Waiting for snow days is one of the most gut wrenching experiences.
Mostly because you want them just as badly as the kiddos.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
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.
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)
Here's the youtube link
(LtoR: Jason Roseth, Allyson Wingert, Jeff Burwitz, Alexis Preheim)
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
An Arrangement
Brahms' Intermezzo No. 3 Op 117
Clicking the above link will take you to a Youtube video.
This is the piece I'm arranging for a final project in my instrumentation and arranging course.
I'll upload the video of the students that are playing it as soon as I have it.
(Arranging for trombone quartet/small trombone choir)
Clicking the above link will take you to a Youtube video.
This is the piece I'm arranging for a final project in my instrumentation and arranging course.
I'll upload the video of the students that are playing it as soon as I have it.
(Arranging for trombone quartet/small trombone choir)
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
That Feeling
Last week I spent a good hour talking with Professor Julie Ashworth.
Woah, woah, woah, let me back up a bit.
At Augustana there is an honours program (only about 4 years young) wherein the honours students can choose to take courses in place of certain generals. These courses are generally work intensive, mentally fatiguing, and (in my experience), you never leave one at the same level you were at to begin with.
Examples?
My freshman year (2008-2009) I was in a course that would have been labeled in the English department. In said course I read texts varying from The Double and The Cave by Jose Saramago to The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman to Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut to Freedom of the City by Brian Friel.
And everything in between, it felt.
The course discussed compassion. What is compassion? How is it different from empathy? Is it good? How do we show it? When and where should we show it? And a whole slew of other questions alongside those. Needless to say, I look through the texts from that course regularly, especially when looking for something that will make me think.
That same year I took a course that would also be labeled an English department type course. The title was Eleutheria, which in Greek means "Freedom". That course was tag-team taught by Prof. Patrick Hicks and Prof. Joel Johnson, both inspiring professors in their own right. This course was once again a heavily writing and reading based course, but my mind was pushed to consider what true freedom was and how the word itself is so abused in pop-culture today. (If you're curious, our texts mainly consisted of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and The Magus by John Fowles - although there were plenty of other supportive texts (ie; Walden, etc).
Last year (my sophomore year of 2009-2010) my mind and my emotions began to be pushed in the honours course I took entitled "Immersion into Autism". Not only was this course a course dedicated to autism, identifying it, the varying degrees, and different therapy methods, but each student also had a "client" of sorts that they would work with a few times a week trying different therapy methods. I was paired with a little boy named Bo who had autism and was non-speaking. The details of that experience are the sorts that warm your heart when you think back on them. For anyone who may actually know me and want to hear about it, please ask. I loved this course and what it taught me.
Alright, back up done. Fast forward to now.
Every student in the honours program (which is entitled Civitas) is required to do a sort of project of an honour student calibre showing what they've learned and how they are going to apply not only their Bachelor's degree education to real life, but how they are going to apply what they've learned in their honours courses to real life. Each student can apply for up to a $1000 grant from the school to do their research/project. When the project is all said and done, the student must then present at the college's symposium or another public presentation of equal or greater degree.
I have spent the past two years pondering and fretting over what I might do for the project when one night when I was out camping by myself this past summer I was struck by an idea.
My heart goes out to the students who live and learn on reservations and I hope some day to teach on one for a while. Simultaneously, I believe strongly in the importance of arts education in schools.
Back to Professor Julie Ashworth: I was discussing with her my idea to do something involving reservation schools and the arts. She called some people for me and found out that the school on the Lower Brule reservation has no music program. At all. The secretary that she talked to made the comment that, "It's kind of hard to have a band when you don't have any instruments".
She hung up the phone, told me what she had found out, and I had one of those moments. Those moments where, in your heart, you know that you've just been given a job to do and if you don't do it, it will never get done.
Needless to say, herein follows a rough outline of the project that I plan on doing for my Civitas honours.
We're looking at the 4th or 5th grade level, perhaps earlier:
Throughout the winter and early spring I will work with the local Public School system, my college, the local instrument stores, various pawn shops, and multiple churches, in order to get instrumental donations for the students on the reservation. From there, hopefully I can cut some sort of deal with the local music store (that benefits greatly from Augustana students) and have them do a discounted or free basic repair on all of the instruments.
Next spring I will take a trip out to the reservation alongside whatever other instrumentalists and music majors I can find at Augie and give the students a performance. Hopefully from there I can do a sort of "break out session" wherein students can go to whichever instrument drew them the most.
Once the students have decided whether or not they would like to learn an instrument and which one, hopefully there will be enough of that instrument to loan it to them. The rest of the weekend will then be spent in giving basic lessons.
Throughout the rest of the spring and summer I will go to Lower Brule around every other weekend (once again, perhaps with other students from my school or perhaps even students from the nearby "caucasian city" of Chamberlain) and give lessons to the students with instruments.
The final goal? Have them give a small concert at the beginning of the fall school year.
It's rough. The idea is rough. I need to talk to some people.
But I want to do this. It needs to be done.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Woah, woah, woah, let me back up a bit.
At Augustana there is an honours program (only about 4 years young) wherein the honours students can choose to take courses in place of certain generals. These courses are generally work intensive, mentally fatiguing, and (in my experience), you never leave one at the same level you were at to begin with.
Examples?
My freshman year (2008-2009) I was in a course that would have been labeled in the English department. In said course I read texts varying from The Double and The Cave by Jose Saramago to The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman to Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut to Freedom of the City by Brian Friel.
And everything in between, it felt.
The course discussed compassion. What is compassion? How is it different from empathy? Is it good? How do we show it? When and where should we show it? And a whole slew of other questions alongside those. Needless to say, I look through the texts from that course regularly, especially when looking for something that will make me think.
That same year I took a course that would also be labeled an English department type course. The title was Eleutheria, which in Greek means "Freedom". That course was tag-team taught by Prof. Patrick Hicks and Prof. Joel Johnson, both inspiring professors in their own right. This course was once again a heavily writing and reading based course, but my mind was pushed to consider what true freedom was and how the word itself is so abused in pop-culture today. (If you're curious, our texts mainly consisted of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and The Magus by John Fowles - although there were plenty of other supportive texts (ie; Walden, etc).
Last year (my sophomore year of 2009-2010) my mind and my emotions began to be pushed in the honours course I took entitled "Immersion into Autism". Not only was this course a course dedicated to autism, identifying it, the varying degrees, and different therapy methods, but each student also had a "client" of sorts that they would work with a few times a week trying different therapy methods. I was paired with a little boy named Bo who had autism and was non-speaking. The details of that experience are the sorts that warm your heart when you think back on them. For anyone who may actually know me and want to hear about it, please ask. I loved this course and what it taught me.
Alright, back up done. Fast forward to now.
Every student in the honours program (which is entitled Civitas) is required to do a sort of project of an honour student calibre showing what they've learned and how they are going to apply not only their Bachelor's degree education to real life, but how they are going to apply what they've learned in their honours courses to real life. Each student can apply for up to a $1000 grant from the school to do their research/project. When the project is all said and done, the student must then present at the college's symposium or another public presentation of equal or greater degree.
I have spent the past two years pondering and fretting over what I might do for the project when one night when I was out camping by myself this past summer I was struck by an idea.
My heart goes out to the students who live and learn on reservations and I hope some day to teach on one for a while. Simultaneously, I believe strongly in the importance of arts education in schools.
Back to Professor Julie Ashworth: I was discussing with her my idea to do something involving reservation schools and the arts. She called some people for me and found out that the school on the Lower Brule reservation has no music program. At all. The secretary that she talked to made the comment that, "It's kind of hard to have a band when you don't have any instruments".
She hung up the phone, told me what she had found out, and I had one of those moments. Those moments where, in your heart, you know that you've just been given a job to do and if you don't do it, it will never get done.
Needless to say, herein follows a rough outline of the project that I plan on doing for my Civitas honours.
We're looking at the 4th or 5th grade level, perhaps earlier:
Throughout the winter and early spring I will work with the local Public School system, my college, the local instrument stores, various pawn shops, and multiple churches, in order to get instrumental donations for the students on the reservation. From there, hopefully I can cut some sort of deal with the local music store (that benefits greatly from Augustana students) and have them do a discounted or free basic repair on all of the instruments.
Next spring I will take a trip out to the reservation alongside whatever other instrumentalists and music majors I can find at Augie and give the students a performance. Hopefully from there I can do a sort of "break out session" wherein students can go to whichever instrument drew them the most.
Once the students have decided whether or not they would like to learn an instrument and which one, hopefully there will be enough of that instrument to loan it to them. The rest of the weekend will then be spent in giving basic lessons.
Throughout the rest of the spring and summer I will go to Lower Brule around every other weekend (once again, perhaps with other students from my school or perhaps even students from the nearby "caucasian city" of Chamberlain) and give lessons to the students with instruments.
The final goal? Have them give a small concert at the beginning of the fall school year.
It's rough. The idea is rough. I need to talk to some people.
But I want to do this. It needs to be done.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The Schooling
Here I am.
I am sitting in my dorm room, the same room I dwelt in last year with the same roommate that I lived with last year. Were this the only aspect to my life, things would be swell, for I have no problem living in Stavig with Chelsea. We get along well.
I was looking through some quotes on school, hoping to find some push or inspiration to keep me going strong throughout the year.
Let me not advise this to anyone thinking the same.
I was amazed at how many quotes great people had said about school and what a waste the formal education portion of it was (note: not the socializing part, and I agree, I think teaching social skills via groups at a young age is incredibly important).
The biggest kicker of a quote is one that I have heard many times before and merely never stopped to think about: "Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."
Albert Einstein.
Please don't misunderstand me. I understand that there are some people that truly love schooling and going to classes and doing homework and learning. I was one of those people from the Kindergarten age up through my freshman year of college. Then something clicked and I realized that I was learning just as much outside of school with my personal interactions than I ever did in those previous 13 years of schooling.
It's beyond me that I will have spent 17 years of my life in a school by the time I have graduated college with my B.A. I will be 23. And suddenly I will be acceptable to society as an adult? Suddenly I will know how to make all the right decisions and I won't have to worry about money?
I hate to point this out, but I will proceed anyway: I've been making the "right" decision since junior high. I haven't stepped one toe out of the responsible pathway since then.
Which is probably why taking a break and going traveling for a year sounds so impressive and desirable right now. Will it occur? Probably not, though I will be taking a trip again next summer for a bit greater length of time (more on that later, I feel).
So for anyone out there that may stumble across this public journal, do you regret your education? How far did you go with the formal education process?
I am sitting in my dorm room, the same room I dwelt in last year with the same roommate that I lived with last year. Were this the only aspect to my life, things would be swell, for I have no problem living in Stavig with Chelsea. We get along well.
I was looking through some quotes on school, hoping to find some push or inspiration to keep me going strong throughout the year.
Let me not advise this to anyone thinking the same.
I was amazed at how many quotes great people had said about school and what a waste the formal education portion of it was (note: not the socializing part, and I agree, I think teaching social skills via groups at a young age is incredibly important).
The biggest kicker of a quote is one that I have heard many times before and merely never stopped to think about: "Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."
Albert Einstein.
Please don't misunderstand me. I understand that there are some people that truly love schooling and going to classes and doing homework and learning. I was one of those people from the Kindergarten age up through my freshman year of college. Then something clicked and I realized that I was learning just as much outside of school with my personal interactions than I ever did in those previous 13 years of schooling.
It's beyond me that I will have spent 17 years of my life in a school by the time I have graduated college with my B.A. I will be 23. And suddenly I will be acceptable to society as an adult? Suddenly I will know how to make all the right decisions and I won't have to worry about money?
I hate to point this out, but I will proceed anyway: I've been making the "right" decision since junior high. I haven't stepped one toe out of the responsible pathway since then.
Which is probably why taking a break and going traveling for a year sounds so impressive and desirable right now. Will it occur? Probably not, though I will be taking a trip again next summer for a bit greater length of time (more on that later, I feel).
So for anyone out there that may stumble across this public journal, do you regret your education? How far did you go with the formal education process?
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