Funerals, Choir Concerts, Grades, and New Ward Activities

Life has been go go go for me and now I am on Summer break and it's nice.

Let's start by talking about school. Preparing for the end of MCC was intense. I had 8 songs to memorize for my Juries, not to mention all the songs for Kazz and Concert Choir. Fortunately, Dr. Peterson let us use music for the TWO concerts he had us perform in. This is out of the ordinary because he normally has us do a combined Jazz and Concert Choir concert at the PAC, and then a concert Choir concert at a church. But the Tuesday after that concert, he had us perform another Jazz concert with Northern Arizona University, and his own group of five people. Needless to say, they all ran smoothly.

I also only memorized five of the eight songs for studio. I sang Sure on this Shining Night, and they chose Morgen, by Richard Strauss, which is the only other song that I hadn't performed in Studio. Speaking of studio, I was able to perform the song I wrote called My Julia. The words are by Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The biggest thing I was nervous about was getting the words wrong and making a fool of myself in front of my peers, especially since I was putting myself out there. But Liesel praised the song for how good it was and for my composing chops. I was proud of my performance of that piece. Really, all the performances went well.

Sarah's mom, Helen, was able to go to the Sunday Concert Choir performance, because she was visiting for the funeral of one of her cousins, Robert (Bobby) Van Cott. We had met these cousins previously when Sarah's mom came to visit the last time. They took us out to eat at an Italian restaurant. Bobby passed away from Parkinsons  disease, and while there was a feeling of mourning, I didn't believe that there was despair at his loss.

That same night, for Mother's day, we took Helen to Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa. We let her enjoy the sultry sounds of thr organ and she got emotional several times.

It was a short weekend, but we also enjoyed time at church and time with the Rutkowski's and Young's for dessert. However, Helen's plane did get delayed when coming out here that she had to switch her planes and get sent to a stop in Tucson.

While I did well in my Ottawa courses, they still did give me a run for my money. I was able to do 15 hours of observations with Laura Cook at Falcon Hill Elementary School in Northeast Mesa. She is a general music teacher to Kindergarten through sixth grade. She showed me a  lot of the strategies she used for teaching and answeredany of my questions. I was really grateful to her. She is a great resource to have. These were the grades I got in my two classes:

A couple weeks ago, Sarah and I went to Castles and Coasters with thr Young Men and Young Women of thr new Summit Point Ward. I don't remember if I posted this in thr last post, but we had boundary changes that cut some people out and brought in a lot of new people. I was called as a primary teacher for thr Valiant 9 class and Sarah was released from Young Women's secretary and was called as a class advisor under Rachel Angell. We were asked to go to Castles and Coasters and we spent a good majority of our day with McKayla Masters and her friend Mary, but we did get to go on some rides.

We were also invited to McKayla's Choir concert. Sarah wasn't feeling too well, and on the same night our washer broke down and spewed out a lot of water which Kyle Klingler promptly came to help us with. 

I am still Activity Days Leader with Darren Brown as my companion, and since ghe ward change we have had 2 or 3 Activities. Thr most recent one we had a May the 4th be with you Star Wars activity. We made pool noodle light sabers, plaued cut the cake to star wars music, and capture the flag. It was hilarious because one instance the kids started slamming their light sabers on the floor making a huge raucous. Another activity we had was the building of bridges and skyscrapers. It was really cool to see the kids be so innovative.

Last thing to talk about is that I applied for a full time interrim lead position here at Amazon. The Manager was talking to me like I was a shoe in for the position. I had my interview after a few times if not being able to coordinate times, and interviewed with them. A few days later, I found out that I didn't get the job. This is okay, because I was planning to apply for other jobs anyways. So since then I have acquired my food handlers certificate, and have applied to WinCo and Chik fil A. Here's to hoping I get one of those jobs.