Judysnotes’s Blog

It’s been forever since I’ve written anything.  There’s good reason:  Since January I’ve added another graduate class to my transcript (School Finance), directed a high school musical (Footloose), helped my mom empty her house (she sold it FINALLY after being on the market for three years), rehearsed students for two choir concerts (total of approximately 218 students), took the high school choir to sing at the Cardinals game, planned and took a group of performing arts students from Roxana High School to Chicago, and tried to get some sleep.  After writing that, I think I understand why I feel so exhausted!

In the meantime, I learned that I’m going to have another granddaughter!  What a blessing.  I have an adorable picture of my granddaughter, Elle, on the night she announced to us that she is going to be a big sister.  I’ve been meaning to post this story, but…well….you know!  Tune in….I’ll get to it before next week, hopefully.  But, it’ll have wait until after Tuesday.  I’m going to have one of Jennifer’s friends and her husband stay with us over the weekend, and she’s pregnant with triplets!!!  Never a dull moment!

I just returned from an amazing conference:  The Illinois Music Educators Association All-State Conference.  Wow..that’s a mouthful!!  I attend this conference every year.  This is the first year that I did not have any students audition.  And the first year in awhile that I did not have at least one, if not more students who made the All-State Choir.  It’s the most incredible gathering of the best student musicians from across the state.  All are juniors and seniors who have auditioned and are hand-picked to come together, rehearse for two and a half days, and present their work in the form of a concert.  These students are band, choir and orchestra students.  While they rehearse, the teachers spend time in sessions provided from morning to night.  I was amazed at the offerings this year.  There were so many big names in choral music who were brought in to present and inspire.

It is troubling to me how the day to day hum-drum routine can, at times, result in settling in to accepting status quo.  I hadn’t realized I had fallen into this trap until I hit the frozen streets of Peoria, IL for this conference.  My eyes were brutally opened once again to what can be achieved by high school students.  With perseverence, even smaller schools can become excellent in whatever endeavor they choose.  It just takes focus and dedication.  And, maybe a healthy dose of creativity.  All I know is that I hope I returned from this conference a better teacher and conductor.  I want to see all of my students reach a level far beyond where they are at this point.  I am rejuvenated, energized, and ready to go!  (I only hope it lasts….)

The nearest restroom to my classroom isn’t the faculty restroom.  It’s a student restroom that has doors that are..let’s say… less than perfect (they don’t latch very well, let alone lock).  I was in a hurry, and I figured that since it was during a time when students were in class, I would be safe to make a quick pit-stop.  So, I took my chances.  I had just sat down when I heard some girls come bustling in.  Of course…one of them, not realizing anyone-let alone a TEACHER, was in there, flung open the stall I inhabited.  There I was, in the stall, seated in front of three of my sixth grade students.  Thankfully, I was completely covered, but seriously!  So, if you were the student, what would your reaction to this be?  Here’s a multiple choice:

A. Yell at the teacher  for  using the student bathroom.

B. Start crying.

C. Stand in a circle in the restroom, laughing, saying “I can’t believe I threw the door open on Mrs. McGill!”

D. Run like the wind out of the restroom, hoping the teacher (me) won’t realize who it was that threw the door open.

Guess which choice my students chose?  I would have most definitely chosen “D”.  Not my students.  No!  They went with “C”!!  So, I waited, thinking they would eventually realize that the proper thing to do would be to run out of the restroom, but they just kept staying in there, forgetting that I was still there.

I finally gave up and came out of the stall.  I said to the red-faced girls:  “Well girls, I guess you’ll be talking about this for quite awhile!  Don’t worry about it:  by the time you’re married and have kids, you’ll have forgotten all about this!”  It was one of the girl’s responses that explained their choice of letter “C” for me altogether.  She replied:  “Oh, Mrs. McGill!  My mother says I shouldn’t reproduce!!”  Enough said.

he-ro:  NOUN

1. In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.
2. A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life: soldiers and nurses who were heroes in an unpopular war.
3. A person noted for special achievement in a particular field: the heroes of medicine. See Synonyms at celebrity.
4. The principal male character in a novel, poem, or dramatic presentation.

Retrieved from:  www.education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/hero.

I put this definition here to make a point.  I have heard it said over and over and over that Barak Obama is the hero of countless people – celebrities, friends, colleagues, and so on.  It’s everywhere.  A street in St. Louis has been renamed to Barak Obama Blvd.  We now can even purchase a coin with his picture on it.  I have actually heard the terms “saviour” and “messiah” used by the media to describe him.

Here’s my question:  What has he done to earn these labels?  He has won the presidential election.  He will be our president.  That’s the point.  He isn’t yet.  He WILL be.  I think it would be a magnificent idea to let him become our president before we elevate him to the level of hero.  To actually allow him to show what he is capable of accomplishing in the office before we put him on that pedestal – and begin renaming our streets after him.  I know, I know – he’s our first African-American president elect.  Well, half African-American, anyway.  I am very happy that we have finally broken that racial barrier.  It’s past time for that to happen.  But let’s be honest.  He hasn’t done anything yet, really.  Who knows what kind of president he will be.  It’s impossible to know that because he isn’t even the president yet.   Shouldn’t we just wait with all of the hero worship for awhile?  Maybe let him actually do something for the economy, make a popular decision or two or something?  I’m just saying….

Secondly – who can possibly live up to what the people of this country and possibly the world have set as the expectation for this mere mortal man?  Anything less than miraculous will fall short as his performance as president.  How can he measure up?  I worry about this.  I vigorously disagree with several of the things he stands for and what he plans to do.  But he will be our president and I am concerned for his welfare and that of his family.   We expect him to fix everything – and if he can’t, what will the consequences be?  Can he handle the rejection and disrespectful jabs the have plagued President Bush?  Will he choose to make the decisions based on what he thinks is right rather than what is popular?

We are a fickle people.  This love affair with Barak Obama may be aglow right now.   Why it even exists, I just don’t know.  If he deserves it remains to be seen.  I hope that in a couple of years I can write another entry that rebuts this whole entry completely.  For now – I’m just blown away.  Does anyone else feel the same way?

I came home to an empty house for the first time in a weeks today.  It’s eerily quiet.  The holidays are over, we’re back to work, and Kristi left this morning to head back to Texas to do her student teaching – the final phase of her preparations to become a teacher.  Butch is coaching a basketball game.  Everyone else is busy:  Mom is on a plane headed for Arkansas to visit a family friend.  Tiff, Jeremy and Logan are at the gym working out and swimming.   Once I completed two rehearsals after school, I came home, cleaned a closet, cleaned out a cabinet, ate some supper, and now I’m trying to decide if I should keep cleaning or relax.  It’s a difficult choice, but since tomorrow night will be another quiet night, I think I’ll just sit back, rest, and save the rest of the cleaning for tomorrow and the next day.  It’ll wait, right?  I was invited to join Tiff, Jeremy and Logan at the gym and I considered going, but as a former beloved youth pastor from our church so uniquely put it:  I sat down until the feeling passed!

I’m not sure as yet how I feel about the empty nest.  There are days when I enjoy the quiet, but it gets too quiet at times.  When Butch and I married, we immediately had a family of four teenagers.  Now is kind of like our honeymoon, after 12 1/2 years of marriage.  It still gets quiet!  I guess I’ll just have to borrow a grandchild to fill the silence and liven things up around here!  Now….there’s a thought!!!

Yuck.  My tonsils look like cauliflower.  For the past three days now, every time I swallow, it feels as if I’m swallowing razor blades.  I long for a  refreshing drink of cool water.  It’s excruciating to swallow my own spit.  Strep is a cruel bacteria.  It not only robs you of the ability to function normally, to sleep comfortably, to eat anything, or to drink a cool, refreshing drink of ANYTHING.  No:  it has the unbelievable ability to rob a teacher from one of the many perks that come with the profession:  SNOW DAYS!  I can’t believe I had to spend a perfectly good snow day cooped-up in my bed, trying to fight off this stupid ailment.  Snow days are supposed to be spent shopping.  First, you go out for breakfast, and then you go shopping.  Everybody knows this.  WHY??????

We just got back from our trip to Arkansas, visiting our friends, the Palenske’s (see Friends, Part II).  It was somewhat uneventful, as far as tragedies go.  Except for my locking the keys, my purse, our cell phones and everything else in the car when we made a potty stop for Logan at the Missouri/Arkansas state line.  It’s wonderful that we have OnStar.  It is amazing – they can unlock your car doors from a satellite!   However, you have to know the phone number to call to ask them to do this.  I have it programmed in my cell phone, which again, is locked in the car.  The clerk in the gas station was so nice to let us use hers, but we couldn’t remember the number.  I finally called Tiffany, my daughter, back home to have her call information to get the number and call us back with it.  I didn’t want the call to information to be charged to the nice clerk’s cell phone account.  Once we were able to get past the interference on the connection, Tiffany finally understood what I was telling her.  She called information, got the number and called us back.  We called OnStar, they asked for our password (which we could actually remember) and – voila!  The doors unlock in an instant!  Cool!  Incidentally, this is not the first time we’ve had to do this.

On the way down, Logan kept us quite entertained.  He is quite intelligent and inquisitive for a five year-old.  Sometimes he comes up with the funniest questions.  Here’s how his little mind thinks:  This is a conversation that we had.  Just to help explain – my grandchildren call me “Bean”.  I’ll explain that in a later blog.

Logan:  Bean, what’s your mom’s name?

Me:  My mom is your Nana.  Her name is Marilyn.                                           

Logan:  Oh.  What’s your dad’s name?

Me:  Grandpa Bill.  He’s in Heaven with Aunt Jenny.

Logan:  How did God make us?

Me:  I wish I knew.

Logan:  I know – He has lots of parts in Heaven.  He glues us together.  He has a glue gun and a glue stick.  (And then) What if you put your whole hand in your mouth?  (Random!!!)

Me:  I don’t know….

Logan:  Your hand would get stuck in your throat.

Me:  No it wouldn’t – I can put my whole hand in my mouth.

Logan:  No you can’t!

(Kelly, this is for you!)  So….I put my whole fist in my mouth like my best friend Kelly and I used to do in high school just to prove that we could.

Logan looked at me with those huge eyes and said:  Um…is it stuck in your throat?

Tomorrow, we will leave to visit another dear family of friends…the Palenskes.  Mark was our pastor for nearly 12 years.  He performed the wedding ceremony for my daughter, Tiffany, and the funeral service for my other daughter, Jennifer.  Needless to say, this family is special to us.  We will enjoy a couple of days together before returning home to start life after Christmas break.  We have had so many adventures together….from exploring a multiple story frozen waterfall in Colorado, to whitewater rafting on the olympic course in Tennessee, to skiing in Galena, to toboggan riding in Indiana – injuries included in all of the above!  Last year was fairly uneventful.  Except that Mark and Dena surprised us with these really cool St. Louis Cardinal jerseys!  We’re overdue for something exciting…….I can’t wait to see what happens!!!

The older I get, the more I treasure friendships.  Tomorrow morning I will meet my best girlfriend from my school days…..Kelly, for breakfast.  We became best friends when we were cheerleaders the summer before our 9th grade year.  Our lives have since taken so many turns – some happy, some sad, some surprising, some tragic.  We’ve supported each other through the 33 years (can it possibly be THAT long??) that we’ve been friends.  When I look back on those 33 years, it’s hard to believe that we’ve survived!  I have to say, she’s more than just a friend.  She’s more than the sister I never had.  She’s been my rock, my support, my voice of reason, my stability, my angel of mercy, my strength, and the one who I want to be there for every event in my life – happy or sad.

I’m looking so forward to our breakfast together.  The older I get, the more I realize that it’s the little things in life that matter – like taking time to have breakfast with your best friend.  If you have a really special friend, take the time to call her (or him) and tell her (or him) how much (s)he means to you.  Don’t put it off!  You never know what tomorrow may bring……

Well..my kids do it so I thought I’d give it a try.  So many stories to share!  Blogging is truly an art form I’ve discovered, if you do it right.  My daughter-in-law, Kelli, does a good job of keeping hers current.  My daughter, Kristi, is second best at this.  However, my daughter Tiffany pretty much stinks.  (Sorry Tiff, you know it’s true!)  Her last entry was in July!  My son, Joe, has like a thousand sites to maintain, so he does the best he can.  So, with all of these going on, and with my profession, adorable grandchildren, etc., I thought I would share some of the hilarious things that happen.

The first story I would like to share happened last night.  After an amazing Christmas day, Butch, me, Tiffany, Jeremy, Logan and Kristi decided to head out for the 8:00 showing of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.  Tiffany ordered our tickets early, but when we got to the theater, the parking lot was packed.  Let me set this up:  Butch had been sick for three days, and somewhat weak from the stomach flu.  It hadn’t been pretty.  Jeremy decided to let us out in front of the doors to the theater so we could go in and get the tickets and find seats.  Butch climbed out, and Logan decided to lunge out to him.  He forgot to tell Butch this.  Butch was caught off balance.  Logan and Butch both plummeted to the parking lot road – Butch flat on his back, Logan on top of him.  (Of course, Butch dramatized a bit to make it more eventful!)  Needless to say, people around us were very concerned, and I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt.  I guess I must have looked pretty mean!!  Well…Logan was ok!!  And, I know my husband well enough to know he was just fine.

When we got into the theater, the place was packed to the gills.  We had to split up three and three.  Logan fell asleep, and we who are not his mom, stole snuggles and kisses.  That’s the only way we who are not his mom can get them anymore.  Sigh…..he’s getting so old.  This was truly a magical way to end a perfect day.