Day 92 - 99. Alejandro.. for string orchestra
On the eve of day 100, I have 100% realized it’s a waste of time to plan all of my activities every day. In college I did the common thing of writing out every hour, and what I was to do every hour. I tried to do that loosely here but I have realized it doesn’t even matter because things always pop up. It doesn’t happen in a bad way, it just derails my plans or forces me to do them later or the next day. Teaching has been going really well, and the program here is doing fantastic! So last term we had about 16 students, and we’re now up to the number of 37 at the senior school!! I think I’ll have to refuse the three new students that joined, but to me that seems crazy! It’s my program, and I would love to have 100 students and a gigantic program, but here it doesn’t work that way. I met with Scott Hawkings and his wife, and they are absolutely lovely people. It was extremely refreshing to speak with them and especially to talk baseball! Scott’s son had played with David Price at Vanderbuilt and Scott has a friend that is a part owner of the Red Sox. Eventually they want the program at the senior school to be selective and to have to be auditioned. I agree with this, but then what happens to the students that want to start at the age of 14 or something? As I have seen, these students will practice and they are getting really good at their respective instruments for starting at such a late age. I will try to get the brass players to play in the orchestra with us, I think that will be a big step, although we are without woodwinds =( Back to having lots of students… 100 would be so cool, but it would be way too much for me to handle. Even having 37 students I find myself teaching from 9am to 9pm Monday through Wednesday, and half days on Friday and Saturday. David Beck was so right when he told me as a teacher you create your own heaven and hell. That reminds me… I have to e-mail him and thank him probably for the 50th time for being such a great mentor. I’ll start combining the students at Senior School so I’m not killing myself on time, and I should be able to handle about 35 students here and about 60 students at Junior School. The trouble is that I can’t teach the Senior School students during the day, so it forces me to have long nights. It cuts into my time to cook dinner!! Anyways, it’s working, and the good thing is the program and my schedule is getting better each week.
Our orchestra is playing Alejandro by Lady Gaga, and they love it! It’s so great to see the students practicing for sooo long. Sure.. it’s a pop song, but it’s helping them a lot, and to get them in the practice room and to see this drive to practice is great. I told them we can’t perform it or play it in orchestra until they learn William Tell Overture. I forgot what else I wanted to talk about honestly… I’ll have some time tomorrow, so maybe I’ll try and take some good pictures of students and post them. Although…. Things that I plan usually don’t happen in the order I organize them. It actually keeps everyday extremely exciting (how about that for alliteration), and keeps me on my toes.
