Sunday, May 29, 2011

tower of blocks

When my oldest nephew was about 3, his favorite thing to do was to build a huge tower of building blocks (taller than him!) and then knock it down. Now, he could build the tower, or you could build the tower, but he was going to be the one knocking it down! For a few years I was his regular babysitter, so I built lots of these block towers, and then picked then up again. But this could go on forever. He never tired of knocking down that tower, and watching it fall all over the floor.

Recently I have felt like I was under that tower as it fell all over me. Like everything came crashing down. Now, don't get concerned. I'm no heading off to Nepal to find myself, nor am I going on the "eat, pray, love" tour. But I do feel like I've been toppled over.

I think that the end of school, and having more on my plate than usual at work, and then getting really sick, and feeling obliged to go to the graduation parties and graduation ceremonies of all my graduating seniors in Youth Group has put a little pressure on. But, I've missed a bunch of that because I got a nasty cold that almost immediately turned into bronchitis. On Friday I should have been at our school's graduation, but I was at the doctor. Today I have 2 grad parties that I really want to go to, but I'm home taking my inhaler.

Really, there's no happy ending here. I'm sick and have to deal with it. I have missed several obligations, and still have work to do at school, but life goes on. I guess the end of this story is that I have to crawl out from under these blocks and go on.

And I will.

Thanks for listening...
K

Thursday, May 19, 2011

spider

Today in my class:
Student: (while I was speaking) There's a spider!
Me: Go get it! 
Student: (brave 6th grade boy) OK, what should I do with it?
Me: STEP ON IT!!! (much volume)
Him: OK, I've got it. Wait...it's still moving.
Me: STEP ON IT AGAIN!!!!! (more volume)
Him: OK, it's dead. Now what do I do?
Me: (Much less volume) Go get, like, 12 Kleenex and pick it up. Then throw it in the trash. But, please make sure it is dead first.

Oh if you could have been there... you would have laughed SO hard at me.

I'm just sayin'...
K

Sunday, May 8, 2011

performances

Today I went to a concert. It was the spring concert of a youth orchestra here in town. Several of my students play in this group and had invited me to come  listen.

I really enjoyed it. The music was great, and the kids did a fantastic job playing. Now it was not perfect, and in fact, it was far from it. There were notes that were missed. There were people who played out of tune. There were wrong rhythms.

But, the important thing, the thing that made me smile was not the correct-ness of the notes, or the percentage of playing that was in tune. It was the fact that these kids were doing it! They had practiced, they had worked on the music, they had worked together, and now they were performing.

The thing that makes music special is that very thing - the doing of it that bring us together as people. It's the thing that leads us into a relationship with others. It's the working together. It's the cooperation we find in each measure that makes those performances special.

May you find, or continue in, something that gives you that same experience. The practice, the cooperation, the rehearsal, the performance.

Way to go PYO! Great job today!
K