October 17, 2008

Today was Friday.

I woke up tired today and was a little sluggish most of the day.

I planned for my classes from about 7:45 AM until 8:15 AM by reading my textbook for presentation ideas and how to approach the written exercises. I then went and had a voice lesson with Mrs. Gee at the church our choir teacher at the school. The lesson lasted until close to 9 AM. I played my guitar and sang and the piano as well. It was a difficult lesson because it felt like I wasn't doing much right. I still think my teacher is the best though.

I then ran over to Donna's Kindergarten room and performed Jonas No Hizo Caso in Spanish and English with my guitar and voice. They liked it and it was fun to see the expressions on their faces. I then went to the K-4 room and performed the same song for them as well. They were as cute as could be.

I went back to the high school made some copies and then began second period. I had a new student in my Spanish I class. They did not do their warm-ups as quietly and a well as I had hoped. I took off point for lack of participation when a couple of the students were not able to translate some basic sentences correctly for me from the warm up sheet. While we were going over the warm-up I had two students that decided to totally ignore me and carry on a full fledged conversation. I got very upset and told them that what they were doing was pure bologna. When I came back to the strict zone in five minutes I apologized to the class for being so upset and explained to them why I was so.

Third period went well with my Spanish II & III class. We all got quite tired today but we pushed on ahead. Lunch was welcome. Guitar class in fourth period went well. I used an overhead transparency of music and had some of the students count the timing out on the projection. Duty lasted 30 minutes after that class.

We came home. I took a nap for an hour. I went to SFI to play music. I ended up playing the drum kit. I listened to Davy Ramsey on the way home. I am now sitting on the side of my bed with Midnight, my dog, getting a treat from my wife. Ashlyn is also laying down in the king size bed. We got Ashlyn's report card today. She got straight A's, eight of them. I owe her $10 per A. I am very proud of all her hard work. She is my special.

September 29, 2008

Today was Monday.

I went jogging late last night with Midnight. I probably got only about 5-6 hours of sleep.

I was tired today but did have good focus and energy in the classroom. I am trying and am succeeding, I think, at being very hands-on with all of my classes. I had time after visiting the Chiropractor at 8 AM to come back to school and read my teacher edition textbooks for planning and demonstration ideas. In Guitar I class I had the students analyze their sheet music in four ways: Name notes, write beat duration values under every note, circle all tonic notes and draw a straight line for a graph between notes. Practice went well as they played some duets on Claire de Lune.

I stayed after school until 4 PM grading papers for all classes and putting those grades in the computer.

Donna is getting whooped teaching her kindergarten class of 21 kids. They are having great difficulty grabbing on to very simple concepts like circles, squares, triangles, etc.

I took another nap from 5-7 PM tonight. I hated to do that but I was whooped also. I was able to stop by Jack in the Box for a little over an hour tonight.

Andrew wrote a song yesterday and today on the guitar and vocally called, "I Wonder Why." I thought it was a great concept.

Today was an historic day for the stock market. It lost around 778 points, more than the first day the market was open after September 11. I did some reading on the Internet today on the theories of what caused the Great Depression around the world starting in 1929 and going for about 10 years in America.