Where I've Been Part 1

I haven't done too well this year with keeping up with this blog. I have been a little better with Facebook, but even there I have dropped the ball sometimes. So here's a quick review.

Summer:
Graded lots of AP Exams. Sang at Tanglewood for the 75th Anniversary Gala. Andris Nelsons is my new favorite conductor.

Went to Moon Lake in the High Uintahs with my family. Passed two kidney stones while 200 miles from any health services or cell phone tower. Discovered that narcotics, are, in fact, bad. I knew this already, but now I know from experience. Even so, it was the best week of the year so far. Then sang a bunch more at Tanglewood.

Sang Porgy and Bess with the Boston Symphony. Am in love with Alfred Walker. Juan Carlos doesn't mind.

Started school. Yet again, I have the most awesome ninth graders ever. As my division head put it earlier this year, they definitely get me out of bed every morning.

Stay tuned for part 2, in which you find out a whole lot more about me than you ever wanted to know...

Señor Español

I am very fortunate that I am married to a guy who is also a Spanish teacher—and who hates to be bored in class as much as I do. Juan Carlos often Skypes into my classroom to talk to students about various topics that mysteriously have something to do with what we learn in class. Well, as you can imagine, Señor Español is a big hit whenever he calls. So you can imagine the reaction when he came to class this week:

We were practicing understanding and using commands in Spanish, so Juan Carlos told students to go certain places to find instructions on how to make gazpacho. Then they had to tell him what to do.

In the end the gazpacho was made and consumed…with varying degrees of pleasure!

So if you want to be a rock star, don’t worry about agents and playing an instrument or singing or whatever. Just know your way around a blender and be Señor Español.

Catch-Up

I meant to write a bit more this year but January got completely away from me, and obviously half of Feburary. Juan Carlos gave me a lovely camera for Valentine’s Day this year so today we walked around the neighborhood and took some pictures that I thought I would share. (I believe most of them will just make you glad you don’t live where we do. Well, maybe not if you like baseball.)

This is McCoy Market, which we call Don Vicente’s. We call it that because Juan Carlos had a small store like this next door to his house growing up and his neighbor’s name was Don Vicente. So Don Vicente lives on here in Pawtucket.

Now this is a diner that is literally across the street from where we live. Sadly enough we have never been there. I bet the Hot Wieners are a real draw…what is wrong with us!?

We live next to (and I do mean next to) a baseball stadium. We watch the fireworks outside our bedroom window. We don’t even have to pay for tickets because we hear the whole game just sitting in our living room. The Pawsox is the feeder team for the Boston Red Sox so sometimes we get a famous pitcher in for a game or two. The stadium, streets and parking lots are all packed when there are games going on.

    

The stadium parking lot does make a good place for Luna to run around, and play tug-of-war with her daddy. Here’s to my two beautiful loves!

When I actually learn how to use this camera you will probably hear from me again. Let’s all of us hope that is not next year sometime.

2012

So last year this scripture was my focus:

"Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you...but be diligent unto the end."
D&C 10:4

Well, without going into all the details, there was a lot more labor in our lives this year. And this coming year there will be more. Surprisingly, although it shouldn’t be, there was also more strength and more means. Interesting how it works out that way. My husband and I both agreed that the best thing we did this year was go to Moon Lake with my family for a reunion. It was truly the most happy and magical week of 2011, and I am so grateful for it.

 

This year I have chosen a more simple focus.

James 5:11 “Behold, we count them happy which endure.”

This year I only have a couple of goals.

1. I want to write a little more often in this blog.

2. I want to keep on keeping on. And I want to do it without falling to pieces. That’s where the endurance/happiness comes in.

May 2012 bring you many fulfilled hopes and dreams.

Proud To Be An American

Today Juan Carlos became a United States citizen. After so many years (and soooooo much money, but let’s focus on the positive!) as a permanent resident, he finally became an official American!!!

The oath-swearing ceremony was a surprisingly lovely event—particularly since we have been dealing with Homeland Security for more than ten years and lovely is not the word I would ever choose for any Homeland Security procedure. There were about 35 people from 19 different countries at the ceremony and it was great to see the amazing diversity of countries represented in the state of Rhode Island.  There was even one person from a place called Dominica, a country I didn’t even know existed!!! (It’s in the Caribbean, for those of you who don’t know, either )  Juan Carlos was the only Spaniard, though, and he represented well!

Everyone took the oath of allegiance and then received the certificate of naturalization:

Then we all said the Pledge of Allegiance. Early this morning we were frantically practicing the pledge, although after studying for the citizenship test the pledge should have been a breeze.

Since he is now an American we had to go to a real American place for an American lunch…what better than Johnny Rockets? And what is more American than a chocolate milkshake?

He even chose a song from the jukebox to commemorate the event:

During the ceremony I was thinking about how beautiful the United States is and what a lucky thing it is to be able to live here—and we have lived in a few different parts of the country, so that makes us doubly fortunate. I surely do appreciate other countries, and I know that the US isn’t perfect, but there is a whole lot to love and be grateful for about America. I know Juan Carlos is still very much a Spaniard and will never lose his love for his homeland, but I am proud that he wanted to be a citizen of my country, as well.

Christmastime Is Here…

And JC could not be controlled in his decorating frenzy…

 

This is what I got to decorate:

I still do love me some bubble lights.

Mostly the reason we did all this already is because we won’t have time before Christmas actually arrives to do anything remotely Christmas-related. Sad, but true. The good news is that when school gets out that means Mom and Dad and Sue and Josh and their five kiddos will be coming. I call that something to look forward to!!!

Invasion

So this is going to be my Christmas present this year:

 

But wait...there's more!!!

Plus their parents and my parents! I have no idea how we are all going to fit in our condo and still come out of it loving each other at the end, but I don't even care, I am just counting the days!!!!

9th Grade Love

Here it is, I know you've been waiting for it, that yearly email I write about how much I love 9th graders. Every year I wonder, "Am I still going to love them?" Well, I still do.They continue to be one of the highlights of my life. With 9th graders there is wonder, humor, innocence, intelligence, awkwardness, and angst. You see the first adult glimmerings of what they will become. They have brought lightness to what is otherwise quite a difficult time for me--and for that I have no end of gratitude.

Remember That Blog I Was Writing?

My second semester and the beginning of summer reached unbelieveable levels of busy and my poor blog fell by the wayside a bit. It's not that I didn't have anything to say, just no time to say it! And I am soon to be on my way to Ohio to spend time with my sister and her five children so I am not sure my time for writing is going to increase anytime soon.

I have a lot of music to memorize this summer as well. Fortunately the first batch is over:

I loved, loved, LOVED the Bellini. Lovely, artful Italian opera that sounds as light as air but is technically demanding. Fortunately the chorus parts are pretty straightforward, but oh, how I did love listening to the soloists! Except for the one part where a huge moth the size of a bat decided to fly straight into the back row of altos and hang out awhile. Ah, the joys of outdoor singing!

Now the Requiem, on the other hand, just about did me in. The Latin was not so much an issue as was the way-too-high range of the female voices. It was like Extreme Singing for Altos. This made it feel very heavy and by the end of the rehearsals we were all pretty exhausted, not to mention the actual performance. Now that I have had my grump, I have to say that it is one of the most spectacular things I have ever sung. At one moment I actually choked up listening to the men sing the Tuba mirum and had to pull myself together before my next lines. So to sum it up, Berlioz: Stressful. Punishing. Hell on the voice. Sublime.

Now for the rest of the summer--Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

I sang some of Porgy and Bess in college, and thankfully have memorized the Beethoven already, so that will be just a brush-up, but I didn't realize quite how big Porgy and Bess was. I listened to the whole production on my way home from Tanglewood yesterday (3 hours) and realized there is a bit more to it than I thought. One song I remember from college brought me a hilarious memory--we sang this for some big BYU celebration in the Marriott Center (Homecoming?)  and Ariel Bybee was the guest soloist. I think it was like 1993 or 1994. When we were singing the chorus for the picnic song "Oh, I Can't Sit Down" there is a line that says:

Sure is dandy, got de likker handy

We had to substitute "hamper" for "likker". Ha, hah! Of course you can't have a bunch of Mormon kids singing about how much alcohol you have on hand! But remembering it made me laugh. All my choir friends from back then will remember that! I am hoping it does not work it's way into this performance, You know how your brain is about memorizing sometimes!

Just so you can see how many pages!!!!

 Anyway, hopefully I will be able to keep up a bit better in the future...hopefully.

True Love

Surpasses all boundaries: my laundry folding, Juan Carlos post-soccer-wound-treating, and any of our needs to walk through the room.

My Valentine

Juan Carlos asked me what I wanted for Valentines Day—mostly I hate that question because really, he makes every day Valentines Day. But I did want to see a smile on HIS face, so I said I wanted to go see our dog breeder’s new litter. I see this smile on Juan Carlos face only on certain occasions: when he is in Spain with his family  and friends, when Barcelona or the Spanish national team wins, and when he plays with dogs. This was the best Valentines Day ever—the only thing that would have made it better would have been to take one home.

 

Luna didn’t know QUITE what to do with all of these small, eager creatures wanting to play with her…

Uh…More Snow

We have lived in New England since 2006 and this is the first year we have seen any snow. And by snow I mean stuff that stays on the ground for more than a day. There has been a great deal of it this year, and the temperatures are staying low so it doesn’t melt. Now where I grew up this was just part of life, but here it causes chaos, mostly because there is nowhere to put the stuff, and it is in huge piles along the sides of the already narrow streets of Providence. In Utah there is lots of space and there are places to park your car other than on the street. Add to that that snow removal is not something that has to be done fairly often here. As one of my colleagues said, “this is Providence, we have two snowplows and a salt shaker!” 

I was dumbstruck on Thursday, watching the maintenance crew hacking away with shovels at the inch of ice coating the courtyard at school. It’s definitely a view of the school I have never seen.

Anyway, for the first time I am wishing that the sun would just come out and melt the stuff already. We went for our walk with Luna today and it was more of a half-walk-half-skate around Lincoln Woods.

But….it is February, which is usually the coldest month of the year here. Which means the snow may not be going anywhere.