Baking a cake:
Some new friends:
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Shoulderpad
For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath to know if I continued on my quest for shoulderpadlessness, I need to tell you that between my performance Saturday and my performance yesterday, I pulled out my old shoulderpad, and I certainly performed the better for it. I guess I'm going to go back to that, at least for now...
EMPM
I just played a concert last night. It went really well. I had actually played my program on Saturday already, in a little mini conference-concert that I organized at the music school. Basically, I had done some research on my pieces and their composers. I gave a little talk where I compared the two in their composition and history, and then played them. I wanted to give my students a chance to get a little more background in music history, and also to give them a chance to hear me play because I think it's important.
Which leads me to the subject I wanted to write about today: the music school where I teach.
It's a school with currently about 280 students and 16 teachers. Basically, none of the teachers are full-time. I, for example, have about 10 hours of teaching a week. I think there are teachers who have more, but there are also teachers who have much less. It just depends on how many students want to learn that instrument. The school is not a part of the national system of music conservatories here in France. It's independent, and it's technically run by the officers of the association that is made up of the parents and students. On the day-to-day basis, we have a music director and a secretary who do lots of that work.
The school went through a time about 5 years ago where it almost had to close for financial reasons, and so they've re-thought through a lot of things recently and given a new spin on things. Notably, we are much more focused on having the students play in ensembles and building their ensemble skills than they were before. This demands a lot more coordination between the teachers, and they actually created the director's post 2 years ago to help organize all that. I personally find this way of working exciting and interesting, but for some of the teachers who've been around awhile, they sometimes have a hard time adapting, or wanting to adapt, which I can understand.
One thing that is complicated is that we don't have a building or one place where we can give our lessons. We're spread out in various municipal rooms in several little towns around Melle, which makes the kind of coordination we need to have very difficult. Not to mention that those teachers who need a lot of materials (drum set, keyboards, etc.) are constantly having to move things around. We're not sure what can be done, but something needs to happen.
In the violin realm, I have 17 students. 2 of them have been taking lessons for 5 or 6 years, and for one of them, I'm her 6th teacher! The rest have been taking lessons for less time, but obviously changing teachers so often isn't good for them, and this has had repercussions on a technical, musical, and even psychological level. One of the first things I did with these 2 students was to assure them that I have no plans to leave anytime soon.
I really enjoy the opportunity to teach. I think that there's a lot of potential to make some very interesting things happen in this school, and I'm excited at the fact that I won't have tons of students moving every year or two, like I did in Paris. Hopefully I'll be able to build something that will be good for the students and the school, and will be interesting for me, as well!
Which leads me to the subject I wanted to write about today: the music school where I teach.
It's a school with currently about 280 students and 16 teachers. Basically, none of the teachers are full-time. I, for example, have about 10 hours of teaching a week. I think there are teachers who have more, but there are also teachers who have much less. It just depends on how many students want to learn that instrument. The school is not a part of the national system of music conservatories here in France. It's independent, and it's technically run by the officers of the association that is made up of the parents and students. On the day-to-day basis, we have a music director and a secretary who do lots of that work.
The school went through a time about 5 years ago where it almost had to close for financial reasons, and so they've re-thought through a lot of things recently and given a new spin on things. Notably, we are much more focused on having the students play in ensembles and building their ensemble skills than they were before. This demands a lot more coordination between the teachers, and they actually created the director's post 2 years ago to help organize all that. I personally find this way of working exciting and interesting, but for some of the teachers who've been around awhile, they sometimes have a hard time adapting, or wanting to adapt, which I can understand.
One thing that is complicated is that we don't have a building or one place where we can give our lessons. We're spread out in various municipal rooms in several little towns around Melle, which makes the kind of coordination we need to have very difficult. Not to mention that those teachers who need a lot of materials (drum set, keyboards, etc.) are constantly having to move things around. We're not sure what can be done, but something needs to happen.
In the violin realm, I have 17 students. 2 of them have been taking lessons for 5 or 6 years, and for one of them, I'm her 6th teacher! The rest have been taking lessons for less time, but obviously changing teachers so often isn't good for them, and this has had repercussions on a technical, musical, and even psychological level. One of the first things I did with these 2 students was to assure them that I have no plans to leave anytime soon.
I really enjoy the opportunity to teach. I think that there's a lot of potential to make some very interesting things happen in this school, and I'm excited at the fact that I won't have tons of students moving every year or two, like I did in Paris. Hopefully I'll be able to build something that will be good for the students and the school, and will be interesting for me, as well!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Imitations
Here are things that Alina has been imitating recently:
The sound of airplanes overhead
The sound of cars on the street
The sound of birds outside
The noise (and the face) Mommy makes when trying to open a jar
The sound of Daddy blowing his nose
The sound of Daddy sneezing (guess whose turn it is to have a cold now!)
Bunny noses
Fish mouths
Mémé's grandfather clock chiming
The sound of reading a book (think the teacher in Charlie Brown, only using the syllable "Da")
Kittens lapping milk
The sound of airplanes overhead
The sound of cars on the street
The sound of birds outside
The noise (and the face) Mommy makes when trying to open a jar
The sound of Daddy blowing his nose
The sound of Daddy sneezing (guess whose turn it is to have a cold now!)
Bunny noses
Fish mouths
Mémé's grandfather clock chiming
The sound of reading a book (think the teacher in Charlie Brown, only using the syllable "Da")
Kittens lapping milk
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Meet...
Luther and Calvin, the newest additions to the Constantini family! 3 guesses on who named them, and the first 2 don't count! Actually, I was a bit disappointed. Thomas has a plant named Soren (as in Kierkegaard), Alina has a stuffed bear named Cyrus (as in Scofield) and a stuffed dog named Cornelius (as in Van Til). I personally find Calvin and Luther a but mundane as names go, but, hey whatever... On the animal theme, look who showed up in our yard a few days ago:
A cute little hedgehog! Unfortunately, they're supposed to be nocturnal, and this one was out and about in the daytime, so we were concerned that he wasn't doing too well. But we gave him some food and it's been a few days since we've seen him. Either he's doing better and living a happy nocturnal hedgehog life, or he was worse off then we thought. And here are some other crazy animals in our yard:
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Weird Craving
No, I'm not pregnant.
But, I got my runny-nosed, weary-eyed self out of the house today to do some grocery shopping. I didn't need that many things, and, contrary to my usual habit, hadn't made a list. As I was pushing the stroller up the hill to the store, I was thinking about what I needed to get, when all of a sudden, I was hit by this overwhelming thought: CRANBERRY JUICE!!!
Now, please understand that this was not, "Hey, if I happened to have some cranberry juice right now, I think I'd drink it." This was suddenly seeing myself sipping a tall glass of ice-cold cranberry juice and wanting that to be true SO badly. You can actually get cranberry juice in France, which is a relatively recent thing. But they don't sell it at the store where I usually shop, and it's something like 3 times as expensive as apple juice, so I usually don't buy it. But today I just had to have some. Of course, I was going to the store where they don't sell it, which is the only store within walking distance of our house. But after I taught this afternoon, I swung by a store where they do sell it. I'm enjoying it SO much this very minute.
But, I got my runny-nosed, weary-eyed self out of the house today to do some grocery shopping. I didn't need that many things, and, contrary to my usual habit, hadn't made a list. As I was pushing the stroller up the hill to the store, I was thinking about what I needed to get, when all of a sudden, I was hit by this overwhelming thought: CRANBERRY JUICE!!!
Now, please understand that this was not, "Hey, if I happened to have some cranberry juice right now, I think I'd drink it." This was suddenly seeing myself sipping a tall glass of ice-cold cranberry juice and wanting that to be true SO badly. You can actually get cranberry juice in France, which is a relatively recent thing. But they don't sell it at the store where I usually shop, and it's something like 3 times as expensive as apple juice, so I usually don't buy it. But today I just had to have some. Of course, I was going to the store where they don't sell it, which is the only store within walking distance of our house. But after I taught this afternoon, I swung by a store where they do sell it. I'm enjoying it SO much this very minute.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Music School blog
I just added a link to our blog. It's the link of the brand-spankin' new blog of the music school where I work. I have particular reasons to be proud of it because it's almost exclusively my handiwork. It's so new that people aren't even supposed to know about it yet.
Having just taught all afternoon, I was greatly encouraged to make the observation that my students are actually improving. This is a good thing.
Having just taught all afternoon, I was greatly encouraged to make the observation that my students are actually improving. This is a good thing.
Woe is us
It's been a rough couple of weeks at the Constantini household. 2 weeks ago, Alina was sick. I say 2 weeks ago, but her nose is still a bit runny... Anyway, 2 weeks ago, Alina had a fever for 5 days, didn't sleep for three nights in a row, and generally made her and everyone else's lives miserable. We had houseguests at the time, followed by more houseguests. By the end of last week, I had a bit of a sore throat. After my students' concert Saturday (more about the music school in another post), I was running a fever which lasted for 2 days. Today I went to a 3-hour meeting followed by teaching all afternoon, all the while not being able to breathe through my nose or hear! Try tuning 9 violins when you have your ears completely blocked up. I may go see the doctor tomorrow (again).But after Saturday morning, I have 2 weeks of spring vacation!
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