Midway Point of my Semester and Term before Student Teaching

This week marks the end of my Ottawa Spring 1 term, and is about the halfway point of my semester at Mesa Community College. I'm not going to lie, 'senior-itis' has hit hard. I came into the semester/term in January with the hopes of doing well. And I have been doing well. However, probably my hardest thing is dealing with a 25 hour work week, as well as full time school. By this point, I am just tired most of the day, sleeping in until 10ish when I can. I've got my work week set to all day starting early on Mondays and Saturdays, and early morning shift on Wednesday. That schedule has been pretty good, but it's only been about 3 weeks since I started that schedule and I am still getting use to it. However, it's better than waking up 5 days early early morning, which is what I was doing. I'm trying to become a morning person, but it hasn't totally happened yet. Maybe during this next term and 2nd half of the semester.

My Spring 1 Ottawa classes have been just 'eh'. I've been taking a course on how to do with English Language Learners in the classroom. Which, in the last few weeks, has been giving me monstrous assignments where when I just look at them I squirm in my seat, and want to curl in a ball and escape. However, surprisingly, I have turned out with a 95% in the class and it seems that will be my ending grade, or around there, having received 120/120 on an assignment I was super nervous about. I worked on my hw for that class and my other Ottawa class yesterday and finished everything, so Spring 1 is in the books.

My second class was just a let down of a class. It is Elementary Music Methods. The biggest thing I got out of that was reading an article about procedures and routines and how to set them. The second biggest thing was finding out that I'm not alone in my resources for Elementary Music, but that there are a lot of places that offer resources to new teachers. I guess that was a good revelation to have on the eve's eve of my student teaching.

Speaking of student teaching, everyone's asking me if I'm all set in knowing who I'm student teaching with and every time I tell them I haven't heard; however, I'm doing my best to get Dr. Karen Hutter to do her magic and get the process started. I don't want to be worried week of student teaching not knowing who I will be student teaching with, like Kindli Burrell and Hannah (from previous choirs who attended Ottawa). They told me that I need to stay on Karen's case and make sure she doesn't forget me.

As far as Concert Choir and Jazz is concerned, I've missed 2 or 3 Thursdays because I wasn't feeling up to it, mostly because of extenuating circumstances and not really having to do with the choir. However, there have been times where I have felt the pressure in choir, being one of 2 or 4 tenors, especially when Dr. Simmons (who is a tenor himself) works us to the bare bones. I still like Dr. Simmons, though. He's always been so great with me. We have our concert this weekend. It should be quite fun and exciting. I do like the music we are doing. [Sicut Cervus, He Moemoea, Five Hebrew Love Songs, Schone Nacht]. One thing that I don't understand is that Dr. Peterson has been given time to do 2 songs with our choir and he seems to be a member that will be there. I wonder what Dr. Simmons thinks about that. The jazz numbers are all really pretty great, and I can't wait to sing them next Wednesday. I also can't wait to see what Dr. Simmons has in store for us for the second half of my last semester at MCC.

My other two classes, one-on-one piano and voice lessons have been going well. Just yesterday I performed my second studio, which means just one left in this semester. I sang Lascia Ch'io Pianga by Rinaldo. I unfortunately was not able to record it. One thing about Ottawa is in Spring 2, which happens starting this Monday the 6th, is that I will be in my Capstone class, where I will be coming up with my recital. As I understand it, I will need to be prepared with 12 songs (3 in each category...), make a detailed program, and sing 3 or 4 in front of a panel of judges. I don't know how it will all work, but I'll find out on Monday.

Lastly, I am taking a US and Arizona Constitution History class to fulfill a requirement for Ottawa. It's actually been pretty enlightening the last 5ish weeks, having made up multiple-choice questions based on the reading and videos in each of the modules. My favorite part of this class is the discussion section (surprisingly!). It's a little bit different from regular discussions, in that you come up with the question you want to discuss with the class yourself, as well as answer other people's discussions. It's been fun getting creative, and the best part is that we get points every time you answer someone's question. Right now I'm scraping for the top spot with 1 point over others in the rankings. 3 other people are really close to me.

In all actuality, I'm excited and ready to be done, but I'm also worried about the uncertain future and the change that is coming to my life, that I hope I can deal with. I've expressed both these concerns with Sarah, and she is very helpful about helping me quell my fears and look at things in a new light, while also being realistic. She tells me that yes, I will probably have a hard time getting started in a new profession, but that we'll work everything out together.

There is a lot of good things happening, as well as being on my horizon, and I can't wait for it start.