Monday, October 10, 2011

7 months later


v


Hello again.
Often I forget that I have this blogosphere to post upon.
Life has been going well, I believe. Not much has changed. The past summer was spent doing summer classes in order to finish the college career in 4 years. I took one class online (Literacy in the Content Area), which, to be honest - I don't know if it was a good idea or not. There were quite a few evenings of utter despair and feeling as though I've wasted and was wasting my time. So much busy work and I hardly remember the key points to the class.
Que Sera, Sera.

One of the other classes I took was Cinema and Culture, it was considered a "Capstone". I don't entirely understand the point of making students take a Capstone class - but it's over and done with. Some days were interesting, some days were the long. The worst part was that it sucked up my day from 10am-1pm or so - that's a long time to sit in a classroom.

The final class was Brass Pedagogy. As a trombonist, I wasn't too worried about concepts like buzzing and embouchure, as I've been fortunate enough to have been buzzing since I was in the 5th grade (11 years now!). The fingerings were tricky - but the class was valuable. I think it's the only class I had where I feel like I've learned applicable ideas for my future.

I'm sure everything will come around in the end, though, in regards to the other classes.

Then August rolled around and Nathan and I headed out to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. If anyone is going, PLEASE contact me - I can tell you so much about where to stay, what to take extra time for, etc. And I was only there for a week and some.

There are just a few photos at the top of the post- between the two of us, we took somewhere around 400-600 I believe.

Then came September. I'm back in school again. Things went well. I auditioned and made it into a slimmer, sleeker version of the Augustana Band - which was pretty darn exciting. So now I spend an average of 7-8 hours a week in rehearsals, sometimes less and sometimes more.

Here is October. I'm still learning from school. I'm still enjoying most everything. I've learned that I'm going to Baltic School District for my student teaching starting in February. Things are starting to come centerfold.

I'm going to try to blog more. I can feel my mind changing weekly (growing, I mean). I think it's important to track from where you've been to help you understand where you are and where you're going.

Peace out my fine friends

Saturday, March 12, 2011

On Any Given Day

This morning I was privileged enough to be able to go in to work. And truly, I view it as a privilege. Not every person who needs a job, has one; here I sit, a college student well on her way to graduating and a career, have a part time job that I enjoy.

As I was working in the drive-thru (not my favourite place to be at the coffee shop) I looked through the window and up into the sky. You see, the coffee shop is located next to the bike trail (it's less than 3 blocks away) and along the bike trail runs the Sioux River. Flying due north above the river were a gaggle of geese.

I'm not openly saying that I adore geese, but to see them flying north is beautiful. It has been a good old South Dakota winter - meaning it's been dragging on for quite a while. But, the geese were beautiful. More than anything though, as I was steaming milk feeling for the correct temperature, I marveled at how the geese knew which way was north. There isn't a compass built into the leader (which is constantly changing, something that should be admired, a goose acknowledges when it is getting tired and it falls back and lets a different one lead). Mother Nature has given them this beautifully strong instinct.

Often, I wonder what instincts humans have lost through the passage of time and modernization. Would we have that beautiful instinct of directions? Perhaps we could sense things like water beneath the Earth.

Perhaps we knew the creative spirit.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Results of Intermezzo Project

the video of the intermezzo was too large for this.
Here's the youtube link




(LtoR: Jason Roseth, Allyson Wingert, Jeff Burwitz, Alexis Preheim)