Music of my heart

With my type of personality, I'm the kind that, when I decide I like something, I become obsessed with it almost to the point of exclusivity. Let's take music, for example, since that's my life and profession.

Growing up, my all-time favorite artist was Michael Jackson, so much so that I would rarely listen to anything else. If I had a say in what I was listening to, MJ would be it. No questions asked, hands down. That was in the 80s and very early 90s. Then in 1996, I saw Celine Dion's video for "Because You Loved Me" and that one song moved MJ out of the way, for Celine's voice had stolen my heart. I became a superfan of Celine Dion, and my fandom of Celine has outdone my MJ fandom with regard to intensity.

Fast-forward to 2010, some 14 years later, and a new artist is starting to win me over. I cannot say officially yet that this new artist has trumped Celine, but I get more excited with this new artist's new releases over those of Celine's now. That artist would be Katy Perry. Admitting here, I feel immediately like I'm supposed to be this professional musician with superb taste in music and an ear for quality. Right there, Frank would disagree with me. But yes, I consider myself to have a discriminating ear. Why? Well, most people, when asked about their favorite music reply "I like everything." That's not true for me. I don't like everything. In fact, more and more hip-hop songs, for example, are coming out that have such asinine lyrics! Or the music is very redundant with little creativity involved.

My love for Celine is founded on her incredible voice and beautiful music videos. Her voice and range are velvety smooth, and all her songs are so positive, and the only thing she really sings about is love. She's moved masses with her voice. Being a classically trained musician myself, if I like someone, I want to have professional reasons for liking them. For Celine, no she doesn't really write her own songs, she records others' songs, and her interpretations are true works of art.

My love for Katy Perry stands on how she not only writes her own songs, but the words are applicable to so many people's lives. They're humorous, catchy, and you can dance to just bout all of them. They're FUN! I remember when I first heard Katy's song "I Kissed a Girl". At first I admit I was a little turned off. I didn't know who this girl was, and thought her voice was too raspy for being so popular. She sounded very "throaty" which initially turned me off. Then a friend introduced me to her song "Ur So Gay" and the song cracked me up. I thought the lyrics were clever, especially the line that goes:

You're so sad, maybe you should buy a Happy Meal.

You're so skinny, you should really Super Size the deal. 

That line made me just about die laughing. Then, I heard her other single "Hot N Cold" and the energy behind that one lit a spark within me that turned that song into my favorite one on her debut album. The video was fun to watch, the lyrics were clever, the music was addictive, and she definitely at least co-wrote it. The other thing about her lyrics that I find so attractive is that they're blatantly honest sometimes. Cue the release of her songs "Thinking of You" and "Waking Up in Vegas". The former is a beautifully moving ballad with a rockish edge about struggling to love someone new because you're still in love with someone who's gone. In the context of this song, her true love was killed in war, and she can't be intimate with her new man without thinking of her deceased lover. "Waking Up in Vegas" is the adventure a lot of us want to have in Sin City: the fun, the lavishness, the risk, the gambling, and the consequences that follow. That's America, right there.

This year, she debuted her new album called "Teenage Dream". I remember reading the reviews on iTunes and 1 critic said that her music was like indulging in your favorite junk food at midnight. I don't want to think of her music as junk food, sweet but unhealthy. It's music and we love music because it's supposed to be fun to perform, dance to, listen to, etc. I could go on and on about this but that's a different blog. Her first single was "California Gurls" celebrating the beauty of the ladies populating the Golden State. Featuring what I thought was a climactic vocal climax it was enough to make me download the song and listen to it on repeat in my car. Then the album's title track was released: "Teenage Dream". Though the video has some risqué scenes, I loved the music and lyrics because they often define how I feel about Frank.The lyrics and music seem to depict, to me, a time when we're just barely out of our teenage adolescent years, in our early 20s, and find a love that feels stronger and more substantial than any puppy love we may have felt in our earlier youth. It's fresh music, it's driven, with a rock edge, and it evokes a feeling of nostalgia; being able to feel young and in love with the one you've found who's moved you so deeply. Then her latest single was released: "Firework". Initially, judging by the song title itself, I wasn't sure I'd like it. Since I follow Katy on Twitter, she was going on and on about how special this song was. When the video was finally released, I saw it and I was nearly moved to tears. The "Firework" she refers to is the spark that's within each of us that needs to be ignited so we can truly be ourselves and shine the way we're supposed to.

You don't have to feel like a wasted space. 
You're original, cannot be replaced. 
If you only knew what the future holds
after a hurricane comes a rainbow.

The song is a very upbeat as well as an inspirational testimony to being yourself, reflective of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors": 

Baby you're a firework, come on show 'em what you're worth. 
Make 'em go "Oh, oh oh!" as you shoot across the sky-y-y. 

If I had to guess, it's very appropriate to release this song after so many teen suicides have plagued our society in the past months. The video reflects a boy breaking up his parents' arguing, a self-conscious girl not wanting to swim in public because she's not skinny, a cancer patient with no hair, a gay boy in a club surrounded by straight people who finally goes to kiss the boy he's attracted to, a magician who gets mugged, etc. The message is very powerful, and the music is balladesque making for a truly enjoyable, inspiring work of art.

I'm loving "Firework" so much that I'm even considering using it professionally at school. When the 5th graders graduate, there are 4 songs we do, and 1 keeps changing each year:

National Anthem
Moving Forward (the official graduation song I wrote myself)
Celebration (by Kool & the Gang, usually sung as a finale)
_____________ This is the song that only 5th graders may audition to sing. Whoever gets picked sings this song, and the choir performs it in Sign Language.

So that's what's going on with me. Celine and Katy and duking it out in my ears and mind. I love them both so much.

Regardless of who becomes my new #1 favorite, Celine will always have a 1-up over anyone else because it was she who inspired and motivated me to become a professional musician.

Noms

I actually deliberated on the title of this blog. Should I capitalize the first letter, or not? This adorable 3-letter word refers to the "lolcat" speak on the website www.ICanHasCheezburger.com where adorable pictures of various animals (primarily cats and dogs) have captions depicting humorous conversations. I've actually fallen in love with the website and the animals depicted within. The term "nom" refers to food or anything of the like. It's a form of onomatopoeia in which the word mimics the sound made when something is nibbled or eaten...especially with haste when the food is extremely delectable. This term itself has gotten to the point where, especially on the internet, it's both onomatopoeia and a noun.

I smile with a cheesy grin just thinking about it. I picture friends of mine coming to my house, and as would be my hostly duty, I'd ask, "So I've got all kinds of good noms here if you're hungry." I find, personally, that the onomatopoeia form of the word is best expressed when the word "nom" is said 5 times in rapid succession: nom nom nom nom nom! It just makes me giggle!

But just this word alone has also prompted me to write this blog about my fascination with text lingo itself, when it comes to posting status updates on Facebook, Twitter, comments, text messages, etc. With the increasing and peaking popularity of the cyberworld and those who use it on a daily basis - I myself am a facebook and twitter addict - all kinds of textual lingo is being used on a regular basis, to the point where they even infiltrate daily social live conversations with friends. Our world is becoming increasingly digital, and those who were born after the year 2003 have little to no knowledge of what this world was like before this world went from being the kind where you'd have to communicate by phone to being able to take a picture with one!

So let me briefly recap my thoughts, because I seem to go from one stream of thinking to another. This one word, "nom", and its references is tied to a world that has evolved into what it is now when only a few years ago it didn't exist, at least not to the level it's at now. This world branches out in so many directions with the way technology has changed over time.

This world has brought with it changes in the way we communicate with each other, with regard to news, comedy, research, art, investigation, authentic information, misguided information, business, politics, pro-this and anti-that.

So here I was, trying to write a blog about a simple little word that evokes so much humor, and it led me down to mention, albeit briefly, the world that technology has affected communication, and how that has affected humanity.

We've come a long way, baby.

Sink or sing

Remember the original Super Mario Brothers Nintendo game? If you do, you might remember how the screen moved, forcing you to keep going. There was a timer that affected the tempo of the music as you started running out. Before you knew it, you were trying desperately to not fall in the next hole or just plain get killed by an easily-killed enemy.

My life feels like that game right now, especially around the winter season. I'm having to stop my regular lessons in music to prepare ALL the grades (PK-5th) for the annual Holiday program coming up. It's a traditional theme called "Christmas Around the World". The idea is to celebrate the holiday as it is celebrated in different parts of the world with songs from different countries. It first starts with sending out a bilingual letter asking if the child has permission to participate (since some families are Jehovah's Witnesses, and don't celebrate Christmas). I don't have a problem with such families, but in accommodating for all students' needs, I have to do this. Then of course some kids forget them and don't bring them in by the time they should, and so on and so forth.

In addition to leading and directing this massive production, I'm the chair of a social committee at my school, and we've got to plan the Christmas party, and we're running out of time to do it.

Then I get home, and I'm on my neighborhood's Neighborhood Watch Committee, and will be the chair of the Welcoming Committee. All of this is volunteer work, too. I'm so drained at the end of each day right now.

*yawn* Yep, I'm exhausted.

4 months later...

Yes, I know. I've been bad. I haven't blogged in 4 months.

No, I'm not dead, nor has anything horrific taken over my life except...life.

School's keeping me busy. Kodály training is....almost finished [insert obscenities here]. I was hoping I'd be finished with it by the end of July, but I have to redo some teaching videos. It's actually the best worst-case scenario. Wait, no it's not. Working on my song collection would've been easier to do than this crap. I don't blame my professor. He's got some major people above him, so anyone whom he trains represents him as a professional pedagogy professor. And according to my videos, I have some serious growth I need to do. I was just so ready to be DONE with this training. I broke down about 3 or 4 times during Level 3. I'm just so thrilled I don't have to repeat the courses...they were the biggest pains in the ass. The only thing that made them anything close to bearable was the fact that I had some awesome classmates.

So I need to have 2 teaching videos pass, and then I'll get my certificate. My goal was to complete this work before the Christmas break, but my motivation to do it is almost non-existent. I was so discouraged by the fact that I'm NOT finished, that I literally feel like saying "Fuck it. I don't give a shit anymore." I kinda just want to wash my hands of the whole thing. I practically gave 3 Julys of my life to being told and shown how to teach elementary music. When I submitted the evidence that shows what I felt I was taught to do, I was told that too many things were not good enough. Yes, this was back in July and I'm still bitter. You'd be bitter too if you knew what all this was like.

God, I'm getting depressed about it now. I need to get the fuck over it and get my shit together and done. That's the ONLY way this nightmare will go away. *sigh of frustration*

On the bright side, I'm going to start giving piano lessons. It'll be something of a financial assistance too. I don't think there are any piano teachers in my neighborhood, so if anyone wants them, I'm there only outlet. Commercial music studios cost a fortune more than what I'm charging. Plus, I'm a music theory badass.
I'm honestly not trying to brag. But I *did* get my Master's degree in music theory, and my thesis covered the fundamentals, my favorite area.

I hope I get a lot of piano students. If I even get just one, who takes a 30 minute lesson each week, that'll be an extra $80 a month which will be very helpful, and that's just 1 student for 30 minutes a week. Honestly, I hope I get 30-minute lessons, for the most part. If people go for the full hour, they'll pay $30, but if I have 2 back-to-back 30-minute lessons, that's $40 right there. The only thing I have to figure out now is where to teach (my house or theirs), and which books to use (and where to get them). I'm feeling optimistic about this, actually.

Okay, well, Glee's about to start, and I CAN'T miss it. I really don't know what to tell my readers about my blogginess. Don't expect anything frequent. But thanks for reading when it comes. :-)

The Book Blogs - Broken Government...nearly broke me

I *finally* finished reading this damn book! Yes, you might detect a note of hostility, and I feel slightly hostile for 2 reasons:

1. I had to push myself to read it, as in I was getting no enjoyment out of it towards the end. It went from an activity of leisure to a measure of self-discipline.
2. I will never, ever, ever, so long as I remain the way I do in thinking about government and politics as I do now, EVER become a registered member of the Republican party. NEVER.

After reading this book, I must say that I've never been so disgusted with a political party before. I don't know if the author John Dean is currently a registered Democrat, but I do know that he was once an active staffer in the Republican party during Nixon's presidency. Reading what I read, I can only say I was in total disbelief, numerous times about how absolutely and horridly corrupt the Republican party has become. I'm astounded, baffled, dumbfounded, amazed, and just plain bewildered at how people who are elected to serve those who put them in power choose to serve only themselves and their individual interests. The hypocrisy, duplicity, and sheer [insert additional negative noun] of these people is so thick it's almost tangible!

When I say it was an effort of self-discipline to completely read it is because it was. After every chapter or subsection I'd read, it became harder and harder to return to read it because of how upset the book's contents made me.

Among the hypocrisies listed, I think the biggest one is how this party is the one that claims to be so moral, and yet they engage in some of the most immoral and corrupt practices!

You know what? Trying to even type about this book and what I read is so difficult that it makes me even more upset just thinking about it. So I'll conclude with a few quotes from the book taken from the last chapter: Repairing Government: Restoring the Proper Processes:

In almost four decades of involvement in national politics, much of them as a card-carrying Republican, I was never concerned that the GOP posed a threat to the well-being of our nation. Indeed, the idea would never have occurred to me, for in my experience the system took care of excesses, as it certainly did in the case of the president for whom I worked [Nixon]. But in recent years the system has changed, and is no longer self-correcting. Most of that change has come from Republicans, and much of it based on their remarkable confrontational attitude, an attitude that has clearly worked for them. For example, I cannot imagine any Democratic president keeping cabinet officers as Bush has done with his Secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, men whom both Democrats and Republicans judged to be incompetent. Evidence that the system has changed is so apparent when a president can deliberately and openly violate the law--as, for example, simply brushing aside serious statutory prohibition against torture and electronic surveillance--without any serious consequences.

And another quote:

Ironically, when Republicans find Democratic officials with even a toe across the line, they raise unmitigated hell for that official. But when a Republican official crosses the line, Republicans close ranks around the miscreant . . . Conservatives once claimed they stood for law and order, and that no person was above the law, but their words belie their true beliefs as expressed in their actions. 

And the last quote I'll share:

Ignorant and apathetic voters, and dropouts, probably frown at the sign in the shop on East Nineteenth Street in Manhattan that says: "Democracy is like sex--it works best when you participate." A charming thought, if a questionable simile. (If democracy were, in fact, like sex, it would be impossible to prevent people from participating.) If I ever come across this shop, I plan to offer them an additional sign that sums up the GOP attitude about process: "If democracy were like sex--Republicans would make it illegal, except for themselves."

The best perk

*sigh of RELIEF*

Summer vacation has officially begun. *looks at those 2 words* "Summer vacation". Hmm. What will I be doing this summer? If there's any traveling involved, maybe a trip to Houston, maybe a trip to Laredo, and that's probably all I'll do. Maybe a Dallas trip. I don't know. But what I do know is this:

June 7-11: Gifted & Talented Certification training, M-F 8-3.
June 22-23: Positive Behavior Support training, T and W 8-3.
July 12-28: Kodály III training (culminating in Kodály Certification), M-F 8-4

THEN I'm free after that, but between 6/11 and 7/12, I'll be doing a lot of work to prep for the longest (toughest) training I have this summer. I've got a lot of work I need to get done completed, but I still have 3 more big things to finish:
1. 5th grade song collection analysis (about 70+ songs)
2. Song retrieval system on Excel or Access (including of at least 200 songs)
3. Finding sources for all songs in my song collection.

I've been told, I know, and I've experienced that one of the best parts about being a school teacher is that we get the summer off. I doubt this summer will feel like a vacation. I define vacation that an event or time period that is used strictly for one's leisure; it's a time when you reward and treat yourself after working hard for a period of time. My "vacation" will be spent attending 3 trainings, prepping for one of them (that directly affects my career). The best part about this summer is the fact that I won't have to wake up at 5:30 am each morning. But besides that, the biggest and best highlight, professionally speaking, is that after my Kodály training is finished, I'll have earned the prestigious title of Kodály Music Specialist. To me, the only title that could be cooler than adding that to my e-mail signatures would be a small acronym: Ph.D. But if that even happens, it won't happen for a few years. Although, now that I have 3 years of teaching experience under my belt, I have the minimum amount required to apply for a Ph.D in music education. So that'll be awesome.

Another nice thing about this summer is that come August, I'll have made my 36th consecutive payment on my student loans, and I will be rewarded a 1% interest rate reduction. That's both exciting and anticlimactic at the same time because of all the debt I have, my student loans have the lowest interest rate at the moment...except maybe for my car refinancing. That shit went down from 8.34 to 3.4%! My credit cards remain the most expensive rate, each over 10%.

Anyway, I hope to have a wonderful summer. Another amazing perk is that Frank and I will be celebrating our 4th anniversary on June 6th. Four years together, and still totally in love!

Another thing I'll be working on is finishing Broken Government. I really want to get that done. Because of how reading that book has pissed me off every time I've read a chapter, I'm finishing it now more out of discipline than wanting to read more...which is not the goal of reading, at least not for what I'm trying to accomplish. Maybe when I'm finished, I should read a book of fiction, where a story with a plot is told. I remember from high school that the books I enjoyed reading the most were the ones that had a lot of dialogue. If it's nothing but description, I'll get bored easily. I like to follow conversations, especially when they get heated between characters.

Okay. I'm gonna get off this and watch this week's episode of Glee I missed because of a True Blood event I attended.

Ahh, sweet summer...I've missed you!

The Book Blogs - Broken Government - Judicial Branch

I've started reading the 3rd chapter about the state of the Judicial Branch. It's an easier read than the 2 previous chapters for the main reason that it's not PISSING ME OFF like the other chapters did.

That being said, I haven't posted on my blog in a long time, longer than I wanted to go without posting. I haven't done so mostly because I've been too lazy to discipline myself to sit down and take the time out to write about whatever. Also, I hadn't been writing because I had stopped reading the book. I had stopped reading it because the last 2 chapters I read really upset me...to the point where I wasn't sure if I was going to even want to finish it. But yesterday, while Frank was reading his new book What Jesus Meant, I decided to be productive and pulled out the book and started reading chapter 3. I want to say I got maybe half way through. It's a LONG chapter!

This book has made me reaffirm something else about books that affect how I read them: Since I already have a hard enough time looking forward to reading, I need some frequent senses of accomplishment as I read. And these "accomplishments" come in the form of finishing chapters. If chapters are short, I'll finish it faster because I'll see my progress which, in turn, motivates me to read more and ultimately finish. If the book has few chapters, the book better be damn short, because I *hate* chapters that are 50 pages long. I hate that. And this current 3rd chapter in Broken Government is like 70 pages long. Grrr.

Besides the layout of the book, school has gotten busier, and I've had to deal with burn-out issues. Today is Memorial Day (thank you, troops!), and tomorrow is Tuesday, June 1st. Our last day of school is Thursday, June 3rd. That pisses. me. off. I *hate* that out school year goes into June! Ugh! The kids are tired and have checked out. And the teachers, including myself, probably checked out after Spring Break. I don't want to go back to school tomorrow. In fact, even though today is Monday, I feel like it's a Sunday since we had a 3-day weekend. And don't get me wrong; as much as I LOVE 3-day weekends, this one is always hard because it's a big tease before the summer comes. That's just fucked up. *shrugs* WHY?! Why make us teachers, who work so hard all year, be teased this way? Are we seriously just supposed to fill a certain number of working days? Because if that's the reason why we're going into June, then that's stupid. I'm sorry, but it is. Anyway, I should probably shut up considering there are plenty of people who wish they had the same 3 months off (paid) that teachers do. I'm bitching about how I have 3 more days of school left, and other people have to earn vacation time. For us, it's part of the package.

I'll make it, but I'll probably bitch on the way out about how school should've ended on Friday, May 28th. The good news is that next year, we DON'T go into June, and we'll have a week off for Thanksgiving as well as Spring Break. That I think is appropriate; a week off in the Fall, and a week off in the Spring, with 2 weeks off between semesters...and the random days off we get sporadically.

Back to the book.

So, this chapter about the Judicial Branch is pretty much talking about how those justices whom have served on it, how they've become nominated, and how the parties in power have affected which judges end up serving. It also explained something I didn't know about, but am not surprised about; we have apparently 4 different types of judges: minimalists, fundamentalists, and 2 others I can't recall. But the most common were these 2 I've mentioned. I can't remember what the deal was with minimalist judges, but fundamentalist judges are those who base their decisions by interpreting the Constitution as it was written in its time. So they apply it to a contemporary situation based on its original context. I thought it was interesting, but this chapter isn't anywhere nearly as fired up in its writing as the previous 2 chapters were. But I'm not finished with this one either. The author is about to discuss how the branch was affected by Bush Sr.'s reign, as well as W's reign, and they both have a few pages dedicated to themselves.

Frank already finished his book, which made me slightly jealous because I wish I could read faster than I do. That's the main reason why I don't buy books that become movies. I've never read any of the Lord of the Rings series, nor The Chronicles of Narnia, nor the Harry Potter series. None of them, because as thick as those books are, it'll take me forever to finish whereas I can enjoy the story (though I know they're not usually faithful to their books) by watching a movie and be finished in a few hours. I know people who've read books...BIG books, within a 24-hour period. I don't know if I could ever do that.

*sigh* I better finish this post. I have some work I gave myself to do that I need to have ready to distribute to my students over the next couple of days. These last 3 days will be CRAZY.