August is Over

Ok, I'm starting to realize that I'm a horrible blogger! :-) One post a month? Hmm...

Over the last two weeks, I've both hit a major high in my college career and a major low in my personal life. Not that my life sucks or anything, it's just not what I was expecting... That's all.

Today concludes my second week of student teaching. This is a very exciting thing. My student teaching experience so far has been great. My mentor teacher is great to work with, is super encouragin, and has allowed me to jump right into the middle of everything from the get-go. The kids at the middle school are great. We have been working hard from the first day of school, and there are tons of great progress things happening in the classes.

At the school where I am working, we have 9-period days, of which we have students in class for 6 periods. This is great. Over half of the school is in the band - about 400 kids!! I feel like I've done a pretty good job. A few mistakes here and there, but most of the time, I am pretty comfortable with the things happening in the classroom.

I am having a hard time, however, coming home after student teaching. The house is quiet, and most of the people I know that are still in town are in classes at the university, so it's just me and Ginger at home for a while. With a limit on energy and a lack of interesting things to do (besides what needs to be done), it is hard sometimes just to get back up and do a ything else after school. A lot of times, I come home, water my garden plants, and check Facebook. What else should I do? I'm sure I can find a few things that I need to do... But why? Haha!!

Today, I was teaching in the percussion ensemble at the school. The teacher had some family business to attend to this afternoon, so I got class started while we were waiting for him to get back. In the mean time, one of the students asked where he was. I mentioned that he would be  back today, but would probably miss the beginning of class. The student then told me that would be ok because I am awesome. I'm glad to know that the kids like me at least a little bit.
:-)

I have got a little following of seventh-grade saxophone players. One of the kids was in the fourth grade class I worked with at the elementary school a couple of years ago, so when I came into the class that hour the first day, he was kinda excited to see me. Truth be told, I was excited to see him too. I think it really helped to have a few kids there thay were from the other school where I worked. Anyway... The other two boys in the saxophone section decided I was pretty cool, too, so they ask me different ways to sound better on their saxophones. Plus, the one invites me to eat lunch with him every single day. They're funny kids.

This year, there are 170 sixth grade students who are signed up for band. Because our band rooms are so small, we usually try and have about 30-40 playing at one time. So, we have a 3-way rotation between me and the two band directors. I have been manning a computer lab, where students play some training games with rhythms and notes. The 2nd band director works with the SmartMusic progam, which is another trainer for students on rhythms and such. The first band director works with the students on their instruments. We work in 20-minute rotations with the students. Otherwise, I am busy pretty much constantly from the time I get there in the morning at 7:30 until the time we eat lunch around 12:15. Then, it's prep period and percussion ensemble to finish out the day.

During this week, I finished an arrangement for grade 2 percussion ensemble. It's a little too hard for the percussion ensemble right now, but I think they'll get it in time for the concert. I hope so, anyway. What I did was take two well-known video game songs and arrange them for percussion ensemble with two xylophone parts, a snare drum and a bass drum. It's pretty fun, if I do say so myself.

I started taking an institute class this week. This one is the "Hymns of the Church." we are taking a look into the hymns of our hymnbook and discussing their origins and the doctrines behind them. Last week was a little boring, but I was sitting next to my friend, Tyician, so we did our own analysis of the hymns. While the instructor did her analysis of the background od the hymn, we did a *chordal* analysis of a couple of hymns. lol - we are such nerds!!

Also this week, I assumed a role as an alto sax player in the jazz ensemble at SUU. Even though I really should not have taken two nights a week to be busy, I decided that it will help my social life a little bit. Right now, I have a few close friends, but I don't really do much of anything with anyone. I feel kinda bad about that, but at the same time, a good part of the day (after school) is spent being too tired to feel like doing much. I guess that means I need to figure out how to get a little rest and do some fun things, too!

That about sums up the last two weeks. I've been totally rocking this student teaching assignment. Hopefully, I will be able to find a decent job afterward! :-)