The Walk and Work

Nathan and I took part in the March of Dimes Walk today. We could not have asked for nicer weather. I recommend this event to anyone. We raised money for a great cause, over $500 and we got our exercise in for the day. Thank you everyone who donated!

Other than that this past week I had a weird Thursday. I broke my shoe walking into school; I should have taken it as a bad sign. During my first hour class I gave my students a few moments to review their notes before we took our test. As they were quietly looking over their notes I noticed something in the corner, a mouse stuck to a mouse trap! I thought (prayed to God rather) that I could call maintenance down to remove the little bugger before anyone noticed. As I was dialing for maintenance I here a student yell “Oh my God!” Well as you can imagine junior high students will use any distraction to keep from taking a test. You can not come up with a better distraction than a live mouse caught in a trap. I ended the day with my Spring Band Concert. I usually have a very strong opinion about how we perform, but I am pretty vanilla on this one. The kids have definitely played better in the past, but the concert was far from bad. I do not know maybe it was just a very Twilight Zone day.

Work

I was not going to post today. However I was inspired by a few friends who I have not heard from in a while ;) I have been quite busy lately, that does seem to be everyone's story. I was at work until 8:30 for the last two nights. We had a Parent Music Association meeting at my school and then I had a night rehearsal for an upcoming contest. It is hard when you feel like your whole day was eaten by work even if you love what you do.

So my night rehearsal last night was a mixed bag. It was an 1 1/2 hours long and it some ways it flew by. I made the mother of all lesson plans to prepare for it. I had the other band director and my principal, a former band director, act as mock judges at our rehearsal during the school day. I also recorded our run through for analasis. So between the comments and the recording I came up with five pages of corrections! We certainly did not get through them all, but we did start making some nice headway. On the flipside my group this year has maturity issues so anything that is different or special they have trouble handling and I had a ton of chatty cathy's last night. I was exhausted when it was over. We have our big contest this Saturday and then our concert next Thursday, April 26th. You are all more than welcome to come. My mom was not interested in coming until I told her I have a trash can ensemble playing. She is one weird cookie. I never know what she will like.

Youngblood Brass Band

Last night we went to see Youngblood Brass Band. They were fantastic. They are a New Orleans Style brass band, but they are very different. Instead of favoring jazz they favor hip hop. I know it sounds weird a hip-hop brass band, but it was great. They played about 15 songs in total and about 5 of them featured a rapper. I was not the biggest fan of the rap part, although it was Nathan's favorite part. Most of their songs were just instrumental. They played with such intensity and power it was infectious. I have a seen a few brass bands now and this one has something special. We will definately see them again.

March of Dimes

On April 29th Nathan and I are going to be walking for the March of Dimes. This is a great organization that helps prevent birth defects in babies. Visit the site http://www.walkamerica.org/jenhaselhorst to sponsor us! Thanks for thinking about it!

I finished!

I wish I could say I finished grad school, but I still have a few more months on that one. I did however finish this big research project I have been working on for months, three weeks ahead of time I might add! I am so happy I would break out into dance if I had not just thrown my back out at the gym this morning. I promise I will dance once I am feeling better. In the mean time feel free to ask me anything you want to know about nonverbal communication in the instrumental music classroom. Yippie I finished my research paper!