Dispair

I don't know what it is about today, but I've had a totally pessimistic view of life. Through church I was thinking of all the times that I've set my goals, and failed, set them and failed. This continuous cycle of trying and failing through a variety of things that I do to try to improve myself. I thought of how much each of us is resistent to change. Perhaps most people can change for the better without this constant companion of failure. Somehow, I just don't see all that many people trying hard to change.

Today in priesthood they were talking about the whatever the subject was. It was about being nice, but that's really not all that relavent to what I'm talking about. It's more the idea that they bring up a subject that they need to work on, and hey, let's face it, all of us need to work on every aspect of the gospel, because I doubt we're perfect in any of it. So they bring up whatever subject, we learn about it, finish the lesson, and there you have it. We may say, "That was a good lesson" or "Yes, I need to do better at that" or what-not, but how many of us truly take it to heart? Do we go home that day, and find a way to consciously apply that into our lives, day after day? I seriously doubt very few of us do. I felt just... stagnant. No push to change and pattern my life after Christ.

Then again, I think I'm just being pessismistic. I think it comes from finishing school, and unable to really put structure into my life. I do terrible without structure in my life, and I don't seem to be able to set it myself. So this is pretty much based off my mounting frustrations of life and my inability to change myself to improve, and applying it to the rest of the world. Sorry world, hopefully your better than my view for you.

Not really interested?!?

I'm increasingly becoming frustrated with the man who is in charge of my student teaching. It doesn't help that I've lost all respect for him through the last two years I've had to take his class, and now he owns me for the entire next semester. So the way we set up student teaching is to divide it between a general music elementary class and a middle school band class. So I was able to set the elementary school class up pretty easily. The lady in charge of general music recommended one specific person and we set it up. This man didn't give any type of direction or give me any ideas about where to set up a middle school. With all the credit hours I was taking and everything that was going on, I never got to explore my options in that area. It also didn't help because I am fairly ignorant about the teachers in the area and what would be best. In this area, he would know better than I would, but he did nothing to help this search. So I sent him an e-mail recently concerning what was going on. Here's his response...

"The problem is, most potential supervising teachers in the instrumental area don't want a student teacher who is not really interested in that area. So, let me
know what you want me to do. You can't have your cake and eat it to."

Did I ever say that I wasn't interested in the area?!? This man is just clueless about me. I've written many posts on the subject and my thoughts on the subject, and how restrictive I beleive those programs are, but I never did say that I was not interested. I'm concerned about all levels within music programs. I want to find the best means possible for me to learn and improve music as a whole. For me, this starts at the elementary level. There may come a time that I understand what I need to at that level to move on and figure out the workings of middle school programs. Is it entirely possible for me to teach middle school band with the same passion that I have right now about general music. Of course. Just because I'm focussing on one aspect more than others doesn't mean I'm disinterested in that subject.

So he's taking my inconclusion of the subject thinking I'm disinterested in it, as opposed to my lack of knowledge who to do my student teaching under since he offered absolutely no guidance for it.

Marching band serves a purpose

If there is one thing that almost any marching band member can do as far as a dance, it is the waltz. The hours spent learning how to keep your upper body from moving as you are while playing an instrument transfers quite well. We've already developed that framework more than any other group of people, well, except for maybe dancers. My sister and I were talking about the waltz in particular, which in and of itself is pretty sad, considering our history of dancing. But people who had danced with my sister were surprised that her 5'2/5'3 frame could take an exceptionally large first step without any difficulty at all, and without any of the bounce that you would expect to see from somebody of her small stature. I've only recently picked up dancing. Mainly because This Girl got me interested in it, and it could be a great tool for the classroom as well. The best dance I do is the waltz, there isn't even a contest with other types. I've got the rhythm down for any type of dance. That part is obviously the easiest for me. I'm fairly well-balanced which helps with learning the steps, and six years of soccer and eight years of marching band helps with that as well. So the next part is learning everything outside of the basic steps. The waltz seems to be the most structured of any of the types of dances and therefor the easiest one for me to pick up. My problem is that I know the basic steps and that's it. This Girl really can't teach me the guys part and I really don't have a chance to learn it. All that has to be done is show it to me, and I'll pick it up pretty quickly. After a couple of tries, I usually get this down, but I tend to forget them rather quickly. So hopefully I'll learn sometime. Bandjam better bring something with her to teach me when she comes home this summer. That would be fun, and I'll see if I can take you out contra dancing. I went English Country Line Dancing yesterday. I don't know if we'll be able to do that either when you come. I'd also really like to learn how to polka. That looks fun. This Girl is afraid to try it with me, because she doesn't really know it. The steps look pretty easy though. My mom was mentioning that my dad loved to do that. That would be fun to watch, but I don't think he's done it since his college days. Oh well.