Monday, January 28, 2008
Thanks very much for visiting me here. With the new home, new husband, and new job I figure it's time for a new webpage as well. It will more than likely be the same kind of stuff--stories of ridiculous orchestra students, travels, and family tales of the past--with the addition of domestic life and adventures in Florida.
Hope you'll join me in Tampa Bay.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
I cannot succinctly "sum up" the last five weeks and do it justice. But I'll try.
I finished the school year with a bang. There were lots of concerts, I gave exams, averaged some grades, and washed my hands of the whole thing. The Whole Thing...I quit my job. To be fair, I had already resigned back in April, but it didn't really hit home until I was loading up floppy disks with information for The New Teacher. When I finally locked my office for the last time and turned in my keys, it was really over.
And then we did it all over again, this time at my little white house in Spartanburg. My parents were never more awesome than they were that night...along with me and my fiance, Mom and Dad were spending their 32nd wedding anniversary scrubbing the grout in my bathtub, dusting my ceiling fans, and loading a U-Haul. I hope someday I can repay them for all the amazing things they have done to help me throughout my life. This week they're out in Portland visiting my sister; I hope she shows them a good time and remembers how good we have it.
June 1st was the official beginning of The New Chapter In Our Lives. I moved to St. Petersburg, Florida and I am now living with my fella. I am very happy to report that after a scant month I love him more now than I did before I got here. For a year and a half we lived apart--me in SC and him in Cincinnati when he wasn't on the road for work--and it was quite a test. A test we passed, but enough's enough and I'm so glad that period is over. So much mundane stuff you take for granted, like riding together in a car, walking through Target, or sharing a pizza, becomes so valuable and special when you haven't had the chance to experience it whenever you want. I think we both realize we're lucky to have any time together at all, so when we do we're going to make it count. If we remember that for the next 50 years we're going to have a fantastic life together...
The wedding's in December and plans are moving along steadily. No dress yet, but a lot of the other biggies have been taken care of. When I'm not working on that stuff, most of my spare time has been spent staring at my computer screen, trying to get an orchestra teaching job to materialize. There (finally) seems to be movement in the right direction, but I'm impatient and it ticks me off that I've been working on this for six months and I still have no contract. Living by the old "A watched pot never boils" philosophy, I'm gonna head up to Boston next week to see some family and catch the festivities for The Fourth. Hopefully I'll return to Florida and there will suddenly be a bounty of teaching vacancies. If not, I suppose I'll just send out some more resumes and go drown my sorrows in some salt water. Or a mojito. I guess life ain't really that bad.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
A little girl, probably about 6, was walking with her mom at the Gaffney outlet mall earlier today...
Mom: Let's go into "Coach" just for fun.
Kid: Why is that fun, Mama?
Mom: It's a very fancy store, sweet pea.
Kid: Is it a store for rich people?
Mom: Well some of their items are very expensive, yes.
Kid: Then what will we do there?
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Going to the Chapel
While planning my own wedding, I find myself flashing back to lots of the old weddings I’ve attended, either as a guest or as a musician.
A few stand out:
Aside from trying to put together the biggest pieces of the wedding puzzle, I’ve been busy with the spring concert season and I’ve begun the painful process of packing up my house. Not sure what makes me saddest: leaving my parents and my friends, leaving a job that I am very good at in a state where I have great contacts and a good reputation, or going through all my stuff and realizing I am the biggest slob who ever lived. I can’t believe some of the things I’ve dragged with me from home to home for the last 4, 7, 9, even 13 years. (Hell, 13, who am I kidding, I just found my National Beta Club membership card from 8th grade.) So this is a tedious job and I’m glad I started now rather than wait until school is out; it will take me a full month just to sort through my magazines. At which point I can then start sifting through my classroom. Ugggh.
Friday, March 16, 2007
This afternoon's announcement might be my favorite ever: "Teachers, if there's anyone in the building interested in doing anything with a turkey carcass, please see me as soon as possible. Thank you."
I know it's been nearly a week, but I still STILL haven't gotten used to the time change. It's just one measly little hour--you'd think I could snap this in a day--but my schedule's got a hold on me and now I find myself giddy at 10:30 each night and comatose at 6 each morning. I normally wake up before my alarm ever goes off, but this week I have slept right through my 5:30 alarm time and I jump up with a start at almost exactly 6:30 each day. Hopefully this weekend I can knock my body back into its old routine (just in time to screw it up again next week...).
Next week I turn 30. I don't face it with the same dread that some others do--in a lot of ways, I feel very confident about where I'm headed, despite the whole soon-to-be-unemployed thing. However, I have definitely started to see real signs of aging--things that will never go back to the way they used to be--and that makes me a little sad. And as if I weren't already going to feel a little older, I guarantee you I'll be extra-crippled and rickety after spending a night on a bus. I've been recruited (forced) to go to Disney next week with our high school symphony orchestra. I'm a fun-loving girl and generally I love Disney World, but I've always seen it as the awesome place my parents took us when we were kids or I've envisioned it as a magical vacation I'll take someday with my husband and our children. I have certainly never pictured going for 3 days with several coworkers I don't respect and a pile of students I no longer teach. Nevertheless, Wednesday night we depart at 11 PM!!!, "sleep" a restful night on the bus, arrive at 9 AM and, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we head straight into the park. I can only hope that Disney is commercial-minded enough to have a few Starbucks planted strategically in their park.
Aside from the 4 day jaunt to Orlando, work is ordinary--just the usual March rush. We have our statewide contest in about 2 weeks (pretty responsible for me to miss two days of school traipsing around with Mickey and Goofy, no?) and then we will be blessed with our long-awaited spring break. I should probably stay home and begin packing for the big move to Florida, but I have instead chosen to travel a little with my fiance and catch up with him, and maybe, just maybe make some wedding plans. We have been engaged nearly 3 months and up to this point have booked......drumroll please.......NOTHING. I believe that may be one for the record books (with the exception of those goofballs who get "engaged" their second year of college with sketchy plans that they'll marry after they graduate, but those people don't count). We're way too chill about all this; we could certainly never make it to one of those elaborate TV wedding shows, with the possible exception of The Today Show. And that's only because we would just hang out in New York City and let everyone else vote on stuff and plan the whole thing for us. We love each other very much and we really, truly are excited about having a life together. But quite frankly, we got shit ta do right now, and in the long run I for one would rather invest the money in a great honeymoon and a house. And a kickass cake.
One thing is certain: this man will not be our minister. Or our DJ.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
I'm pleased to see Black History month coming to an end. Now don't get your backs up; I don't mean this as an anti-Black History statement. It's just that schools sometimes go a little overboard trying to be politically correct(Any loyal Simpsons fan can tell you, Principal Skinner is funny because he's real.). I'm excited because this means no more assemblies for which my little darlings have to dutifully prepare Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. More importantly, it means no more daily Black History Month Trivia. Every morning some kid gets on the PA and I swear he has marbles in his mouth. He is supposed to read a little nugget of historical information followed by a trivia question about said nugget. Kids put the answer in a box at lunch and someone gets a candy bar. (I had to laugh when one of my students suggested that it would have to be Special Dark.) It's a nice idea, and if the mini-lessons were interesting, or even audible, it would be okay. But you can rarely tell what this kid's saying, and when you can it's usually something that all 9th graders already know. "Eli Whitney. Duh." Tiresome.
But not to worry. I'll be spicing things up next month with Music in Our Schools Month trivia. "Good morning everyone! Which popular vocalist showed everyone her naked crotch earlier this year? Put your answers in the box. Tee hee hee, box, tee hee."
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
- The wedding? We're working on it. It has actually gotten to the point where it's fun. It certainly helps when your better half is cooperative and positive about the whole thing, rather than a) completely apathetic and unwilling to help out, or b) the latest in a long line of frat boys and debutantes who expects everything to be "just so." We are both chill people with relatively chill families who just want some good food, some good beers, and a lot of laughter and joy. I'm heading down to Florida this weekend to compare our options and hopefully we'll narrow things down and make some decisions.
- It snowed a few weeks ago. It was awesome for about 3 hours. I woke up earlier than normal school time to check the weather, crossing my fingers for a 2 hour delay. Never in my wildest dreams did I guess that we'd miss an entire day and then have a delay on top of it the next morning. I ate a relaxing breakfast, put on my hiking boots and went outside and played for a while. Like I said, it was great for a while, but by the time I got home the cottony snow had turned to icy rain and I looked like an angry wet cat. I spent the rest of the day catching up on some reading and drinking way too much cranberry tea.
- I was in Charleston this weekend. I love Charleston for many reasons, most of them obvious but some of them are for pure nostalgia. Charleston's about 90 minutes from USC, and we thought nothing of packing up a cooler and driving down for the day during college. I miss that terrible smell that can only belong to a paper mill. I miss driving down 17, trying to decide what kind of seafood I'm going to order when we get to Shem Creek. And I miss laughing with my buddies, looking over every bridge with wonder, feeling incredibly free like we've escaped to another country rather than just a different zip code.
- While I was gone to our annual conference, it meant I had a sub covering my classes for two days. Apparently one of my young lads felt the need to grab his crotch and, well, tell the sub about it. She sent him to the office, and I guess parent contact was made. I returned from a nice motivational conference to an email that concluded with the following:
"...We're sorry for any trouble he may have caused you or your substitute. I assure you we will punish him severely. We are taking him to the symphony this weekend."
A note to all you current and future parents out there...this is not the way to show a teacher you support them, by "punishing" them with the subject you teach. "You talked during math class, Johnny? FINE! You're gonna sit right here at the kitchen table and do math for 3 hours. THEN you'll like math, won'tcha?"
If you need me, I'll be chewing on tinfoil and putting my head in the microwave.
