You know, I'm all about task commitment. Once I sign on to do something, I really want to see it through. So even though I'm going off-topic from today's NaBloPoMo prompt, I have to give it a teensy bit of attention.
"What is the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of your father?"
Again, I'm not linear enough to think of just one impression. It took many words and photos to write my tribute to him a few years ago. So many images, so many descriptions. If I had to pick one word, it'd be "missed." But like I said, I really picture a word cloud more than just one word. And that conglomeration of words also includes "doting."
Daddy doted on me, his only child, to a ridiculous extent. And that included being a dedicated band parent.
Which brings me to the real focus tonight: RYAN! How very strange to be the one in the stands cheering on my high schooler! See these people? They're high school students. You know, like the ones I teach. AND MY SON IS ONE OF THEM! (Hold me while I sob.)
Tonight was the high school band's performance to culminate the end of June camp. From Tuesday through today, Ryan and the rest of the band have been working on marching fundamentals as well as music they'll need to know this fall.
In addition to seeing and hearing what Ryan et al. have been working on this week, we also got to see the training the color guard, pit and battery have done.
We were impressed with the precision. (And how about that umbrella to shield the audio engineer? I'm thinking an umbrella in the Heritage sound booth might not be such a bad idea. If something goes wrong, I could protect myself from all those glaring faces...)
The performance was wrapped up with the alma mater, fight song and "Johnny B. Goode," a perennial favorite at the school.
Then, after the band director spoke to the group as a whole, the kids huddled up with others in their sections. Here's the trumpet huddle: Ryan is exhausted after spending his first week of summer marching in the heat and playing brand new and more difficult music. But he survived! We're so proud to see the results of this hard work, even at this early stage!
Today's NaBloPoMo prompt is to define "freedom." This time of year, that should be an easy one. It's summer, and summer is synonymous with freedom for students and teachers, right? RIGHT?
So far, my summer "freedom" has consisted of getting a new transmission for our van (which means having to share a car), running Ryan to and from band camp at his new high school (with Brett's help), attending a day-long technology class, and putting in volunteer hours in the church sound booth (both for Wednesday night praise team practice and a preschool graduation tonight). And yes, I would like some cheese with my whine.
But if I weren't free from my day job, all of the above would've been much more challenging. What's more—I must remind myself—all of these encumbrances were self-chosen. I have chosen to live without the extra car payment a more reliable van would necessitate. I most definitely chose to be a mom, and on top of that, signed on to be a band parent. Nobody's forcing me to be one of my campus's technology integrators, and no one has ever put a gun to my head to make me work in the booth (although it might've gotten ugly if I'd skipped out on the preschool thing tonight).
So maybe I'm saying that freedom isn't being able to do whatever whenever, but it IS the ability to choose when and how I give up my precious time, energy and cold, hard cash.
And for the freedom to take on these tasks, I'm thankful for summer!
I could also get into the many freedoms our country affords us, or I could talk about the ultimate freedom we find in Christ, but it's late, so I stick to my superficial summer talk.
And I'll add this because if I pass on this little ear worm, maybe it'll wiggle its way right out of my brain:
Today's prompt sent me harkening back to junior English and an old French reader before throwing me into an all-out tizzy. But we'll get to the panic attack in a moment.
NaBloPoMo's prompt for today: "What's your favorite poem? (And if you don't have one, why?)"
Sheesh! It's completely unreasonable to expect an English teacher to have just one fave, so I'm listing three here. Keep in mind, I immediately excluded my favorite poetry to teach (Shakespeare's sonnets 29, 116 and 130—my students "get" those and appreciate the Bard's twists). Still, it was hard to narrow my list down to three. (But no, that's not what gave me palpitations earlier...)
To begin with, I must admit that for a free-verse lover, I just adore the rhythm and rhyme of Poe's "Annabel Lee." Yes, it glorifies underage romance, but how can I not love this:
And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
Dissever. Now THAT'S a great word.
Another of my favorites is "Élévation" by Charles Baudelaire. It comes from Voix du Siècle, one of my French anthologies from college, one of the few non-journalism college books I still own.
(Yeah, buddy. Ten bucks from Wallace's, the late, great and greatly missed bookstore that was on the Drag before the Co-op took over the space.)
I'm ashamed to admit that my French is très rusty, but this little poem still brings me great comfort. Back in the day, I read and reread this "fantasy of levitation" (as the editor describes it) to soothe my frazzled nerves. The language is melodic, and it's one of the first French pieces I ever read that I could appreciate without translating. Here's a sample:
Au-dessus des étangs, au-dessus des vallées, Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers, Par delà le soleil, par delà les éthers, Par delà les confins des sphères étoilées...
(The complete poem and several translations are here.)
Now that my Longhorn Library™ (a.k.a. Tacky Texas Room™) is in order, I was able to locate my tattered French book quickly, but it was the book I couldn't find that bought me a ticket on the crazy train.
Some of the poems that mean the most to me were written by Ed Madden, a college friend. These verses were written during a monumental time in my life, and the friendships I made during those few years are still precious to me. But even if I removed my sentimental attachment, I'd still love these works. As a grad student, Ed published a collection of his poetry, and he gave me a copy. In it I tucked a few of his other poems—stapled pages from his dot-matrix printer.
But late last night, when I first saw today's poetry prompt and wanted to find a certain poem, I COULDN'T FIND ED'S BOOK. When I was unpacking the eleventy billion boxes of books and keepsakes to load my new shelves, I had seen it, but now that I needed it, it was MIA. I scoured the bookcases, but I ended up going to bed, troubled that this precious volume was gone forever.
Today when I returned home from my technology class, my first order of business was to find that darn book. I told Brett there's no way I would've knowingly thrown it away, but what if it had been mixed up with other papers to be recycled? In spite of the heat, I ventured into the garage, re-opening boxes, double-checking. And I kept going back to the bookcases. It just HAD to be there.
And it was. Stuck between two college-era photo albums.
Ever read the parable of the lost coin? I didn't exactly invite my neighbors over to party, but I was JUBILANT.
So why did I want to find this booklet so badly? The poem that came to mind when I first saw the prompt was "Wooden bridge, Cache River, on Algoa Road." It was written after a 1991 spring break visit to Ed's boyhood home. Five of us made a pilgrimage to Graceland, and on our way, we spent a day or two with Ed's mom and dad in rural Arkansas. Our family's planning to drop by the King's abode this summer, so that trip from 19 years ago has been on my mind lately.
This poem describes a particular evening when we walked out to this old bridge. One of us noticed the poignancy of that setting and suggested Ed write a poem about it. So he did.
Here's an excerpt:
At a pause in the stream, five cypress trees creak in the wind, leaning like friends on an old bridge from where we watch them, dropping our feet over the edge, over nothing it seems, the grey brown river dark and quiet in the twilight.
The poem works on its own, but added to my personal recollection of that evening, it's a treasured keepsake, one that I'm grateful to have safely tucked away in my library.
(By the way, Ed's quite the accomplished poet! Check this out for a sample of his more recent work:)
It's summer. And it's not just summer, it's the very beginning of summer. Therefore, I'm feeling like I have all the time in the world (as if!) and that I can take on any project I'd like (bwa ha ha!). Nevermind that we have music camp (KidSONG, if you will) next week, band camp, church camp (x2), flute camp, VBS, and two weeks traipsing to D.C. and back. Oh, and a technology workshop tomorrow and a preschool program to cover Thursday night. Can't forget that.
ANYWAY, I'm ambitious—probably foolishly so. That's why I'm hoping to get back on the blogging bandwagon by taking on the NaBloPoMo challenge to post every day this month. When I heard the NaBloPoMo website will be offering prompts each day, well, THAT was a challenge I had to accept.
Today's task (besides back-blogging the entire month of May so I could begin fresh with up-to-date posts): When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
My answer: doctor (but then I realized how much I hate needles and blood), astronaut (I was obsessed with the first space shuttle mission, even had the T-shirt), lawyer (too bad I'm so nonconfrontational), journalist (print reporter), and teacher.
My mom was an extraordinary teacher, so in some ways, I feel like I was destined to teach. But in other ways, it seems like I resisted a career in education because that's what my mom was already doing. In any case, I'm thankful to have found a career that lets me mold and shape young people so that I can see them go from timid sophomores to this:I still wish I could've found my way into space, but putting kids on their own paths to success has its own rewards!
The HI Express "after" shots were taken during our Memorial Day Weekend get-away. The kids had been wanting to return to our former home for a while, so we figured this holiday was as good a time as any. It was camping, Dub-style: indoor pool, air-conditioning, board games, soft beds. Works for us!
For the record, here are the kids on our new porch on the actual last day of school, May 28: And here's how the kids feel about being finished with this school year:Happy, happy summer!
Another Saturday, another early morning! Katie and I got up, got dressed, and hit the road for Denton for the Texas Flute Festival. After tackling the long lines at the registration table, we found the band hall for the beginning flute choir rehearsal.
There Katie joined a roomful of other beginning flutists to learn a piece the choir performed after 45 minutes of rehearsal.
It was a great experience, but Katie surely got tired of standing all that time!
After perusing the vendors' displays (and trying out a bass flute—cool!), Katie joined two of her classmates for their ensemble performance.
They did a great job with "Tomorrow"!
Later on, Katie played her solo for an appreciative judge. Then we were off to another flute choir concert, this time by Flutissimo! (and yes, the exclamation point is part of the group's name).
The concert was called "All in the Family" and featured the different instruments in the flute family. We heard piccolos, alto flutes and bass flutes during the performance.
It was cool to see them all in action, and it was a great way to wrap up our day!
This was the perfect Friday. In fact, it was so incredible, I posted this as my Facebook status: Because Senior Project presentations were over, my students were in an incredible mood. But as relieved as they were, they were also grateful. I can't remember the last time I had so many students express their thanks, and it was humbling. I even received a note (you know, one of those read-in-case-of-bad-days notes) from a sweet student, and her words really touched me. The whole day was just a string of feel-good moments with my students, and it truly reminded me why this teaching thing is not just a job but a calling.
So to top of my fantastic day at work, we had our Friday Family Night dinner at Los Molcajetes and then took a walk.
And what a beautiful night it was for a walk!
Brett and the kids showed me a section of the park I'd never seen.
So nice to wrap up such a wonderful day with my favorite people in the world!
The NRMS band's spring concert was outstanding. Ryan's band did a great job with its three pieces. And we were excited that we could see Ryan's forehead through most of the performance!
Another highlight of the concert was when Mr. Smith called the other band director, Mrs. Shadman, at home. She had just given birth to her little boy, so she had a good excuse for not making it to the concert! On speakerphone, however, we got to hear from her. I especially loved it when Mr. Smith's asked her a question: "Is it hard to have a baby?" Her response: "Not as hard as teaching middle school!"
But the best part of the night was when Mr. Smith announced the outstanding players for the symphonic band. The outstanding brass player for 2009-2010?
Ryan Weiss! (applause, cheers, much rejoicing)
Afterward, we celebrated at—you guessed it—McDonalds!
On this busy Saturday, we began our day at a local high school for a district solo contest. Both kids did great jobs on their pieces, receiving I's.
Afterwards, we ran home to change clothes and then headed to Six Flags! It was our first trip of the 2010 season.
After about a 45-minute wait, we finally got our turn on the Titan. The weather was overcast so we thought the park might not be too crowded, but Six Flags was hosting a TON of school choirs and bands that day. Oh, well. It was strange to see the Giant in mid-renovation!
Our Mother's Day tradition is pretty atypical. Instead of looking for a nice restaurant, we try to find the least likely place other families would take their moms. After years of searching for the elusive deserted Mother's Day eatery, I think we've found a winner.
A&W/Long John Silver's! For much of our visit, we had the restaurant to ourselves. A few men came in later, but otherwise, there was no waiting, no crowds, no fuss, no muss. And the kids got their burgers while we dined on grilled salmon!
Memaw didn't mind the restaurant choice one bit. And she loved her gift
and enjoyed reading her cards.
We even got one of the round corner booths. Hooray for togetherness!
Later that afternoon we went to Nana and Papa's house to give Nana her gift and cards.
And I was treated to flowers and candy: SWEET! It was a great Mother's Day in the midst of a busy May.
We were up and at 'em early for a Saturday, but it was for a good cause. Katie and the rest of the NRMS beginner band competed in the Beach Within Reach contest at early-30.
This was her band's only spring concert, so we didn't dare miss it!
It's crazy to think that these kids have been playing for less than a year!
We're so proud of our flutist!
After the concert, she and most of the other band kids were off to Hurricane Harbor for a chilly day of fun and (a tiny bit of) sun.
I should've anticipated Katie's question. For at least six years, we have gone out for ice cream after auditions for our church's children's musical. This year was different, though, because Ryan's too old to participate. Still, since this was Katie's last time to audition, we didn't want to drop our tradition just yet.
The delicious ice cream was the perfect reward for our stellar soloist!
Daddy doted on me, his only child, to a ridiculous extent. And that included being a dedicated band parent.
See these people? They're high school students. You know, like the ones I teach. AND MY SON IS ONE OF THEM! (Hold me while I sob.)
In addition to seeing and hearing what Ryan et al. have been working on this week, we also got to see the training the color guard, pit and battery have done.
We were impressed with the precision.
(And how about that umbrella to shield the audio engineer? I'm thinking an umbrella in the Heritage sound booth might not be such a bad idea. If something goes wrong, I could protect myself from all those glaring faces...)
The performance was wrapped up with the alma mater, fight song and "Johnny B. Goode," a perennial favorite at the school.
Then, after the band director spoke to the group as a whole, the kids huddled up with others in their sections. Here's the trumpet huddle:
Ryan is exhausted after spending his first week of summer marching in the heat and playing brand new and more difficult music. But he survived! We're so proud to see the results of this hard work, even at this early stage!
