"Jaws was never my scene and I don't like Star Wars."**

Today was better than yesterday. Much better. It's funny, yesterday I went in excited to get going, and it was a terrible day. Today I went in almost dreading it, yet grimly determined to get through, and it turned out fine.

There were a few hours I wanted to carve out my ovaries with a spoon (to which I'm sure many of you can relate), but by the time lunch was halfway done, I was perfectly fine. Maybe it's because fourth hour was super awesome today in sight-reading while third hour fell on their faces. Those seventh grade boys are insanely squirrelly, but when they go for it, they sound fantastic. Lizzy asked them at one point to sing like they were twenty, and their sound became so much rounder and fuller that I turned around from the reading I was doing in my little corner.

My lesson with first hour on form went okay. My main objective was allowing them to experience different forms in music, and I guided them through the form of some songs. Before they left this class at the end of the day (because it was unclear if I would be teaching again tomorrow), I wanted them to at least hear different forms from what they hear every day. By the end of my half of class tomorrow, one goal is for them to be able to identify all the sections in Queen's "Bicycle Race," by performing specific actions for each section. If I had another day, we would compose contrasting phrases and put them together into different forms to perform. For now, however, we're arranging and rearranging melody cards we've been using in class.

In case you're wondering, "Bicycle Race" is in rondo form: ABACADBA.

And maybe a tertiary goal of mine is to get "Bicycle Race" stuck in all the sixth graders heads for the rest of the day. [insert evil cackle here]

**I in fact adore Jaws and really enjoy Star Wars...at least the film that was out when this song was released

Back to the grindstone

First day back after mid-winter break, which was super refreshing. I walked in with a fresh outlook, ready for a new week of rehearsals to start. I walked in and it all took a nosedive.

All of the classrooms at Longbourn are getting Smart Boards, whether they need them or not. Because of fallen-through promises from the tech people, the setup of the choir room is now completely discombobulated. It's very stressful for Lizzy and all day she was really tense and pissed off, to use her own terms. Of course, much of it has to do with the fact that festival is coming up and there's still lots of prep to do, and none of the technology is useful/fully operational the way the tech people have it set up now. (Part of it is because we got a used smart board so that someone else could get a new one, and one of our cords got lost somewhere in that process.)

Right, not going to go all into the tech issue. Basically, though, I feel completely out on a limb now. I hardly even talked to Lizzy today because she was so upset and when she's like that, I can't say anything that will help.

I think I've made the decision to just man up and do what I need to do, and not let anyone's attitude influence me. I could handle the kids because at the end of the day, Lizzy was there to encourage me. Today the kids were great, and Lizzy was the one driving me crazy.

Thankfully, I was able to fake it for the students when I did warm-ups with all the choirs, and it went well. I spent most of the day reading and copying articles on choral methods, browsing some of Lizzy's books for ideas for sixth grade, and reading some material on boys' changing voices.

I think prayer and determination will see me through this. And I'm sure things will start to even out after festival.

From my weekly journals for seminar class

Journal #5: Unit challenges

I have this next week off from school for mid-winter break, and Lizzy advised me to completely take a break for most of it, but to start getting my brain back in gear towards the end of it. That makes sense, so I don’t get overwhelmed. Specifically she asked me to start thinking about what I want to do with the next mini-elective of sixth graders, because she’s completely handing them over to me while she finishes preparing the choirs for festival.

For me, this is an incredibly daunting task. No, I don’t think daunting even covers it. I know that this week I’ll be reading up on Wong’s The First Days of School and reviewing my notes from this last mini-elective. The one relief is that the class is only 4.5 weeks, and I’ve been through one-and-a-half of these mini-electives with Lizzy so far. My class starts on Thursday, March 1, so I have a few days when I get back to get things in order.

She’s giving me free rein over what concepts and material I cover. I could make this a completely different class from what she normally teaches, and she would be okay with it as long as I do it well. I’m definitely going to go back and sift through my secondary general music resources and see what I can bring to the table.

Something that’s daunting but also something I’m looking forward to is planning the unit as a whole. It will give me a chance to look at the big picture, and then divide it into smaller chunks. I won’t be freaking out so much about planning lessons from scratch for every day, because I’ll have some larger goals to fall back on that I am in control of.

My main challenges in this unit are going to be classroom management and establishing clear objectives. Right from moment one of day one I have to be on the ball and know exactly how I’m running my classroom. My goal is to remember that I am in authority over these students, and that I have to take exactly none of their crap. I also need to remember that in order to be truly successful, I need to have my stern side balanced with lightness. This is easy for me to forget, but I may actually plan some humor/lightness into my lesson plans so I remember to include it!

I do have some basic goals I want the class to achieve: finding their singing voices, moving to the beat, showing understanding rhythmic concepts, showing understanding of melodic concepts like solfege and steps/skips, and something new I want to bring to the unit, at least a minor understanding of how music works in other cultures.

I’d like to do something like “World Music Fridays,” [which I totally did not steal from music history at CMU] where we listen to some type of non-Western music, look at its cultural context, and compare it to our own music and culture. I’d like to have some kind of activity in there other than just show and tell lecture-type stuff from me, so that’s something I’ll have to think about and do a bit of research on.

I’m looking forward to putting together this unit (especially in a situation where I will receive constructive feedback on a daily basis), I’m just nervous about what the class will be like. Will they be well-behaved? Will they be disrespectful? Will they be willing to put themselves out there for the music? I guess I’ll have to wait and see, and adapt.

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Author's note: A couple of weeks ago in a journal for seminar, I used the phrase "free rein" and wanted to check that it was not, in fact, "free reign." This led me on an internet quest for about an hour, after which I decided that even though "free rein" is correct (derived from an equestrian phrase), I prefer the spelling of "reign." Oh well.

Goldfish

Yesterday with fourth hour actually went quite well, but today was rough once again. My energy yesterday was great, even though my voice was shot. I put forth energy and they gave it right back.

Today, apparently my energy said, "We have to get through this, kill me now."

I felt absolutely terrible after fourth hour, like Lizzy was just super disappointed in me, like I was ruining their chances at festival, just awful. I was a mess until partway through fifth hour, when I really was able to think back to yesterday meeting with my therapist.

"Make yourself thankful for the ridiculous circumstances that don't happen," was along the lines of what she said. Essentially, the students aren't dead, so it's a success. And middle schoolers have 30-second memories, so by tomorrow they won't care what I did today.

"They're basically goldfish," I decided, and really decided to make that my frame of mind if I completely crash and burn. "They've got 30-second memories, and by the end of the day it's a miracle that they're even alive."

It's been a really rough week in general, just seeing the messed up administration, and dealing with criticism. For me, it's hard to remember that I am still just a student, that it's okay for me to not be perfect and to make mistakes. It's especially difficult to be okay with that when we've got festival coming up, so I'm glad Lizzy and I were able to talk about that today.

My mom had lunch with her art teacher friend from one of her former schools. When my mom told her about my rough week and how personally I've been taking these struggles, she said, "Someone really needs to tell her that student teaching is awful and she can't base her decision to teach on that. You need to teach at least two years before you can decide that."

It's a tremendous weight off my shoulders to hear that. I heaved a sigh of relief when I knew that it is actually okay to really struggle during student teaching. So many people have gone through awful student teaching experiences and come out fine on the other end, so I think it's going to be okay.

So on my last day of classes before our week-long mid-winter break, I just need to remember that they are goldfish, and it will be a success if they are still alive at the end of the day. Here we go.

Rocky V-Day

It's been an up and down sort of day. I don't really want to relive it.

Up: Woke up and watched this video before leaving for the middle school.

Down: Took 45 minutes to get to school because of snow.

Up: Dressed really cute and got compliments on my outfit. Felt like such a teacher with my flowy cardigan and white blouse.

Up: Got a valentine and a candy from one girl in third hour, and another from a girl in sixth.

Down, down, WAY down: Fourth hour was abysmal. Discipline problems galore, and I was teaching the whole class all hour and couldn't figure out how to handle it without letting them see me think through it. Cried during lunch because I was so torn up about it.

Up: Figured out with Lizzy that tomorrow I am going to lay down the law during fourth hour. That is the primary objective tomorrow, and any musical learning will be almost secondary. I need to establish that I mean business.

Up: Had an assembly halfway through fifth hour.

Up: Sixth hour was really great for Lizzy today; it was wonderful to watch.

Up: Worked on lesson planning strategies with Lizzy after school today and got some ideas for first hour tomorrow.

Down: Had to go home, and couldn't work on lesson plan right away. Couldn't get my mind off of it until we sat down to dinner.

Up: Got to talk to Monica on my way home from school! :)

Up: Went to Richter's Chalet in Dearborn for dinner with my parents, grandmother, sister, and her husband and baby!

Down: Realized that, oh crap, there are university student observers coming in tomorrow to the school, and that if they are there during fourth hour, I absolutely WOULD NOT feel comfortable establishing my authoritah in front of them. Also I'm not who they came to see. Freaked out and called/texted/emailed Lizzy about it.

Up: While alone at the house, worked on my first hour lesson plan for an hour and a half, just working and reworking sections of it. It was really awesome and productive. I felt much better about tomorrow once I started it.

Up: Lizzy called me and confirmed that we will go lesson plan for fourth hour during planning period tomorrow, and that the observers are coming in for just third hour. She said she would never put me up for the full hour in front of them, especially during fourth hour. We chatted for a few minutes and all was well.

Up: Listened to most of the Red Wings game, which was awesome!!! 21 home wins! Huzzah!

Overall, the ups outweigh the downs, but some of those downs were pretty rough for a while there.

Tomorrow will be so much better. I'm so ruddy prepared for first hour, it's ridiculous.

Bring it on.

The twilight's last gleaming.

Today I woke up and didn't have a voice, so I didn't teach fourth hour. My day was spent listening with one half of my brain to the lessons Lizzy taught, and looking through octavos and writing up resource sheets on them with the other half of my brain. The day went by really quickly.

Lizzy took over for me in first hour as well, which was actually great because I got to see how she started melodic dictation with them. She started where I left off on Friday, having them dictate rhythms on their whiteboards and then hold them up. They were super into it: children will learn anything if you turn it into a game.

Next she sang through four beats using only "sol" and "mi," the two syllables they'd used in warm-ups. She wrote them out as: s| m| (except the stems were longer, obviously), with s| a decent ways above m|.

This blew my mind. "THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!" I wanted to scream with glee. I had planned on having them draw a staff and notate the pitches that way, but then they'd have had trouble erasing just the pitches, and it would have taken much longer.

They worked with those two syllables in different rhythms (with some rests thrown in there), and finally she added "do." At the end she sang "sol fa mi re do" on the syllable [bi] and asked them to write down just the syllables with no rhythm. A few students got it right away, and a few more got it after about 15 seconds. She then went through her process for dictating that.

- What did it start on? (sol)

- What did it end on? (do)

- Did it move in steps or skips? (steps)

- Therefore, it must be "sol fa mi re do."

A collective "Ohhhhhhhhhhh," went up from the room.

Also, it was nice to see the main "trouble" student of the class participating, and when he got things right, Lizzy made sure he knew and that the class knew. She even patted him on the back. He didn't try and distract the class or show an attitude after that. It was incredibly relieving.

For the first half of every class, Lizzy talked about Whitney Houston's career and her death. She talked about how Houston was a pioneer and a groundbreaker, and how there would be no Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera without her. She played some of Houston's music and the classes were duly impressed; they'd really only seen her as a washed-up addict (keep in mind they were born between 1999 and 2002).

Lizzy gave what she called a "mom talk" to each of her classes about drug use. The key point was that "Whitney never thought, 'When I grow up, I'm gonna be a drug addict.'" She also noted that even though Houston said, "crack is wack," it didn't take crack to kill her.

She played a few different songs for each class, but for every class she played the recording of Houston singing the National Anthem at SuperBowl XXV. When the boys asked who played that SuperBowl, she replied with, "No one remembers, and no one really cares. The only thing anyone really remembers about that game is Whitney singing the National Anthem. And that was twenty years ago. No one remembers who sang the National Anthem five years ago, but everyone remembers Whitney. That's how beautiful it was." I don't have to prattle on about how important it was, because you can read that pretty much anywhere on the internet.

I had never heard her rendition before this morning, when at least two radio stations were playing it on my way to school. It brought me to tears more than once. Especially after I found out from Lizzy what the context was. The USA had just sent troops over to Kuwait and entered the Gulf War, the first time troops had really done any fighting from the US since Vietnam. Patriotism was for the first time in decades at an all time high, and the whole atmosphere could be compared to what it was around 9/11.

Hearing that version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," seeing her emotion when performing it (even though she was lip-syncing, which is perfectly acceptable when singing in a stadium, especially since it was actually her voice), and knowing the history surrounding that moment, I can understand why the crowd went absolutely nuts. I mean insane. And why that was the only recording of the National Anthem to be in the Top 20 in the US.

I hope she's remembered for that, and not for the horrid path she took at such a young age. I mean, I was hardly even conscious in 1991, but for me that moment in the car this morning will stay in my memory forever.

Teacher Voice

Yesterday's talk with sixth hour seemed to be exactly what they needed. Even though they were super chatty, they sang quite well and worked their butts off. So here's hoping the chattiness diminishes next week and they keep it up.

I taught third hour for the whole time today, and it was EXHAUSTING. Though that was mostly because the entire time I was talking, I was talking loudly and right on my cords. By the end of class I could hardly sing any of the phrases, and the girls noticed. They sort of gave a look like, "Whoa, something's wrong." I couldn't speak very audibly at all by the time fourth hour rolled around. I kicked myself for not properly projecting. Next week I need to figure out my teacher voice, which doesn't involve yammering loudly in my usual register, but actually supporting.

Overall it's been an okay week. The good outweighed the bad, I got up in front of the students a lot, and found that I'm actually having an effect on students' lives.

It might be a bit soon to say, but I think this is what I want to do. Guess we'll see how the rest of the semester pans out. And if I still have the courage to teach once I've sat through parent teacher conferences. There's a great quote I read from a principal who decided to leave the profession: "If I could be a principal at an orphanage, I would stay. But the parents are killing me."

Chatted with a grad student friend today about working with middle school boys' voices. I'm trying to tap as many resources as possible and mull over all the information. Hopefully I'll be talking with some other teacher friends soon...including my sister! I'm planning on talking with her about the same issues when I see her early next week.

Next week starts week 6, which is almost halfway through student teaching. Mildly terrifying. For now, it's good enough for me that it's Friday, I've made it through the week, and everything went fairly well. Time to have some frozen yogurt and watch 30 Rock.

Happy Thursday!

Had a doctor's appointment this morning, so Lizzy said I should just come in for fifth and sixth hour. Didn't really do much for either, except go over their handouts and the rationale for grading.

Fifth hour was really sluggish at first, but about halfway through the hour they finally kicked into gear and started giving much more energy. Lizzy was pretty picky with the music, but it seemed to sink in more, and they were able to do most of it from memory!

Sixth hour was spent just talking as a group about the hell that was yesterday, and about attitudes in the class in general (from the students and from Lizzy). It was good to get everything out there, and I think most of the students saw where Lizzy was coming from. I think tomorrow will be better than yesterday.

Tomorrow I'm taking over for the last half of first hour, and all of third hour. It all seems like it'll go pretty well.

At 4 pm tomorrow, I'm talking to one of my friends from CMU who has worked with middle school boys, to see if he has some suggestions for me. I'm excited to start talking to people other than Lizzy and my parents about this stuff, just so I'll have more resources to pull from!

Comfort Food

My lesson in first hour went well, though I kind of sputtered towards the end of it. For the last few minutes I let the students see me think instead of just seeing me do. That was the only suggestion Col Fitzwilliam (my coordinator) had after his observation. I came out of that feeling pretty good about everything.

Second hour prep was okay for the first half-hour. I told Lizzy that I needed to refocus and calm down before third hour, because I knew what I needed to do for the rest of the day. So I started doing some sudoku puzzles.

Then the accompanist, Mary Bennett, came in. At this point, Lizzy and Mary began commiserating about some issues they were each having. It was impossible to just tune them out, because I'm used to them talking through their issues with me as a sounding board. However, today I couldn't handle it. I just sat there, getting more and more anxious as I tried to solve a stupid sudoku puzzle that should NOT have been as difficult as it was.

By the time third hour rolled around, I was completely tied up in knots. I wrote down what I was feeling in one of my journals and later, I talked through it with her. But back to third hour.

The point where I started to feel like a functioning human again was when during a transition in her lesson, one of the girls asked Lizzy, "Is Ms. Renas gonna teach today?"

The girl who asked that (who shall be referred to as Anne) is a girl who has usually not participated to her full extent, and while she is a nice girl, she's been making some unwise friendships that have affected her grades.

On the handout that I gave the classes yesterday (which I mentioned in my last post), I told third hour they could draw/write on the back of it if they were done. A group of seventh grade girls? They were elated. Anne looked up at me as I walked past her and whispered, "I'm gonna write you a letter!"

When I graded her quiz, I flipped it over to read what she had written: "You are a really cool teacher, and really nice. I love being in choir with you." I could see she had hastily added "and Mrs. Bennett" to it at the end.

When I got home tonight for dinner, my mom had made carbonara. Carbonara is my absolute favorite comfort food, and after today it was exactly what I needed.

That moment with Anne (coupled with her note yesterday) was my educational comfort food: it was exactly what I needed to keep me going throughout the day. And while I may have forgotten that moment later on (ie, sixth hour), I felt completely at peace when I related it to my parents at dinner tonight.

It was my carbonara for the soul. I really don't much care for chicken soup.

To make up for probably not posting tomorrow...

This morning, I dreaded teaching until I got up in front of first hour and went through the rhythm warm-ups with them. I then continued to dread rehearsing the choirs until I got up in front of third hour and got going.

Lizzy and I talked about it after school, and she told me she still feels the same way on Mondays. It was then that the lady from Office Space popped into my head, and I was begrudgingly forced to admit that she may be right. "Sounds like somebody's got a case of the MONDAYS!"

Somehow, though, I got through the day.

Third hour seems to really respond well to me. They are the class I can be the most free with. Today our goals in Dodi Li were phrasing and words. We started off with phrasing the chorus. I pulled something we did a few times in my secondary methods class, and we all pretended like we were holding orbs around our belly buttons. The orbs could be big or small, but they had to be moving at all times.

"Let's all sing the first chorus together, and when we get to the long notes, do something interesting with your orb. You can stretch it, roll it, make it smaller, whatever. But make it unique to you." The girls really got a kick out of it.

I spotted one motion many girls were doing, which was to roll the orb when they hit a long note. We all did it together, and I asked them if the note grew, or immediately got louder. They replied that it immediately got louder.

"I also saw quite a few of you growing your orb," I then noted, "So let's all try that when we get to a long note." This time there was a definite growth in volume and energy throughout the note, and the girls could hear the difference.

Next, Part 1 pretended like they had taffy connecting their hands at the fingertips, and all they could do was stretch that taffy apart and back together. This really helped them connect their measures and keep their words from getting choppy. All the girls commented on how cool it sounded, and when we put the two parts together, some of the singers got chills.

For all but ten minutes of the rest of class (since Lizzy had an emergency phone call), we went through the words and phrasing for the words for each verse in Dodi Li. When we only had two four-measure verses left, the girls got really amped to learn the rest of the words by the end of class. Tomorrow we'll review and see how well they remembered them!

Sixth hour was flipping amazing. There were few side conversations, and none that stopped the entire class. They were also the only class all day where every single person was using hand signs and really visibly putting forth effort during sight-reading. Every other class, Lizzy had me mark down students who weren't using hand signs or weren't participating. I was so proud of sixth hour.

They also read through Festival Sanctus much quicker and more accurately than fifth hour. Seriously, they were just on today. Unfortunately, this makes it more upsetting when they're off, which is almost half the time. Hopefully they will be considerate tomorrow when Lizzy is getting evaluated during their class. Apparently they do well on those days so they aren't embarrassed in front of the Assistant Principal.

Tomorrow Lizzy and I are conducting a minor experiment with third and fifth hour. As Lizzy was doing sight-reading with fourth hour, I remembered the think-aloud we did in my Content Area Literacy class last semester. I thought, "Hmm, maybe the students could benefit from writing out their process of what they look for before they sing."

In a happy turn of fate, it turns out that Lizzy was thinking the exact same thing. When I breached the topic of think-alouds with her, she immediately responded with "I LOVE THINK-ALOUDS." And yes, it did sound like it was all in bold caps.

After throwing around dozens of ideas, we finally came to a solution for what to do. I wrote up a handout for the students to fill in with their thoughts after I go through my process when I sight-read. There are two sections on the "quiz": "Before I sing, here are two things I can look for in the RHYTHM so I can sing more successfully," and the same statement with MELODY. Their responses must be legible and a complete idea ("I'm looking for ___"), though since this was unannounced, spelling will not count (unless the answer is unintelligible: if I can't read it, I'm not grading it).

I will then take home the quizzes and grade them (only for very few points, and not weighted much), with the purpose of establishing a standard: if you are given work by me, it is just as important as work from Mrs. Micik, and it will absolutely be graded.

I won't tell them that next time this happens (because it will happen again) I won't give them points, but will merely check during class to see that they're all at least thinking about something they can be looking for, and are at least trying to get something on paper.

Why was this such a long post? Because I have a very, very long day ahead of me tomorrow. School, then I'm busy until probably around 6:30, then grading until my head falls off. I'm gonna have to try and get some of that grading done during the school day, though. Here's hoping this all works out tomorrow!

Spite Singing

It's been an interesting week. Yesterday was a good end to that week.

Did some rhythm and movement warm-ups with the sixth graders during first hour, and for the last half of class Lizzy had them watch Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey. She interjected every few minutes to draw their attention to different aspects of the world music being performed.

One of the observers from last Friday came in again yesterday. Let's call her Maria Lucas. Maria and I had a wonderful conversation about student teaching, teacher ed programs, and Harry Potter. I'd like to keep in touch with her and see how her experience goes!

I only stayed through fourth hour yesterday so I could have time to come up to Mount Pleasant, but all the seventh graders were just dragging yesterday. Fourth hour in particular was just going slower than molasses. There was a great moment in third hour, though.

The girls just weren't giving me the tone I knew they could, and they were just sort of giving up. Lizzy said something about not worrying about getting a good tone since they obviously didn't want to give it today, and just moving on and learning notes. She then announced that she had to get some paperwork redone at the office, and ran out.

We all watched her leave. As soon as she was gone, I turned to the choir, leaned in, and quietly asked, "Do you want to prove her wrong?"

"YES!"

"Then show me."

From that point on in the rehearsal, those girls gave me everything they had. Their tone was free and soaring, and their pitches were ten times more accurate. When Lizzy came back, they eyed her to see if she would notice. I didn't look over, because it didn't matter. The point was that they were trying.

Now, I wouldn't make that a regular practice, but it worked for the time being. Unfortunately, fourth hour didn't step up as much, and even though I tried to keep the pace going, they dragged me into the ground. Oh well, Monday is another day.

It was wonderful to be able to sing in my friend's graduate conducting recital on Friday night. The repertoire was beautiful, and I could just relax and enjoy singing. I miss singing in a choir under someone else's direction, so it was nice to go back to that for a short while.

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Now it is Sunday, and while I do have lesson plans to get in order, the main project today is to write up a classroom management plan for seminar. Thankfully I have some wonderful resources, and it shouldn't be too painful. Lizzy has loaned me a few books on the subject, and while I panicked at first, she reassured me that they are mainly for browsing; she doesn't expect me to read them cover-to-cover.

I'm feeling much better about today's work for school than I did last week. I have everything written out in a checklist, and when it's all finished I will write it in a journal, shove it in a drawer, and watch last week's episode of Downton Abbey before bed.

I'm convinced it will be a good day.

Groundhog Day

Yesterday I literally worried myself sick. I was physically ill, on the verge of throwing up and passing out all morning, so Lizzy sent me home. She ordered me to go right to bed and not do anything school-related all day.

I went home and talked to my mom for an hour. We figured out that even though I've been doing things to take my mind off of teaching, I don't really immerse myself in them. I'm either thinking about teaching or feeling guilty for not thinking about teaching.

It's also hard to break out of the mindset that "teaching is stressful, so if I'm not stressed I'm not doing it right," or that "if the solution is easy, it's probably wrong." Both of those are fallacies that I have to get over if I'm going to survive. Most of the time the simplest answer is the best one, and it's staring you right in the face.

Even when I'm prepared for the next day, I worry about it. Mom suggested that I write down my thoughts and worries, put them in a box, and then put that box away at the end of the day. I decided to alter that a little bit and just find a journal I'm not currently using, write down what's been accomplished, write a note saying that I'm done for the day, and then stick it in the drawer in my bedside table.

The rest of the day was spent watching Mean Girls, napping, and watching 30 Rock. It was spectacularly relaxing, and exactly what I needed. I didn't feel guilty in the slightest, because Lizzy expressly told me to take a personal day and not even think about school.

Today started much better, but Lizzy was in a foul mood going into all the choir classes--especially fifth and sixth hour. All of the classes were wiped out and didn't want to do anything. Perhaps it's just that they're getting back into the swing of being in school every day. Maybe it's something in the water.

Or the food. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but the entire lunch staff was replaced about a month ago, and when I found that out I had just seen the "School Reunion" episode of Doctor Who. I was kinda weirded out the rest of the week.

Anyway, Lizzy had to do a ton of pulling and pulling just to get the students to even try to read through their music. I took the fifth hour boys into the side office five and six at a time, to see how well they knew their parts for Now is the Month of Maying. Most of them did okay in that room, they just didn't want to sing out during class. Which is beyond frustrating.

Denny, a new student I've mentioned working with before, actually was matching pitch on almost all the notes today! His range on Friday was about an F#3-A3, and today he was doing quite well with E3-C4 in Maying.

HALLELUJAH.

I told him I was really excited for him and pleased with his progress. "Just keep doing what you're doing!" He seemed to cheer up a bit then.

Granted, when the guys had to put their parts together with the girls, he didn't do so hot, but he was consistently trying. We also sang it a lot slower in the office than we did with the whole choir. Baby steps.

And Lizzy finally discovered the secret to getting a semi-decent tone out of fourth hour: warming up the girls and boys separately. Normally her classes don't have a problem warming up together, but this class does. Both genders back off and are distracted by the other's tone. Today they sang out a bit more.

Fourth hour is still stuck on the first page of Dodi Li. Part of it is that there are both girls and boys, and they're not all completely comfortable with their voices yet. Most of it is that most of the students in fourth hour process information slower than the students in third hour, so they are consistently a day or so behind third hour. At least I know what I'm working with so I can adjust!

Finally got them to give the energy the piece requires by threatening to go back to the beginning if they let up the energy at all. They let up a tiny bit towards the middle of the first page, and I didn't start over. Tomorrow I may actually follow through if it gets them to give more and consistently.

Had a brief conversation with a student today before fourth hour after noticing his shirt.

"Is that a Kingdom Hearts shirt?"

He looked down at his shirt. "Yes."

I gave a brief, curt nod. "Good."

We then shared our hatred for the Wonderland music and how it gets stuck in your head for weeks on end. It was a happy moment, even if it reminded me that the game came out when he was a toddler, and when I was his age.

I know I'm only 22, but there are some days when I just feel old.