and me directing her (and the choir club). I'm the boss now. She commented about that afterward, taking direction from me, when she's the one who taught me in my musical infancy (my literal infancy as well). Now I'm calling the shots.

Setting tempos, really.

I love my mom. She's a really great lady. I'd choose her to be my mom if I had a choice.

Music, Beethoven & Grief

Music is the wind that fills the sails of emotion.

Profound, huh? I thunked that up all by myself. Really. I did.

Think about it... When you're happy, and you listen to happy music, it lifts your spirits even higher. Same when you're down, and you listen to something somber, it helps you wallow in it. When you're up and the music is down (or vise versa), you can choose not to hoist the sails up the mast, and let the wind pass by you. I really like this metaphor. It works for me.

Tonight I had one of those moments at CAS. We're working on Mozart's Requiem, and we've really got it nailed down pretty well. Too well for the directors to leave us alone. They more recently added Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, and a Beethoven's "Elegischer Gesang," as well.

The Beethoven piece was written to commemorate the anniversary of the passing of a dear friend's wife. Beethoven had stayed with this couple on and off for several years, and they must have been dear friends. The woman died in childbirth. The text is in German, so it's not so touching as we work on it. The first night we read through this piece, the director told us what it was about to help us sing it with expression from the start. Tonight, a few weeks later, he told us a personal story of grief that he has applied to this piece which has made it very touching to him. As he was speaking, telling us about his grandmother, it struck me so strongly that I had to leave the room.

This song so aptly could be sung in memory of my unborn child who died in April of 2004. The text translated to English is, "Life gently touched thee, and passed as softly, thy spirit too holy to know pain! No eye could weep for this spirit, so heavenly, when homeward turning."

I don't often think of my miscarriage, or my baby in heaven. I cry over her even less often. I haven't been struck by the grief of losing that child so poignantly as I was tonight in a very long time. And it came on in an instant.

We never fully recover from grief. Even after God has healed the hurt, a scar remains. Time heals nothing. Time just gives us other thing to think about... I didn't know I could still hurt over that as much as I did tonight. I'm OK. I'm just surprised at how quickly that wound could reopen.

For me, that song will from now on be linked with my precious child waiting for me in heaven.

Fall Concert

Tonight was my first concert as a middle school choir director. My 6th grade choir did me proud. They sang 4 songs, one a capella round, and three accompanied pieces. I'm so happy with what my choir did tonight!!

Things didn't go perfectly. There was a mix-up with how the students were seated, which also meant they were not in the right order when they got on stage. The kids singing Part 1 were on the side with the ones singing Part 2, and as soon as I realized that, I went on stage to sort them out. It just took a few minutes, and once they were set, we just carried on.

The round went a little too fast, which is a problem they've been having with it for a while. They did the phrasing very well, which we've worked so hard to get just right. Even with a bit of runaway tempo, the phrases weren't clipped, and all 3 parts could be heard. The next song was "Scales and Arpeggios" from the Disney movie, Arisocats. It went VERY well. The two parts were balanced, and the tempo didn't rush.

The ballad came next. It was "Music Speaks." I told the kids to handle it delicately, like a confetti egg that they had made, but weren't ready to use yet. They carried the phrases so beautifully. After they sang it, I did have to hold back a tear. The last song was the one where they could bust the confetti egg on the audience. "Sing Cantate Domino!" was the explosive, sparkling closer. That song could have been a good opener, but it programmed very well as the closer. It left that happy, celebratory feeling with the audience right as we finished.

So now, after a happy night, I'm exhausted. I'm satisfied. Hubby and the girls came, and so did my mom. I nearly cried when I saw Mom. I didn't know she was there until afterward. I ran into her in the lobby as she was just about to leave. It's been a really great day. I'm ready for bed...

Concert Week

Concert week is in full swing... Boy, the pressure is on. It's mostly self-imposed pressure. You know, that "fear of failing"stuff and such. With my 6th grade choir, I have only four real rehearsals left before the concert. Yikes!! With my other school, we have about 2 weeks more before our rehearsal, but my after-school choir club kids only have 5 more rehearsals before that concert, even though there are more days on the calendar between now and then.

Last night I woke up about 1:30 A.M. in a near panic over not having yet done the programs for Saturday's concert. I started working on it, made significant progress on the layout and formatting with very little content, and satisfied my nervous mind enough to go back to sleep for another hour and half. Yeah, I still woke up way before my alarm. Not liking this at all...

I'm scatterbrained enough already. (I can hear my husband laughing at this.)

Tonight I'm not getting to go home between work and CAS. I'm tired enough to call it a day, and I have 3 hours of rehearsal left in this day before it's over. Yay for free wi-fi at a local sandwich shop. My "California Club" was super tasty, and I got to play online for a few fleeting moments before the rush begins again.

Well, it's time to go... I hope my readers' lives are less hectic than mine! Blessings to you out there in cyberland!

Failing Everyone

I've come to learn that my driven personality has a downside. Occaisionally I'll get the feeling that nothing I'm doing is up to snuff, and I'm letting everyone down. I'm an acheiver, a goal-setting (and goal-reaching) maniac. There are so many areas in life where there aren't any concrete goals, and in those things, I flounder.

Raising children is one of those things. Of course I have the goal of raising my girls to be competent, pleasant, independent adults. But what does that mean for right now? Well, with Little Girl that meant reigning in her outright defiance over the last several years. In a way, that was easy. I had the end-game in mind, and she wasn't going to win. (I'm speaking of this in the past tense now, as it hasn't been a constant struggle for us in the last four months or so - PRAISE GOD!!!) But other things are more nebulous. How do I succeed in the short term in making my kids feel loved? How do I make memories for them that will outlast my lifetime?

Big Girl's birthday is coming up. She's expecting a party. I don't know if I can pull it off... It's too late to call up one of those places and book her party somewhere so that I don't have to DO everything. But at the same time, I don't want to pay big bucks for a 7th birthday party. I know she's old enough to remember everything now. When they're super little, it makes no sense at all to have big parties (I have been to a 1st birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese - no lie). But that's no longer the case. Besides, this is the kid who wrote a letter to the tooth fairy this school-year and included the date on which she lost her first (and only) tooth, April 21st. How many kids remember stuff like that in such detail six months later?

Since I don't have the kind of time I used to have, Hubby and I were trying to get Big Girl adjusted to the idea of having one friend over to spend the night, and doing something special with that friend in lieu of a birthday party. She seemed to like the idea, but then I guess she didn't realize that she was forfeiting a party in that scenario. She's changed her tune. I have just under two weeks to make this happen. The pressure is on.

At work, this is concert week. The Fall Concert is Saturday night, and the district's Performing Arts Center (PAC). My 6th grade choir is sort-of getting there. We had our first practice with the acocmpanist on Friday. The class that I thoguht was the best completely fell apart at one place. And it was in a song they KNOW. I couldn't believe it. I don't think that will happen again, at least I hope not. My conducting is atrocious. I've been mostly playing the piano in rehearsals, and I haven't been practicing my conducting. I can't even keep a four-beat pattern going consistently, it seems. I am at least giving cues, dynamic gestures, and important cut-offs. I'm really glad my conducting professor won't be at this concert. He might be tempted to go back and change my grade from 10 years ago.

In this situtation, it's not so much that I'm failing everyone, I'm just really afraid that I will. I don't want to let the students down, and do something on stage that makes them mess up. I don't want to let my teaching partner down. After all, he picked me to work with him. He believed in me. I don't want him to rethink that. I want this concert to be great also as a sort of justification to myself that I'm doing the right thing in going back to work. If I can't succeed here, then maybe this is a mistake. (As I type that sentence, I know it's not true. God's hand is in this, even if I fail.)

What really gets me doubting is my time with Little Girl and Big Girl. They are not suffering from our recent changes in the family routines. But if they were, would I be able to tell? Is this the kind of thing that will come up with a therapist in 20 years? "You see, doc, it all started when my mom went back to work when I was 4 years old..." Who wants that??

I'm feeling so very guilty right now about neglecting the scrapbooks. I honestly don't have time to do anything with them right now, but when I was home, I didn't do much with them in the last few years. And the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2006 still haunts me.

I woke up this morning about 3 minutes before my alarm went off. It's set for weekdays, and I failed to turn it off for yesterday and today. I turned it off after it sounded, and then I tried to go back to sleep. But all I could think about was how I'm going to let everyone down, thus, this blog entry.

I wish I wasn't so hard on myself. The likelihood that I will fail everyone is pretty low. Yes, I'm sure there are things about raising my kids that I'm going to regret, that I already regret. I will fail at that to some degree. The task is too huge for it to be free of mistakes. I'm also pretty sure that I'll make some mistake on the concert next Saturday, but I'm also sure that the 6th grade parents and kids will be pretty happy with whatever happens, and they probably won't notice a little mistake here and there so long as their little angel is singing. Big Girl's birthday will happen, and there will probably be a party, although there aren't yet plans made. It will come together. She will not be neglected.

The ultimate truth is that I can't handle all the things on my plate. Not in my own strength. If I try doing all this on my own, I will fail. No doubt. If I put my trust in God, then the things that need to get done will get done. He can double my efforts, give me wisdom to tackle what's important. I am not in control.

And that's the ultimate truth: I am not in control. I need to rest in that.

I Care

This whole "going back to work" thing has really taken over my blog. It's really taken over my life too. Sorry if you're getting sick of it, readers, but there's just no other way.

Anyway, this week a couple of things have come up that reveal to me what kind of teacher I am. When I taught elementary music, I never really saw this side of myself, but it's coming out in a big way now that I'm in the middle school.

I have a student who enrolled just after the start of the school year, I think it was the third or fourth week of the first grading period. I'll call her Jodie. She's a very sweet young lady, timid and a tad overwhelmed. As she got used to me and the things we do in choir (like solfege, and a tongue twister warm-up song we do nearly every day), she settled in pretty well, as far as I could tell. Yesterday at the start of class, Jodie came up to me with tears in her eyes and told me it was going to be her last day in choir. The school administrators were changing her schedule to take away choir, her only elective, and put her in a second language arts class. She's already in two math classes.

As soon as my classes were over for the morning, I marched down to the office to get to the bottom of Jodie's situation. Sadly, hers is a story of homeschooling gone wrong. Her parents pulled her out of school in 3rd grade to homeschool her, but they hadn't really done much to educate her. She's struggling in all areas except for my class. The sad truth of it is that Jodie is a bright girl who has not been given the educational opportunities, and now she's suffering.

But how can it be right to take her out of the one class in which she's feeling connected? She's doing great with choir, catching on to all those things that overwhelmed her at first, and she's succeeding. Jodie is very responsible, being among the first to turn in forms (including her choir T-shirt order and money). She strikes me as the kind of kid who will do what she has to do, if she's given the opportunity to do it. If the principals and counselors want to demoralize this girl and ensure that she hates school, this sounds like a good way to do that. I left school yesterday just sick to my stomach for Jodie. I just wish I could blink my eyes like "I Dream of Jeanie" and fix everything for her.

At my other school, the student I've mentioned before, let's call her Molly, wasn't in class. I heard from the other students that on her way to class, she was tripped by another student and after recovering from the face-plant, she cussed out the tripper and was caught by the assistant principal. After class, I went looking for Molly, and when I couldn't find her, I tracked down the AP who caught her. Turns out he sent her to in-school suspension for the rest of the day as a punishment for the cursing. (He also sent the other student to in-school suspension for the rest of that day and two additional days.) In looking for Molly on other occasions, I have her schedule for after my class memorized, so I went to the teacher where she was supposed to be, got a message from the teacher about work she needed to do, took it to her in ISS, and had a brief conversation with Molly. I didn't ream her out for what happened, I just told her that I missed her in class, and that I heard what went down. (No pun intended.) She smiles when I talk to her one on one now. In the last week she has really softened in class too. She doesn't glare at me as often, and we've actually had some productive rehearsals. Amazing...

I was really worried about Molly when I realized she wasn't coming to class. And when I heard what happened... I felt bad for Molly. She didn't ask to be tripped. Her response to it wasn't appropriate, by any means. But she's had a rough life, and she was defending herself. Plus she's been in ISS so much (in the past, from what I hear), I wonder if that's a productive way to handle the situation. I'm not saying I know what the right thing is. If Molly is going to learn to respond to this situation appropriately, she needs to be able to trust the AP enough to go to him and report the other student. As it is, his sending her to ISS damages that relationship, making it harder for her to go to him in the future. He may go (or have gone) to her later to repair that relationship and give(n) her advice what to do next time. Oh well. All I can do is all I can do.

Molly and Jodie are as different as night and day, and their situations are polar opposites. Both of these situations are ones where I wish I could fix it for their sakes. I care about them. I care more than I expected to care. It's not that I didn't care about the elementary kids who came through my classroom all those years ago. I think that seeing my students every day makes a huge difference in the relationships I'm able to have with them, and it ups my investment in their lives. That's where eternal impact takes place. This is my calling.

******** Update - 10/5/09 *********

Jodie won't be allowed to come to choir at all. I could just cry. In fact, I have.