Only Tuesday, really??

I can not believe it is only Tuesday. I woke up today and went to go sub, and totally thought it was Thursday. Where the hell was i?? Oh well, I have my 1st concert coming up tomorrow, and Thursday! We'll see how that goes. If everyone pays attention and is thinking, it will go great. If they don't, it could fall apart. I hope they choose to pay attention. I thought I would be really nervous about this concert, but for some reason I'm not. I guess because I've had to put up with a lot of B.S. to get this concert going, and then to make sure every student is there. I just don't care about the concert. I know there are some songs that could fall apart, and I'm not even worried about it. I think if this was a choir, I would be hella nervous, but I'm just not going to get myself worked up about it, there's nothing I can do. In happier news, I had an awesome weekend this past weekend. I went up to P-burgh to see Dan. On Friday we went down to see a couple of his friends new place in the South SIde, they were AMAZING! Huge, beautiful, and very reasonably priced. I was shocked, I got to meet some friends of Dans that I have never seen before, that was fun! I got to meet the girl he took to prom, she was hilarious, like the type of person I could see being an amazing friend. Saturday, we went up to Grove City and did some xmas shopping, I got a lot of it done, and got some great deals, I was very excited. We then went to a Christmas party that night that a couple of his friends threw. It was just a lot of fun to be with soem of Dans close friends this weekend and just have some fun. On Sunday I met my Brother at Tanger to get some stuff and do some more xmas shopping. I found out he doesn't like the peacoat I got him at the Gap on Saturday. Oh well. I did buy myself a new pair of tennis shoes. I know it doesn't sound exciting, but I was super excited. I haven't bought myself a new pair of tennis shoes since I was a sophmore in college. I forgot how nice it feels to wear brand new shoes lol. So now I'm almost done with my xmas shopping, I think I am going to get the rest of it done this weekend. It's so exciting to be able to shop for everyone by myself, I love it! Oh well The students are about to come back it.

TGIF

I think the only time I post a new blog is when I am subbing, on my lunch break haha. Oh well, I am so glad it's friday I can't wait till I am done with lessons and then on my way to Pittsburgh! I don't know how anyone else feels, but the weeks and months seem to be going faster and faster, it's a little scary to think about. Great news, I finally got my check from Josh, it's about damn time too! Now I have more xmas gift shopping, which is ALWAYS good! So today I am subbing Special Ed and at Elementary School. First off the teacher who I am subbing for, can't spell or write. His handwriting is AWFUL, and his spelling is even worse. I swear some of the students I am teaching today have better handwriting and spelling skills (I know that's awful, but I'm not kidding). The students I have are all so nice and very respectful. I think a lot of them just have a small learning disability, because it's not like any of them have downs syndrome or anything, just need a little more time when it comes to doing certain work. So I am enjoying my day here, I just wish it were 530 already so I could start my weekend! Only 7 more days of work!!

Long tim, no post

Well life is going pretty good. Dan came down last night to suprise me and is staying the weekend! That got me excited. He is opening up his practice within the week, I'm so excited for him! I am subbing right now for Maria at Cheat Lake, because she has to put on a Holiday Program, she came in and told me to just put in movies, because that's what she did all week. Fine with me, I don't have to plan anything then. Other great news, Josh told me last night that he got his paycheck from the army and will give me my money in the next week! FINALLY. Things are looking up, I'm getting paid for subbing, so now I have enough money that I don't need to worry about anything anymore, which is such a great feeling. Everything going well kind of scares me though, it always seems that when things are going well, something bad happens, just to keep me humble. I'm crossing my fingers nothing happens. I am in the process right now of planning my first Christmas concert for band ( I can call it Christmas since its at a Catholic School). One bad thing though, it's during the day, and the new principal "okayed" a field trip for the 6th graders that day. That means that 4 out of my 9 players in advanced band are going to be missing. WHAT DO I DO NOW?? I had a talk with Mrs. Grisso and she said that is completely unacceptable. We talked to the principal and he told me I have to contact the parents to see if they will let their children stay back for the concert. Why do I have to contact the parents for a msitake he made? Plus, there is then still a chance that I will loose these kids, and of course they are my best players in band. Ugh, oh well It will be ok. The band, however, is coming along and getting much better as the year goes on, I am very pleased. The beginning band will not shut up during class, or stop playing their instruments. I get it, the instruments are still new, but I can't teach over someone playing trumpet, someone playing sax, and someone pounding on the drums. It's just very frustrating. Oh well I'll get through, it could be a lot worse. Well off to watch the Lion King, and then the WEEKEND!!

Finally a normal class

So today, I am subbing at Blackshere Elementary. You know why you have never heard of that school, it's because it is an hour south of Morgantown, in the middle fo Nowhere, USA also called Mannington, WV. I had to drive an hour to get here, but at least I'm not teaching pothead high schoolers, "gifted" HA kids, or bad attitude middle school kids. I just have to drive an hour to get to the normal ones. Well It's going pretty good so far, they are at the Library now, they come back for spelling and handwriting and then LUNCH! I am starving. I can not wait for this day to end, I have been out of the house since 6:30 and wont be back till around 8:30. Oh well have to make money somehow. I can't wait for this weekend, I think I'm going up to Pittsburgh to see my brothers play. I'll probably see Dan and hopefully hang out with some frinds from back home. Then I only teach on Monday and then have the rest of the week of, YES!! I can not wait to be able to sleep in everyday and not worry about a thing! A much needed break! Well I have to go pick up the little kids, 8:30 can't come soon enough!

AHH!

Right now, I am not liking life too much. I mean I am subbing a lot, which I love, St. Francis is going pretty well, everything with Dan is going great. I am having fun with friends and everything, so I should be really happy, but NO! Right now, my roommate is being so irresponsible and lazy. He has yet to pay his part of the rent for this month, it is now 10 days late! He owes $595, instead of the $530. PLUS he owes me $300 that I loaned to him for last months rent. I moved into this place in September, before I moved in he was paying $1060 a month. I check the past records of the apartment down at the office, he was paying them on time every month. How the hell can he not pay half of that now? He told me he was getting a $3,000 check from the army soon (that was over a month ago). He also told me that all he had to do was run up to Pittsburgh to go get the check, he hasn't yet. He owes me $300 dollars and it doesn't even look like he's trying to pay me back. He told me he was going to get a job so he could make some extra money, and he got one. He was working at Applebee's as a cook. He worked there one day and then quit the next, saying he found all kinds of jobs in the paper he could get. Who quits their job, BEFORE getting another. Especially if you are obviously running a little low in the money department. He has no sense of reality and now it is not just effecting me. My parents had to help me out a little bit because he has yet to pay me that $300. Not only all of this, but if he doesn't pay his rent, the complex can take me to court because it is a joint lease. I am so mad right now that he is being so irresponsible. I thought the army always advertises, building character, making people strong, and teaching responsibility? Did Josh get a dud as a general or what? I have no idea what to do and am stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I have tried having talks with him and it doesn't seem to work. I am going to sit him down after I get back from lessons today and just set everything out on the table. He needs to realize that his actions are no longer effecting just him, they are effecting me and my parents and that is unacceptable! Well I'm going to get ready for lessons and be thinking of what I am going to say. Wish me luck!

Ugh... getting sick

So Sunday I went home to take back my car that was damaged by Babmi and also visited Dan and slept at his house. Yesterday morning I woke up with a stuffy nose, and thought oh hell no! If I get sick and can't work, I don't get paid, it's that simple. So I start taking anything and everything I can to get over this cold, I really hope it works. In other news, Homecoming weekend.......AMAZING! I got to see so many people I haven't seen in forever, it was great!! I lost my voice at the game...surprise, but it was worth it. Now back to reality, worked at St. Francis yesterday and this one girl asked how to play Gb and F# I don't know, im just estimating, but like 357 times! I wanted to take her instrument and tell her to never be in band again, I was just getting so annoyed. The trumpet section is really improving, which is good. Oh and I got 1 more trumpet so now I have 2 trumpets, 5 flutes and 2 percussion, things are really looking good for this band HA! Oh well, I'm going to go try and work out and then hopefully get some reading done before lessons

First Day of Subbing!

Last night, I called the substitute service hotline to see if there were any jobs for me today. Well the first one I heard was at UHS for Special Ed. Now I have nothing against special needs students or anything, if you know me, you would realize, I could never teach special ed. For some reason, I feel very uncomfortable, maybe because I have never had too much interaction with people with special needs. Luckily, there was a job open for an elementary position at Brookhaven Elementary, and PERFECT it;s like 10 mins away from my house and from Fawleys! Obviously I took it. Then I got nervous, thinking, I have to teach all of the subjects in elementary school. Social Studies, Math, English, Spelling, Science. What the hell am I going to do?? I just figured, I'll just go and read over her lesson plans and hope for the best. I got to Brookhaven this morning, and how lucky am I? I got to Sub for Pre-School!! I have worked at a daycare for two years and worked with preschool students, this is perfect. Also the teacher had an aide with her, so the aide is doing all the work, while I just sit there and play with the kids. There is this cute little guy named Gavin. He is adorable. They told me he would probably be very afraid and stand-offish because I am new. They said he cries all the time and doesn't want anyone to go near him. Well he came to class and came right over to me and was trying to play with my by scaring me lol. I about died, I have been with him the whole day. Now it is nap time a.k.a. my break. I am loving this subbing thing and I already know that I am going to be subbing high school choir at UHS for Barry Kolar. I am having a great day and it's so nice to know that right now I am making $100 for very little work!!

I wish I was teaching choir!

So This past week went ok. I'm not terribly fond of teaching band, especailly when I have 5 flutes, 2 drummers, and a trumpet for a band. I will deal with it and get through this year, but oh well. Also this week I got approved by Mon County to be a susbstitute teacher, isn't it said that I am more excited about subbing than I am about my band director job? Anyways, I already got my first call to be a Substitute today at 8am, I had to decline because I have to go teach at good ole' St. Franny! I just made it seem like I didn't already know about being a Sub, since no one called to let me know. I found out from UHS's Choral Director who i saw at Kroger. He said he is going to be needing me this Friday, I hope I sub choir this Friday, it would be amazing to be teaching a choir again. Also, Dan and Molly came in this weekend and I went to the Marshall game on Saturday. I had such a good time with Molly, she never fails to amuse me . I can not WAIT until Alumni Band this weekend! Annie and Glen, GET READY! I am not looking forward to going to St. Francis right now and teaching band. Other bad news, I lost to students TODAY for lessons, one parent told me her other son had too much stuff going on, so she couldn't take her daughter to voice lessons, that's awful, denying one child something so your other child can do more activites. The other, just didn't want to practice piano, but the mom told me he has been contemplating lessons for a while now, and didn't want to quit because he liked me so much, so that made me feel better. So now I have 23 students, which I guess isn't bad, but I just want a ton so I can make mroe money, oh well hopefully I will get more! Well I'm off to band hopefully they sound better today than last week :/

Oops forgot to blog!

Ok, so Annie reminded me about blogging about my teaching experiences. Thanks Annie! Well, what has been going on, my voice and piano lessons are going great I love teaching voice and piano and I can really hear a difference in some of my students voices! It's really exciting!! The St. Francis job on the other hand, I could live without. Thursday I went back to St. Francis to teach a couple of rehearsals, and found out that the instruments STILL aren't in to the school yet. So for the beginning band I just went over my expectations and the classroom rules, honestly I thought they would be a little more respectful since I was their student teacher last year, but it was the exact opposite. They thought that I was like their friend, and we were just their to have fun, I already had to enforce some of my rules and give out some pivots (it's a classroom management technique they use in the school, very effective). Then the advanced band was supposed to come in, I was very excited I had a lot of ideas for them. So they show up and my advanced band has 8, that's right, 8 people in it. Hold on it gets better, out of the 8 students in my band 5 of them are flutes, yes 5! What am I supposed to do with an 8 student band composed of 5 flutes, 2 percussion, and 1 trumpet???? If anyone has any ideas PLEASE send them to me. As of right now I am thinking of combinig both band and writing very simple parts for the beginning band, just so the band will be a decent size. Other than that, my life is going pretty well, I should be hearing something really soon about getting approved to be a substitute, I can't wait till I am subbing regularly and making $111 a day subbing, it will be really nice to add that money to my lessons and St. Francis job. Dan is opening his practice in the next couple weeks and already has some patients lined up! I'm so excited for him and can't wait to see his practice take off! Well that's about all that's going on right now, tomorrow I have to go back to St. Francis, hopefully the students got some of their friends to join band, I'll update and we'll see what happens, wish me luck!

First day of Band

So yesterday was my first day of Teaching Band at St. Francis, or so I though it was supposed to be. I get to St. Francis a little early to make copies of music, and a letter I wrote up to send to the parents that have my expectations, how not to buy an instrument at Walmart etc. I walk into the office all excited for my first day, make all the copies and I see the Principal. I walk over to say hi and he tells me "Hi Ryan, i am so sorry I heard you talking and I wanted to come tell you. I didn't send the order in for the instruments until Thursday (4 days ago!!!) so I cancelled band for today, and I was meaning to call you, but forgot." FORGOT!!! How does the Principal cancel MY rehearsal and then FORGET to call the Band Director?!?!?!? I was very pissed. If it's any consolation, he at least let me clock-in so i would get paid for coming. I was OK with that, but I really wanted to get the ball rolling on rehearsals, since I have to prepare a Christmas Concert in TWO MONTHS! What a great way to start at St. Francis :) So I just walk down to Maria Grisso's Music Room to see if, while I'm here, I could help her out at all. I get down there, and she explains to me that apparently this isn't the first time something like this has happened with the principal. He is apparently not to great with his communication skills. Then I was thinking, wait I am teaching advanced band, shouldn't these students already have an instrument? I was sort of right, yes they have their instruments but the principal cancelled band before that day so most of them didn't bring their instruments. I did, however, have some students bring their instrument. I had two flutes and a drummer show up. Great two f-ing flutes and drummer, perfect! I tried to have a lesson with what I had. So I try to do some warm-ups with them, just doing a Bb scale at first. Don't you know the one flute can read music AT ALL, and doesn't remember any of the fingerings. Awesome, this is what I wanted to be doing, teaching a flute the fingerings. I'm not a band person, I have never claimed to be a band person. I enjoyed being in band, but I never wanted to teach it. I took this job, one because I needed something, and two I was under the impression that the advanced band already knew how to play. Well I was wrong the old band director there didn't teach them shit, in fact the only credential she had was that she played guitar. So know I guess I'm going to have to teach both beginning and advanced band how to play their instrument. I'M PSYCHED!! Well hopefully on Thursday when I go into St. Francis things will be a little better, and the principal won't cancel MY rehearsal. On a better note I got an 85% on my first English Lit. Paper, and the class average was a 65%, so that put me in a better mood!

October 3rd first blog

So this is my first time blogging.......ever. I read Annie and Glen's blog and thought it was a good idea to keep friends who are far away updated. So i am back in good ole' Morgantown. I never thought I would be starting my first job back in WV. I always told people I would never teach in WV, and look where I am. I am actually happy to be back in town, I still have friends here, the jobs I have are all low stress and pay pretty good money, the house I am living in is beautiful, my roommate is pretty awesome, and it is close to Dan. For those of you who don't know, Dan is this guy i am dating. He is so awesome and that is the main reason I don't care that I am back in Morgantown, because it is a whole lot closer to Pittsburgh then Philly, Maryland, or Virginia. Well so far this year has been pretty good, I have 26 piano & voice students ( I know, me teaching piano). For the most part I like it, i have a couple of really strange students, but it is really nice teaching one-on-one. I get to bond with my students on a completely different level, it's more of like a friends teaching them piano and voice rather than a teacher in front of the class teaching. So I got this lesosns job, and it was great, but I wasn't sure how I was going to live off of the lessons. Luckily, Dr. Robbins (Music Ed Professor @ WVU) e-mailed me a whole bunch of job openings around the area, so i interviewed, and interviewed and got a job as band director at St. Francis. I am very excited, because it is where I student taught. The pay isn't as much as I would like it to be, but I will manage. I will also be subbing in Mon and Marion county on the days I do not work at St. Francis. So while I will be working 3 jobs this year, none of them are high stress jobs, which will be nice. My first band rehearsal for St. Francis is Monday. I am very nervous because I never thought about teaching band to anyone, I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean I know it's the frist day so a lot of the time we will be going over my expectations and rules, but then what do I do on the second day. I know I went through Instrumental Methods with Mo Weav, but I'm just afraid I am going to forget something, or make a really stupid mistake and then that will be it. Oh well, if I do make a mistake at least I won't have someone in the back grading my every mistake. Wow I didn't realize how much I was rabbling on, I kind of like this blogging thing. Thanks Annie & Glen!