Exciting Times!

Oh wait. Sometimes, when you move, it's not across the country...just across town. Oh my! Another week has gone by! ...Just two days spent in the music classroom, and I’m already speaking in rhymes. So as of yesterday, I have been in Alaska for a month. It’s crazy to think! I feel like I have just scratched the surface with learning about this place, culture, and music scene.

A few big things happened this week: school with the little chickies (oh, and the kids) started last Thursday. I started a Facebook page for our quartet, and I moved into my new place that will be my permanent home this year!

Airabex (Sue's dog) and I have become very close.
And she still loves me, even when I'm too tired
to make eye contact with her when we hang out.

So, I started student teaching at Glacier Valley Elementary this week! And although classes were only on Thursday and Friday this week, I could not wait for the weekend to come. And it’s only because I was so tired after just two days with tons of little students running around! But oh my gosh, how I loved it. The week started off not being quite as fun, as I was in teacher in-service meetings for three days. Talk about a rude awakening into the life of a teacher! I sat in meetings that talked about policies, safety protocols, new and old testing standards, and behavior management tips. My brain felt like it went from receiving and downloading new information every hour to being overloaded with new data every 20 seconds. By the end of Wednesday, I don’t think I was even capable of maintaining eye contact with other humans. Or dogs. It was sad. I, for sure, could not pick up on social cues or carry on a remotely-interesting conversation at that point. It was at that time in the week I started to reconsider jumping on the coffee addiction bus that so many of my friends have seemed to been riding for years now. But then I realized that I hated the taste of coffee and didn’t even know how to make a cup or order it. So then I decided to become addicted to Mountain Dew. Then I looked up its side effects. So then...I just decided that dead, robot Ruth would have to be acceptable once it hit 3pm every day.

The quartet and I demonstrated our instruments for the class
 before performing a tango for them!

And then I discovered that I would have to be at school most days at 7:30am and decided that caffeinated tea might be something I should look into!! But the in-service training was extremely helpful and necessary, even if it felt like information overload. And the good news is, I now know the basics, so it won’t feel so overwhelming in the years of training to come, if I decide to be a public school teacher in Alaska! But the real fun began when that first group of kids walked into our classroom at GV on Thursday. All of a sudden, all those meetings about hypothetical situations and imaginary kids were brought into perspective. I had faces and names and real scenarios! My quartet and I planned with Lorrie for each elementary music class those two days, and it usually consisted of a name game of some sort, a small performance from our group as a way to introduce ourselves and get the students excited about the year, and a song/dance to get the kids moving and review what they had learned the previous year. We saw a variety of classes, from grades 1 to 5, and I have decided that so far, I love the littlest ones! The first through third graders are just so precious and young and so eager to learn. The fourth and fifth graders were also awesome and very knowledgeable. They had some great comments and questions about the tango we played for them! But I gravitated toward the younger classes, which is exciting to know! Not only did I enjoy interacting with the kids, I really loved seeing how Lorrie interacts with them. She is seriously the master at positive, effective behavior management. She creates an atmosphere of trust, respect, and joy in the classroom while still expecting the students to behave in an appropriate way. I was amazed when I saw how she handled different behavioral problems that are bound to occur in a class of 20-30 kids. Glacier Valley is also a Title I school, with students that face great challenges in their everyday lives, which makes it even more special that they are receiving this fabulous music education. And in their other classes as well! I have really enjoyed seeing some of the other teachers at work. The music class partners with other teachers, including the gym teacher and school counselor, to do activities together. It is a great real-life application of integrating the arts across all content areas. I am very excited to learn from Lorrie and the other GV teachers, as well as from music teachers from schools around Juneau. The quartet actually sat down with Lorrie last week and figured out our schedules so that we will be able to student teach at a variety of elementary, middle, and high schools, since we are being certified to teach music, K-12.

So I am excited for another few days of being in the Glacier Valley classroom with Lorrie and then at two other elementary schools, Auke Bay and Riverbend at the end of next week! I have already met and worked with the music teachers from both of those schools (at the summer string workshop!), so I am excited to learn more from them. Man, I say “excited” a lot, don’t I?! I’m sorry- everything is just so exciting!!!

So, yes- I also got our quartet’s name out on Facebook a little bit this week! We have decided to officially call ourselves “The Mendenhall Quartet”. The Mendenhall Glacier is one of the main tourist attractions in Juneau, so I thought it was only fitting to suggest we name ourselves that. I was also surprised to see that no one else has called themselves by that name! I got the idea to start a Facebook page (called The Mendenhall Quartet- the link can be found here) as I was reflecting on my time in Peru and the similarities and differences between the two experiences. I thought about how as an in-country coordinator last summer, one of my jobs was to maintain our social media accounts, and it was very valuable for making connections and raising support. And a handful of people had already been asking us when we will be performing and how they could be informed about those concerts, so it only made sense to make us a page! I have an interesting work ethic with starting new projects: I feel much more motivated to do something when I haven’t been asked or required to do it but came up with the idea myself (egocentric much?!). But it’s true! I felt like this would be a good way to build a presence in Juneau and keep people updated about our experiences here, and I feel very motivated to keep up with the page throughout the year. I have also already been thinking about next year and how I would love to help the prospective students get a glimpse of the program. I think that my time working in DePaul’s Admissions Office has given me a soft spot for incoming college students. :) I’m learning that I like some aspects of public relations and outreach- who knew?! So, please like our page if you are interested in seeing our quartet from a different perspective than how I talk about it here! And you can see when our performances will be!

My amazing new room!

Besides that, the other big thing that happened was my move to Koren and Rob’s yesterday! Sue was her usual, fantastic self and cooked me a goodbye dinner on Friday night, and I had a blast eating, playing games, and singing/playing the piano with her and her daughter (who happens to be moving to Chicago next week for college!!!). My little Alaskan family is awesome and quirky. I then slept for 10.5 hours (yeah, no joke about being dead! I could finally speak in complete sentences again!!) and woke up to a wonderful breakfast with Sue before she helped me move out. I had spent a couple hours packing after dinner and games the night before, so we just had to load up all my stuff -which has definitely grown in amount- and drive on over to my new home! The moving-in process went fairly quickly because Sue’s fabulousness remained intact, and she helped me lug everything into my new room in the basement! And let me tell you, my room is beautiful! Just being away from it today while I was at church and quartet rehearsal felt like too much. I needed to be back in my lair! Nothing could ever replace my time at Sue’s and my wonderful room there, but there’s something about sleeping in a warm bed that is twice the size than what I have ever had before, and being completely unpacked that makes it feel like an exciting place to come back to.

After moving all my things in and unpacking for a little bit, I piled in the car with Koren and Rob (who are equally as awesome as Sue! I can’t wait to get to know them better!) and went back to Sue’s for dinner!!!! Koren and Sue happen to be best friends, so I have a feeling I’ll spend a lot of time with Sue still! They have known one another for over 20 years. 20 YEARS. That’s pretty much my entire lifetime! It was amazing to sit at the table with them and listen to them reminisce about times from long ago and see how much love and joy there is in that relationship. Their priority of having “friend dinner dates” and large dinner parties is really neat. I really love the “small-town feel” of Juneau and want to be in, and create, that same environment wherever I end up! So we had a blast eating Indian food and playing the same games I had played the night before with Sue and her daughter. I noticed that we were all much more competitive last night: we were hovering over the table during an intense card game, shouting and yelling when other people were winning! Love it.

So it has been another lovely week in Juneau, even though it seems that Fall is finally starting, which means lots of rain, wind, and Extratuf boots (by the way- Extratuf boots are even CUTER when kids are wearing them! So little and tiny and cute!!!).

The view I had during one of my runs this past week!
It was right by the entrance to the Perseverance Trail.

It’s funny- as Sue was driving me to my new place yesterday, I started to feel very melancholy because it felt like I was leaving and that time in my life was over (yeah- when I’m tired, I don’t quite think logically; I forgot that I was still going to live in Juneau, Alaska). And then I realized, “Oh wait- I’m here for an entire YEAR!” And...Sue lives less than ten minutes away. If you can’t tell, I’ve gotten very attached to her! So I am very excited to continue this journey and am grateful that I have so much time! Time to get to know the amazing Juneauites, time to hike and explore the beauty of Alaska, time to spend with my new students and learn from Lorrie, time to figure out what on earth I am doing next year- and no, I have absolutely no idea where I will be or what I will be doing!- time to enjoy this new chapter in my life.

Also, I feel super cool to say that I’m a grad student. So let’s keep that going for a while. ;)