Let the Tale Unfold

The day has come. It's been months in the making, hours of sweat, some tears, lots of laughs, and a lot of fun. Tomorrow night we premier our Middle School production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: the Musical. I'm not going to lie, I've had mixed emotions up to this point. However, tonight we had our first full dress rehearsal with EVERYTHING: lights, costumes, makeup, the works. Save a few microphone mixups, it went very well. It finally "clicked" for me tonight. The dwarfs finally looked and acted like dwarfs, the crone finally looked like an old cranky woman, and Snow White finally beamed with princessorial innocence and joy. One of the other Drama club teachers reminded the cast and crew of something that helped me out a great deal as well tonight. She reminded them that this is a live show; things will go wrong. And it probably will not be the same thing two times in a row, but you move on. The show must go on! So, I hope to see you at Drake Middle School for our production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It's a gem of a fairytale!

Swine and Dandy

This weekend is the date for the 2009 Young Voices Festival. This is a state-wide choral festival for kids in grades four through nine. Kids audition earlier in the year, and if they make it they go to Auburn University for the festival. There are four choirs made up of kids from all over the state. They rehearse music they've been working on for months and a final concert is performed on Saturday afternoon. Many kids and choir directors look forward to this event. It got cancelled this year due to fears of swine flu outbreak. Are you kidding me? I just don't get it. Perhaps I'm ill informed, but I don't see what the big deal is! To me, it seems like the media has caused a global frenzy over this virus that is causing people to panic. Now, on one hand, I can see why an event like Young Voices would be a dangerous situation for an airborne virus (tons of kids sitting next to each other for hours breathing all over each other.) I'm just not convinced that this H1N1 "swine flu" is all that big of a deal. How is it any different or more dangerous than the regular flu? People have been getting the flu all over the world for years. I really feel sorry for the kids. There are hundreds of kids all across the state of Alabama that spent hours practicing music and looking forward to a trip that they aren't getting to take. It's a shame. I was only going to take four kids. But some schools take forty, fifty kids. Oh well. Better luck next year, I suppose. Never in a million years did I think that something like this would be cancelled by something called "swine flu". Stupid pigs.

Gone but not forgotten

You move on from things, and it becomes easier and easier to forget about them. When you start to forget about them, you start to forget how valuable your time there was. Tonight I went to the AU Singers Spring Show. Spring Show is the big one. It's the culmination of year's work and it usually lasts around two hours. I've been out of Singers for two years and many of those memories are already starting to fade. How could I forget them? How could I forget how many hours I spent in rehearsal? How could I forget the thousands of hilarious things we did and said in Singers? How could I forget the incredible musical moments? Tonight made them all come flooding back. It's a tradition in AU Singers that Alums are invited back onstage to sing one of the final pieces "What Would I Do Without My Music." It's a ballad that encompasses all that Singers stands for. It talks about the simple value of music in a person's life. I went back onstage and sang the piece as the former director and founder of the group, Dr. Tom Smith, conducted. Emotional? Yes. But not emotions of sadness or longing. Rather, these were emotions of pure joy. Being on the teaching end of music these days, I rarely get to sing anymore. Singing in a choir is one of the things I miss most. Sitting amongst friends, bright lights in my face, Dr. Smith conducting; it was joy. It made me really stinkin' happy. It's true, I had many mixed emotions about singers during my four years. But tonight reminded me and re-proved to me that AU Singers was such a huge part of my life for four years. I made so many great memories with so many great people. It's a time of my life I never want to forget. Thanks Singers.

Trills and Thrills

First, let me breathe.... (huge sigh of relief).... ok.

This weekend, the band director and I took our band and choir to Atlanta for our big spring trip. I have to admit, I was nervous. But, after the first few hours, I knew that this was going to be a great trip. Allow me to recap:

We met at the school at 7:30 a.m. After a meeting with all students and chaperones, we loaded the buses and were on our way. Two hours later, we stopped at a mall to eat lunch. Our choices were: Chick-fil-a, or three Asian restaurants. Needless to say, the line for Chick-fil-a was a mile long. After we ate, we loaded the buses and left for the World of Coke. If you haven't been, it's worth a visit. They sure do a great job of making you want to drink a coke. They show a short animated film, then a self-guided tour through the museum begins. The tour ends with the tasting room, where you can drink all the coke you want and try the other 63 flavors of coke products from around the world. After we pumped the kids full of caffeine, we went to check into the hotel. This was the part I was perhaps the most nervous about. It takes a while to check 227 kids into a hotel! The hotel gave us a stack of room keys and a list of names and room numbers. We had to sort throught them, and figure out which room key packets went with which pre-determined room of kids. As it turned out, I was missing close to fifteen room key packets. Eventually, we got it all figured out and kids got checked into rooms. From there, we went to ESPN Zone. Here, kids got to play a million arcade games and eat an all you can eat buffett. After that it was back to the hotel and lights out, tomorrow is an early morning. Wake up call was at 5:00 a.m. (4:00 a.m. CST) We got all the kids fed and loaded onto the buses.
The whole reason we went on this trip was to perform in a music festival. Sure, we did a ton of other really fun things, but the performance (in my opinion) was the most important experience for the kids. We were performing at the Trills and Thrills music festival being held at Marietta Middle School. The band got "Superior" ratings, which is incredible. The choir peformed at 8:50 a.m. Luckily, we had plenty of time to warm up and were ready to go at our performance time. We sang our first piece well, with only one major mistake (which I take full responsibility for.) After a brief pause, we sang our second piece and, in my opinion, really sang it well. I was so proud of these kids. It all came together at that performance and I really felt like we were a team. We got "excellent" ratings, which I'm perfectly happy with and I think we deserved.
We spent the rest of the day in Six Flags riding roller coasters, eating junk food, screaming our brains out, sweating, and generally loving life. By the time we got home last night, I think the kids were sufficiently worn out and ready to be home. It was such a great weekend and I'm so proud of my kids not only for their performance, but for their overall behavior this weekend. I love my job.

Where There's Smoke...

We had morning rehearsal this morning. Eighty kids in one room make it hot, no matter the temperature outside. So, I turned on the air conditioner. The room quickly cooled and all was well. Fast forward to first period. The kids said they were cold, so I turned the AC off. Fast forward to third period. The sun was out (beautiful day) and it was beginning to get warm again in my classroom. Again, I turned on the AC. This time, however, nothing happened. The room did not get cooler. I thought little of it and went about my day thinking it might "kick in" any minute. Fast forward to fourth period. I'm in the middle of talking to my students about this weekend when I smell the unmistakable smell of an electrical fire. Immediately I think of the AC unit. I ran to the back of the room, threw stacks of chairs aside to get to the closet that housed the AC unit. I expected billowing flames and smoke. I opened the door. No flames, just smoke. A light smoke started to seep into the room through the air vents in the ceiling. A haze clouded the room and kids started coughing. I immediately told them to go sit outside. I called my principal on the new phones that have been installed in our rooms. She answered very happily, "Hi!"
"Umm.... Mrs. Beebe, there's smoke coming into my room from the ceiling."
"I'm on my way!" she said.
When she arrived she ordered everyone out of my building, called the office to get them to call the fire department, and got someone else to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the WHOLE SCHOOL! I didn't see it, but later a student told me that four fire trucks pulled up and about thirty fully dressed firemen went running into the building. There were people from Central Office. We sat outside for about twenty minutes, when students started going back into the building. By this time, the next class had begun so I sent my students on. I went back to my room and nobody was in there. I had to talk to an assistant principal to find out what happened. Turns out the AC motor had blown or burned up and the fan was just blowing that smell into the room. No biggie. Good adventure. I won't have A/C in my room for quite a while, according to my principal. I started to feel guilty and embarrassed, but I really had nothing to do with it. Nothing like a little adventure to keep you on your toes!

Tomorrow, I take sixty-seven seventh graders to Atlanta with 160 members of the Drake Band. It's going to be a blast. Coke museum, ESPN Zone, Performance at a festival, all day in Six flags. If you're the praying type, pray for us. I'll tell you how it goes!

Magic

The Poison of Mass Appeal

I'm one of those people that likes to dislike what everyone likes. Let me rephrase. Every now and then there are certain things that most people like. I tend to dislike them mostly because... everyone likes it. I know it's kind of backwards, but I'm not alone. It's really a common thing with people my age. This is especially so with music. Enter Ben Harper. When he became popular with his beachy, hippie style, I immediately began the disliking process. Some of his most popular songs include "Burn one down," and "Steal my kisses." The latter was so repetetive and had such mainstream success that I really began to loathe it. All of that changed yesterday. I went home to my parent's house this weekend for Easter. I spent some time across the street with their neighbor Joe. Joe is a music lover and musician who loves to try out new instruments. His most recent purchase was an acoustic lap slide guitar. I had never even seen one until yesterday. He said his inspiration for the purchase was the music of Ben Harper. He showed me a video of Ben playing a similar instrument and my opinion of him immediately changed. His mainstream success with repetitive songs about pot and women overshadowed his real talent. Joe gave me a Ben Harper album called "Both Sides of the Gun." I listened to the whole thing on my drive back to Auburn last night and really enjoyed it! Perhaps I shouldn't write people off so fast when they become popular with mediocre music. Sometimes, there's a true talent behind the mainstream junk.