Times They Are a-Changing . . . Majors, Too.

We didn't have Halloween this year. We instead went to a two-hour, grade-mandatory piano recital. It's lucky the recital was very, very good, because I was very bitter. Now I'm only a little bit bitter. Mostly I just feel wrong-footed, because it doesn't feel like November because I keep waiting for the Halloween season to start. It's weird.
Beyond that sense of Rip Van Winkleness, life is great. I actually have big news. No, I'm not pregnant. But I am switching majors. (Eden, if you are reading this, pardon me for using excerpts from our emails. The more I try to explain myself, the more convoluted my reasoning seems, and since my email to you was the first time I wrote things down, it's the least complicated explanation).
So . . . I'm changing majors. Chris and I have spent a lot of time on our knees in prayer about what I need to do; because as much as I love music, I am really struggling with feeling "right" about continuing down that path. I feel that all the work I've done in music was certainly meant to be (it brought Chris into my life, for one thing), but now Chris and I are coming to a crossroads with regard to financial planning, career planning, and family planning. We've decided that I'm going to switch to going to school part-time, and gradually working toward my degree, so that I can work and make sure that Chris, as provider, gets through school quickly and with as little debt as possible. Not only that - music is not an ideal degree to work at two or three classes at a time.
I'm switching to (drum roll please) Elementary Education!

I feel really good about this decision. I've always felt that I have a gift with small children, and I felt so fulfilled during the year I worked at Longfellow's kindergarten. I also feel that, for me personally, this major/career will be good for me as a mom. Even with music, I had the feeling that I wouldn't be in the workforce as a choir teacher before having kids, so why the rush and the debt? I'm going to take just a few classes every semester (mostly things that are necessary to take in a live classroom, like the 4 semesters of language and the math classes), work to make sure we can afford to be alive (heheh), and when we have children, take one or two online classes every semester (unless I'm finished by then). I can do my student teaching once our children are elementary school age. That's a pretty big leap of time (and therefore a big leap of faith for me), but I still feel like it's what God wants me to do.
I haven't decided if I'm going to make the switch this coming semester or this coming year, because as an Elementary Ed major, I need to minor in something, and that something can be music, but I need to check the requirements. Plus, I've already committed to being in Shrine of the Ages Choir for the New York tour next semester, so I can't drop at least a few of my music classes. Also, it's not likely that I will get a job at the semester mark anyway. But long story short, I feel really good about this decision, just nervous (especially because I STILL don't have a job lined up, and this switch means I will lose my music scholarship tuition). So, friends and family, your prayers are appreciated as we work out the details of this change.

Last night I had a dream. I was at a summer reading program at Longfellow Elementary, and I was assigned to do small-group drills with Jorge, David, and Ismael, three little boys from kindergarten last year whom I loved, but who were very difficult to work with. Ismael was being his jitterbug self, Jorge was struggling with the concepts, and David, who was smart enough to get it, was busy trying to get attention from me and the others. But although I was working hard with little result, I had a distinct and overwhelming feeling that I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing. I just felt thrilled the whole time. I woke up really happy. It was a nice reinforcement of my own feelings, because last year was undeniably hard, and I came home many days exhausted and in tears. This reminded me that things can be hard AND right, frustrating AND good. Such is life. We'll figure out these changes one way or another, and even if it will be frustrating it will be good and right.

{Besides, all those tears paid off. Our kindergarten showed an increase from around 20% of kids meeting the state standards (a trend for at least the past five years of results I had access to) to 80% of the kids meeting the standards - a HUGE turnaround in one year, one that didn't happen at any other grade levels or in any other schools. We aides definitely had a party about that. Well, honestly, I can't remember the actual statistics off the top of my head. But it was something huge like that. If I find the paperwork I'll post the true numbers}.

On a different subject, Flagstaff turned FREEZING all of a sudden. I mean, I knew this was coming. But now that it's here, I can't say I'm enjoying this weather. The wind is so biting that, no matter how long I sit indoors afterward, I feel like I can never get warm. C-c-c-c-c-cold. I need to get me some cloth gloves and a scarf. I'm weirdly excited, since a scarf is only something I've worn on vacation trip to the snow.

Also, I'm ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas, please. I'm so excited for Christmas music, turkey, nativities, caroling, stockings, Christmas books, Christmas colors, sweets, everything!!! I'm trying to keep myself reined in (I haven't turned on Christmas music yet, nor have I let myself buy the eggnog already on sale at Fry's), but school is wearing me out and it's making me look forward to holiday festivities. Anyone have any favorite holiday traditions?

Blessings

I know this is a cheesy, Mormonblog thing to do. But I'm feeling distinctly blessed lately, and I want to share some of the things I'm thankful for (if for my own sake more than for family or friends reading this), Drop out if you get bored. But here's a list of things I've been thankful to Heavenly Father for lately!

In no particular order:
1. Fall.

I'm experiencing a real autumn season for the first time (not as true of an autumn as I might experience back East, but still new and beautiful to me). The colors are beautiful, the changing leaves make me ponder, and the weather is delightfully brisk. I'm thankful for the changing seasons.
2. Art.

I've been working on an art-related project for my Christianity class, a "sisters in the scriptures" scrapbook for myself, and looking up art that I'd like to use to decorate my home someday when we're fabulously wealthy (ha). I've come across some incredible artwork that simply inspires me. . . Too many paintings that I've fallen in love with to even try and show them on this blog (although I might stick in one or two that I like). I've been amazed at how different and yet so beautiful and even strengthening some of these portrayals of people or feelings are! I am very impressed by those who can create works of art. . . how people can use mediums like pencil, paint, clay, wire, or cloth to create something that is alive without life, something that provokes thought, affects moods, persuades or uplifts us. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father blesses all of his children by blessing some of His children with this gift. It's a gift that I wish I had!  By the way, check out http://mormonartist.net/ to see some beautiful religious paintings (and other forms of art) by some new and relatively unknown artists. A couple art tidbits I've liked lately include some works by James Christensen, paintings by Megan Rieker, and Navajo pottery and rug art.
3. Chris.

I thank the Lord every day for blessing me with someone as good (and as good for me) as Chris. He is "my sunshine" every day. Chris is THE best person I know, and always motivates me to work hard, enjoy life, and be "an example of the believers". Plus he makes my life filled with fun. :) I love you, Chris!
4. The Book of Mormon.  This one, that is.

Don't care if that's cliche, because it's true. I am grateful for the clarity the Book of Mormon gives. I'm thankful for the motivation to become more like Jesus Christ that I feel renewed in me when I study it. I'm thankful to have a testimony, because it is that testimony in the Book of Mormon that keeps me grounded in the Church no matter what. Not that I don't have questions because, hoo boy, I have lots of concerns and questions. But the Book of Mormon gives me faith in Jesus Christ, hope in the Church, and charity enough to be patient with the doctrines/people/situations that I don't fully get. Not gonna lie, I need more of the charity and patience bit. But either way, I'm thankful for the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
5. Our car.

Our Mazda Protege, nicknamed "Stinky" by Chris (in the pre-Aubrey era, trust me), is the most reliable little thing! It just keeps going and going and going. . . . and it gets great gas mileage. With all the other school expenses piling up, I'm grateful that we have a sturdy car that we aren't spending much money on.


Welp, that's all folks! Maybe you'll think of some things you are thankful to Heavenly Father for; because it sure makes the day brighter! :)

Life in Flagstaff

Like I said in last post, I’m working harder to keep this blog updated.

I wrote a bit about our place a while back. It’s even more settled now. I love our new home, and having space to actually use things instead of keeping them in storage. Our apartment is the far back corner of the last apartment complex on the hill, so we get a nice view of a woodsy area out our front door.

We are really enjoying Flagstaff! We are so lucky to live in a beautiful, interesting place. Some tidbits:

It has a historic downtown shopping district that looks intriguing, although we haven’t visited it yet. The public library lends quality DVDs, our own free Redbox! The grocery stores are very pricey, but the cheapest one is Fry’s, which happens to be the one closest to us. The Walmart here is lame-sauce. The City Hall has a grassy field perfect for Ron Paul supporters to camp out with their signs along historic Route 66. We actually drive on Route 66 on our way to school each morning. I’ve noticed three street-corner prophets on a regular basis. There are beautiful hikes, and we recently took the ski lift up to the highest mountain point in Arizona. And, the forecast for tomorrow is snow. Not sure how I feel about that last one. We’ll deal with winter bit by bit as it comes and sticks. Up until now (July to October), the weather has been breezy, rainy, and cool.

Chris and I are really lucky in our school schedule too. We are taking all of the same classes except for one (Chris is taking the Search for Meaning, which I tried to get into, but it filled up too quickly). Having the same classes helps us study, keeps us motivated, and sometimes makes us be more accountable than we might be otherwise. J A quick overview of our classes:

World Music: A study of music in culture and music AS culture, this has been the most intriguing class! Our professor is vaguely hippie, with a long pony tail, a drop of Spokane blood, and a hands-on, semi-mystical attitude about studying the musics of the world. The only drawback is that he tends to judge for the crime of being middle-class and white. I think he’d like us better if we were from China, Poland, or the BaAka tribe. All I can say is, we can’t help it. I’d love to be Black. It’s not my fault that I’m not. Psh. However, he is a really good teacher, giving us lots of chances to study and attempt to make the music of other cultures. In fact, for our final, we are performing an A.R. Rahman song at a concert with a famous Indian classical artist! I prefer getting elbow deep in the music, combined with weekly tests, versus cramming for a mid-term at the last minute.

Diction: Our diction professor is a very complex person. At once loving and terrifying, at once an expert and yet with a certain detachment from reality, she is passionate about her subject and assigns more loads of work for one night of pronouncing fricatives than others do for an entire month. Picture your stereotypical high school drama teacher. Mix in a little bit of Professor Trelawny, a little bit of opera diva past her prime, and a hint of Beatrix Potter. That’s our professor. She’s delightful, because she is the sweetest person and has no idea she comes off as crazy. She likes to dance her arms to spoken song text, chew every sound, and then get within an inch of your face to make sure you’ve got it right. To top it off, she can extend her jaw farther than Jacob Marley and wiggle it faster than her vibrato. It’s bizarre. MY jaw drops just watching it. Regardless, I’m learning a lot in her class

Christianity: Can’t deny, I thought I’d like this class better than I do. It is neat to see the branching tree that makes up Christianity. But the class is full of zombies, and I think the text makes the content dryer than it should be. At least the professor offers lots of extra credit, that’s always nice.

Educational Psychology: Really great class as well. I’m learning so many new things! So many things we’re learning, like developmental stages and theories, teaching methods, and behaviorism, are going to be incredible helpful to us not only as school teachers but as parents. The catch to this class is that it’s 2 ½ hours long, once a week. We are really luck that the subject matter is interesting and that the professor is engaging, so it doesn’t drag on too long. It’s always a relief when the teacher teaching you how to be a good teacher is, well, a good teacher.

Voice Lessons: Doesn’t necessarily fit in the category of a class, somehow. We attend a weekly vocal divisional recital on Tuesday mornings, a weekly master class on Tuesday afternoons, a weekly half-hour rehearsal with our accompanists, and a weekly hour lesson with Dr. Saunders (in addition to practicing every day). It’s very time consuming. But we love being able to work with Dr. Saunders, who is also the vocal pedagogy teacher at NAU; it’s a perk because not only are we learning to improve our own voices, but we’re getting tidbits of vocal pedagogy information that will be more useful to us as teacher than perhaps the abstract imagery used by some vocal performance teachers, used to create a certain sound in your voice only, rather than giving you the tools to teach that to people with voices different from yours. That’s a run-on sentence, but you get the idea. ;)

Shrine of the Ages Choir: How we love Shrine! We’ve been in many choirs, but none quite as good as this one! Dr. Copley is my idol. I am amazed at how with a minimum expenditure of outward effort she can get us to fix the choir’s problems with incredible precision. Her conducting is natural, her control of the sound of the choir is impressive, and her musical interpretation teaches me new things every week. Dr. Copley has a way of making students step up to the plate with on-the-fly questions, although she never shoots anyone down for being wrong; she just gets someone else to say it right. She’s terribly funny too, with fabulous comedic timing and a natural way of relating to people. On top of that, she’s just one of those people that make you feel important every time you talk to her. I learn a lot from her example of how to be an effective and memorable teacher. I also really enjoy being in a choir again, period. We enjoy the music. Chris even got a solo in our last concert! It was a very prestigious concert too, for the International Alliance of Women in Music Congress (for an idea of the scale of this thing, I’d like to point out that the Congress was last held in Bejing. Pretty big, worldwide event). He sang wonderfully, as always. J

So, that’s some of what we’ve been up to! There’s more, of course, there always is. But alas, there isn’t more time, there never is. So I’m off to bed!

FINALLY POSTING! The Washington Trip

I'm sad I haven't written in so long again. The trouble was I wanted to write about our D.C. trip, but I lost the SD card (I am TERRIBLE with cameras, as this blog documents), and I didn't want to post it without pictures! And then the semester swallowed me whole. I finally found the SD card, but even then I couldn't use the library computers to post pictures, and our own internet connection was too sketchy. We went to Mesa for Conference weekend, so here's our Washington D.C. trip!

So, truth be told, the trip didn’t start out on the greatest note. Due to thunderstorms, our five hour flight became a six hour flight while the pilot circled D.C. waiting for clearance to land. In the end, after trying a few different airports, we were forced to land in Pittsburgh at 1 in the morning. Not happy. And the vouchers for hotels didn’t work because every place we called was “full” (I personally think they just didn’t want to honor the vouchers since it doesn’t make them much money. But you know me. I’m always the conspiracy theorist). So we spent the night in the Pittsburgh airport!

It was actually kind of fun. There weren’t enough chairs to seat all of the disgruntled and hotel-less customers, so we stole some wheelchairs, made ourselves a barricade, and slept on the floor for an hour or so. Thankfully we were able to catch an early morning flight (other passengers weren’t so lucky, and we stuck there until late afternoon).

Unfortunately we weren’t able to surprise Devin, because when our flight didn’t show up, the Baers decided to tell Devin. Don’t ask me what the connection is, or why we couldn’t continue under our assumed guise of distant relatives until we arrived. But, even though we didn’t see Devin’s reaction, he was still very touched (he even choked up on the phone) that Chris could be there for his wedding. He was thrilled.

We landed in D.C. in time to go with Cassandra through the temple the day before her wedding (brave soul. I didn’t want to do it that way. Props I guess.). I think the Washington D.C. temple is the most beautiful temple I’ve ever seen, inside and out. Too bad the earthquake knocked the golden spires off the top. In Josh’s words, “How unin”spire”ing.” But we’ll get to the earthquake later.

We also really enjoyed attending Devin and Cassandra’s wedding dinner. I’m not one to gush on about cute couples (unless it’s me and Chris, haha), but really, they are a perfect, perfect couple. Too bad they aren’t living close, because I’d like to get to know Cassandra more, she seems pretty awesome. Their wedding ceremony was moving and satisfying. It’s moving when you realize the import of a marriage, and it can blow you away when you see two people look each other in the eyes and COMMIT, full of promises and hopes and happiness and resolve. And it’s satisfying when you watch a wedding, and can’t help but think “Score! They’re hitched!” as immature as that sounds. Good stuff.

They had a beautiful reception at Cassandra’s home. Chris helped the Baer brothers decorate the car. Unfortunately, the stake patriarch hosed it off himself for the two before they even drove away. Didn’t want the car damaged, yadda yadda yadda. He’s prolly right.

The reception was an afternoon reception, so we went to the Lincoln Memorial that night afterward!!

I love Abraham Lincoln!!! Gah! He’s my hero. This monument moved me to tears. Please people, if you are reading this, read “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”. Don’t be intimidated by its size, because it reads like a good novel. You will gain a new respect for him and his many good character traits: not just his honesty, but his discretion, not just his personal views against slavery, but his commitment to not using those personal views to tear the country apart, not just his loyalty to the Union, but his loyalty to a difficult marriage, his balance of shrewdness and genuine goodness, his moderation, his good principles, the list goes on and on. I enjoyed visiting this monument enough that in spite of our limited time, we visited it again in the daytime on Monday.

So, Sunday came next. We were staying with a very kind family in Cassandra’s ward, and after Church, Sis. Smith took the time to drop us off for a while at the Jefferson Memorial. I also loved this monument. I just love learning about the complex, brilliant, Jefferson.

Monday was a full day of sightseeing! We went to the Capitol first, and thanks to Kim Wold (thankyouthankyouthankyou) we got a private intern-led tour from Senator Jon Kyl’s office, through the underground tunnels, through the main rooms (at a much slower pace than group tours), and ending in the Senate Gallery. It was SO COOOOOOOOOL.

To make this a tab bit briefer, I’ll try to pick up the pace. We visited the Library of Congress, made a too-short stop to the Museum of Air and Space;

 peeked into the Sculpture Garden, walked all across the mall,

delved into The Museum of American History,

and went up inside the Washington Monument,

all of which was wonderfully fascinating. I was especially touched by the World War II Monument

and the Vietnam Memorial (although we saw this on Tuesday so I’m jumping out of order).

We also saw the brand new Martin Luther King Memorial!!!

I'm running out of time. Maybe I'll call it quits, or maybe I'll finish writing about the trip on the next post. Hopefully some of you have stuck with me in spite of my long lapse of writing! From now on I'll stop worrying about pictures and just make sure I keep my family updated. Thanks for listening!