Practicum
It was my 11th Practicum and it was my favourite.
Helen was the autocrat and it was at Heron for the 3rd year. Much like the days of Hare at Immaculata, there are so many benefits to having it at the same site: people know what to expect and the autocrat since s/he doesn't have to spend oodles of time doing a site search has more time to develop the event. There were more classes this year than I remember in previous years. At one point, we had 6 adult courses all being offered at the same time. I had wondered if this would lead to attendance dilution where everyone would end up with a handful of attendees. The one adult class I taught had 5 participants. Even in the days when we had 3 classes offered at the same time, we still had classes with 5 participants.
The only class I took was CPR. It sounds odd taking it at a medieval event, but I guess that is the creative part of creative anachronism. The middle ages as it should have been definitely includes being able to save people in cardiac arrest. I had been meaning to take a CPR course for a while. I took it at Practicum because I had the time (instead of trying to make a course fit into my crazy life) and because it was only $15 instead of the usual $40-60 for the course. Xristinia was awesome. We even had CPR dummies to practice on. I took a first aid course years ago that had a tiny CPR component. It was complicated and I never figured out land marking. The instructor singled me out as being tiny and someone who probably wouldn’t be effective at it. (He basically told me that if there was someone else who knew CPR in a situation to let them do it.) The rules have completely changed and are much simpler (i.e. easy to remember in a real crisis) and Xristinia didn’t tell anyone in the room that they wouldn’t be effective at it. She also talked about public access defibrillation which I’d never heard of, but now I think I could handle if I had to.
I taught one adult course on “In persona story telling”. I’m not sure how it went. When I first started teaching, I used to think a successful course was one in which I didn’t get nervous, I got through my presentation, and no one asked me questions I could not answer. Now, I think of successful courses as being ones where the participants leave with something, be it ever so small And that, only time will tell. Did I inspire or help anyone to move towards being more of a storyteller? If I ever run into any of them at an event or a feast and they tell me a story, even if it’s just to me or 2-3 people, then I will have succeeded.
I was really thrilled with the children’s track this year. We had some great teachers who did some novel things with the kids. Siglinde did a cooking course and not only taught them to make hedgehogs but basic cleaning the kitchen while they cooked. After lunch, the Baron taught stick weaving, I taught singing Ealdormerean songs, Dame Helen taught finger loop braiding, and I taught Middle Eastern dance with props. Children’s courses are always hit and miss and 98% of the time it is not the teacher’s fault. After 3 years I have not figured out a pattern to which time slots they don’t pay attention in. Sometimes it’s the first one because they are too excited; sometimes it is the one before lunch because they are hungry; sometimes it is the one after lunch because they just ate; sometimes it’s the last one because they are tired then. I try to mix up the sitting versus active classes and sometimes that helps and sometimes it doesn’t. Mostly, it’s just stuff you can’t plan for: some kids just show up hyper, or apathetic, or cranky that day, they are sick, or they didn’t get enough sleep, or they didn’t get to listen to their favourite CD in the car driving over, or they showed up in a good mood and then fed off of each other. While, I was thrilled with my teachers, I was less than thrilled with certain behaviours from certain kids. I think they were good for Siglinde and I understand they all were good for Giovanni. Singing was a train wreck; I tried extra hard to get them behaving for Helen; and Middle Eastern dance was good except for one obnoxious kid (the fact that I had given birth to her made her behaviour extra irritating.)
“The Songs of Ealdormere” did not go as planned. I had originally thought I could teach 5 songs in an hour. Then that got scaled back to 4. We ended up learning 1. However, preparing for 4 was not a waste of my time. I worked on learning to sing them and I photocopied lyrics. I have those as a resource should I do this again.
“Middle Eastern Dance with Props” was better received. The kids liked the veils and sticks. We had to have a conversation about sticks not being swords and how we don’t hit people with them, but other than that it was good. We learned a short (64 beat) choreography. The goal was to do the choreography which would lead into a series of solos with the different props. We didn’t end up performing as I didn’t want to do it at feast since it isn’t period, plus there was no space at feast. I had thought of doing it right after feast in the amphitheater, but that was exactly when and where court was. I had to promise disappointed young women that I would bring the idea back at some event - maybe Dandelion.
I remember thinking last year that the children’s courses would work better this year because everyone would be a year older. It was a great theory. In reality, Rose of Avalon came for the first time. She only did the last 3 afternoon courses and while not really getting things, was not the worst behaved. In fact, I'm pretty pleased with her. Elizabeth the Fierce did some courses and opted out on others (perhaps due to the noise and immaturity of the others). Lydia opted out of some to hang out with her parents. Grainne who is 7 1/2 spent a large part of the day sinking to the behavioural level of 4 or 5 year olds who were present. So, my plans to pitch things at girls between 6 and 9 were largely for naught and we still had mostly a 4-6 year old group. Next year, perhaps, we can finally get out of the pre-school stage and teach for the 6-10 range.
The potluck was wonderful. I had a piece of meat pie and cheese pie. The meat pie turned out to be made by Micaylah and had venison, which I keep thinking I don’t like but do end up liking if I don’t realize it has deer in it. (I think I just don’t like the idea of eating deer - blame Bambi.) The cheese pie wasn’t as good as Constance’s, but it was still really good. (Cheese - good; pie - good. What isn’t to like?)
This was the Practicum of singing. I tried to convince my story telling class to challenge themselves to go beyond their comfort zone. If they hate the idea of telling stories - tell short one to 1 or 2 people. Start from where you are and push yourself to the next increment. I am now comfortable with telling stories or poems to 50-100 people. However, singing in public scares me. I sang quietly for just Marie at Autocrats and found that more intimidating than reciting a poem to everyone at the event. But I made myself do it. I have no right to ask others to push beyond their comfort zone if I won’t do it. Henry and Enid sat feast and I did “The Lineage of Skraeling Althing” for them. Then I sang “Wide Ranger”. I had discovered it on Hector’s CD and fell in love with it because it’s a Skrael song. I was in the process of learning it, when I found out through “Cry of the Wolf” that it was written for Henry and Enid. I was toying with doing it at Practicum, but when I knew they were staying that was the final thing that tipped me over the edge and I sang … for them. I sang quietly with the kids to try and keep them on tune and then I sang in court. For the girl who hates to sing in public, I sang 2 or 3 times. I got far better feedback than I was expecting. Like all first performances, it will only get better from here. I will get better; I will get stronger; I will get more confidence. Singing was the missing piece in my bardic repertoire and I’m a continuing work in progress.
I was thrilled with feast at Practicum from a bardic perspective. We’ve had a real shift in Caldrithig/Skrael in the last few years from either having no performance at feast or really OOP stuff (like filk to modern music or Middle Eastern dance with modern costumes) to having more period performances. I’m not sure if I helped influence that or not. In any case, it warms my little bardic heart. I did the above mentioned poem and song. Then Marie and the choir performed. They were wonderful. I find period music challenging to sing, but it was really enjoyable to hear others do it so well. They got favours from the Baron and from TSivia. Third, the children sang “Rise”. I tried hard to keep them on key and on tempo. Tempo was more of the challenge and even my snapping my fingers for the rhythm didn’t help. Perhaps because most of them had run around playing tag and screaming during the class, I had covered tempo and tune as best as I could. In any case, they performed and were applauded. It was their first performance singing and maybe now we can use this as a building block and improve next time. I’m willing to work with them again at Coronation or Dandelion. Duncan ended the performances with a short play about Satan coercing a herald to help him with heraldry. Duncan has really found his niche doing theatre with young adults (in the 16-25 range). We had poetry, songs, and a play - what more could we want?
Court was short. Adelhayt, Eleanor, Catherine, and Joshua got bunny tails. Jason became seneschal. A lord from Greyfells was presented in garb that had been made for him. Then the cooks from Hare all got called into court. I sang my filk. It was really well received. The only flaw was that due to my pre-existing sore throat, straining my voice yelling over the kids in their courses, and singing earlier, my voice was shot. The song only goes up to about an A and I was not hitting those A’s. Fortunately, most people didn’t know the tune and so it got partially covered over. Lucia had had scrolls commissioned for all the cooks. The surprise for me was that I got one too.
I met two new people. Unfortunately, because they were both moms, I didn’t learn either of their mundane or SCA names but instead know them as Kayla’s mom and Melissa’s mom. Melissa is about 8 or 9. She was an enthusiastic joy to have in class and the strongest voice in the group of kids that sang “Rise”. At Pennsic, Master Hector had gifted me with 2 copies of his CD to give out as bardic prizes and for the purpose of promoting the songs of Ealdormere in Skrael. I hadn’t given either out at Hare. I gave one to Melissa. It was her first event and I hope she listens to it, comes back, and continues to enjoy the SCA and hopefully does more bardic things with me.
Helen was the autocrat and it was at Heron for the 3rd year. Much like the days of Hare at Immaculata, there are so many benefits to having it at the same site: people know what to expect and the autocrat since s/he doesn't have to spend oodles of time doing a site search has more time to develop the event. There were more classes this year than I remember in previous years. At one point, we had 6 adult courses all being offered at the same time. I had wondered if this would lead to attendance dilution where everyone would end up with a handful of attendees. The one adult class I taught had 5 participants. Even in the days when we had 3 classes offered at the same time, we still had classes with 5 participants.
The only class I took was CPR. It sounds odd taking it at a medieval event, but I guess that is the creative part of creative anachronism. The middle ages as it should have been definitely includes being able to save people in cardiac arrest. I had been meaning to take a CPR course for a while. I took it at Practicum because I had the time (instead of trying to make a course fit into my crazy life) and because it was only $15 instead of the usual $40-60 for the course. Xristinia was awesome. We even had CPR dummies to practice on. I took a first aid course years ago that had a tiny CPR component. It was complicated and I never figured out land marking. The instructor singled me out as being tiny and someone who probably wouldn’t be effective at it. (He basically told me that if there was someone else who knew CPR in a situation to let them do it.) The rules have completely changed and are much simpler (i.e. easy to remember in a real crisis) and Xristinia didn’t tell anyone in the room that they wouldn’t be effective at it. She also talked about public access defibrillation which I’d never heard of, but now I think I could handle if I had to.
I taught one adult course on “In persona story telling”. I’m not sure how it went. When I first started teaching, I used to think a successful course was one in which I didn’t get nervous, I got through my presentation, and no one asked me questions I could not answer. Now, I think of successful courses as being ones where the participants leave with something, be it ever so small And that, only time will tell. Did I inspire or help anyone to move towards being more of a storyteller? If I ever run into any of them at an event or a feast and they tell me a story, even if it’s just to me or 2-3 people, then I will have succeeded.
I was really thrilled with the children’s track this year. We had some great teachers who did some novel things with the kids. Siglinde did a cooking course and not only taught them to make hedgehogs but basic cleaning the kitchen while they cooked. After lunch, the Baron taught stick weaving, I taught singing Ealdormerean songs, Dame Helen taught finger loop braiding, and I taught Middle Eastern dance with props. Children’s courses are always hit and miss and 98% of the time it is not the teacher’s fault. After 3 years I have not figured out a pattern to which time slots they don’t pay attention in. Sometimes it’s the first one because they are too excited; sometimes it is the one before lunch because they are hungry; sometimes it is the one after lunch because they just ate; sometimes it’s the last one because they are tired then. I try to mix up the sitting versus active classes and sometimes that helps and sometimes it doesn’t. Mostly, it’s just stuff you can’t plan for: some kids just show up hyper, or apathetic, or cranky that day, they are sick, or they didn’t get enough sleep, or they didn’t get to listen to their favourite CD in the car driving over, or they showed up in a good mood and then fed off of each other. While, I was thrilled with my teachers, I was less than thrilled with certain behaviours from certain kids. I think they were good for Siglinde and I understand they all were good for Giovanni. Singing was a train wreck; I tried extra hard to get them behaving for Helen; and Middle Eastern dance was good except for one obnoxious kid (the fact that I had given birth to her made her behaviour extra irritating.)
“The Songs of Ealdormere” did not go as planned. I had originally thought I could teach 5 songs in an hour. Then that got scaled back to 4. We ended up learning 1. However, preparing for 4 was not a waste of my time. I worked on learning to sing them and I photocopied lyrics. I have those as a resource should I do this again.
“Middle Eastern Dance with Props” was better received. The kids liked the veils and sticks. We had to have a conversation about sticks not being swords and how we don’t hit people with them, but other than that it was good. We learned a short (64 beat) choreography. The goal was to do the choreography which would lead into a series of solos with the different props. We didn’t end up performing as I didn’t want to do it at feast since it isn’t period, plus there was no space at feast. I had thought of doing it right after feast in the amphitheater, but that was exactly when and where court was. I had to promise disappointed young women that I would bring the idea back at some event - maybe Dandelion.
I remember thinking last year that the children’s courses would work better this year because everyone would be a year older. It was a great theory. In reality, Rose of Avalon came for the first time. She only did the last 3 afternoon courses and while not really getting things, was not the worst behaved. In fact, I'm pretty pleased with her. Elizabeth the Fierce did some courses and opted out on others (perhaps due to the noise and immaturity of the others). Lydia opted out of some to hang out with her parents. Grainne who is 7 1/2 spent a large part of the day sinking to the behavioural level of 4 or 5 year olds who were present. So, my plans to pitch things at girls between 6 and 9 were largely for naught and we still had mostly a 4-6 year old group. Next year, perhaps, we can finally get out of the pre-school stage and teach for the 6-10 range.
The potluck was wonderful. I had a piece of meat pie and cheese pie. The meat pie turned out to be made by Micaylah and had venison, which I keep thinking I don’t like but do end up liking if I don’t realize it has deer in it. (I think I just don’t like the idea of eating deer - blame Bambi.) The cheese pie wasn’t as good as Constance’s, but it was still really good. (Cheese - good; pie - good. What isn’t to like?)
This was the Practicum of singing. I tried to convince my story telling class to challenge themselves to go beyond their comfort zone. If they hate the idea of telling stories - tell short one to 1 or 2 people. Start from where you are and push yourself to the next increment. I am now comfortable with telling stories or poems to 50-100 people. However, singing in public scares me. I sang quietly for just Marie at Autocrats and found that more intimidating than reciting a poem to everyone at the event. But I made myself do it. I have no right to ask others to push beyond their comfort zone if I won’t do it. Henry and Enid sat feast and I did “The Lineage of Skraeling Althing” for them. Then I sang “Wide Ranger”. I had discovered it on Hector’s CD and fell in love with it because it’s a Skrael song. I was in the process of learning it, when I found out through “Cry of the Wolf” that it was written for Henry and Enid. I was toying with doing it at Practicum, but when I knew they were staying that was the final thing that tipped me over the edge and I sang … for them. I sang quietly with the kids to try and keep them on tune and then I sang in court. For the girl who hates to sing in public, I sang 2 or 3 times. I got far better feedback than I was expecting. Like all first performances, it will only get better from here. I will get better; I will get stronger; I will get more confidence. Singing was the missing piece in my bardic repertoire and I’m a continuing work in progress.
I was thrilled with feast at Practicum from a bardic perspective. We’ve had a real shift in Caldrithig/Skrael in the last few years from either having no performance at feast or really OOP stuff (like filk to modern music or Middle Eastern dance with modern costumes) to having more period performances. I’m not sure if I helped influence that or not. In any case, it warms my little bardic heart. I did the above mentioned poem and song. Then Marie and the choir performed. They were wonderful. I find period music challenging to sing, but it was really enjoyable to hear others do it so well. They got favours from the Baron and from TSivia. Third, the children sang “Rise”. I tried hard to keep them on key and on tempo. Tempo was more of the challenge and even my snapping my fingers for the rhythm didn’t help. Perhaps because most of them had run around playing tag and screaming during the class, I had covered tempo and tune as best as I could. In any case, they performed and were applauded. It was their first performance singing and maybe now we can use this as a building block and improve next time. I’m willing to work with them again at Coronation or Dandelion. Duncan ended the performances with a short play about Satan coercing a herald to help him with heraldry. Duncan has really found his niche doing theatre with young adults (in the 16-25 range). We had poetry, songs, and a play - what more could we want?
Court was short. Adelhayt, Eleanor, Catherine, and Joshua got bunny tails. Jason became seneschal. A lord from Greyfells was presented in garb that had been made for him. Then the cooks from Hare all got called into court. I sang my filk. It was really well received. The only flaw was that due to my pre-existing sore throat, straining my voice yelling over the kids in their courses, and singing earlier, my voice was shot. The song only goes up to about an A and I was not hitting those A’s. Fortunately, most people didn’t know the tune and so it got partially covered over. Lucia had had scrolls commissioned for all the cooks. The surprise for me was that I got one too.
I met two new people. Unfortunately, because they were both moms, I didn’t learn either of their mundane or SCA names but instead know them as Kayla’s mom and Melissa’s mom. Melissa is about 8 or 9. She was an enthusiastic joy to have in class and the strongest voice in the group of kids that sang “Rise”. At Pennsic, Master Hector had gifted me with 2 copies of his CD to give out as bardic prizes and for the purpose of promoting the songs of Ealdormere in Skrael. I hadn’t given either out at Hare. I gave one to Melissa. It was her first event and I hope she listens to it, comes back, and continues to enjoy the SCA and hopefully does more bardic things with me.