Another School Year Comes to An End

Well…where do I start then?

The year was relatively uneventful.  I didn’t have to drive to Nashville in the fall but I had to this spring.  And that sucked, as usual.  I hate that campus.  I drove all that way and no one ever showed up for Spanish class. There were only three students, but still. I even scheduled a “fun” day for Cinco de mayo and no one came to the restaurant. Huh. So I ate a taco and went home.

That was just this week though.  The previous months were nothing out of the ordinary, as I said before.  I spent my first months at the Hut, which is a cool place to stay during the week.  It’s quiet, it’s out of the way, and I have Internet service.  What more could I need?  I kept plugging away at my PhD classes.  I made my first B in Stats class, but I’m still a genius according to recent grades.  I’m into the research classes which are boring as hell.  My current mentor has a name that sounds like a snack cake. Unfortunately, she won’t be staying at NCU and will leave after my course is over in June.  Too bad-she seemed fair.  I would have liked to have had her on my dissertation committee.

The two new classes I developed have been added to the schedule for next year.  Music Fundamentals in the fall and American Popular Music in the spring.  This gives me more teaching hours, and will solve my Nashville problem and I will never have to go over there again.  Spanish students will just have to come to the language lab in DeQueen (where they should be) or settle for online.  Here’s the other cool thing though: The new program I’m using for Spanish is totally cool and will breathe new life into the classes.  Maybe I’ll be able to schedule more upper level classes.  They’ll have native speakers to talk to any time and the computer will even tell them if they’re completely botching the pronunciation, which happens a lot. My job just got a lot easier, and the students may actually enjoy taking a foreign language.  Of course, if they get slammed too often, I guess they wouldn’t enjoy it.

I “wrote” my own textbook for the music class.  I created a custom book through the publisher and cut about $100 off the price.  I added what I liked and ditched what stunk.  I’ve got a whole new idea for making sound files available.  YouTube has helped a lot, too.  They can watch performances instead of just listening to them.  Hopefully I can engage them more and they won’t have to listen to me drone on and on.

So-my job should be more interesting next fall.  I don’t know if anyone will be able to stand those recorders squeaking and squawking but, oh well. It will be fun to teach people how to play again.

The band was busy.  And will keep being busy.  We’ve learned some new songs. We tossed out “My Sharona” the other night on the fly and it sounded pretty good.  That made up for ME squeaking and squawking the other night with my latest cold.  It has finally cleared up and I should be back in top form Friday.  I hate not being able to sing.  I’m always scared my voice is gone and won’t ever come back.

I’m having surgery done in July and will be down for two weeks.  They’re going to straighten out my deviated septum, so I might be able to breathe for the first time in 40+ years.  That will be interesting.  We plan on working on an original album during that time.  I’ll blog about how tough songwriting is some other time.

Let’s see. What else crosses my brain this evening? While a big yellow cat sits on the back of my couch and stares blankly into space?  Oh, yeah, the battle of the Homeless Commune across the street from the loft. My view:  Go away.  Take your freaky, untrained, moo-ma, touchy-feely wacko shelter some place else.  I’m tired of dirty bums wandering around my neighborhood.  God helps those who help themselves, not those who enable people to continue to waste away the life God gave them.  People with mental health issues and drug problems need real professional help and safe boundaries, not a free rock show and an ice cream cone. Those things are nice, but not a solution.  And NO ORGANIZATION OF ANY KIND SHOULD PUT OTHERS’ LIVES IN DANGER.  Especially those who WORK in their organization.  Have they thought about that at all?  It’s a mess.  They’re misinformed and irresponsible.

I’ll stop there, because I’d rather end on a positive note.

The summer is almost here and I will get to be in my own home for awhile, hanging out with my favorite person in the whole world.  And the shopping will be much better.