The Magic That Is The First Football Game

Well, almost....

It would have been magic except for a few minor glitches. Namely, the game was an hour away, it rained, there was mud everywhere (even the ponchos), there were band ponchos, the football team lost, and oh yeah, we broke the marimba. Now if you don't know what a marimba is or what one looks like, I have provided an image out to the side here. You can see how the largest resonators to the far left stick out almost longer than the wheels, well let's just say that when you take this monstrosity of a percussion instrument down two loading ramps (think like the ones they use to put a car onto a transfer truck), those resonators just might hit that ramp, and then everything on the blasted instrument falls apart. Now, I'm not saying that happened to our marimba because if you were to look at our marimba, you would see that it is in perfect working order and plays like a dream. However, if you had seen me holding pieces of something that looked like a marimba during the halftime show instead of being on the field watching my kids perform and then joining our one special student to make sure he didn't get too excited in his playing (more on that later), you might have other thoughts, but you weren't there, were you? This might bring another scenario to the minds of some of my kin that occurred way back when I was in high school that also involved a pitched percussion instrument, but we'll leave the past buried, and just say that neither of these instances are my fault.

Now, to my special student. I really feel a little sorry for this kid, but he doesn't make it easy to feel that way for him. He's a kid that has some physical and mental issues, but at the same time he functions at a relatively high level, to the point that oftentimes, he knows how he is acting and how it affects others. That being said, this student may have to find alternate transportation to the football game, because I fear for his safety from his fellow bandmates if they have to endure another marathon trip with him in their presence. He's just got one of those personalities that people don't put up with over long stretches of time. He didn't bother me tonight in this regard. What got me almost yelling at him was when he came up to me in the middle of a song and asked me about what note he should play in the middle of the song we were doing at the moment. And this wasn't like I had rest and we could talk about it right then, no, he comes up to me as I'm playing the melody of the song and asks. When the song ended and I was able to hear his question about his note, it was one that he couldn't even play in his wildest dreams and he KNEW it! I was upset with the boy. Anyway, that was my magical night "under the lights" here in Texas to kick off year number two. It's 2AM (I must be lonely-Matchbox 20), and I'm about to eat some dinner, and then get in bed. Thank the Lord for the long weekend! Next week is a two-hour bus drive, I can hardly wait!

Today's Funny Story

So, I'm teaching my film music class first thing this morning and I'm going over a worksheet I've created where the students have to fill in the blanks while I talk. I've just finished the first set of blanks to fill in and like the studious teacher I am, I ask if there are any questions I need to answer before we go on. I have one student who raises her hand. Now, normally I would be expecting a request for the bathroom, or to go to the nurse, or anything else other than what the class is about. This is for two reasons: First, it's 9AM and the kids aren't up yet, and second, it's just fill in the blank. Anyway, I call on this girl and she actually has a question for me:


Are these underlined words supposed to be blanks?


I had given her the teacher copy with all the blanks filled in, instead of the student copy.

1st Day Back!

I thought I would start this entry off with some cartoons, they always seem to make the situation better.


I'm not sure I could have asked for a better first day, and it's very nice to be able to have a second first day. Of course I mean a first day for a second year in the same school. The kids were very pleasant and we were able to get the information to them that we needed to.


The only problem I had with my day was my own fault: I had a list of things in my head that I wanted to accomplish before school started. They included watching some trilogies, playing some games to completion, and finishing all the summer books I set out to read. I was so determined to complete the task of finishing my self-imposed booklist that I stayed up until 1AM to complete the book that I was working on. I woke up between 6 and 6:20, ready to face the day, but I am paying for it now. My poor wife had to deal with our daughter this evening for probably an hour because I couldn't keep my eyes open. So, I will not make this mistake again, I hope. I plan on going to bed here in the next half-hour or so, so that I can be well rested to go back tomorrow, when the real work begins.


It always seems easy to me to plan lessons for the first day, because the kids are filling out forms, telling what they did over the summer, and getting all the paperwork that you got ready to go the week before and before you know it the time alloted is up and they're off to their next class. Tomorrow, and every day following until sometime around the last week, the real work of teaching begins and continues. I look forward to the challenges and am really excited about all my classes.


The updated numbers as of today (the counselor told me they would change tomorrow) are as follows:
Percussion-16
Movie Music 1-5
Beginning Band 1-30
Beginning Band 2-28
7/8th Grade Band-52
Movie Music 2-19


That's a grand total of 150 students that I get to see and teach personally out of a school of around 300. That's not including the 40 or so high school band members who I also assist with. Don't anyone ever say band directors have an easy job. Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!

About to Start the Marathon!

Sorry, there just isn't a good picture to go along with 6th grade orientation and 7/8th grade picking up their schedules, so you'll have to go without.

Yes, today after 7 hours of grueling in-service meetings (more on those later), we had to get energized and peppy enough to match the intensity level of the rising 6th graders who were on our campus today getting themselves acquainted with the school layout and important places on campus they needed to be aware of. It really wasn't that bad, I had a few flyers to hand out and a few parents had questions they needed answered, which if I didn't answer sufficiently, they made it seem like I did. Shortly after the 6th graders were off with family members to find their respective classrooms, those of us fortunate enough to teach more than one grade level had to book it back over to the auditorium for the 7/8th grade orientation meeting and collecting of schedules. What my mother said on her blog a few days ago (http://gabbysblog-keyofdjonz.blogspot.com/), has really rung true with me over the past few days. Simply put, we teachers and to some extent the students on campus are very accomodating here at the beginning of the schoolyear. Give it a few weeks of seeing no one other than each other, and this great mood of comeraderie and cooperation begins to give way to short fuses and major stresses! Enjoy it while it lasts is all I can say! It was really fun to get to see all the kids we had last year again, though and I'm ready to begin making new mistakes this year. That was one thing TBA taught me: it's okay to make several mistakes in one year. It's not okay to make the same several mistakes year after year. So I'm looking forward to making brand new mistakes!

Did I mention that I have 52 beginning band students and 52 7/8th grade band students? Did I mention I have a percussion class at 8 in the morning that I found out today is not comprised simply of beginning percussionist, but also of high school percussionist? Did I mention I have 5 music class students in my first film music class of the day and 18 in the next? For an average class size that hovers somewhere in the 15 student range for most teachers at my campus, these are huge challenges that I'm going to face this year. I just hope that I'm up to the challenge and that my co-worker can exercise some patience, and also allow me and the students to maintain a feeling of dignity in her discipline and corrections of teaching methods. The idea of dignity in discipline is something that has been preached over and over again during this inservice time.

Check out the smooth segue: Speaking of in-service: I had to give a presentation this morning on the National Middle School Association's goals for middle school level education. We only had yesterday morning during in-service to work on it, and it wasn't that hard. Mostly it consisted of taking bullet points and putting them into your own words. The section I was responsible for was only around three pages anyway. What I was not expecting is the reaction I received from my colleagues once I finished speaking, which has led me to think that maybe I put on an act when I teach versus when I'm around other people. When it was my turn to speak, I just got up and presented my information, but I tried to make it relevant to the audience as well as bring my own sense of unique humor to the presentation. Well, either I was an amazingly dynamic speaker, or my colleagues had never seen me so animated before (take your guess as to which one you lean towards), and I had at least 3-4 people come up to me afterwards to let me know they thought I did a really good job presenting. Maybe I'm a superhero with an alter-ego? Probably not. Definitely not.

It also made me laugh to realize how new teachers (beginning teachers) sometimes overdo things when they first start to teach. I can laugh, because it's me, and every other teacher in the world when they first start out. Case in point: The presentation I was a part of this morning was among the junior high non-core subject teachers like band, art, and PE. The high school had a similar project with a different book, they were supposed to each take a chapter or two and break it down and have it prepared for a presentation this morning. So we junior high teachers finish and sit back down and allow the high school team to go. This lady (girl?) stands up who is a first year teacher, a new teacher to the district, and graduated from here not too many years ago. Folks, that is three strikes against you if you're working to be taken seriously, so I can understand why this young lady acted the way she did (you'll see). The first words out of her mouth were: Can someone help me pass out these outlines? This would generally be a normal request and one that would not cause snickers among the group of teachers that worked on these presentations, however we had been instructed that this didn't have to be very high-tech, that our principal just wanted the information out there for the faculty, and that we were by no means to feel that we needed to do a huge presentation, like a powerpoint, if we simply wanted to write down our thoughts and present that, it would be just fine. So this young lady proceeds to hand these papers to the group, and then goes to the computer and pulls up her powerpoint presentation. She then spends the next 20 minutes explaining not only what I'm sure was her chapter responsibility, but also those of just about every other chapter in the book, knocking out what any other group had to contribute. Not that the other group of coaches minded all that much, they just kept on telling her that was basically right, and she was doing a fine job! No one can tell these coaches they don't know how to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, she did a fairly good job, but I just had to smile, because I know she was trying really hard to be taken seriously by a faculty that largely taught her in high school. I wish her all the best, and realize that I'm not that far away from her.

I also am realizing more and more each day that there has to be a balance between the enthusiasm that needs to be brought to this type of job in order to be effective, and not to overdo or out-think what needs to be done. We as teachers have a tendency to make a very simple problem or project very complex when we don't need to, and it's definitely something I'm planning on watching out for this upcoming schoolyear. Which starts promptly at 7:55 on Monday!

Kayla, Brenna, and I will be at a wedding in San Antonio this weekend, for some people that I don't know, but I hope the food will be good and that I'll be able to rest up some before this long marathon race begins!

Thank the Lord for Good In-Services

In my short (some would say extremely short) teaching career, I can say with some confidence that there are some times when we have specific "training times" which should be labeled as "blocks of wasted time I could be spent doing anything else that would be more worthwhile for myself, my students, and the whole population of educated people in general." These times are typically called in-service opportunities. You don't often have a choice of whether or not to attend these in-service times. There are a few instances, however which should not hold the same connotations as the phrase "in-service." In fact, if I had my way, we would call them something like "Theft Sessions," or "How to Be A Thief." I would call these as such because you come out of them with a truckload of ideas for your classroom that you put no effort into whatsoever, yet the presenter expects and frankly would be offended if you didn't use them as such. (By the way, if we've got any other terms for the dreaded "in-service" or "Theft Sessions", I would love to hear them)

Today's in-service was one of those Theft Sessions. I was a little wary going in, because the lady that spoke to us is a huge Harry Wong fan, who was teaching before Harry Wong came out with all his stuff. However, this means that she met us as close to the door as possible and had us introduce ourselves and shake hands. This also meant that there was some group work time planned. Each of these things are issues with me, because I'm the type of person that likes to hang back and check out my surroundings before I am forced to join in with everyone else. It's how I've survived in such good shape over the past 28 years. Back to topic, I was also wary of this lady because she was a theater person and we were in a very small space. Now don't get me wrong, I love theater people. I have several friends who work in the theater world, but at times if you get too close to them (in a physical sense, not emotional), they tend to be incredibly overbearing, because normally they are trying to project a character all the way to the back of the theater. This works in a theater setting, not so much in a classroom with 15-20 people in it. So here's this lady who is larger than life, but to the trained eye of a performer, you can see she is also playing a part, and it makes you distrust her a little bit because you know she's only playing a character and not being genuine.

As the day wore on, however, the initial facade faded some, and she was very able to connect with our small band (no pun intended) of non-math and non-science teachers. She was a fantastic reader, she read us several of her own compositions which were delightful to listen to. She also was a presenter who had taught for almost 40 years in the classroom, so at the end of the day, she was really able to give us practical uses for almost every conceivable subject area. It was very refreshing because as a music teacher, I feel we are somewhat left out in the cold in these mandatory meetings because the focus is on the classroom teacher and on how to arrange desks and check student written work and other things of this nature which are very difficult to adapt to the music classroom setting. For those who don't realize why this is an issue, let's cover these two very shortly: written assignments are basically not done in band or choir, because your final portfolio of work is available for the public to hear and you actually invite parents and community members to come and judge. Arranging desks (which we don't have) is also very difficult, because children are generally seated according to what instrument they play or what voice part they sing. Now I realize that I can adapt that somewhat, and I have in the past, but it took a lot of thinking time and work on my own to come to a satisfactory conclusion that worked for me, and it had nothing to do with what I was told during one of these in-services.

This presenter was not like that at all, she made a very conscious effort to include the fine arts classes, and seemed to try very hard to validate us as an actual subject which is another fight we have to fight sometimes, not so much with teachers although there are a few, but more with students who don't realize they can actually fail band if they don't do the assignments. Anyway, back to this presenter. She also helped me gather ideas for my upcoming general music classes this next year as far as classroom managers and keeping students on task when outside of my room, but doing work for my class. It was very nice.

One last thing about this presenter. She had all of us write on an index card an adjective we would use to describe the types of teachers or teaching we would like to do this year. Take some guesses on my word, and I'll post it in the next blog. The hint I'll give you is it has to do with one of Compass' core values. The exercise we did with it involved mixing all the cards up and redistributing them, then having the "students" match the cards back up with their owners. It was a wonderful way to get to know each teacher a little bit deeper, and at the end of the exercise, we could have written all of the words up on the board and had a fantastic list of words to help inspire us throughout the year. (That's my mini-theft session, if you can use it, take it! One thief to another!)

The last thing I'll say in this blog has to do with the picture that I chose to attach to it. The reason I chose it is because it's the hokey, never gonna put it up within a 50 yard circumference of my classroom kind of one-line, no thought went into it kind of dribble we get fed at an in-service that the presenter thinks is very profound and that makes me sick. Now, I realize that my mother who teaches 5th grade is probably going to read this and before she gets to this part be looking elsewhere on the Internet trying to find it so she can either put it up in her room at school or at the house, but that's because that sort of thing will work for her and I hope that if she ever did an in-service, excuse me, theft session, she would never use this thing to close her time. It would be something truly profound, practical, and easily adaptable to any subject............ You won't find any of that here, so just keep on walking, but thanks for reading all of the post. I'm sure there will be more tomorrow!

There's Got to Be a Better Wake-Up Call

So, I've got to find out who it is in the school district I've offended and what I can do to make it up to them. If you notice the picture to the left, this will be my teaching style until sometime around December of this year. We (the head director and myself) decided that because of the usual large numbers of students who want to play percussion, that this year we would offer a percussion class, freeing up these students to not only play percussion, but to also play a wind instrument. What I didn't count on was an entire class of sixth graders.......at 8AM in the morning.........with 19 (NINETEEN, that's a one in front of a nine!) signed up to take the course. Did I mention it's at 8 in the morning, does anyone remember that I am primarily a night person, not a morning person? Did I also mention that these will all be students who think that percussion consists of doing just what this kid is doing in the picture: hitting things as long and as loud as you can to see how annoyed you can make anyone around you, with the ultimate goal of achieveing the pose of the listener in the picture?! How ridiculous!

In other news, Kayla and Brenna made it home safely, the house has been cleaned, I took another shower, and finished Star Wars last night before I went to bed. Life is about to return to regularly scheduled programming for the Joneses. At least, the crazy sort of schedule we keep during marching season.

Can I just take a moment, speaking of marching band, and brag on my kids just a little? These kids have been truly amazing to watch these past three weeks. They have come to the rehearsals we have had and worked their tails off to get things ready for this upcoming season. The head director stated before the first rehearsal that she wanted a marching trophy this year, and I've got to think that if they maintain this pace, they will put themselves in a very good position to attain one. There have only been a few gripes and complaints, and for the most part there has been a great deal of focus placed on completing the assigned tasks as efficiently as possible in order to earn time spent doing other things. I'm very proud of them all. That doesn't mean that they haven't already started to drive me crazy over some things, but overall I've been very pleased.

Okay, it's getting late (school-schedule), and I need to head off to bed, so I promise to keep everyone informed of the goings on during pre-planning this week and the first week of school next week. I know my Georgia teachers that read this are ready to smack me upside the head for that one, especially when they know that I get out around the same time they do at the end of the year. Just keep that in mind when you're off on Spring, Fall, Christmas, and Winter breaks, while I'm slaving away in the constant heat down here!

PS, I apologize for the scrunched-up look to this blog, I can't make it post with the divides I want it to. It's pretty annoying, but if I can endure it, you have to as well!

The Final Week of Summer (For Real)

So my last week of summer vacation was supposed to end about two weeks ago when I started band camp. Little did I know that the head band director I work with had other plans. She wrote an amazingly simple, yet effective drill for our marching band, mix it together with kids who are really willing to work as hard as they can, and you end up with the following: instead of three days working from 10 AM-8 PM, three days off with nothing to do but see how you can accomplish the least amount of productivity into such a short period of time.

Did I mention Kayla and Brenna went to Houston this week to visit her parents? We did this because I wasn't going to be home anyway, and it was a good time for them to visit before school got back into session for Kayla's mom as well. So not only am I allowed to indulge myself in my odd sleep schedule (see writing a blog post at one in the morning), but I'm also allowed to play computer games to my heart's content, as well as complete my final bit of "film research" for the summer by completing the Star Wars double trilogy.

Now I realize that some of you who read this are thinking, "Boy, if I had one more week of vacation left and I knew I wasn't going to get another break for three months, I would probably spend it preparing for the upcoming classes I had to teach to set out a syllabus, a schedule of events, and make sure I had my first few weeks of lesson plans done." To those people, I say: "When you have three days of waking up at 11 and going to bed at 4, there's plenty of time to fit it all in." Yes, I realize it's a lie, and I'll probably not even make it through half of the things I actually need to accomplish, but I have such a hard time getting motivated when I'm here by myself. Which leads me to my final point.

If I had not gotten married to a fabulous woman (See post on 8/3/08), I would almost certainly be a very lazy and unkempt man-child. I say this because in the time since my wife and daughter left town, I have logged roughly 14 hours of sleep, eaten fried food for every meal since Sunday, not shaved, bathed twice, gotten out of my pj's only to go to two days of work, and logged the remainder of my time between the computer and the television with a few breaks for the call of nature. To all the guys reading this, don't hate me because you can't have this glamour, and to all the girls, be thankful I found time to feed our pets! I love bachelorhood, but I think if I had it all the time, it would destroy me. I did get productive a little today and cleaned the house just a bit, and I do have a few work things to do tomorrow, which should insure that I put on some shorts that I don't sleep in. As far as that list that's shown above about all the things I need to do, I'll get to them at the end of the week, I'm sure. And if not, well.....

Kayla and Brenna will be home Friday!

The Great Motivator

This will be short since it's way past my bedtime, but I fell asleep upstairs. I just wanted everyone who wasn't a teacher to realize that sometimes we as a group will do or say anything that motivates our students to acheive heights that they would not think of otherwise. One of these instances came up for me today. The kids had a new "thing" they were doing today that they thought was the most fun and coolest thing they've ever done before. Give them a few weeks and they will move on to something else they think is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's just the way kids operate. Anyway, they kept asking me to join them and here's where I may have gotten myself into some trouble. I told them that if they received straight ones at their marching contest, that I would do this thing for them. What is this mysterious "thing", you ask? Well, rather than tell you, let me show you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlHLCOLSThI


Of course knowing how great I am, it will probably turn out more like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB32oCrl__0


My only hope is that they forget I made this promise when they move on to the next thing, or openly root against them to succeed when we go to marching contest. At least there is new motivation there now! I probably won't have to worry about it (famous last words). Maybe I should stop fooling myself and start thinking about my wardrobe? Ideas? Leave a comment!


Why couldn't I have gone into music performance?


PS: If the links don't work, e-mail me and I'll tell you what they were, or navigate you to the site.

I Am The Height of Fashion

I really hope that the people on "What Not to Wear" don't ever send a crew down to Karnes City, because if they do, I'm in trouble courtesy of some of my family. Let me preface what I'm about to write by saying that I love all my family and I love receiving gifts from them. I also love that they care enough for my well-being to see that I look good, or am comfortable or not about to pass out from heat stroke in the Texas heat.

Having said that, the first of the two pictures to the left of this post are the two latest pieces of clothing I have received in the past week from family. One is a pink shirt that I am assured all men wear now, and I should join the crowd. While the picture to the left is somewhat different from what is residing in my drawer right now (i.e. no collar buttoned up to the lip, no shirt sleeves that come down to my bulging forearms), it gets the point across. I now own a pink shirt that is suggested I wear to work....where I teach middle school and high school......band..... in a blue collar town. Now as I said before I am extremely grateful to have received anything at all, but I have yet to gather the courage necessary to wear my pink shirt in public. Maybe in the new year. And it won't be a problem that it's a short sleeve shirt because the average temprature here in winter is like 75 degrees!

This second picture is a creation called "cool ties." And while they do look quite distinguished from a fashion point of view, they are also practical! These little ties have beads inside of them that act like a heating pad in opposite. You put this thing in the fridge for up to an hour to soak in some cold water, take it out, wrap it around your neck, or as this picture suggests, your head, and it will keep you cool for hours at a time. I love the idea, unfortunately, on the actual "cool" scale, it ranks just above the fanny pack. Very versatile, very handy, comfy, yet it begs for the wearer to be publicly ridiculed. Let's remember where I work again. Now we begin to see the problem. I'm not saying that I won't wear mine (it came custom made with music notes!), but I will say that it will have to get pretty hot for me to bite the bullet and slap it around my neck, probably not my head, unless a Rambo type situation presents itself. And let's face it, that's entirely possible, I mean I've already done a Jack Bauer, right?

Anyways, let me close by saying that I do truly appreciate my gifts and I hope that if you gave me one of these articles of clothing, you will see that I'm just picking on you guys, and I do it because I love each of you more than words can express. Thanks for caring about me to the point that you would take time out of your day to make sure that I had clothes on my back, but let's hope that the fabled "fashion police" is just that, a fable.

A Strange, Sad Day

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge baseball and college football fan. Well, I have spent the better part of two nights now awake past my bedtime because I'm trying to get more information on a certain baseball event: the sudden passing of Skip Caray, longtime announcer and television personality for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. Now, I may not have been the biggest Skip Caray fan, in fact, I thought several times when I heard him do call-in shows that he was downright rude to the callers. However, he was one of the reasons I fell in love with baseball at a young age. He made it possible for a 7 or 8 year old to sit through a 3-hour game with little complaint because he helped you understand the game as well as made it interesting to listen to. And to those of you who heard or saw those games in the mid-80's, they were everything but entertaining and interesting! It's odd to be affected so much by a man I never even met, but I felt like I knew him through spending so many summer nights listening to him do the games. One thing he was the absolute best at was calling the game the way a fan of the team would, calling the Braves "we" and "us", and if they were doing great, giving memorable calls and praise, and if they were terrible, either making light of the situation (i.e. calling the forthcoming double play because that's how bad we were), or getting downright mad when we weren't playing up to expectations. His voice and personality will surely be missed. Thanks for the great calls, Skip!.....

Larry Munson's immortal, right?

Happy Anniversary!

To my lovely wife:

You are by far the most beautiful of God's creations. How you came to choose me over all others is something that will boggle my mind until my dying day. You are the most intriguing person I have ever met, who continues to challenge me, to make me a better person than I would be without you in my life. Your support of me through the years through good times and bad has been invaluable to my well-being. You have one of the sharpest minds and greatest senses of humor of anyone I know. I love how we can speak entire conversations without saying a word, or how we can sit in comfortable silence. Thank you for your trust in me to lead our family and to listen to God's voice. Thank you for your trust in me. I praise God each and every day that I get to wake up next to you. There is no doubt in my mind that you have been placed in my life to be a daily reminder of how good God is to me. You understand me better than anyone else I know and you accept me fully knowing more of my faults than anyone else. Thank you so much for dedicating yourself to God, to me, and to our daughter. I love you more than I will ever be able to convey in words, actions, or song. I'm so glad we were married and I look forward to each new adventure we take on together in this life and the next! I love you!

The Following Takes Place Between 9:30 AM and 10:30 AM

Previously on "24":

Pat: "I need you to see how secure my plant is, you're the only one I trust to do this, if you are caught you are on your own, your country cannot help you."

Jack (me): I accept this prestigious mission, sir.

So my friend Pat asked me last week if I wanted to help him test his factory's security procedures. He promised to pay me (for a teacher this is a helpful piece of info.) so I told him sure. What he wanted me to do was try to break into his plant any way that I could. I met with him yesterday for lunch where I received information on what they considered to be weak points of entry and also where I was to drop my package if I succeeded. What we didn't go over very well was an exit strategy. This is something I realize as I'm frantically trying to leave this place without getting into some trouble that I couldn't talk my way out of, or if I came across someone who was a shoot first, ask later kind of person. For my mother and grandparents who read this, I did have all kinds of documentation should I not be able to talk my way out that would ensure that I would be able to leave the plant without being "taken down" or arrested.

So anyway, I go in and try to hit one of their weaker points that we had discussed earlier, after around 20 minutes, I decided to give that up, so I proceed to the front desk and use the old, "I have to go to the bathroom" trick which works every time. If you are a teacher, or a student, you are very familiar with this technique, I'm sure. It goes something like this: "I have to go to the bathroom" Translation: I am fed up with being right here and want the opportunity to wander around at my leisure and see what sort of havoc I can raise without being under the watchful eyes of anyone in authority. So, I go to the bathroom, and am a little concerned because the receptionist's desk looks directly down the hallway and she can see when I leave. Fortunately, she was not at her desk when I stepped out, so I was able to continue on my way.

I make the drop, and head out to leave. If you remember, towards the beginning of this story, this is the weak part in my plans. I head out towards a gate I know is coming up in hopes of finding it magically open and I can just walk out and be on my way. I know I don't want to go back to the front because I'm pretty sure the receptionist would rip my head off before waiting to hear my explanations. So as I'm walking, I hear someone behind me who is obviously trying to get my attention, so I employ yet another technique I have learned from my students, the "unless you call me by my full name, I will pretend I do not hear you desperately trying to track me down" technique.

I make my way to the gate which is not magically open, so I head for an open door and tell the person there that I am trying to find my way back out to the front and that I got separated from my party, he kindly points me on my way, and viola (not the instrument, but the French saying), I'm back cozy at my house having completed my mission.

I must say, I did receive a call a few minutes ago from my friend Pat who let me know just how close of a call I had because they were already looking for me before I left the property. I must say though, that I am very grateful to Mr. David Baldacci, Mr. Jack Bauer, and my students (past and present) for allowing me to take on and succeed in a mission of this nature.

So TBA (Texas Bandmasters Association) convention went really well at the beginning of this week, the only downsides were the name, which I covered in the last post, and the fact that Brenna and Kayla were unable to accompany me due to potty training. It would have been fun, they had free babysitting, a game room, a barbecue night, a luncheon for spouses, clinics on finances for the spouses, and several other enjoyable things for the whole family. It was kind of a way for all the band directors and their families to come together, have some fun, and learn some new information before we began this crazy thing called the school year.

The one interesting, out of the ordinary, event that took place was when I went to get the signature of someone who worked at TBA so I could get credit for doing my professional development hours. I go down to the booth they tell you to go to and no one is there, everyone has already left for the day, or so I thought. I see this one elderly couple coming out of one of the offices off to the side of the area, and go to ask them if they know of anyone who could sign my sheet. It turns out that this couple is the one that the entire convention is honoring for their service to TBA by having a reception as well as having a piece commissioned in their honor and performed as a world premiere at the convention. I was able to talk with them some in what I hope is a memorable way in case I need to have him as a reference at some point. All in all a good trip. Now it's on to band camp in earnest next week with outside marching and everything, so I'll be sure to keep everyone posted as much as I can.

And to those of you who would worry that I might give up the life of an assistant band director for the glamorous life of a secret agent spy, don't worry, I just finished shaking!