I haven't posted in over a month!!!

Wow...

I got my last hour of observing my cooperating teacher today. I got a chance to talk to her about when I start student teaching and get the gist of what I"m going to be doing while there. I'm excited... she's going to start me right away with a class of my own! Don't know which grade yet, it's going to be elementary, and she's going to have me do warmups in the high school.

And we are for sure having TWO guys next semester!!! And hopefully more, she's trying desperately to get more. It'll be good working with the guys in sectionals though, I can get more of a feel of their voice. Problem is, she's having them sing tenor, but the one guy's voice is still changing right now and he can't get that high sometimes. And the other guy's voice I guess is higher, and she doesn't want one guy on a part... that's why I'm hoping there are a few more guys, so one of them can sing bass and fill out this ensemble at least a little bit.

I can't wait until I start, this is the final test on what I'm going to do for the rest of my life... that's actually kind of scary

Copying Misty

Misty is all excited because she signed up for 5 classes. Here is MY class schedule next semester:

Supervised Teaching, Elementary: TBA
Supervised Teaching, Secondary: TBA

The end. 2 classes, 12 credits, and that's all she wrote. How about that? Granted, I'll be gone every day, so much of my money is going to be getting gas. The miles are gonna rack up on my car. I'm just about to hit 80,000 miles on my car, by the time student teaching is done I wouldn't be surprised I would have driven up to 85,000 or even 90,000.

OK the end.

I am stupid

How is that for a subject heading?

But I am. I skipped practicum today, and this time was becuase I forgot. Not because I went out the night before, like last week. I COMPLETELY forgot, I have no idea how. Forbes wasn't too happy with me... that's all I'll say about that.

I went to Moweaqua on Tuesday for a LONG time. Like all day almost. And observed. I finally got to observe the high school, so that was cool.

OK that's all I'll write for now, I have work in a bit and I ahve to get ready.... my room is such a mess right now, I need to do laundry....... asdfgjlasdjfgalksdgjlkasdjglkasdjglkjsdalgf life is hard

All righty

So Monday and Friday we had practicum in Maroa. I taught on Monday, and it was seriously not my best day. It has taken me this long to get back on my sleep schedule after Fall break, i'm just now back on it, but then I wasn't. I hadn't prepared at all. And it isn't all my fault, because we hadn't been there so long I had no idea how far they were, so I didn't know what to work on or how much to. It was kind of awkward doing so. But, what can you do. Friday I didn't teach so it didn't matter that much. Monday we get new music since their concert is on Tuesday! So I'm excited for that. Finally new music.

Tuesday I was going to go to observe my cooperating teacher. But I didn't. I woke up early, and I just was like "I can't do this today". I gave the excuse that I overslept my alarm, and I did to an extent; I woke up at 6:30, and then was like "No I can't do this, I have a sinus headache again, and I'm just so tired" so I went back to bed and woke up at like 9. It won't happen again, and I can afford a day's rest.

That's it for this week. Tune in next week for more!

Finally, and update.

Well, not really... I'll be updating tomorrow after I get back from observing my cooperating teacher.

Ahhh

I'm finding more and more lately that I just want to get out of here and start student teaching. I mean, I'm sick of going to classes. The only classes I really enjoy this semester are Choir (duh), Tudor Voices (duh again), Practicum (which is like pre-student teaching), and Form and Analysis (because I'm a theory geek). I don't want to do the ethno project, exceptional child is at NIGHT for 2 1/2 hours... ah well. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... me getting a good job with good pay and great benefits.

And a wife.

Millikin has done it to me again...

So yeah. I have 39 observation hours recorded in the school of education. I should have like 89. We need 100 to student teach. I have 20 coming for observation for student teaching, and more from practicum, but it still would be nice to have those other hours on there... grrr.....

My latest rounds with the kids

So yeah I haven't posted since last week and for that I apologize.

Last Friday I taught the kids. I started and did warmups. And then I taught de gospel train. It went OK. Dr. Forbes said my warmups were better than my teaching, because all I taught were dynamics. And I'm thinking "woah... i didn't even realize I was doing that. I didn't want to do that!" But the warm ups went really well. I'm glad I did them, because now they like me. :) It's sort of funny, because one of Leslie's kids (Leslie teaches Sunday School at church and she's awesome) is in the choir, and she came up to me after church on Sunday and said "Good job Friday." i'm thinking she meant the Concertino, which is where all Millikin Choirs except UChoir sing. And I'm like, "Thank you, but I didn't sing." and she meant teaching. So that was cool.

So on Monday, I taught again, this time with Loch Lomond. Last time I heard them sing it, the tenor part was completely wrong, so I tried to get them to sing the right part. Turns out this time they knew their part pretty well. So I tried to bring thru emotion and teach them proper diction... Dr. Forbes liked my passion. The kids liked it too. But I had to focus a bit more... everything Forbes wrote about me was negative except for the passion thing, so that kinda sucked. But the postive thing was positive! That's one more positive thing I usually get... I used to get 0. Now I usually get 1 or maybe 2. So I'm climbing up there in the teaching ladder.

I don't teach until probably next Friday, although I think I am going to Moweaqua sometime next week as well. So I'll post sometime next week.

Two down, One to go

So here are my teaching experiences for the last two days.

MONDAY
Second time practicum went to Maroa-Forsyth. And it was interesting. The four of us (Cory, Molly, Wendy, and myself; Jarvs and Forbes didn't get there until a bit later) got there before the actual choir period, we got there for one of his other sessions where people not in the actual choir period work on choir music... don't ask, it's really stupid in my opinion, I figure if you have 105 people in a choir and 30 or so can't be in the choir because of class time conflicts, create a second choir. So we did that until that period got over and the choir came in. And we taught. It was Cory, Wendy, then Molly. And I tried helping the tenors... the one next to me kept asking "why is she doing that warm up?" and other stuff... and then one of them said they couldn't read bass clef. I don't care if you are a tenor or a bass or a soprano but everyone in music should be able to read bass clef. I teach on Friday when we go again. But now I got more of a sense of me knowing what I have to deal with and how to get these kids engaged... because they definately were not.

TUESDAY
I had my clock set for me to wake up at 6:15 this morning. Went to bed around midnight, thought ok I should be fine. Not the case. I slept thru my alarm and thank God my internal clock woke me up around 7:05... problem was I had to be at Moweaqua by 7:45. So I didn't even shower I just quick got dressed. I got there around 7:50. I went as fast as I could without going so fast the cops would pull me over. But I got there. And for the next 3 hours I proceeded to observe and interact with 5th, 4th, 2nd, and 1st graders. So that was interesting, yet fun. I'll be doing that a few more times. Moment of the day: the kid sitting next to me in the circle said "My brother is 13 and he's as tall as you!" Yeah. Fun. He then proceeded to tell me his cousin was 13 and was shorter than him... anyways, the teacher told me a bit about the high school choir and get this... they have all girls except for ONE GUY. One guy in the choir. Whoo. I guess 2nd semester they are getting one more... She also wants me to accompany. So my piano skills will be worked to the bone. I better start practicing again.

I don't know, I work really well with elementary children. Because I sure interacted with them today. It was fun. But at this point I still want to conduct high school or something. Conducting is my favorite part. You can't do that with elementary children. I also love complex high school music. But I still don't know yet. I've said always, student teaching will decide what grade I teach. That decision is inching ever closer...

Here we go....

So in order for me to student teach, I have to have 20 hours of observation at the location where I student teach. So I called music teacher at Moweaqua, where I am student teaching. She wants me there on Tuesday at 7:45 AM. Takes me 20 minutes to get there so I'm going to leave at 7:15 at the latest, more likely earlier in case I get lost or take a wrong turn or something which probably won't happen but still I'd rather leave a little window of time just in case. Which means I have to get up at like 6:30 or earlier. Probably more like 6.

Guess I better get used to it.

Branching off of that, she wantys me to look older than the kids, so she wants me to wear a tie and stuff. It probaly won't mattert too much with the elementary kids, but when I student teach high school... that's the whole thing with the goatee. So, I'm considering waiting until I get back here from Christmas.... Let it grow over Christmas vacation and take it from there, instead of waiting a week. These things take time and these things don't look good after a week.

In other news, I got the job at Blockbuster! So I got some extra income to pay off next semester and stuff. Very happy am I.