11/2

I tried to introduce my piece to HS Choir this morning.  Even thought I'd been observing, essentially, for many weeks, I approached rehearsal by expecting a little bit of music-reading ability.  It turns out, as Mrs. D whispered to me and discussed more later, they don't really read music.  Therefore, I somewhat stumbled through my introduction and now intend to be more focused on learning parts practically by rote before addressing more complicated things.

We conquered a whole damn unit in Theory today!  Bam!

Then, at the MS, the first (and initially most dreaded) GM class arrived......and they were almost silent.  I was so nervous about the immaturity and attitude that I had been warned about that my expectation was of recklessness, and I had completely forgotten about the once-given explanation that these students "often don't really respond."  They were so quiet and seemingly attentive that I ran out of planned material.  I couldn't believe it.  During the listening journal (the last thing in my plan), I talked to Mrs. D and said, "What on earth do I do?"  She came to my rescue and said, "Fire drill procedure!"  That was just what I needed.  We did a fire drill and I stalled with humor when we returned, still ultimately ending class a minute early.  So, oddly enough, this class seems to be the fastest at absorbing introductions and administrivia, though, from what I'm told, they will be extremely slow with real material.  Currently, they're ahead of the other two classes (by a listening journal and a fire drill!), but I expect that trend to reverse after the first day of a real lesson (Thursday).

As much as I've settled into being comfortable in front of the classes I've known, the role of being a teacher  that students have never seen before is still jarring.  Mrs. D was entirely in charge of the initial classes with the last round of students, and I find that introducing myself to students on my own is quite nerve-racking.  By the end of the day I had succeeded in using my sense of humor to my advantage.  Overall, I'd say things went well, my evidence being that Mrs. D was bored out of her mind all day.  :)

The mostest awesomest part of the day was when I learned how to whistle.  Actually, I whistle just fine with my tongue, but since we watched that whistling documentary I've been trying to do a real pucker whistle.  Mrs. D's tips led to me making some whistles today.  This is about as exciting as when I finally figured out how to see those Magic Eye illusions a year ago.