Breaking Things

Mom was right.

"Don't carry too many things in your teacher bag, or it'll break", she said to me.
Well, I carried too many things anyway.
And it broke.
And not even Tasha's prescription of purple duct tape could solve my problem.

 Looks like bag shopping this weekend! (...with all the money I don't have - we only get paid monthly, and the first paycheck is yet to arrive! Madness). And yes - although I've made the mistake of overpacking my school stuff twice in the past year resulting in broken bags and although it may appear that I'll never learn - I wholeheartedly believe in my willingness and ability to pack lighter.  It'll happen.  If I can start flossing, I can pack lighter. I can do this....If for no other reason than I absolutely REFUSE to be a Rolling Suitcase Teacher.

You know the kind of teacher I'm talking about. I just...I can't...bring...myself to....do it.... 

The only exception would be MAYBE if I got this one.

I also broke my conducting baton. It was a sad day. I had the baton in my bag, kind of sticking out, and one morning my brain decided to stop paying attention to my feet, resulting in a sort of hop-trip across my room. Landing on my bag. So I ran into the baton sticking out, and the last couple inches just snapped off. Dang it! I tried fitting the wood splinters back together and taping it, but this is what happened:

Oh well...now I can use it as my Ron Weasley prop.  All is not lost.

You know, sometimes I wonder how I have friends.

Even though I did break a lot of things this week, on the bright side, no more students smoked weed in my class, so I'll call that an improvement.

Continuing with the (sad but true) theme of breaking things, there was also some recent breaking of records:

Today, Grande Prairie was 0.something degrees away from breaking the highest temperature for September 21st of any previous year. It was a smokin' 28 degrees today! Hoo haw, baby! Yet there was still frost in the morning. Weird. I guess that's what happens when there's no humidity? 

Sunset near my house

Sunrise from my window. Look at that sky! Best part is that this
has been a daily occurrence - what a great way to wake up!

 














I also started coaching volleyball this week! It's the boys B team, so it's not meant to be super competitive - the focus is on improvement and development of skills. And can I just say - they're such an AWESOME group of kids! I was a bit hesitant about coaching a boys team at first, but they're just so, so, so supportive of each other, and really positive!! A couple of them are in my music classes, too, and it's so neat to see them outside of the classroom setting (AND keep tabs on whether or not they're skipping my classes). Seeing the students outside of the class environment is a good reminder that, hey, they're real people...(I remember when I had that same realization as a student about teachers. See 1:46 of the clip below for one of my favourite movie moments on the subject...although if you ahve time, the ENTIRE clip is laugh-worthy). 

One of the players came up to me after the game and said "hey coach, we made history today!" (which is kind of like breaking a record, right?) and when I asked why, he said "Well, our school has never beaten [that opponent] before!"  Sometimes I forget how big a deal these games are to them.  Really, it's so adorable.  And what an exciting start to the season - the first set went to 30! Although coaching this team is one more thing that I have on my plate, I think it's a good thing.  It's completely different and non-music related than the rest of my job, and so it's enjoyable even though it IS more work. Kind of like how when you eat an entire meal and you're so stuffed - but then, when someone offers dessert, you still have room for it. Volleyball is like my teaching dessert.


Last week I also had a few firsts: I went to my first community jazz ensemble rehearsal - it was fun! Good group of people (mix of local music teachers and high school students for the most part) and the music was simple enough that I won't feel overwhelmed! I also taught my first music lessons to the primary grades. It's harder than it looks. 45 grade 2s are cute when they're singing along but getting there is sometimes tough. On the bright side, I ran into the grade 1 teacher a couple days after my lesson with them and she told me the kids thought I was hilarious. Heck, even I thought I was hilarious in that lesson. We were learning about tempo, so after doing a few examples with movement together, I was dancing to In The Hall of the Mountain King to demonstrate how tempo can change in the middle of a piece.  For my classical music-savvy friends, you're probably already laughing, knowing that by the end, I was running around the classroom like a madwoman.  Needless to say, the kids were giggling like mad.  Ah, well, to be honest, I don't mind being a laughing stock in the name of education. 

...I guess that means I really am a teacher.

Until Next Time,
B.