Sam blows it again?
Long time, no post. Sorry about that folks. I've been busy. Very quick recap and on with the show! Since my last post I:
-Celebrated a very fun 22nd Birthday with dinner, trivia, and karaoke (of course).
-Completed a life goal of a Boy Band Marching Band Show (A poor quality video can be found here)
-Bought a new (used) car... A 2004 Saab 9-3. It's pretty.
-Went to Florida with the marching band doing a day at Disney's Hollywood Studios and catching up with an old camp friend.
-Passed my instrument proficiency for my degree, which means I had to sufficiently demonstrate a good tone and technical ability on basically every instrument I may encounter in a classroom.
-In general had a great semester, but...
The real purpose of this blog is to remind myself of what its like to have something that I value come back to bite me when I don't give it attention. I don't think I ever mentioned this, but this past semester I've had the opportunity to work independently with Marianne Ploger who is easily one of the best musicianship instructors out there. My high school band director and his wife studied with her, people swear by her work, and here I am with the once in a lifetime opportunity to meet with her twice a week for a whole semester to develop a way to bring her material into a classroom. Her strategy of teaching musicianship is very logical and NOT something I grew up with so it was going to take a lot of work. I recognized this from the get-go, yet something in me had to screw things up and this is why I'm pissed (at myself).
Lesson after lesson, week after week, new material was being introduced to me and I was supposed to keep up with learning and practicing all of it so that I could be introduced to her full teaching method. Well, as can be expected from the tone of this post, I royally messed up and lost track of different elements until I was left with solid scraps that amounted up to nothing. Today in my lesson, my frustration nearly had me in tears when I realized that I only had four more meetings with her and I had gone ahead and wasted a semester because I simply couldn't practice my material. Yes, I do have four lessons, but that is not nearly enough time to get anything worthwhile accomplished and I know I've let this opportunity (and degree credit) start to spoil right in front of me. To the Sam who will go back reading old posts and find this one: "I hope you've learned your lesson and changed ways."
Anyway, I leave for Costa Rica for 10 days tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun, but I'm definitely bringing my work along. Stay tuned for travel updates and links to pictures.
Adios.
-Celebrated a very fun 22nd Birthday with dinner, trivia, and karaoke (of course).
-Completed a life goal of a Boy Band Marching Band Show (A poor quality video can be found here)
-Bought a new (used) car... A 2004 Saab 9-3. It's pretty.
-Went to Florida with the marching band doing a day at Disney's Hollywood Studios and catching up with an old camp friend.
-Passed my instrument proficiency for my degree, which means I had to sufficiently demonstrate a good tone and technical ability on basically every instrument I may encounter in a classroom.
-In general had a great semester, but...
The real purpose of this blog is to remind myself of what its like to have something that I value come back to bite me when I don't give it attention. I don't think I ever mentioned this, but this past semester I've had the opportunity to work independently with Marianne Ploger who is easily one of the best musicianship instructors out there. My high school band director and his wife studied with her, people swear by her work, and here I am with the once in a lifetime opportunity to meet with her twice a week for a whole semester to develop a way to bring her material into a classroom. Her strategy of teaching musicianship is very logical and NOT something I grew up with so it was going to take a lot of work. I recognized this from the get-go, yet something in me had to screw things up and this is why I'm pissed (at myself).
Lesson after lesson, week after week, new material was being introduced to me and I was supposed to keep up with learning and practicing all of it so that I could be introduced to her full teaching method. Well, as can be expected from the tone of this post, I royally messed up and lost track of different elements until I was left with solid scraps that amounted up to nothing. Today in my lesson, my frustration nearly had me in tears when I realized that I only had four more meetings with her and I had gone ahead and wasted a semester because I simply couldn't practice my material. Yes, I do have four lessons, but that is not nearly enough time to get anything worthwhile accomplished and I know I've let this opportunity (and degree credit) start to spoil right in front of me. To the Sam who will go back reading old posts and find this one: "I hope you've learned your lesson and changed ways."
Anyway, I leave for Costa Rica for 10 days tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun, but I'm definitely bringing my work along. Stay tuned for travel updates and links to pictures.
Adios.