I Blog, Therefore I Am

With band season winding down, I have decided its time to start some woodshedding. I went to a music store and bought a clarinet method book. That’s how you improve. Unfortunately, I also picked up a cheap alto recorder. The descant recorder I already have is so shrill it hurts to listen to the upper register. Unfortunately, the alto recorder has different tuning than the soprano, so I need to learn to adjust fingerings for that. Further, I haven’t yet learned all the accidental fingerings for the recorder. So, goal number two for summer is to learn all the fingerings for both recorders, and try to get good enough to join the recorder society, if that makes sense. I enjoy the raw and primitive experience of recorders versus my clarinet. Although, I am not sure if this recorder business is a subconscious search for an excuse for not working too hard on clarinet methods. All so much more fun than trying to get more employed. The same can be said for ingrown toenails.

On that note, I left a message with the community college dean who seems interested in my teaching. These wheels of progress move slowly, if they are moving at all. I figure if the dean wasn’t interested, she’d politely ask me to get lost. She has an assistant who certainly could do that for her. I Haven’t gotten that message yet. However, it’s really time to think about a plan B. Once school lets out, I will have more time to fret about all his. I am still enjoying teaching the kids, and some of them have improved to the point where they no longer need my help. Some others have continued to languish in poor grades. Kids who are a little slow and do poorly don’t bug me. It’s the kids who really should do better, mostly underachievers, burnouts, and social butterflies out of control. I can get them to do math seriously for most of a 90 minute session, but I can’t make them pay attention in class and buckle down at home. The parents look at me like I’m nuts when I talk about controlling distractions such as TV. I guess that’s OK, as long as they pay the bills.

The house exterior work is done! Siding repaired, completely repainted in tan with frost white trim, fence gate repaired, and new gutters in place and tested with today’s rain. Now neighbors are stopping by to say how good the house looks. Weeks ago, ours was "that house" depressing everyone else’s property values. Next steps: figure out how to get the back sprinklers to work, and start aggressively trimming our Costa Rican themed back yard until it resembles a garden more than a rainforest. That will be a gradual effort for this summer. However, I get a kick out of our rosebushes that have grown over the telephone lines. They are blooming all the way to the top.

I have been thinking about Thomas Jefferson lately. If he was an Iraqi, what’d he be up to these days. Probably not a lot different from those days. This may be the subject of a more detailed rant in the near future. I still hold his truths self evident (the truths in his writing, not in how he lived).

That’s the truth, and I’m sticking to it.