Today for the second week in a row we had another birthday to celebrate at church. This time it was Cleo's 17th birthday!
Aonghas, Peter, Jireh and I sneaked out of service and drove to Pak N' Save to find a cake to buy for Cleo. We had plenty of time and so we just wandered around the supermarket and looked through magazines as well.
Once we finally settled on a cake, we decided to go to The Warehouse to find a farewell card for James, who will be leaving us for Australia. :( Surprisingly there weren't any farewell/goodbye cards there!
We had to make our way back to church before the service finished, but it was already finished by the time we got there, so we decided to hold off on presenting the cake to her till a little later!
Sunday School was...well Sunday School. Once it finished, we had lunch and I discovered some of the Sunday School classes will be going to McDonald's next week for Sunday School! Angie and I managed to approach Aunty Stephanie, one of our Sunday School teacher to see if we could persuade her to let our class go out to eat next week too. Surprisingly she said yes! It's also Angie's 21st birthday next Sunday too...but we'll keep that on the down-low for now!
Some of the other Sunday School classes were enjoying a shared lunch to farewell James, and we were supposed to have a meeting regarding the children's summer programme next year, so we went over to gatecrash their party! Nah we weren't that mean!
Eventually everyone migrated to the meeting, and that's when we finally got to surprise Cleo with the birthday cake! I think she was genuinely surprised...well I hope she was anyway!
After the meeting, we were asked to help decorate the church foyer with Christmas trees. That was quite a mission!
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Christmas Caroling Part One
Today was the first round of Christmas caroling our youth group would be doing, with today's location being Waitakere Hospital. We had to rush home straight after my music school's End of Year Concert to grab our instruments and make our way back to church to meet up with everyone else.
We had a few practices before we all drove to Waitakere Hospital. We had fewer people caroling this year, but this didn't mean we sang less or worse than last year!
It was slightly different this year, in that we sang in more areas of the hospital, and in some places we just kept singing as we moved around.
People, especially the elderly seemed to enjoy our caroling quite a bit! We had some nurses filming/taking photos with their cellphones and an elderly lady trying to offer us $5 as we left!
Sometimes we were keen to keep singing in one place, but I think the guide who was taking us around the hospital was keen to keep us moving...probably so that everyone could get to hear us singing? ;)
We eventually started singing impromptu songs as we walked down the corridors, with me just making stuff up on my accordion (Aonghas and I had to play accordion to accompany the singers).
We ended up doing about two and a half hours of caroling. Aonghas and I left with extremely sore backs, but it was worth it just to spread some Christmas joy!
We had a few practices before we all drove to Waitakere Hospital. We had fewer people caroling this year, but this didn't mean we sang less or worse than last year!
It was slightly different this year, in that we sang in more areas of the hospital, and in some places we just kept singing as we moved around.
We eventually started singing impromptu songs as we walked down the corridors, with me just making stuff up on my accordion (Aonghas and I had to play accordion to accompany the singers).
We ended up doing about two and a half hours of caroling. Aonghas and I left with extremely sore backs, but it was worth it just to spread some Christmas joy!
(NB Thanks Tim for the photos!)
The Final Concert
This morning was the End of Year Concert at the Music School I teach. The concert was set to start at 10am and we arrived just before, with a lot of my students standing outside shouting out to me
"HURRY UUUUUUUP!!"
I told them to go into the hall to watch the violin classes perform before going into the adjacent classroom to prepare for their performance.
I rushed into that classroom with my brothers to get our violins ready for our violin performance as Aonghas set up the video camera at the back of the hall. That's when he realised the video camera was missing any card! We had no idea what to do as after our violin performance the flute classes were going to perform, and then my recorder students! There wouldn't be enough time for Aonghas to drive home and back to grab a card, so the best thing for him to do was to buy a card.
Our violin class was the last of the violin classes to perform, and we performed a Pleyel duet. It wasn't too bad, although we almost collapsed at the end! Straight after our performance, Aonghas rushed off to buy a card while I got all my students to gather in the adjacent classroom to prepare. I ran through the procedure and what was going to happen, and was going to have a run-through each class's performance. I ended up having to make each class perform only two of their three pieces. I only got through one class's pieces when the flute teacher came in to tell me my students were up next!
I brought them into the hall before realising I forgot to bring with me the larger recorders, so I quickly went back to get them. I got back to the hall, and Aonghas still wasn't back so I had to start the performances without him.
The performances went pretty well. It was then time for one of my classes to perform a piece that required Aonghas to play one of the parts. Fortunately Aonghas just arrived in time! I could see him setting the camera up at the back of the hall, so I introduced him and the different sized recorders to the audience just to give him some time to get up on stage! When he got on stage, I gave him a large recorder and he asked me if I wanted him to play a smaller recorder but I just told him to play with the big recorder. I was playing the treble recorder, and it was only half-way through the piece I realised we were playing the wrong recorders! I just had to improvise!
Finally we had out 'grand finale', when I got all my students up on stage together and got them to either play or sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I forgot that I had gotten two of my students to introduce the item, and so I introduced it myself. Just as I finished, the two students started introducing the item themselves! They did pretty well though! The performance was equally impressive! I was really proud of them!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ1kh2BQELA)
I led them back to the classroom after the performance to take a group photo with all of them as well as to hand out reports to them (which I had written the night before during our youth group Christmas play rehearsal!), and some small gifts for each of them (I spent all of yesterday wandering around West City trying to decide what to give them - I ended up giving each of them some lollies, a pencil and a magnetic bookmark!). I got quite a few Christmas presents from my students as well which was really nice of them. One of my students wrote a nice message in the Christmas card he gave to me:
After students from all classes had performed, it was time for prize-giving. Each of us teachers got a present from the school, before certificates and trophies were handed out to students. The turnout for recorder was very poor! None of my students stayed for prize-giving except for three of them, and so we gave them extra special claps just for being there!
It was really cool seeing some of my old students from past years getting awards for other instruments.
Some of my students won't be coming back as they'll be moving on to other instruments like the flute which will be a bit sad, especially one of my students, Brian, who I've taught for the past three years. Hopefully I'll see them getting awards for the other instruments like some of my other old students though!
I can't believe I've already been teaching music for my sixth year! There have been ups and downs but I've enjoyed teaching this year, and I'm really glad I'll be able to continue next year! Till then, time to sleep in on Saturdays!
"HURRY UUUUUUUP!!"
I told them to go into the hall to watch the violin classes perform before going into the adjacent classroom to prepare for their performance.
I rushed into that classroom with my brothers to get our violins ready for our violin performance as Aonghas set up the video camera at the back of the hall. That's when he realised the video camera was missing any card! We had no idea what to do as after our violin performance the flute classes were going to perform, and then my recorder students! There wouldn't be enough time for Aonghas to drive home and back to grab a card, so the best thing for him to do was to buy a card.
Our violin class was the last of the violin classes to perform, and we performed a Pleyel duet. It wasn't too bad, although we almost collapsed at the end! Straight after our performance, Aonghas rushed off to buy a card while I got all my students to gather in the adjacent classroom to prepare. I ran through the procedure and what was going to happen, and was going to have a run-through each class's performance. I ended up having to make each class perform only two of their three pieces. I only got through one class's pieces when the flute teacher came in to tell me my students were up next!
I brought them into the hall before realising I forgot to bring with me the larger recorders, so I quickly went back to get them. I got back to the hall, and Aonghas still wasn't back so I had to start the performances without him.
The performances went pretty well. It was then time for one of my classes to perform a piece that required Aonghas to play one of the parts. Fortunately Aonghas just arrived in time! I could see him setting the camera up at the back of the hall, so I introduced him and the different sized recorders to the audience just to give him some time to get up on stage! When he got on stage, I gave him a large recorder and he asked me if I wanted him to play a smaller recorder but I just told him to play with the big recorder. I was playing the treble recorder, and it was only half-way through the piece I realised we were playing the wrong recorders! I just had to improvise!
Finally we had out 'grand finale', when I got all my students up on stage together and got them to either play or sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I forgot that I had gotten two of my students to introduce the item, and so I introduced it myself. Just as I finished, the two students started introducing the item themselves! They did pretty well though! The performance was equally impressive! I was really proud of them!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ1kh2BQELA)
I led them back to the classroom after the performance to take a group photo with all of them as well as to hand out reports to them (which I had written the night before during our youth group Christmas play rehearsal!), and some small gifts for each of them (I spent all of yesterday wandering around West City trying to decide what to give them - I ended up giving each of them some lollies, a pencil and a magnetic bookmark!). I got quite a few Christmas presents from my students as well which was really nice of them. One of my students wrote a nice message in the Christmas card he gave to me:
After students from all classes had performed, it was time for prize-giving. Each of us teachers got a present from the school, before certificates and trophies were handed out to students. The turnout for recorder was very poor! None of my students stayed for prize-giving except for three of them, and so we gave them extra special claps just for being there!
It was really cool seeing some of my old students from past years getting awards for other instruments.
Some of my students won't be coming back as they'll be moving on to other instruments like the flute which will be a bit sad, especially one of my students, Brian, who I've taught for the past three years. Hopefully I'll see them getting awards for the other instruments like some of my other old students though!
I can't believe I've already been teaching music for my sixth year! There have been ups and downs but I've enjoyed teaching this year, and I'm really glad I'll be able to continue next year! Till then, time to sleep in on Saturdays!
Friday, 3 December 2010
NORMAL
NB I'm not a pussy OK!
If you get more than 30, I strongly recommend some counseling.
If you get more than 20, you’re paranoid.
If you get 11-20, you are normal.
If you get 10 or less, you’re fearless.
People who don’t have any are full of cr@p.
[ ] the dark
[x] staying single forever
[x] being a parent
[ ] giving birth
[ ] being myself in front of others
[ ] open spaces
[ ] closed spaces
[ ] heights
[x] dogs
[ ] birds
[ ] fish
[ ] spiders
[ ] flowers or other plants
Total so far: 3
[ ] being touched
[ ] fire
[x]deep water
[x] snakes
[ ] silk
[ ] the ocean
[x] failure
[ ] success
[ ] thunder/lightning
[ ] frogs/toads
[ ] my boyfriends/girlfriends dad
[ ] boyfriends/girlfriends mom
[ ] rats
[x] jumping from high places
[ ] snow
Total so far: 7
[ ] rain
[ ] wind
[x] having great responsibilities
[ ] doctors, including dentists
[ ] tornadoes
[ ] hurricanes
[x] incurable diseases
[x] sharks
[ ] Friday the 13th
[ ] ghosts
[x] poverty
[ ] Halloween
Total so far: 11
[ ] school
[ ] trains
[ ] odd numbers
[ ] even numbers
[x] being alone
[x] becoming blind
[x] becoming deaf
[x] growing up
Total so far: 15
[x] creepy noises in the night
[ ] bee stings
[x] not accomplishing my dreams/goals
[x] needles
[ ] dinosaurs
[ ] the welcome mat
[ ] high speed
[x] throwing up
[] falling in love
[ ] super secrets
Total so far: 19
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
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