Marathon Friday?

The first week of the fall semester has concluded, and two things are apparent at this point: 1) Business is looking up--way up--for this school year, and 2) I'm going to be insanely busy.

Sure, some will say, "But Kev, aren't you always insanely busy?" Yup. But with the high schools where I teach undergoing a radical schedule change--moving from a five-period day with trimesters to a seven-period day with semesters. There are advantages and disadvantages to this move (which is being used this year by two schools--the only two district high schools where I have a studio--that will be adopted district-wide next year if it's successful), but the long and short of it is that the top bands at the high schools and those at the middle schools now meet at the exact same time, for the same reason: Using the period that encompasses lunch means a longer rehearsal.

But with five schools' top bands meeting simultaneously, and five days in the school week, this means one school per day for me at that time. Needless to say, this creates logjams at that hour and requires some students to come in before or after school, though this is mitigated somewhat at the high schools by the addition of year-round jazz band class (which only used to meet during second and third trimester when the day had two fewer periods).

It's actually been much easier to schedule than I thought it would; I was expecting all kinds of chaos, to the point where I started compiling my schedule two weeks earlier than usual, only to be surprised at how effortless most of it was. Still, I've never quite seen this busy of a Friday before. How busy, you ask? This busy: I teach at the high school from 8:15 (the beginning of second period) until nearly 2:15 (halfway through seventh). When a few final slots are filled, this will happen nonstop; I don't even have a lunch break. (I did bring one today, but I was playing along with students so often that, by 1:00, I had consumed only my carrots).

But wait--there's more! When I'm done there, I go over to the middle school (after a 45-minute decompression break) to teach two more kids in last period and three more after school. That's 18 students, assuming all the slots get filled, and by far the Busiest Friday Ever. Sure, I have Marathon Wednesday every summer, but Marathon Friday is new territory for me.

Still, I came out of this week with a decent amount of energy, and I felt that I was "on" for the duration of the day, despite the large number of lessons in a row. (OK--I sank into the couch like a rock for a few hours when I got home, but that's beside the point.) And as I noted earlier in the week on Facebook, it still amazes me that I get to do what I love and get paid for it.

My prayer is that I come out of the last Friday of the semester as refreshed and excited as I am now.

Oh, So Close to Old Home Week

ST. LOUIS--I lived in this area--Florissant, to be precise--in first and second grade. Since then, I've been back as an adult six times, but never in my own vehicle (or even in a rented one). I've always wanted to see my old house, but I've never been able to find the means to do so--again, mostly because of lack of personal transportation.

But I have gotten closer than ever as of this evening; after coming back from dinner, the bus driver offered to make a supply run for anyone needing provisions, and I went along for the trip. As we went onto I-270, I realized that we were skirting the border of Florissant, so that we were within five or ten minutes of my old house (coming back and plugging it into Mapquest showed us to be 2.8 miles away).

How I wish I were the one driving! I wasn't going to inconvenience eight other people and make the bus use the extra gas, of course...and besides, I'd want to go during the day when I could take pictures. And my "consolation prize" was that I got to pass by the hospital where my sister was born when we went back to the hotel.

I'll get to see that house again one of these days, but it really brought out a sense of longing to be that close tonight.

Happy Anniversary to My Alma Mater

Today, I give three cheers to Stratford High School in Houston--home of many memories and a lot of growth on my part. If this seems like an unusual date for a school to open, well, it was: As the story goes, the building wasn't done at the beginning of the year, and the Stratford populace was stuck in portable buildings on the campus of its rival, Westchester High, for most of the year. But on March 4th, they marched forth into their new building, and the school put itself on the map with a state football championship less than five years later. (The Stratford-Westchester connection would continue to spawn interesting tales for years: In the mid-'80s, during a spate of school consolidation, Westchester would close, and the majority of its students would end up going to Stratford, and in the 2004-2005 school year, Stratford students found themselves back on the Westchester campus--since reopened as a magnet school--while major structural defects to the building, discovered during routine asbestos removal, were repaired.

A march that I composed in high school (which was performed again a few years ago at one of the high schools where I now teach) is named "Spartania," in honor of Stratford's mascot, the Spartans. Happy anniversary, Stratford; long may your banner wave.

OK, I Think I'm Back

Made it through an entire long teaching day with few issues for the first time all week. This has really been a strange illness for me, spread out over an entire week as it has been. While there's still a bit of a cough going on, I seem to have shed the general "malaise" of the past several days, and I should be good to go for the workshop that I'm running over the weekend. This is still really odd for me to get sick both for this long and this early in the year; it's usually an early-spring "change of seasons" period that will spawn the sinus distress that I'm having. But it's nice to be on the upside of things for once.

Blogging should resume on a regular basis once the workshop is over.

Thud

About once per school year, I have a day that just hits me like a ton o' bricks--run down, usually a touch of sinus crud, all of that. Today was definitely that day, as I took my first partial "sick day" since my knee surgery. I'll be doing the early-to-bed thing, and hopefully things will be better in the morning; the afternoon and evening off has already done wonders for me.

Blogging should hopefully resume tomorrow.

This Pain Was Toe-tally Unexpected

I wonder how many stories about mishaps start with the phrase "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Except in this case, it really was a good idea--just one, I suppose, that needed slightly better execution.

I had a gig this afternoon, in a part of Dallas that's not too far away from my church, just a few hours after church let out. Since I didn't want to make the trip from home to almost-downtown twice, and since the intervening time would allow me to have lunch at Zuzu along the way, it made sense to me to turn it into one big excursion.

But the thing is, I'm not used to taking a lot of things with me to church, and certainly not the four things (bari sax, bari stand, music stand, and flute) that I'd need to bring to this gig. And since I tend to be a little slow on Sunday mornings, I could totally see myself running out the door without any of the gig stuff, which would require the double round-trip. So I decided it was best to leave everything near the door, just in case.

Looking back, I probably could have just done what I did last night--leave the music stand near the door--and I would have remembered everything else. But when I got up this morning, I decided to be efficient and move the rest of the stuff to the front.

And when I did that...well, I thought I had left myself plenty of room to walk back and forth to the kitchen, but I guess not. Because right before I was about to leave, I managed to walk right into the bari stand (which was sitting on the floor parallel to the bari case), whacking the living daylights out of my right little toe in the process. (In a fit of clumsiness that's not altogether foreign to me, I also managed to get somewhat snagged in the stand after running into it, which gave my left ankle a much gentler smacking as well.)

It hurt like crazy, of course, and I said a few choice unSundaylike words right afterwards, but I could find no immediate evidence of damage. Still, I decided on shoes rather than sandals for the immediate future; it might hurt more, but at least I'd be protected from any further damage. (And while at church, I found the most remote part of the balcony so that I could have a row to myself--this made it much easier to slip out of my shoe and sock, to let it "breathe" and check for any signs of swelling or bruising, though none was found.) And I was most happy to get a very close-in parking space at my gig; it was all street parking, so that was very much in doubt until I got there.

But when I got home from my gig about six hours later, there was in fact a fairly substantial bruise. There was not, however, a ridiculous amount of swelling, so after a bit of research, I've decided to play things by ear and see how things are going in the morning, hoping all the while that the bruise is just that, and not a sign of a fracture. I've done some ice and elevation, and being out of shoes for the past six hours has helped a lot (and with tomorrow's holiday, I don't technically have to put a shoe on again until Tuesday morning).

So wish me luck; with the schedule I have for the next several months, this is something that needs to be able to heal quickly and on its own. And while I'm walking carefully (and watching my step, of course), I haven't really had to limp for the past several hours like I did when I was in shoes; needless to say, I had more than a few unpleasant flashbacks to last year's knee injury when I was hobbling around.

More as things develop...

'Twas the Night Before Fall Semester...

...and all through the house, only a keyboard was stirring--and sometimes, a mouse.

(Don't worry; I'm not going to write a parody of the entire poem or anything.)

So am I ready for the semester to start? Not completely, no. For one thing, I don't teach on the first day of school (too much chaos!), so I don't have to be totally ready yet. Also, the Dread Sked--or at least some major component of it--gets worse and worse every year. I'm at the point now where I pretty much just need to hear back from people who didn't take lessons over the summer, so I can figure out which of the multiple scenarios for certain parts of my week will need to be invoked. (Those unknown people drive the hard-to-schedule high school, which drives the college, which drives...me, all over the place.)

It's been a good summer--much better than last year, what with the knee surgery and filling in for an ailing colleague and all. And once everyone gets scheduled, it should be fairly fruitful as well; that's certainly my aim (OK, it always is, but prospects for this year are looking good).

Now I just have to convince myself that I'm tired, so as to start a school-year sleeping schedule again. And I think it might be working.

It's Dread Sked Time Again

Wow--it's been a while since I've posted. I do have a few things "in the pipe" as always, and I will catch up eventually.

But not today, as it's the day I start the Dread Sked--that's Kevspeak for the dreaded compilation of my fall teaching schedule in the public schools. It should theoretically be easier this year, since I'm down to five schools and both of the high schools among them are on trimesters (getting trimester and semester schools to mesh was never easy because of the difference in bell schedules), but there's still the issue of marching season, especially when some students are in different classes for the first "tri" than they will be for the rest of the year (and the fact that those two high schools only have jazz band during second and third tri's limits my flexibility even more).

There's bound to be a way for it to work; it just takes some work, and I'm dealing with a few other things this week as well. And while this may end up being easier than in any previous year, it's still one of my two least favorite business-type things to do every year (the other one, of course, being income tax). So if I'm a bit of a hermit, blog-wise, for a few more days, that will be the reason. As always, thanks for your patience.

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to Micah, my youngest nephew, who's 4 today. (Obligatory cute baby picture from his actual birthday here.)

I Should Be a Happier Camper This Year

Jazz Camp starts this afternoon at my college, and, as always, the camp will probably "own" me for the vast majority of every day, so blogging may be somewhat sporadic during the week (though I'm likely to pop in with a funny camp-kid quote every now and then).

And why a happier camper this year? Well, considering that a year ago I was 1) not quite a month out of knee surgery and 2) awake at 2:30 a.m. on the first morning of camp to catch a flight back from a convention in Orlando to get to camp on time...yeah, this year should be more fun.

More info about the camp (as in concert days and times, etc.) is on my website.

It's Like Being in School All Over Again

I have a fairly big two-part project that needs to be done by the end of the month. It can all be done at the computer (which is much more efficient than having to do things by hand, not to mention a lot less tiring) and submitted over email, so I won't be leaving my traditional seat here, but it does mean that blogging will be rare until the project gets done.

In a way, it feels almost exactly the same as it did when I was in school and had some huge homework assignment. And, then as now, I tended to put everything off until the last possible minute. While that's not exactly true (to me, the "last possible minute" would involve an all-nighter on Tuesday, which ain't gonna happen), the "assignment" was given quite some time ago, so procrastination is definitely in play here.

So if I can't "come out and play" in the blogosphere for a few days, you'll know where I am: Right here, doing my homework. I'll be happy when this particular "semester" is over.

Once Again Laying Claim to the Day

Today is mah birfday, and I have to say that it's a lot more normal of a day than either of the past two years. In '08, I began my special day in the air, on the rather turbulent tail end of a flight back from Vermont. Last year, I was staring knee surgery in the face. The first half of today has be much more normal, and I expect that the rest of the day will follow suit.

I know some people who don't make a big deal about their birthdays, but--even though I'm not usually one to blow his own horn, except in a literal sense--I'll make an exception for today. As I wrote last year,

Some say that birthdays lose their meaning after a certain number of years, but not for me; with 365 days in a year, it's cool to be able to claim one of them as your own. (And I may not be getting "caek" today, but I've been enjoying free food all week, thanks to being on so many restaurants' email lists. Most of them send out other stuff during the year, but this week is when everything comes pouring in.)

There is one different twist to this year, as I have a gig this evening, come out to the DMA for a celebration that's not really about me at all, save for the fact that I'll be one of 15 people on stage and doing what I love to do.

The Class of 2010

As of this morning, all of my students who were seniors in high school have now graduated. (It took a little bit longer this year, because not everyone was in the same district for once.) It's become an annual tradition to do a brief salute to them in this spot, and this year is no exception.

So happy graduation to Adrianne, Brent, Chase, Christian and Scott. You may be small in numbers, but you've amassed a lot of accomplishments--most notably, my first All-State Jazz Ensemble member in over a decade, and three-fourths of the best saxophone quartet I've ever had the pleasure of coaching.

Though most of you are not pursuing music as a career, I'm glad to see that most of you will continue to play (in one ensemble or another, as well as for your own enjoyment) in college and hopefully beyond. No matter what, keep music in your hearts, and put the discipline, teamwork skills and multitasking abilities you've learned from studying music to good use in other aspects of your lives.

As I've said before, I do a pretty good job of keeping up with my alumni, so I'm bound to see some of you before long.

Experiment

It's really late in the semester to be trying new things, but here goes: Instead of going to bed 'round midnight (hey--that'd be a good song title!) and hitting a bunch of snooze alarms, I'm going to bed 'round eleven and seeing if I can wake up on time. Any bets on whether or not it will work?

The Next Thing I Need to Arrange Is a Nap

It's nearly four in the morning, and I'm awake. And I'm not getting up early, either; I'm still up from last night.

So what am I doing up this late? Arranging music. I have a few things that absolutely must be read today, and I've been putting them off until this week (since I won't see a lot of my private students thanks to state standardized testing). And I knew that I was slow on the music notation software, but I had no idea I was this slow.

The good news: The tune I've been working on since midnight is finished and the parts are printed out. The less-good news: I have another one to complete in the morning.

I'm glad my livelihood doesn't depend on this, since I write and arrange at a glacial pace. (They say the hardest part of practicing is opening the case; the hardest part of writing has to be sitting down and opening the software or putting pencil to paper.)

I feel good about getting this done. Now let's hope that what I wrote sounds at least as good, if not much, much better, than the way it sounded on the sequencer.

Now It Can Be Told

A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders this afternoon when my two weeks of on-call service for federal jury duty came to an end. It's actually a better deal than the county courts because of the on-call thing (which they do because they compensate you a little better than county, including mileage and parking money, so they don't want you there unless you're absolutely needed). Still, the whole process meant that I never knew my status for any given day until after 3 p.m. on the day before (or the Friday before if the next business day fell on a Monday and so on). Granted, I was able to take my trip to Houston for Christmas with no problems, but I didn't know what day I'd have to come back here until last Wednesday.

But now it's done, and--like many people I talked to, I never ended up having to go in. But still, it's been hanging over my head for a while (seeing as how I had to postpone it a few times because of my accident and surgery), so it's nice to have it in the past. And oddly enough, county ended up wanting me for their own jury duty the same week, so that one had to be postponed until March.

(And the reason that I say "now it can be told" is because, once I logged in the first day and didn't have to go, I decided not to blog or tweet about it until it was done, to keep my luck going. Superstitious a bit, you say?)

Maybe I can use some of these in the future: Here's an intresting list of excuses that usually worked to get people out of jury duty. (And may I say that I'm glad I don't live in California; from that list, and other stuff I've read, they seem to have no regard for small business owners or sole proprietors in this regard.)

My Shoulders Feel Lighter Today

I experienced a strange element this afternoon--one that I hadn't encountered in a while. It's called "free time"--perhaps you've heard of it? I've had traces of it on weekends every now and then, but rarely on a school day recently.

But with my colleague's return from sick leave yesterday, I'm back to normal duties at school for the first time in a few months. And it's the first time in nearly seven months that I'm neither nursing an injury or doing extra work. (Sure, I'm not quite 100% with the knee, but it's rarely a factor nowadays; update on that soon.) And while I enjoyed the extra work I was doing, the real challenge was, as I told said colleague a few weeks ago over lunch, trying to be him and trying to be me. There almost needs to be a few more hours in the day to pull that off, although everything turned out fine.

The free time thing won't last, of course; nature abhors a vacuum, and there's always something else for a musician to do: Practice more, write more (although, taking a walk through Watters Creek this afternoon, I was reminded how disappointed I am that they closed the Starbucks there; it had become my favorite place for writing last year). And I've already taken on an adjudication job for Saturday morning, because extra income is always good this time of year.

Now that I've experienced "free time," I'm hoping to get reacquainted with its cousin, "sleep." I've missed you lately, buddy. So I'll save the slew of unfinished blog posts for another time and call it a night.

One oF Those Days

You know it's one of "those" days when...

• Mere minutes before you're supposed to leave the house in the morning, the zipper on your pants breaks. IAnd it was one of your favorite pair of work pants to boot.)


• You get to your first school, and the class has already started; they're on a different schedule today, and nobody bothered to tell you.


• You make an ATM deposit, and the machine doesn't like one of your checks (evidently made on someone's computer at home). It attempts to spit the check back out to you, but that action fails, and eventually, the machine gives you your card back without a receipt, much less a clear acknowledgment of the rest of your deposit.


• At the beginning of class at the college, you can't play them a particular song because your iPod has run out of juice.


• At various other times during the day, you're just a bit loopy--forgetting to call out a particular scale or having trouble expressing yourself.

That was my day in a nutshell. Ever have a day like that?

UPDATE: And now, after this trite post, I read the news about Ft. Hood and realize just how meaningless the entire post above really is. (That's par for the course on this day too, I guess.) Thoughts and prayers out to the survivors and the victims' families.

If This Was My "Early" Day, Then Why Didn't I Get Home Till 9:15?

There was a slight deviation to my schedule today that allowed me to finish at 6:00--about 45 minutes earlier than usual. (And yes, when my day started at 7:30 in the morning, there's something kind of sad that a 6:00 stop time is "early," but that's the way things are around here at the moment.) I started eating dinner when it was still light outside, ran a quick errand, and had one more thing to do before I got home; things were looking good.

And then I ran full tilt into a stack of midterm grades to average, and one makeup test to grade. Over two hours later, I was finally done. (Thank goodness my corner of Starbucks was quiet for the duration; not a single person--or a married one, for that matter--shared the area with me.)

I'm not complaining, mind you; I love what I do. And I could have done this over the weekend, but I chose to turn Saturday into a Very Chill Day. Having that day was worth the extra time tonight.

But I suppose this is all a way of saying that, while there are already a few things that have come up which I plan to blog about this week, they'll have to be put off till at least tomorrow (which means, if you read yesterday's post, that they might not be done until the weekend, LOL). Thanks again for your patience.

So how early did your day end today? Anyone go later than I did? Comment away if you wish...

Neither rain, nor snow....OK, well, maybe snow: My high schools' marching contest was rained out last Wednesday, and I was amazed at the swiftness with which that decision was made (they'd called it by ten that morning). The rain day was today, and it rained pretty much the whole time. But if the region's website is to be believed, they held the contest anyway (the rain day for the rain day would have been this Wednesday, and rain was again in the forecast). I guess they just said "to heck with it--we need to get this done." But I feel bad for the kids with nice horns and the schools that used electronics, and I hope none of my students got sick being out in the cold rain. (I can't imagine anyone but the most die-hard parents sitting in the wet bleachers, either.) But if they'd kept kicking the date down the road, we'd be getting into November, and the next thing you know, the contest would be getting snowed out. If it was indeed held, I know that the kids (not to mention the directors) will be happy that the 'meat" of marching season is over. Now, let's make some music...

This Weather Is Cracking Me Up (In a Bad Way)

I've posted in the past about what happens to the skin on my hands when the weather starts to get cold outisde. It's actually morphed over the years; at first, as noted in Fun Facts #42, it pretty much limited itself to the part of my fingers that were involved with snapping (a common requirement for a music instructor, of course), and then, the past few years, it led to my knuckles cracking open seemingly without warning.

This year, it really did come out of the blue (if you think about it, it hasn't been that cold here yet). One middle knuckle cracked open this morning, and by the time I got home, three other places (the "upper knuckles," perhaps--is that what you call the place where your fingers join the main part of your hand?) came open almost one right after another.

I know the usual solution--lotion. I tend to put it on every night before bedtime during the colder months, and I'll certainly start that tonight. But has anyone out there found an additional solution? Again, it seems weird that the whole process started so soon, since a few days of lows in the 40s doesn't really count as "winter" (I haven't had to turn the heat on in the house yet). Any suggestions would be kindly appreciated in the comments.

There's Still No Place Like Home

Today marks my eighth anniversary as a homeowner, and I still couldn't be happier with my decision to do that. And although I probably should have done it years before (I shudder to think of all the money I shelled out in rent during the years prior to this purchase), I"m very happy that I ended up in the house that I did, in the location where I am.

I just took a look back at my thoughts on this day five years ago, and I have to say that I'm still in complete agreement with what I said back then:

It hasn't been without its problems, of course, but I have to say that, all in all, homeownership is really cool. Mom and Dad come up every few months and do more stuff to spruce the place up, and even when I'm stuck mowing the lawn, it's not all that bad because I realize that it's my own place that I'm making look nice instead of somebody else's (I don't miss the rental house at all in that respect, not one bit).

And now that I've been there a while, it's gotten an identity of its own as a place full of music and friends. The hangs, the jams...I've never felt more at home in any other place I lived since the house I grew up in[...]

Here's to many more years of great times in this place...

And the lawnmowing even gets hired out now; that's another bonus: Living right next door to an über-handyman who also does nearly every lawn on the block, making it the best-kept one in the neighborhood, if I do say so myself.

And while the housing market in some places is cratering, the value of my house has actually gone up a bit (thanks, Firewheel!). The economic turmoil of the past year may have taken some of the shine off the idea that homeownership is the best way for a non-corporate entity to create wealth, but even if that's so, it's still been a great investment for me thus far.

And as I said in that old post, here's to many more great years under the roof of Casa de Kev!