Teacher Sydnii?

(Image not by me)
So for the last year or so I've been planning on being a teacher. Taking the necessary courses, jumping through the right hoops, looking up lesson plans/ideas on the internet. All these things so that when I'm out there in the real world, I won't be utterly lost (and as for the courses and hoops, well, I need those to graduate, too).

But just recently has it sunk in that I'm actually going to be a teacher. And I'm actually pretty excited about it. While it's not my ideal career choice (since I don't really have one), I am still able to be excited about it and feel good about doing it, which is important. I'm entering a position to be a musician, a musicologist, a music theorist, and a guide for impressionable minds. How is that not exciting?

I loved elementary music. And when I was doing my observation hours (55 hours of observing different grades), my hours spent in the elementary classroom were by far my favourite. And this may be a little selfish of me, but I want my students to have the same fond memories of me that I do of my elementary music teachers.

I've reached the point where I'm no longer ready to graduate just so I can be out of school or in the "real world". But I want to graduate so I can teach be a music teacher and inspire my students. (Gods, is that hokey or what? lol)

(And I promise, I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging on a regular schedule.)

Smudge

(Photo not by me)
Many months ago, I made smudge sticks. My herbs were dyingstarting to die, so I figured I would harvest them and turn them into something useful.

Let me just preface the rest of this story with: I had never made smudge sticks before!

So I chop down my herbs (sage, lavender, mint), pull out my skein of white cotton yarn, and sit down at the computer. Get on google, search: how to make smudge sticks. Aha! So many hits. I picked one. (Likely the one from ehow.com, since it is A) the first hit and B) is the "visited link" color.) So far so good. I had the right supplies: plants to smudge with, string for tying them up, scissors for cutting the string, and the idea of a smudge stick in the first place. I mean, I could have just let them die out there, right? (Instead, they got to die a slow, eventually dehydrated, death, hanging upside down in my closet.)

So, anyway. I have the supplies. I read through the instructions; they all seem pretty self explanatory. I mean, really, you're just tying together a bunch of plants. But! There is one rule to follow: do not bind them up either too tightly or too loosely. And I didn't! I bound the herbs with just enough tension. Then I hung them up to dry. In my closet. No joke.

Enter today. (Okay, not today at all. Really, like a month ago when I first noticed this.) My smudge sticks are dry! And practically falling out of their binding. Ugh! But I followed the rules! Neither too tightly nor too loosely. Obviously someone sneaked in and retied my smudge sticks too loosely. Oooorrrr I failed to remember, when binding them in the fall, that when things dehydrate, they have a tendency to get smaller.

So, thanks a lot ehow.com smudge stick-making tutorial!

/humor

(I am tired and in a mood tonight. And felt like making fun of myself. And to further make fun of myself, please, check out this past post: What I learned today.)

Happy New Year!!

Health and happiness to my readers (and everyone else, of course!) this new year. My year started off with snuggles from Camden, playing with tinkertoy robots, and cinnamon rolls! It's started out well, now I just have to keep the ball rolling so it gets better. lol

I'm not one for resolutions. So instead of making the obligatory statements of lose weight, be nice, etc, I'm going to tell the planned benchmarks of this year, which will happen one way or the other.

This year is my Senior Recital. The date is set for mid April. I'll be doing a joint-recital with my friend, who plays tuba. Yep. A tuba/percussion recital. How fun is that?! The good news: I have all of my music picked out and know three pieces. I still have two pieces to learn: one multi-percussion piece and one duet with a friend (percussionist) which will have an afro-cuban feel to it.

I will also be taking the GRE this spring. Not really looking forward to it, but I don't have much choice. Hopefully I will only have to take it once.

I also graduate this year. In December, I'll be getting my BA. I was due to graduate in May, but a change of majors (kinda) in the last year threw my plan out of whack and trying to cram EVERYTHING into the last two semesters was a terrible idea, as I learned this last semester. So I'm taking my time, and spreading things out a little bit between this spring and next fall semesters.

So those are my definite plans for the year. As well as observing the wheel turning again, watching the seasons come and watching the seasons go. Seeing my son grow into himself, hearing his speech grow clearer everyday and rejoicing in his knowledge of emotions and abstract ideas. Learning and growing, myself.

I found this quote in Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and it really spoke to me. Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. This will be my quote for the year. It will remind me to enjoy the journey and worry less about where I'm trying to go.

Many blessings to you and yours, friends!

Happy Week!

So I meant to post this sooner... as is usually the case. lol

Sunday was my birthday. While not a bad day, it wasn't terribly exciting either. Most of the day was spent looking forward to dinner and dessert. Spiced porkchops, potatoes au gratin, and green beans. And dessert: birthday pie! Apple pie, to be exact. Birthday cake is overrated (and is too time consuming to decorate), and apple pie is DELICIOUS. So that's what I had.

Tuesday, as we all know was the Solstice. As well as a full moon and lunar eclipse. I missed the lunar eclipse; I slept right through it! Although, I don't think I'd would have been able to see it anyway, due to cloud cover. Camden and I did, however, go out to watch the sun rise. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see that, either. Cloud cover, again! It was too thick to actually see the sun break the horizon, which was really disappointing. I was really excited about it, because this was our first Yule at home. Typically we've always been at my parents' for Yule, and, therefore, missed any celebration of it so we (I) didn't make the parentals uncomfortable. Ah, well... There is always next year!

And now we have Christams Eve, and Christmas is tomorrow. More presents (Camden got a TAG reading system for Yule), more food, more family. I'm excited because I'll get to see my sister for the first time since Spring... Or maybe even longer than that. And I'll get to see my brother before he deploys. Not to mention the time Camden (and I, of course) get to spend with my parents.

So, happy Yule (a few days ago) and happy Christmas. Happy holidays. :)

Good deeds. Ah, Rats!

I don't do a lot for others. I try to take care of my friends, but that is usually as far as it goes when helping others is concerned. It's not that I don't want to help others, though. My time is limited between school and school work and taking care of Camden, so it's not like I can volunteer once a week at the Humane Society (which happens to be one of the few places to volunteer around here--no soup kitchen/homeless shelter/etc). I am generally broke, so I can't donate lots of money to organizations. I try to drop change into the Salvation Army buckets every year (actually, I make Camden do it), but that's about my limit.


(Photo not by me)


Well, a month ago I offered to help transport some rats who needed a home. In the rat world, I guess this is called a "rat train", getting rats from one place to another via multiple people. The rats were in St. Louis and needed to go to Ames, IA. I'm somewhere in the middle of all that, and (stupidly?) offered to pick the rats up in Columbia, MO, then drive them to Ottumwa, IA. All that equals out to be about 6 hours of driving for myself. And if I had thought about that before, I might not have done it. But, I said I would, and I did. And I feel good about doing it. I helped two girlie rats (who were likely at least slightly under-cared for: no fun toys, poor socialization, icky cage) find a forever home, with someone I know (well, very much suspect) will care for them and love them.

So I'm counting this as my one good deed for the year. Well, the big one. It was worth it.

Holiday Cookies!

My favourite part about the holidays is making/decorating sugar cookies! Well, maybe not making them, since my sugar cookie dough NEVER EVER turns out the way it's supposed to, but I like cutting the shapes out. Especially if I happen to be doing it at my parents' house, because my mom has buckets (literally) of cookie cutters, so we always end up with the usual wintery shapes, but also mooses, lobsters, and of course, dinosaurs!

This weekend, Camden and I bought (sad face!) some sugar cookie dough that was pre-cut (more sad face, but I don't have cookie cutters) so we could make some holiday cookies. It was a fun afternoon diversion, since it was much too cold to even THINK about playing outside.


Not only do I not have cookie cutters, but I don't have colored sugar... So I made some! 3T of sugar and 4 or so drops of food colouring, mix it up. I don't think it would be useful to save, but it worked for what I needed it for.


Awaiting the oven! (See my sugar?!)


Cam got to decorate the first cookie.


Cam's snowman. I helped just a little bit with it. :)


Nom!

Back? I hope so

The last couple of months have seen my life turned on its head. And not in a good way! I feel as though I lost a part myself this last semester. Or maybe I didn't lose it: maybe that part ran off until things get better. While I don't want to use this time or space to whine about my life, I will say this: it's been the roughest time in my life I've experienced since I was a self-hating teenager. I found it rather amazing, with the addition of so much stress, how easy it was to fall back into those self-loathing and unhappy life patterns. I stopped cooking "good" food. I had almost no time for books. (I've read... two? books since the start of the semester.) Worst, I stopped being a mother to Camden. That was my worst offense. We would get home in the evenings, and I was so exhausted and mentally tired, that I set him down in front of the TV. Every day. Until bedtime.

But thankfully, I've realised this. It took me a while. But this morning, I said to myself (and David, who happened to be there) that I don't like who I've become. My happy-Syd took a vacation and left the person I used to be in her place.

Thankfully, again, the semester is so close to being over, I can taste it. I have one assignment, four finals, and one jury (playing through what I've worked on over the semester in my percussion lessons) left. And that, my friends, seems like nothing. Even just tonight, I feel like the old (new?) me again. I was able to play with Camden without it feeling like a chore. I feel such a sense of relief and release, that it is almost as if I've been holding my breath since August.

So, now I am back. Hopefully to be posting again on a regular basis about the regular variety of topics found on my blog. (If I can even remember what those topics are. haha)