Getting Ready

For those not from Texas, those letters stand for University Interscholastic League. To me it sounds like a superhero fighting team, but here it's the governing body for all things related to after-school and extra-curricular activities. As such, all I'm working on at work right now is getting my 7/8th graders ready to perform at the UIL contest where we will get a rating based on how well we play, and if it's a good judge, some constructive criticism. We have something equivalent to this in GA, but it's just called Festival. Anyways, UIL has a 19-page rulebook (FRONT AND BACK!-Sorry, had to slip in a Friends reference), for just this year's rule changes. Apparently, they change the rules each year in order to keep current. We have a concert next Sunday (3/9) as the final preparation for the UIL contest (3/10). Sorry there isn't any more exciting news to report. Hopefully all will go well, the kids will do well and feel good about their performance, and I won't have to worry about finding another job this next year.

One side note: I will be the first one to tell you that living here in TX is not as grand to me as everyone told me it was supposed to be, but to live in an area that is near a die-hard basketball town (San Antonio), and nothing else has left me longing for my two favorite sports: college football, and pro baseball. Fortunately, we live in a digital age, so I am able to keep up with the Braves and the Dawgs via the internet, but it makes me sad that I can't come home from church this summer, put on a baseball game that I care about the outcome and take a little nap. Probably just me, but it does make me sad. That's about all for now, as always, comments are appreciated!

The Big Bad Texas Convention

So, I just finished attending the Texas Music Educators Convention this past week in San Antonio. I really enjoyed listening to Tim Lautzenheiser speak (twice!). For those of you who aren't band dorks (and I'm guessing all of you are not), T.L. is the guy who wrote the band book my students use. He is an amazing motivational/reminder speaker and advocate for music education in this country. Did you know that 90% of all music students who go to college graduate? 90%!!! This in contrast to several universities who have sports programs trying to scrape by with 50%! Anyways, I also got to hear Sir James Galway speak and play (world-reknowned flute player, Kayla was very jealous!). The exhibition halls were quite large. They also included one college I didn't expect to be there. That's right, folks, the U of GA was there to recruit high school seniors. I immediately stopped by their booth, just to tell someone that I'm from Watkinsville and have them know where I'm talking about. It was pretty thrilling for me. In the halls, you had people selling instruments, fundraisers, music books, books on music, prizes, food, etc. Basically anything you could need to run a successful band program. Other than the exhibition halls being huge (these are two warehouse type rooms at the San Antonio Convention Center) and getting to hear Dr. Tim speak twice instead of once, it was basically the same experience I had last year at GMEA (Georgia). I did get to hear a wonderful rendition of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" performed by the Texas Tech orchestra. We were also able to stay with Kayla's brother and sister-in-law, and Brenna got to see her cousin. It was a good trip for all.

On the spiritual front, I've been studying the book of Romans since I heard Mark Driscoll give his thoughts on Predestination and used Ch. 9 to support most of his claims. I realized that I hadn't ever spent too much time in that book of the Bible, so I'm checking it out and God's opening my eyes about a lot of things.

Other than that, it's been a pretty quiet week. Just trying to survive through the concert contest season with a co-worker who feels her entire career lives or dies on the performance. If you know me, I've already talked to you about this and I don't need to expound any more than that. That's all for now. I've got to go get Brenna, I've left the Veggies to babysit for me while I catch up on much-needed blogging. I'm such a bad parent, please don't call DFACS! Thanks!

So Much I Don't Know

So there were two major events this week in the world that is Nathan's. Both happened within the space of a few hours, the first occured while listening to a podcast of Mark Driscoll out of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He was talking about predestination. Now, I'm not one who believes in predestination, otherwise God wouldn't have given us, His creation, free will. However, Driscoll was making very valid points until he got to the main meat of his sermon and he started using the term "some". At this point, I stopped taking notes and went straight to my Bible to try and determine if anywhere in the translation I had did it say "some" in the passages he was using. I couldn't find any, but I haven't had a chance to search other translations, or the original text. My gut tells me, however, that it doesn't ever say "some." What I do know is that there is definitely so much I don't know about the topic. I'll get back to you guys on this.
The next event that goes with the title of this blog happened yesterday in Arlington, TX. I attened a conducting symposium and was reminded of several good habits to continue and other techniques that I had never thought of that need to be added to my repetoire. Again, though, there is so much I don't know about what I do. The good news is I learn so much everyday, that hopefully I will know a bit more than I do now. That's the goal of professional life anyway, right. Okay, read and discuss.
On a side note, it's Kayla's birthday today (2/10), and I've really enjoyed watching Brenna all day follow mom around and say "Happy! Happy!" which is the only word at the moment in the phrase "Happy Birthday" she can say. The really fun part will be next week when it's my birthday to look at the confusion that will surely be on her face as she tries to comprehend that my birthday is as close as it is to Kayla's. My fear is that the next week, she will try to assign a birthday to anything else, because Sundays must be birthdays! Anyway, that's the life of this Jones this week. Talk to you guys later!

Wake Me Up, When September (Oct., Nov., Dec., Jan.) Ends!

Wow,

I hadn't realized until I was on the phone the other day with a friend of mine that I hadn't updated this blog since last summer! Oops, I forgot one of the reasons people might want to read this is to keep in touch with what's been going on with the Jones family! I will try to do better than one post every five months! Bear in mind that this entry may be a little long due to the length between entries.

Since my last entry, I have been working as the assistant band director at Karnes City HS and as the head director at KC Junior High. We've already had several performances and I've had many successes and "learning experiences" as their teacher. The latest of these was solo and ensemble festival this past weekend. We travelled on a bus for an hour to get to the location and then I went in with the Jazz Band to play our selections to get our rating and comments. We went into the room with a woodwind ensemble from our school as well. When we got done and I had begun to help other students reach their room assignments on time, one of my jazz students came up to me and said, "Mr. Jones, did you see we got a III rating!" A freakin' III! Are you kidding me?! I don't think I was as upset at the fact that we received a III (which for you non-band dorks is an average with II being above and a I being superior), but that the woodwind ensemble that went before us got a II! I even asked some of the kids who were in both if they felt the ratings should have been reversed, and all said yes.

I digress...We're now working on getting ready for our Concert Band Contest, so I'll try and keep everyone up to date as far as the progress goes there.

On another note, we had TAKS testing last week, which is basically Texas standardized testing, so I was stuck in the gym for all but one day last week. This enabled me to listen to some really outstanding podcasts that I had been neglecting since my job got so hectic. It really makes me miss a church like Compass in Athens when I'm able to hear the podcast and hear some of the dangerous steps they're taking as a church this year. I also thoroughly enjoyed Mark Driscoll's take on God's sense of humor and Village Church's trip through the Gospel of Luke. It also reminded me of just how far I've drifted from God as far as quiet time with Him in study and prayer. I have begun this week to try and remedy that. Downside being that my new wake-up time is 5AM! At least it truly is "quiet time!"

Kayla and Brenna are doing well. They are a little (lot) bored here with no stay at home moms in the area really and no groups to participate in. In fact, the other day, Brenna was getting bored and asked to go to Wal-Mart (the only place to go around here) to quell her boredom. If you want to know more about their daily lives, check out Kayla's blog at: http://www.meeplusthree.blogspot.com/. It really is fun to watch our daughter grow. I think we will only be here in the great KC for a total of three years. It's a good time to have on the resume, I should be able to gauge what I've taught the kids I've had, and I will have had the opportunity to learn more tricks of the trade. It's not that we don't love the people here, or the kids, Lord knows they're fantastic (especially after last year), but there's just nothing here to truly plug Kayla, Brenna, and myself into this community.

Okay, I may have rambled for enough this time. My parting thought will be that it's the beginning of February, my birthday is coming up in 12 days (28 this year), it's 83 degrees outside (gotta love south-Texas weather), bring on the baseball season! Talk to ya'll later!