Last Full Week of Class

This week marks are last full week of classes. Next week each class will have one last meeting and then our concerts! Where has the semester gone? I am still having issues with the fact that Christmas is just two weeks away when it still feels like July. I don’t know if I would ever really get used to that feeling or not. It is crazy to think what all has happened over the past four months. This time four months ago I was headed to my last Sheltered Reality show before packing up and driving to the cities with my parents for orientation. I have met so many wonderful people and really feel at home in New Amsterdam.

My students have come so far since classes started in September. I am excited to celebrate their accomplishments with them in the concert next Thursday (December 18). There will be two concerts one on Wednesday for the keyboard and percussion classes and Thursday will have brass, guitar, violin, and choir. I will be running around like a crazy person on Thursday getting everything ready. I will be singing with and playing bass guitar for the choir again like I did for the National Choral Festival. My two guitar classes will be doing a combined piece which is a Guyanese folk song. My small brass class is doing an arrangement of Christmas songs that I did and Amazing Grace. We just had a really good conversation about musicality in the context of Amazing Grace. Those brass students never cease to amaze me!

Yesterday, Tuesday, I introduced band karate to my COFONA class. For those of you who don’t know what band karate is, simply put it is a way for me to have constant playing tests with my students while they try to earn different belts. I have been struggling with some classroom management and motivational things in this class, so I thought this might be a good way to work on that with some of these students. They all seemed really excited about this idea. I think some of them are going to attempt to earn three belts before the semester is done. They are allowed to come in before class or during open practice time to do belt testing. In order to earn their belt they must play different lines out of their lesson book with correct articulation, dynamics, pitch, ect. It should be an interesting adventure to say the least.

Claire’s family will be here in six days. She is getting really excited. The closer we get to her family arriving the more bouncy she becomes. It is rather amusing right now. It will be different to have six people in the house. We haven’t had that many people living in the same house yet. Our closest to that would be when Michael and Eric were both here. Claire’s parents and brother will be spending two weeks with us. They arrive on Monday, which is the last meeting day for three of Claire’s classes. It will be nice to have three extra people to help come concert time that is for sure! We will be celebrating Christmas with the Folts family and the Lutheran Compound. I guess they shoot off fireworks on Christmas. That will be fun!

I hope you all enjoy this holiday season. Remember the reason for the season, and enjoy time spent with your loved ones. Also enjoy that snow for me!