OK, I'm real bad at this...

So I'm pretty bad at updating my blog...but this is as good as it gets for a while. I've been teaching....still primarily in the 6th grade. I took them to small ensemble festival and conducted them while they performed- they received Superior ratings...one group with a 93, the other with a 96...so I was very proud! Teaching is going well....it's the right thing for me to be doing- I'm just a ball of self consciousness all of the time. I'm waiting for the day that playing piano, singing, teaching and managing between 35 and 45 kids in a classroom at one time becomes second nature. I can't just teach a lesson for part of class and then hand them a worksheet to do for the rest of the class while I get things done. (Not that all classrooms are run like that)...BUT with music, they ALWAYS have to be engaged in rehearsing. I'm up in front of them singing and moving around....I'm so animated and "happy" all the time that sometimes at the end of the day I just want to tell someone to go and play in the road---except I can't do that!

I got a hair cut today. Told the girl to take off about 2 inches....hmmm someone didn't get the memo! It's a lot shorter...but whatever...that means it's about 10 pounds lighter.

It had better snow tomorrow or I'm going to have a fit. The last time they said this would happen EVERY COUNTY around Gaston was called off. I drove to school on white roads...Grant it, it was nothing compared to what I'm used to traveling in while I'm in Boone....BUT...school still should've been delayed at the least. Anyway, a close friend of mine is giving a recital in Boone tomorrow night and I was going to go...but looks like I can't....people in the piedmont don't take care of the roads like Boone always has....so I don't know what will happen tomorrow. I would love to be able to sleep late on Monday.

I tried to take a nap today...because I woke up early to go get my hair did :) So I had been sound asleep for maybe ten minutes and I hear dad go "Do you want me to bring you any of this?"....he had popped some popcorn and was wondering if I wanted any. I couldn't figure out why you would ask someone that's dead to the world if they want some blessed popcorn....I was not amused at all. I was like...uhmmmm...no thanks. I think he thought I was laying there watching tv.

It's Saturday night at 9pm and I am totally ready for bed. Annnnnnd I'm still getting gray hairs...I'm 21, going gray, and get excited if I have the opportunity to go to bed before 10pm....This isn't right. Anyway, I think I'm going to close and go experiment with some ways to fix my newly CHOPPED hair. I don't want the folks at church tomorrow to see a human Pom-Pom sitting in the choir loft.

I'm back :)

Ok, I admit it....I have become the most slack at blogging than anyone on my list! My life has changed in so many ways over the past few months. I finished up my fall semester and somehow managed a spot on the Deans list and Chancellor's list on top of doing my senior recital. That explains the gray hair (I'm really not kidding...I have gray hair). Anyway, I said a lot of goodbyes in December. To the music faculty, to my singer friends, the choir members at Boone UMC, etc. By the time I moved to Gastonia, I was totally out of goodbyes! One of the hardest things I did was sing my last concert there at App. We have a Holiday Concert every year and the last number is the Hallelujah Chorus....when that was over I came to the sad realization that it was my last time on stage singing in a choir as a student....and a choir of that caliber...filled with my closest friends. I was really sad, but sucked it up in time for a great reception and an even better late night dinner at Macado's with some awesome people :)

I've started student teaching. This past week was my first official week...I'm pretty much observing right now. I'll start this coming week with vocal warm-ups for the 6th grade chorus. With music we ease into it slowly so we're not so overwhelmed. It truly is different from teaching another subject. We can't teach a lesson, hand out a work sheet, and sit at our desk working on things while our students work. We're in front of the class for the entire instructional time....keeping things moving and the singers engaged...it really is a song and dance...and it makes for a really tired teacher at the end of the day. My cooperating teacher (the person I'm teaching with) is the lady that inspired me to go into music. It's the greatest opportunity to be with her and watch what she does every day...I truly am learning from the very best.

I'm starting to think about Masters programs. At this point, I really am tired of school. College for me wasn't 1-3 classes a day. Sometimes I would have 7 or 8 classes in a day. I think my worst semester I had a total of 12 or 13 classes. There are only 3 vocal music education students graduating on time....I'm glad that I'm one of them. It's amazing...the people that you go in with...and how many of us either end up quitting or falling behind. Anyway, I have thought about a masters in Choral Conducting, but also about one in Music Education. The Mus. Ed one is looking more appealing because it provides more of a pay raise for public school teachers. Anyway, I'm going to concentrate on finding a teaching job first...then perhaps a Masters program over the summers. Who knows, if I find a place that will give me an Assistantship, I'll be off to school full time again!

I've been cleaning my apartment today. Everything looks great except for my spare room....It's my music room/ office. I put my piano, and my desk with a book shelf in there. In the midst of all of this are stacks of I dont know how many hundred pieces of choral music sorted according to voice type. I'm currently in the process of hole punching them and putting them into notebooks so I can access them more quickly and keep up with them a little better. So right now the floor is covered in music and all of those little annoying holes that falls out of the hole puncher.

I sang my first Sunday in the choir at Myers Memorial UMC here in Gastonia. My cooperating teacher is the director. It was nice...beautiful church, and the same Methodist service that I've become used to from being at Boone UMC. I loved it. I got cornered by a few of the choir members...talking...A LOT. I honestly couldn't tell you what this one lady said to me. She randomly walked up and started telling me her life story...but she was jumping around so much that I couldn't follow. I just smile and nod..whoo!

I hope to be better at this blogging thing now that I'm settled...but we'll see :)

COLD.

Yeah, I'm sooooo cold here in Boone. I woke up this morning and couldn't see the parking lot because it was covered in snow. So I put on a lot of clothes, my waterproof shoes....and go outside to do my favorite thing in the world....scrape my car...BAH! So I got to walk from class to class today out in the blistering cold wind, and having pieces of snow pelt me in the face in the process.

ANYWAY! So I was just venting to a good friend of mine about some of the people here at ASU that just bother me. Needless to say I was having a great gripe session about people that I just don't understand....some of which I'm close to. Anyway, in the middle of this I see my little email notifier thingy go off, which meant I had a new email. I opened it and it was a forward. The first thing I read said "God doesn't give you the people you want, he gives you the people you NEED. To help you, to hurt you, to leave you, to love you and to make you into the person that you were meant to be." It hit me like a ton of bricks. It's funny how something as simple as an email can come to you right when you need it the most. There I was complaining about people, and what they have and haven't been to me....and how they've hurt me...and how I want this and that....and I get that email! Anyway, I just had to share! Bedtime for this chilly Boone girl!

It's been forever...

Yea ok, it's been forever because I've been totally busy! My recital has come and gone thank goodness. It was an interesting day...my voice teacher's sister passed away unexpectedly that morning, so she couldn't come to my recital. Nothing about it could be helped, so I went into calling around to the voice faculty to try and find someone to help me warm up/unlock the recital hall for me...and find someone to video tape it. I got a hold of some rude people, and some obnoxious ones that wouldn't leave me alone...so without going into detail...I lived :) A good many people made it up here for the recital. Aunt Carol and Uncle Mikey...and the boys...Aunt Laura and Terry (who did an AMAZING job as my personal photographer), Grandma Dot, Grandma Charlotte and her husband Carroll, Cousin Leya, of course my parents, Katherine and Chris...and Aunt Peggy! A ton of my friends came, people from my church choir here in Boone, my former choir director and some of the kids in her choir, and some professors inside and outside of the music dept! I was amazed at the turn out, but still relieved that it's over!

Last weekend I went to Music Educators Conference in Winston-Salem. It's 4 days long, and I had a wonderful time. Saturday and Sunday I spent most of my time watching the honors chorus rehearsals. I'm an alumni of the High School honors chorus. They have Elementary, Middle and High school. Back in my day I think they auditioned about 1300 for High school and only 160 were chosen....I don't know the numbers now or for the different age groups....but the singers are the best in the state, so they bring in choral clinicians known throughout the nation to conduct the choirs. They sounded phenominal! Here's a youtube link to my favorite piece the high school did... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKy0SQmx6C8 ...they totally break it down in the middle/end!

I went to some seminars that were fantastic...I went to a lot on middle school voices...especially the changing male voice since I will be student teaching middle school. I also got to see the lady I hope to student teach with, which is also the person who inspired me at the age of 12 to go into music. I really hope it works out to where I am able to student teach with her....we find out for sure next month. It doesn't matter how discouraged I am, or tired of being so spread thin with music school, all I have to do is go and visit her, or watch her teach...and it reminds me of why I'm doing this!

I'm recovering from a bad cold. I haven't had a full blown cold in probably close to a year, so I was a huge baby about this one. I came down with it on my last night at conference, and came home on Tuesday to stay in bed for two days. To make matters even better I had to sing in front of the entire school of music on Friday afternoon....Friday morning at my rehearsal, I was sounding pretty rough, was really pale and clamy, and kept having to sit down because I was so weak! I didn't get near as nervous about that performance as I normally do because I just figured it'd be bad and there was nothing I could do about it. To my surprise that afternoon, everything came out ok...and I hadn't wasted my energy near as much on being nervous as I normally do.

I haven't been home in a month. Friday night I went to a voice recital of one of my friends...it started at 6 and lasted until 7:30....then we left there and went to the auditorium right next door to see the opera Carmen by Bizet. I did the famous aria from that on my recital...Habanera. The performers were members of a traveling opera company...parts of it were great....other parts I wasn't so amused. It was 3 hours long....11pm and I was in Applebees finally eating dinner! I didn't get to bed until well after 1am, only to get up early the next morning! I headed down to Maiden High School to sit in on the All-County chorus clinic...I'm friends with the choral teachers in Catawba Co. so we had a good time...and I enjoyed watching the clinician work with the singers. I got there around 10:30 am and left at 4....and went home just to see my family and look at the lake. It's funny how much I just miss seeing the water. You grow up all of your life waking up and seeing it....and then you go a long time away...you miss it! I went to dinner with my parents...came home and grabbed some music I needed and headed back up the mountain...I got here around 10:30pm....it was COLD and I was past exhausted. Guess who didn't get to sleep late today either!? I got up and went to church to sing....came home and cleaned for a few hours...and fell asleep for a good two hours. I was freezing...seemed like no matter how high I turned up the heat, I was still cold...and I slept in fleece pants, tshirt, and a fleece pullover....and had a homemade HEAVY quilt over me. I woke up, watched some of Jack Frost, and then went grocery shopping and came home to cook dinner. I just now finished eating and it's 10pm! I can't wait until Thanksgiving! I need to be home and I need to see my family....alllllllllll of them!

I took some pics of the choirs at conference with my phone....they aren't the greatest quality, but I'm still going to post them:

The first is Elementary, then Middle, and the last is High School

Sooo Slack!

Yeahhh, I've totally been slack. Too much going on in my world right now! Last weekend was Homecoming weekend here at App. Friday night I went out with some of my friends to Macado's. I think every person in Boone was there! It was just nice to be with some people and it NOT be inside of the music building! The next day I slept kind of late and went to "tailgate" at a friend's apartment. Her apartment is right across the street from the music building and on the edge of campus, so it's the perfect location! I left there and went grocery shopping (no crowds there because of the game)...and made two pots of Taco Soup, and had some friends over that night. Then Sunday, up early to sing at church!!

School itself isn't too ridiculous right now, singing is! All voice majors have what is called a voice jury at the end of every semester, it's to present our vocal repetoire for that semester and get comments on our technique in order to get a grade for voice lessons. Well my RECITAL JURY....where I present all of my recital rep for the voice faculty was scheduled for the Monday after my fall break (10/20) ah! I'm going home, practicing, memorizing words, and singing my recital program at two different high schools for their music students. My recital is November 2nd, which is coming real fast! ugh! It starts at 4, so around 4:45, I'll be a completely new woman! I can't wait!


I'm a teeth grinder....all day, all night, doesn't matter, I crunch down on my teeth! I'm so cool that I finally got a Doctor's Night Guard. Last night was my first night wearing it, and surprisingly it stayed in all night. I was expecting to wake up and realize that I had thrown it across the room....BUT NO! Still safely nestled on my teef :) I'm not sure why I shared that! Probably because I'm sitting here wearing it right now. It gives me relief from clenching my teeth. My goodness, I'm boring.

I'll write more later...I'm sleepy!

The Weekend.

I came home this weekend and searched for apartments in Gastonia on Saturday. I met a friend of mine and he helped me since he's from down there. I don't want to get stuck in the bad part of town! We ate at Tony's for lunch. It's a place right in the middle of Gastonia that is known for their AMAZING ice cream! I left Gastonia, went home for about an hour and then made my way to Union Grove for a family reunion. I don't get to see that side of the family very often, so it was nice. I left there around 8 or 8:30 and came back to Boone. I'm a member of the choir at Boone UMC, so I had to be up and halfway conscious for both services this morning!

There is a painting that I have loved from the first moment I saw it. It was painted by Jack Vettriano and is called "The Singing Butler." I have talked about wanting a copy of it to hang over my bed for over a year now. Well, one weekend when I went home I had told Mom that it had been a challenging week to say the least. She proceeds to take me in the back room and pulls out this huge framed copy of this painting! She said she had found it and had put it back for Christmas, but decided that I could have it as a consolation prize because of the bad week I had just endured. I can hang pictures, but this one was so big that I knew I would need some help. Well, tonight was the night! After a few weeks of it sitting propped against my kitchen bar...it's finally hanging over my bed! A friend of mine had to help me...Ah I love it! Here's a picture...



Tonight was so much fun. My friend Justin and I get together every month, cook dinner, make chocolate covered strawberries and watch a movie. This month we had it at my place. I made Chicken Tetrazzini and we watched Sex and the City (great movie by the way!) Ah, I'm about to be in a sugar coma from all of these amazing chocolate strawberries! Well, I had better go and get my game face on for another long week!

Funny

I have a few funny stories to tell. The first involves my face. I recently was "hired" to sing in a church choir up here in Boone. Well, on Sunday, this elderly lady walked up to me and said "Do you have a birth defect on your face?" ....and I'm so not kidding. She meant birth mark....but totally said DEFECT. So I said Yes....because I knew she was about to tell me to wipe the chocolate off of my chin (I've gotten that many times before). Then, as if that wasn't enough, she starts telling me that I can have it removed, or go to the skin doctor on "so and so street" and get my skin blended or something...then comes her showing me her age spots. I just found this funny. I mean, I've been told that I've got something on my chin, but never asked if I have a birth defect on my face. Haha, it just kills me.

This whole gas thing is just annoying. Boone is a small town, with a TON of people....whether it be people that live in town, out in the hills, or the thousands of college students...there just aren't enough gas stations. So I waited in line for FOREVER today to get gas. To make things just peachy, no one was allowed to use their credit card at the pump, they had to go in for whatever reason....AND the man infront of me was driving a truck that was big enough to park 6 lawn mowers on the back....seriously. He only had one lawn mower in the back....and a good many gas cans. So I got to sit there and wait. After my insomnia did me such a favor last night and I had just gotten out of being in class ALL day running off of maybe 3 hours of sleep, I was a little less than pleasant while watching this man fill up his stupid gas cans. BAH! Anyway, that's not the good part. The good part is when my friend Tracy went to get gas. He said there was a LONG line and some extremely brave woman nosed her car up in between the two cars at the front of the line so that she would be very next to pump her gas. Well since she passed about 30 people, obviously it wasn't a good situation. Apparently when she pulled up to the pump and got out of her car to pump her gas, the woman on the other side was mad. She was in her 60's and sporting a lexus. This woman proceeded to walk to the other side of the island to the lady who had passed everyone and punched her dead in the face. Right on the nose. HA! This apparently knocked her off of her feet and the whole crowd of people watching and waiting that she had passed...were applauding. Lexus lady turned around and got in her car and left, while the moron picked herself up off of the pavement and went ahead and pumped her gas with a bloody nose! I'm just surprised she touched the gas pump after that! Haha...the story alone just cracks me up!...Ah, if I had only been there!! :)