Oh no...

I just discovered that the school at which I student teach has a secret supply of free chocolate. This is bad.

Yesterday at church, a song was performed during the Offertory that was truly beautiful. These are the lyrics:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hear their songs,
Their words of beauty reaching deep
Within cathedrals of my heart.
Angelic choirs reverberate
The stained glass windows
Of saints and sinners in their place
Singing out "Amazing Grace"
While in the glory of their faith
I'm drawn to find my part
And sing with all my heart.

I know their words,
Their thoughts reflecting simple truth
Of testimonies rich in love.
Their eyes can see
The mystery of loving kindness,
Of chains and blindness torn away,
Power found in each new day,
The Lord's compassion on display.
His touch from Heaven above
Gave words to speak their love.

Composer of my soul,
Show me all You show them.
The hymnwriter, hymnsinger,
Let me know their eloquence;
Let me share their offering.
Put the notes in my heart,
The lyrics on my lips,
And let the essence of my life
Be a song that others will want to sing.

I see their lives
Like tears that fall upon a page -
A mark indelible in time.
What sacrifice!
Their hearts poured out like ragin water
For sons and daughters to believe
And generations to receive
The harvest white from all their seeds.
No greater love sublime
Could change this heart of mine.

Composer of my soul,
Show me all You show them.
The hymnwriter, hymnsinger,
Let me know their eloquence;
Let me share their offering.
Put the notes in my heart,
The lyrics on my lips,
And let the essence of my life
Be a song that others will want to sing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think that every musician in the choir, sitting in pews, and performing would agree that this is the prayer of our lives, which can really be boiled down to a musical version of the beginning of the Westminster Catechism:

What is the chief and highest end of man?

Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

The Cow

I just rediscovered a picture I took while visiting home in Vermont. It made me laugh.

The Joys of Public School

There have been some seemingly unimportant things that I've learned while student teaching that may actually have some significance. For example, I've learned to USE THE COPIER! Now, I'm not just talking about putting a sheet of paper on the glass, shutting the lid, and pressing start. That I could have done in middle school. No. I'm talking about taking sheets of 9 x 13 music, reducing the size, scanning four pages, reversing the order, double-siding, and ending up with one sheet of double-sided-with-a-fold-down-the-middle 11 x 17 paper. Hardcore, right? I will entitle this Skill Number 1: Mastering the Art of Sheet Music Copying.

Skill Number 2 does not have quite as concise a title as skill number one. It goes something like this: The Fine Art of Bringing Food to School When One is Horrible at Buying Portable Nourishment. The fact of the matter is, I don't like lunch food. I just don't. I'd much rather heat up leftovers from dinner the night before than make a sandwich that will be wimpy and gross by the time I take it out four hours later. Moreover, there's no good way to keep the food cold if it needs to be. Ice packs are helpful, but then you take out your sandwich, and one side of the bread is dry and cold, and the other side is warm and soggy. Your granola bar is too hard, because the honey that holds it together has solidified. Your water is ok because it's in a bottle that hasn't been in your lunchbox all day, but you're so bummed about your food being strange temperatures and consistencies that the success of the water doesn't really count. Because of all this, I don't buy lunch food, which presents a problem since I need to bring a lunch every day. This has led to me either being really, really hungry by the time I get home or coming up with something rather unusual to bring. I count today as my best idea yet - I made oatmeal in a thermos in the morning, and brought it with me along with a long-handled spoon. It was lovely. I think it beats last week, when I brought a small loaf of homemade bread and ripped chunks of it off for two days. Sadly, when I had the bread I forgot that I also had a block of cheese, or that would have come along as well. I think I'm improving.

Skill Number 3: A Formula - Amount of Chocolate Consumed = Amount of Happiness at the End of the Day. No kidding. I have eaten more chocolate this semester daily than I have in the past 7, probably combined. Chocolate just makes everything better.

Skill Number 4: Gaining Personal Amusement from Overheard Quotes. Here are some of my favorites:

"You play the obee, right?"

Teacher: "I don't have one of those Facemail things."

High school student: "What's your favorite brain disorder?"

Me: "Trombones, what does pesante mean?"
Trombone section: "PIRATE-LIKE!"

::Student hold up both hands to high five:: "You're my best friend!!" "NO! She's MY best friend!" "NO! She's MY best friend!!"

5th grade girl I've never met: "You're SO SKINNY! You're, like, smaller than ME!" Me: "Uhhhh....well....I think I'm pretty normal...." (She's in 5th grade. I am certainly not smaller than she is.) Girl: "Is that a weird thing to say? People say I'm unusual." Me: "I like unusual people!" Girl: "Oh good. Hi, by the way."

Me: "Baritone...what's your name? You're doing a great job!"
Baritone player: "Colin!"
Sax player: "YEEEEEEEEEAH, DECLAN!"
Me: ::correctly assuming sax player is either lying or not paying attention:: "Hi Colin!"

6th grade clarinet: "My poor baby [clarinet!] She's broken! Is she going to die?!?"
5th grade clarinet: "No, but you'll have to take her to clarinet hospital. They'll take good care of her, but she'll probably have to stay there awhile because she's sick. They'll have to give her medicine! And maybe surgery!"

(Then there are the All-State audition singer quotes. Here we recognize the difference between singers and musicians.)

"Oh my GOSH! I just couldn't find the pitch because it was like, a WHOLE step away from the other one!"

::After looking at the key signature:: "A was do! E was sol!" "No, you're wrong. E was do. A was sol!" "No! It was the other way around!" "No it wasn't!" (Mind you, if A was do, E would be sol, but if E was do, B would be sol, and A would be fa. Fail.)

"I think I did really well!"
::I look at score sheet, see all 1s and 2s out of 10:: ".....great!"

"Yeah, my life goal is to go to Berklee and be a Song-Writing major."

Andrew to a tenor wearing organ shoes: "Oh, so you're an organist?"
Organ-shoes tenor: "Uh....no....why would you think that?"

"Oh, I'm soooooo glad there weren't any dotted quarter notes on the sight reading! I would have died!!"

I think that's pretty much it. Sometimes, being around public school and its students is pretty amusing.

Super Bowl?

Normally, the highlight and perhaps only benefit of watching the Super Bowl every year (for me, at least) is watching the commercials. I liked this one in particular:




And I also thought this one was kinda funny, especially with the re-orchestration of the 1812 Overture:




But honestly, I would be remiss if I neglected the absolute BEST part of the Super Bowl this year:



That's right. Christina Aguilera sang the wrong words to the national anthem. I love American pop culture.

(Which is why we spent most of the Super Bowl time frame listening to recordings of church music, sorting sheet music, and singing the Te Deum. We're cool kids.)

I have decided that student teaching is a rather lonely business. I know I said the other day that I still feel connected with people on campus and I'm involved in as many ensembles as I can be, and that's true, but I find myself missing little things like chapel (more like the skipping of chapel...), classes with friends, and random incidents that I am nonetheless amused to hear about later. Coming back from public school in the afternoon and hearing about everyone else taking tests and studying with loads of homework makes the fact that the 7th grade second alto saxes played their parts right for the first time at a quarter of the original tempo seem incredibly insignificant, and so I can't help but wish that I could spend my last semester investing more time in the incredible blessings of both focused academic learning and dear, dear relationships that simply being in college has provided over the course of the last 3.5 years. I'm not ready to relinquish those quite yet. But I guess if I weren't off campus for most of the day, maybe I wouldn't see the value of these things until they were completely unavailable. Is this what growing up feels like? If it is...I'm not sure I want it to come so soon.

Perilous Parking

While it is true that parking becomes somewhat hazardous when the snowbanks are significantly taller than the average person's head, it probably shouldn't be excuse for bad driving manners. This afternoon, Meghanne, Jon, Diana, and I decided to go shopping. We pulled into the North Shore Mall, drove into a parking spot, and adjusted so that we were between the half-obscured-by-slush white lines. While we were getting out of the car - mind you, this is a Volkswagen Beetle - a lady in an SUV drives up behind us and says, "HEY! What do you think you're doing?!?" We must have looked shocked, because she went on to yell, "Can't you SEE that you're taking up, like, THREE spaces?!??"

We looked at her. Then we looked at Meghanne's little car that was very obviously in only one parking spot. Then we looked back at her and said something to the effect of, "Uhhh.....we're definitely only taking up one." She neglected to respond and drove off in a huff.

When we returned to the car after our shopping expedition involving free chocolate (among other things), we found her large SUV parked in the spot immediately adjacent to ours, with lots of room to spare on either side. People are funny sometimes.