March, ALREADY?!?

Oh my, 2010 is rip-roaring away... It's the third month, and I''m just now getting used to writing 2010 on my attendance slips at school. Sheesh!

March in the world of middle school choir means that UIL competition is very close at hand. In the years since I was in school, our district has started a Pre-UIL contest so all the groups get a dry run going through the process, and for us, that's happening next Monday. Here it is Thursday, and our first big time contest is MONDAY! We got to go through everything today with our accompanist for the first time. The two accompanied pieces will go just fine. The a capella number will be a challenge. With only 17 singers, the likelihood of holding the pitch together is questionable. Oh well... I can't be married to the idea of scores. This is a valuable experience, and as long as my students do their best, I'll be pleased, and I'll lavish them all with praise.

On a personal level, I have school stuff coming up, keeping me away from my family, on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. Then the next week is Spring Break. PRAISE GOD for Spring Break!! It couldn't be coming at a better time! A whole week home with my kids! And on Tuesday of Spring Break, my baby turns FIVE YEARS OLD! That seems absolutely CRAZY!

Little Girl will be 5. She's already been registered for Kindergarten. She's reading little books with one-syllable words quite well. She's counting to 20 and beyond. She's so very ready for Kindergarten. Her teacher told me a story about Little Girl's recent social life. A little girl in another class, "Brittany", and she had been buddies since the very beginning of the school year until a few weeks ago, when "Brittany" told Little Girl she didn't want to be friends anymore. Little Girl was very upset, and it took a few days of recess before she finally went looking for someone else to play with. Then a couple of days ago, "Brittany" tried to play with Little Girl again. When Little Girl is upset, she does this thing where she puts her chin to her chest and just puts her head down. It looks so very pitiful. Anyway, that's what she did when "Brittany" wanted to play with her. Obviously her little heart was still hurt over the whole thing. Her teacher encouraged her to forgive and play with "Brittany" again, and after a little while that's what happened. It's so sad to hear of my baby being hurt by another little child. At the same time, I want her to learn the hard lessons of forgiveness too.

Big Girl is doing quite well these days. She's a snaggletooth with 4 loose teeth right now. The two front ones are all crooked, and I think other kids with teeth like that play with them more to speed up the process, but not Big Girl. If there's pain involved, she'll go out of her way to keep it from hurting. Even if that means no teeth pulling at all. When she lost her first one, she lost it in her sleep and swallowed it. The Tooth Fairy was gypped! At school, she's been interviewing 2nd grade teachers whenever she meets one. She'll ask them if they have a quiet class. Never mind that the kids in those classes now won't be the ones there when she's a 2nd grader! Socially Big Girl is still doing well. She has come to me talking about her best little friend at school, and that she's noticed that the other girl is constantly telling her what to do, and that she doesn't want to be bossed around all the time. This is a big deal in her social awakening. She's also learning to forgive her friend. We had a talk the other day about forgive our friends as many times as they mess up and to not count. I mentioned the old "seventy times seven" and so then she started talking about only giving 490 chances... my literal-minded baby! I hope she can learn that lesson without too much heartache.

When it comes to this stuff, I think I'm more protective of Big Girl than Little Girl. Little Girl is deep, and sensitive, but she's also tough. Big Girl will remember getting hurt in a different way than Little Girl. Big Girl will be more afraid much more easily than her sister... In a lot of ways it's good that I'm so busy with my job that I can't be a hovering mother keeping them from every hurt, because that's exactly what my "Mama Bear" heart wants to do! These little hurts and the lessons that come with them, are important in their social development. That's not to say that I want them out there getting stomped on... I just don't want their first heartaches to be huge life-altering things. Just like everything else in this life, everyone needs to start out with training wheels.

Hubby is doing pretty good. He's starting to get involved in playing with a worship band again. Unfortunately the band in question is not at the church we're currently attending. At least he's playing again. He's a much happier person when he's making music.

That kind-of reminds me of someone else in this house... ME!

And Big Girl too... It has been confirmed to us that she really does have perfect pitch. For anyone unfamiliar with that, it means that she can decipher the exact pitch of a sound. She has named random notes played on a variety of instruments in a number of ranges and timbres, and can name the pitch accurately. She's done this with a flute, violin, trombone, piano, and even a glass harp! It's amazing! She first started doing this with a video my mom had at hear house for the girls to watch. Since then we've been quizzing her every now and then, and she can do it. She also has an amazing sense of musicality in her. She "hears" her piano pieces with crescendos and ritardandos, and plays them that way. She's got to make music. It's just IN her.

That's all I've got for now... Well, I could go on for quite a while, but that's all I've got TIME to blog!

Maybe I'll blog about Little Girl's birthday present... She wants a super-suit with a cape and mask. I'm thinking I'll try to make that over Spring Break!

No time for blog

There is just no time for this thing anymore. As I type this, I have a load of laundry in the dryer, several ready to be folded (waiting for me while I am on my computer), a suitcase to pack, and a dishwasher to unload. Of course, this being a Wednesday, I went to work today. Tomorrow morning I am leaving my house to go out of town at 5:00 AM. The list of things to do for work includes keeping up with the choir blog... I can't hardly to THAT, and it's a work responsibility.

I probably don't have any readers anymore anyway... My friends are keeping up with me on Facebook, which is my main recreation lately. Oh well. Life goes on!

Whoa... Time is Flying By

Over a month without posting... I'm falling off of this thing. I guess that was bound to happen as I got busier. The December concerts, and then the holidays... Now that it's January, you'd think things would be settled down for a bit, right? Oh, no. Not so.

From the first day back in 2010 to my next performances, just under 5 weeks.

Nobody cares about that stuff. *shrug*

We had a great time over the holidays with our girls, making memories, starting new traditions, hanging out with extended family... It was fun. And it went by so fast. We all got just a little bit too accustomed to sleeping in, and then it was time to be up at 6 AM all over again.

What hit me in the week between Christmas and New Year's was that I kind of missed work. I like my family, and I like being able to relax, but I missed making music, and looked forward to the week after New Year's when we'd be going back to "normal".

I would like to update my readers on how things went at the December concerts. The concert for the giant choir school was awesome. We even had a CD made of the performance, and my choir sounded great. The dynamic contrast could have been better, but that's almost always true, especially for young choirs. At the tiny choir school, I had willing students sing solos, and the whole choir sang four things together. It was a tremendous success. It surprised me who all wanted to do solos. It was a nice change of pace to have the format so different from the last choir concert we did in October. I did get a little in trouble for scheduling that concert the night before finals started, but it was the only date available on the calendar, so they let me keep it.

That was also my mother's birthday. On her birthday, she came over and helped me set up for the concert, played for almost all the solos, and the choir songs, and then helped me tear down the decorations and put away all the chairs. She's amazing. I have the best mom in the world. No offense to any other moms out there. She the best one for me, and that's not debatable!

So here we are, just finished with the first two weeks of school in 2010, plugging away. Next post may be Spring Break! I'll try to do better than that, but I can't promise anything!

Thanksgiving and Beyond

I have started a Thanksgiving post more than twice, not knowing exactly where to start...

I am thankful for so many things, not the least of which is indoor plumbing. Seriously. Someone had to think of that a long time ago, and throughout the ages the systems have been improved so that now we have all the water we need, and disposal services, in our homes. Am I thankful to some person for these things? Not really. God gets my gratitude because all good things come from God, including really brilliant ideas. I am thankful for wireless internet, and iPods and fun stuff like that. Again, there are a bunch of people who have invented amazing things, who were gifted by God's inspiration.

I think about my life, my family and my job, and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude to my Creator. I was born to a pair of wonderful parents who, though imperfect people, brought me up and trained me to love God. They recognized things in me, how God made me, and encouraged me in my musical development (sometimes against my wishes!). They set me up so perfectly for the life I am living today. I am thankful to them, but even more so to God.

I am thankful for my dear husband, the love we share, and our foundational commitment to each other. Although sometimes the sparks fly, at the end of the day, our relationship is stronger for the struggles. And though we are far from perfect, I see over and over again how God set us up as the perfect mates for each other. We are both better people for having each other's influence over us. We need each other, and so God provided. To fill out our family, God has given us two precious girls. They each contribute their own brands of joy to our lives.

To say that I'm thankful for my job seems to fall so very short of my attitude about it. I am so amazed that I have been providentially placed in this job. God placed desires in my heart, and He put me through situations over the last several years that fanned those flames of desire to a point of desperation, and now He has fulfilled my desires in ways I hadn't even imagined. How does a man feel about a water fountain after days in a dry desert? That's how I feel about my job. I'm thankful to God for satisfying my thirst. He's showing me over and over again that He made me the way He made me not to frustrate me, but to allow me to flourish in His timing. His plan is the best, and sometimes the waiting part is hard, but the wandering in the desert eventually leads to a more satisfying end than anyone could ever imagine.

My family had a lovely Thanksgiving, and I hope yours did as well.

And now for Christmas...

The Lost Art of Audience Etiquette

Tonight I went to Big Girl's first piano recital. She's seven. She played two songs (from the Level 1A books) pretty well for a kid who has only been taking lessons since January. The performers all sat on the front row in program order. One at a time they went up to the piano, played their songs and then sat back down. They did great.

The adults and siblings sitting further back behaved... how shall I say... not as well as the children up front. That's putting it quite nicely.

In the row directly in front of me was a dad, sister (around 7 or 8 years old), another sister (young teenager) and mom, of the girl who performed last. Through the early part of the program the two daughters sitting between the parents were playing tug-o-war with the printed program. The mother would occasionally stick her oar in, not to break it up, but to participate. It didn't help that she was wearing metal bangle bracelets on her left arm, which sounded like a baby rattle every time she moved.

By the part of the program where the music actually got interesting (a Clementi Sonatina, Bach Invention, and a Schubert piece) I couldn't take it anymore. I gently touched the back of the chairs in front of me, a gesture which the mom saw from the corner of her eye, and indicated that they were distracting me, and would they please stop. I didn't even indicate how rude I thought they were being to the performers on stage. They immediately straightened up just a little.

Not long after that, I heard the mom whispering something to the teenage daughter about a woman being a b#$%h. "Yeah, she's talking about me," I thought.

Within 2 minutes, the younger daughter was putting the folded up program on her dad's shoulder and messing with him. I tapped the back of her chair (which was directly in front of me) with my foot, gave her "the look" and mouthed the word STOP when she turned around.

The pianist they were waiting to hear was last on the program. I'm guessing she was another daughter of theirs. She played the most famous Mozart piano sonata ever, the Sonata in C Major, VERY badly. She couldn't keep her tempo steady to save her life. She rushed through the easy parts and S..L..O..W..E..D..... W..A..Y....D..O..W..N when it got harder.

I'm being hard on the kid that wasn't even a part of the problem. Back to the real offense...

After the recital was over, this lady sought me out and confronted me about making her little girl feel bad. "I hope you're happy making a five-year-old kid cry..." She said a bunch of other stuff trying to make me feel guilty. I don't even believe her that the kid was 5. She looked at least as old as my kid who played in the recital. I gave her my blank smile and said that I understood what she was saying, and I thought it was important to teach audience etiquette. She then said "And shouldn't ADULTS model good behavior?" "Yes," I said, as I continued smiling. She wanted to keep going, and all I said after that was that I understood what she was saying. I didn't give her the satisfaction of an apology, and I suppressed the urge to call her out on her poor parenting and general rudeness.

She totally missed the point. HER behavior contributed to the problem. Maybe if she had stayed on top of her kids and made them feel bad herself instead of being the "cool mom", she wouldn't have been embarrassed by having a stranger call her kids out. And what kind of behavior is she modeling by calling me a you-know-what to her older kid? That says WAY more about her than it does about me.

All-Region Choir

Wow... I'm falling behind around here. So sorry. I said I wouldn't do that. Oh well, I'm doing my best. I also have a blog to keep up with at work, and yes, that one gets priority.

Two weeks ago the 7th and 8th grade choir students of our region auditioned for the All-Region Choir. That day I was on a judging panel as one of five judges listening to the second tenors sing selected measures of the music. We were behind a screen so we couldn't see the auditionees, and we weren't allowed to talk about what we thought of the musical performances until after it was all said and done. We ranked the voices we heard and turned our scores in to the tabulation people who then came out with the final rankings list later that day based on the scores we judges gave. It was very interesting to see the process from the director's side, as this was my first time to be there. I auditioned as a high school kid, and that was the last time I been involved with anything like that. (I'm not going to say how long ago that was...)

The top 15 kids in each section who auditioned that day made it into the All-Region Choir. Those kids got to sing today in an all-day clinic followed by a concert. It's a very valuable experience for the kids who get to do it. The "all stars" from each school sound very nice all together, and they get to mingle with the choir nerds from other schools who are like themselves. It's very, very cool.

Since I work at two schools (the one with the giant choir where I teach only 6th grade, and also the school with the tiny choir where I teach everybody), I found myself bouncing around a little. From my small choir, I had one girl make it. I'm so proud of her. She's a sweet girl, and she works hard. She was a little nervous being the only one there from her school. The other school had 36 kids make it. I invited her to hang out with the other school for lunch and at other points during the day when she might have otherwise been alone.

It was a very nice day. Students made music, directors networked... Lots of fun. You know what was really fun about it? All-Region Choir is where being a choir nerd is cool. We're all in our element, and it really shows...

Afterward I went out to dinner with the 14 kids from my giant choir school who made 5th chair or better in their sections, and the other director. He picked up the tab for us all. He has done this top five dinner as a tradition to motivate and reward the students. It was such a fun time... We went to a fancy place where they use actual linens on the table, and the en trees average about $20 per plate. We don't often get to spend purely fun time with the students. They worked plenty hard all day, and it was time to loosen up and have some fun (and also teach a little bit about table manners). We had reserved the party room at this particular restaurant, and it was perfect. We didn't have to worry about bothering other patrons (after all, we brought a bunch of KIDS with us).

So I left this morning before 7:00 AM, and I got home just after 9:00 PM... It's been a long day, but also very satisfying. I will sleep very well!

Places I've Been

I'm stealing this idea. I liked it, so I'm doing it. And I'm not plagiarizing because I'm admitting that I stole it. And the person I stole the idea from stole it from someone else. That makes it a trend. I'm just jumping aboard.

Anyway, here's where I've been:

visited 26 states (52%)
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