I think I might be ready for a break...
I know I need more sleep when my main objective of the day is to try to speak coherently and stay awake while maintaining control over my emotions. Today was one of those days, which I definitely expected going into the day. Let me back up:
This past week was a total blur. Two words: PERFORMANCES and UNIT PLAN. Those took up my life, in addition to an essay, multiple lesson plans, and frequent rehearsals this week. The quartet began a marathon of performances on Friday morning, as we performed some of our classical chamber pieces for our general music classes and did some improv. based on Christmas songs and the songs our kids are learning right now. Check out the video below of us mashing together these different themes! We introduced the concept of improv. to each class and asked students to give a thumbs up when they recognized any of the themes. :) Performing for the classes and rehearsing in the school cafeteria when lunch was finished were the highlights of my Friday. It’s so amazing to share my music with kids and expose them to classical music played at a (fairly) high quality (I say “fairly” because that can be a relative term, but I’d say six years of intensive musical schooling did me a little good!). And the students and teachers are all so happy that Glacier Valley is filled with music! Lorrie definitely loved it and wants us to perform for the classes/rehearse in the school every Friday. I’d love that!
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| The Mendenhall Quartet at The Canvas! |
The performances continued Friday evening: the quartet performed for First Friday at The Canvas, a fantastic art studio downtown that has a program called REACH that works with mentally disabled adult artists and showcases their work. There was a big gallery walk on Friday, and the quartet provided the music (mostly doing improv. and playing through the pieces we performed on Sunday) while hundreds of people streamed in and out. It was great to see so many people and to get our quartet name out there! We even put out a tip jar for JAMM and made $70. I really enjoyed partnering with The Canvas and playing with my quartet mates, but my shoulder and back were definitely in intense pain after performing all day. Thankfully, I went home and iced, and I felt much better.
Which brings me to a pause to talk about my shoulder! I had my first physical therapy appointment last Thursday, and it went great! My PT is SO nice and funny. She made me feel very comfortable, which is good because I feel like physical therapy has the slight potential of being awkward when you’re standing in a cami in front of someone as they touch your arms and back! I began my appointment by explaining in detail all the injuries and pain I have experienced from playing the cello since high school; after listing it all out in one sitting and watching my PT’s facial expressions (which basically communicated to me, “Wow, you have not been taking care of yourself!” in a knowing, humorous way) I realized that I probably should have gone to physical therapy years ago...but here we are! My PT echoed something I heard from a massage therapist I had last year when I was having intense back pain: because I have spent so many hours each day hunching forward to play my cello, my shoulder and pectoral muscles are very strong and my back ones are not. My old massage therapist actually told me that if I don’t do something to strengthen those muscles, I will have a hump back by the time I’m 30! AHH scary much?! I told my PT what the massage therapist had said and made a joke that that just means I need to find a husband in the next 10 years...she was very amused by my comment, which just shows the awesome relationship we are going to have as we work together these next few times! She wasn’t convinced about the extremity of the humpback diagnosis, but she did affirm that I need to strengthen my back/shoulder blade muscles. She showed me some daily exercises that use my back muscles, and she put kinesio tape on my back to keep me sitting and standing straight. That is a significant reason why I was in so much pain on Friday- I was not only playing a lot, but I was also having to stand and sit using muscles I don’t normally use! But I am hoping that doing my exercises, working on my posture, and laying on a roller every day (that’s my favorite part!!) will eventually help my pain subside. Then I just need to learn how to play the cello using mainly my back muscles...and I know, Mr. Balderston, you told me that so often in my lessons at DePaul!! I promise I will get that part down someday. :P
So, after my PT appointment on Thursday and my performances on Friday, I spent my entire Saturday working on my unit plan. As I have described before, I am teaching a class of fourth graders a unit about jazz and cultural identity next semester (from March to April). I wrote my entire unit plan of 15 lessons, including introductory essays, in one sitting about 6 weeks ago. But then the final draft was due today...and Saturday was the first time I had looked at my unit plan since that day six weeks ago. I’m not usually so late in working on such a big project, but the only way I would have worked on the final draft of my unit plan was if I had done work over my two days off for Thanksgiving...and that was not happening if I wanted to maintain the little sanity I have left! So here I was, sitting in Heritage with Sophia from 10am to 6pm on my one “free” day over this past weekend. And I got a significant amount of work done! My professor, Scott, was already impressed with how much I had presented in my rough draft and only had a few comments. But they were big ones. And I also needed to seriously organize my lessons and write some of the materials for my unit. I finished writing out all my lessons and organizing them by Saturday evening and rewarded my hard work by going to an ugly Christmas sweater party at church. :) It was great, even though I had a big headache from sitting in front of the computer, doing work for 8 straight hours. And my back was killing me from having to sit up straight! HOT MESS.
And then...SUNDAY. The reason Saturday was my only day off this weekend was because we had a big JAMM benefit concert yesterday at which the Mendenhall Quartet, as well as a local pianist, and the JAMM chamber group kids performed. It was a big show for the quartet because it was our official introduction to the Juneau community, and we only had 5 rehearsals to put together 30 minutes of repertoire. It pretty much came together, but it was definitely a stressful process! There were so many other things to think about for that concert- performing with the quartet was just one among many stresses! I have been teaching and conducting the 20 JAMM chamber group kids three days a week during our after school sessions, so I was very focused on making sure the kids were ready for their big performance of a Christmas medley leading up to the concert. Not only did they have that concert to prepare for, but they have another one tomorrow with 30 minutes of repertoire and another two concerts next weekend. This is an incredibly busy time for me, as you can tell! So I have been almost solely preparing the kids for all these concerts. Check out the video below of them playing an arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon with The First Noel that Sophia adapted from a choral piece and arranged for the kids (go Sophia!). I feel pretty proud that I have helped these kids get to this exciting point of performing such an advanced piece for their age- these are fourth and fifth graders! It’s so crazy! The kids did a great job performing their Christmas medley last night, and I was happy to join the cello section and support them as Lorrie conducted the piece. They are sounding ready for their other concerts as well, so I know it will be good. :)
Which brings me to a pause to talk about my shoulder! I had my first physical therapy appointment last Thursday, and it went great! My PT is SO nice and funny. She made me feel very comfortable, which is good because I feel like physical therapy has the slight potential of being awkward when you’re standing in a cami in front of someone as they touch your arms and back! I began my appointment by explaining in detail all the injuries and pain I have experienced from playing the cello since high school; after listing it all out in one sitting and watching my PT’s facial expressions (which basically communicated to me, “Wow, you have not been taking care of yourself!” in a knowing, humorous way) I realized that I probably should have gone to physical therapy years ago...but here we are! My PT echoed something I heard from a massage therapist I had last year when I was having intense back pain: because I have spent so many hours each day hunching forward to play my cello, my shoulder and pectoral muscles are very strong and my back ones are not. My old massage therapist actually told me that if I don’t do something to strengthen those muscles, I will have a hump back by the time I’m 30! AHH scary much?! I told my PT what the massage therapist had said and made a joke that that just means I need to find a husband in the next 10 years...she was very amused by my comment, which just shows the awesome relationship we are going to have as we work together these next few times! She wasn’t convinced about the extremity of the humpback diagnosis, but she did affirm that I need to strengthen my back/shoulder blade muscles. She showed me some daily exercises that use my back muscles, and she put kinesio tape on my back to keep me sitting and standing straight. That is a significant reason why I was in so much pain on Friday- I was not only playing a lot, but I was also having to stand and sit using muscles I don’t normally use! But I am hoping that doing my exercises, working on my posture, and laying on a roller every day (that’s my favorite part!!) will eventually help my pain subside. Then I just need to learn how to play the cello using mainly my back muscles...and I know, Mr. Balderston, you told me that so often in my lessons at DePaul!! I promise I will get that part down someday. :P
So, after my PT appointment on Thursday and my performances on Friday, I spent my entire Saturday working on my unit plan. As I have described before, I am teaching a class of fourth graders a unit about jazz and cultural identity next semester (from March to April). I wrote my entire unit plan of 15 lessons, including introductory essays, in one sitting about 6 weeks ago. But then the final draft was due today...and Saturday was the first time I had looked at my unit plan since that day six weeks ago. I’m not usually so late in working on such a big project, but the only way I would have worked on the final draft of my unit plan was if I had done work over my two days off for Thanksgiving...and that was not happening if I wanted to maintain the little sanity I have left! So here I was, sitting in Heritage with Sophia from 10am to 6pm on my one “free” day over this past weekend. And I got a significant amount of work done! My professor, Scott, was already impressed with how much I had presented in my rough draft and only had a few comments. But they were big ones. And I also needed to seriously organize my lessons and write some of the materials for my unit. I finished writing out all my lessons and organizing them by Saturday evening and rewarded my hard work by going to an ugly Christmas sweater party at church. :) It was great, even though I had a big headache from sitting in front of the computer, doing work for 8 straight hours. And my back was killing me from having to sit up straight! HOT MESS.
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| The Mendenhall Quartet at the JAM Benefit! |
But yes, there went Sunday! I got home by 6:30 and immediately engulfed myself in my unit plan. Which I proceeded to work on until 2:30am...you see, I sort of got into a groove and couldn’t stop. Scott had recommended we try to create “a good amount” of our lesson materials and submit them with our unit plans, but I’m not one for taking any chances of doing too little. So... I sort of made the materials for my entire unit. Every single lesson. I actually feel like I could walk into a classroom tomorrow and teach this unit, I’m that prepared! So while teaching on 4 hours of sleep and acting like a calm, clear-thinking human was even more of a struggle today, I think it was worth it! I feel SO relieved to be done with that, and I am very proud of my work. Lorrie read over my unit and only had positive comments. I am sure I will receive helpful criticism in abundance from Scott and others, but for now, hearing that my unit plan is flawless works for me!! Finishing my unit plan was my final assignment for my UAS classes this semester because I finished the assignments for my other online class, Incorporating Technology in the Classroom, three weeks early. I spent many, many hours on both of these classes and their big projects, so please check out my work if you are interested in seeing what I did!
So that was pretty much my week. My iPad came on Friday, which was a great source of excitement for me throughout the weekend. I can already see how useful it will be when I teach, and I am happy to not walk around with my computer in my backpack on school days (especially because I have to walk the mile between schools!).
Today ended up going a lot better than I expected, actually. I conducted the orchestra at Thunder Mountain this morning and then taught Spanish class. I was feeling surprisingly alert and alive...up until Sophia and I sat down for 45 minutes for coffee in between our classes. All of a sudden, I was no longer in “I need to force myself to be awake so I can fool my students into thinking I’m fully functioning right now” mode, and the sleepiness overtook me! But I fought through it and came out of JAMM classes fairly unscarred. Swarms of kids shouting my name at the same time and scratchy-sounding violins weren’t quite as easy to handle today, but what can you do?! I love these kids- even if they find the exact wrong times to all ask questions! ;)
So, TWO MORE WEEKS on school until break! TWO MORE WEEKS until I am finally reunited with my family in Detroit for a week and a half. After being so far away from them in basically a different country (as they like to say) for 5 months, I am so ready to be home, complaining about my hilarious, loving parents with my incredible, silly sisters. :)
Oh, but did I mention that I still have 6 concerts to either play in or conduct before then?!
LORD, HELP US ALL!
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| Here's a cute first grader who will help us all get through the week! |
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