Yet another spring break at the end of winter. Midterms should be posted by now, but I haven't checked them yet. Instead, I drove 560 miles in four days as the busy part of spring break. I'm now enjoying the somewhat less busy part of break.
Saturday was Bassoonarama. Although we didn't have quite as many participants as last year, it was quite fun. As usual, this is the time I got to see Karolynn and Melody. The program consisted of less Beatles arrangements than usual- only two pieces were performed in small ensembles. While the performances were fun to listen to, I was a bit disappointed that the UI ensemble didn't get the chance to premier Paul's arrangement of "Stairway to Heaven." The most challenging part of this for me is to not let the contra reed to dry out while I wait for my three lines of music. Oh, well, it will have to wait a few more weeks until our studio recital. From there, I left directly for Yakima. I haven't taken I-90 between Spokane and Ellensburg in a long time. I had forgotten how much my car sucks on hills until I got to the hill coming out of Vantage. Between that and the hills between Ellensburg and Yakima, I considered myself lucky to not get stuck behind semis.
Sunday was an example of how doing a couple of little things can make the day feel productive. It was merely laundry and getting the oil changed in my car, but it seemed productive. It is weird that it takes about 15 minutes to change the oil in a car, but I spent 4 and a half hours between yesterday and today changing the oil on all of my bassoon keys. Yes, I believe four and a half hours is a new record time for that job. No wonder I've been putting it off for the past year.
It's surprising how productive I can feel when I only have a very limited amount of time to accomplish tasks. I had the snow tires removed from my car and was able to leave those at my parents' house (no more tires in my kitchen) on Monday. I also caught Mr. Walter at the end of the school day to get him to sign off on hours for the college of education 100 hours requirement. On my way out, Brandon came into the band room, gave a stunned look, and had to ask what I was doing there. I said I was on an aggressive recruiting mission from Susan, to which he responded "You're coming to take me away?" No, Brandon, there are men with a straight jacket coming to do that. I luckily made it out of the band room relatively quickly without running into other kids that know me through Diane.
I found myself at Starbucks that afternoon. Jon, who I haven't seen in close to two years, was working at making drinks. I noticed he wasn't really making eye contact with customers and he hadn't noticed me, so when he gave me my drink, I thanked him, he looked up and jumped about 3 feet backwards. It was rather funny. I talked with him for a little while and was tempted to mention that I was heading back to Moscow the next day to get back to my boyfriend and my two-year-old, Hector, but refrained from saying this. It was nice seeing him again. I needed something to keep me awake for the drive back the next day, so I stopped in again. Jon was working the cash register, so I got coffee for the price of contact information. Whether he actually ever bother to try to keep in touch may be another matter.
Tuesday was spent going between schools in the West Valley district in not-very-broken-in shoes. Since the oldest students I encountered that day were 15 years old, I was not asked if I was a transfer student by anyone. I also stood just under 5'9" with the shoes I was wearing, making it easy to look down upon most of the students I was observing. Maegan Ley, the director at the junior high, seems like someone that would make a good mentor teacher. This is her second job, but she already has had her band perform at the WMEA conference (something unheard of for the Yakima schools). In addition to watching the 9th grade band class, I was also able to observe her music composition class and jazz band. For the composition class, the students start with very basic concepts, since many of them have no background in theory and some do not read music. Some of the students were in her beginning guitar class in previous trimesters, a class that she started last year after teaching herself guitar the summer before. At the middle school I was able to watch both a 7th and a 6th grade band class. Rich Rees seems very motivated and enthusiastic. He is a UI grad and models his program off of Lee Shook's teaching methods, so he and I would probably have similar teaching philosophies. While he introduced me as a college senior that may be student teaching in their school district next year, I might not get the opportunity to student teach under him, seeing as he is a principal intern this year and may be a principal next year. I got the chance to take the sixth grade band through a few exercises in their book, which was so much easier than working with lab band students. Part of this may be that Mr. Rees was calling out exercise numbers, so I didn't have to work at pacing as much. All in all, it was a worthwhile visit and student teaching in that district should be something for me to seriously consider.
The rest of the break should be spent on getting ready for the upcoming week. We have a masterclass on Tuesday that I am playing in, but I'm looking forward to playing Bourdeau's 1st Solo. I also have a few other papers and projects to work on, so I feel that this week, that is mythed to be a break, is almost more busy than a school week.
:P
