classes are done. on one hand it feels like a long time, on the other - this month has sped by. i'm living in my 3rd house this month - this time with company - we'll see how that helps my motivation. i have 2 more trips to stratford (tonight and tomorrow) so i'll let you know how those go... a meeting with the head of the masters program about next summer... camping this weekend with the london crew... hamilton for 12-24 hours to see the fam jam and hopefully jen... ottawa for 12-24 hours to sleep in my own bed for a change... then off to the east coast - pei, ns, nb... haven't even come up with the order yet - but that will come. then i'm heading to nyc with jen for a couple days and then back to work already.
amidst all of this i also must write a short jazz philosophy which hopefully wont take me long - and a longer paper for philosophy that hopefully can be finished before friday.
overall it has been a good summer so far...
met some cool people... i love hanging out with music teachers because it's such a rarity that i do my best to appreciate the moments...
anyways - off to catch my bus.

today was not super productive... i sat at school for 5 hours - gathered all the information i need to actually do my work and am heading home - i have little interest in being here today and need to come back tomorrow anyways to use the printer and pianos and what not anyways - may as well just head home now.
i've taken over a little cubicle in the grad office which has a loverly mac that i have figured out how to use now after a month of playing around... i am very appreciative of this little room and the free printing it allows me... plus i like feeling special because i know the code on the door... small things make me happy???
i have nothing major to report - i've been doing homework for the last 2 days fairly steadily... last night i had sweeny todd on in the background while i typed out my reflections... i always forget how gruesome that movie is and how much i want to vomit while watching it... i do like the music tho... if it weren't peppered with sound of throats being slit it would have been better... anyways - my bus comes soon so i should leave this little room and find my bus stop...

we got out of class half an hour early today which was nice... more time to spend in the library updating my blog... i got one of my reflections back today with the comments "well done but i disagree with everything you wrote"... i'm debating the wisdom of revisiting that argument for reflection 4 which is the only one i'm not finished yet. it's hard to believe that we only have 2 days left of class - i have crazy amounts of assignments to do yet and they are causing me to feel a little less that class is nearing the end. the problem? is that while course work is done as of tuesday - our assignments aren't due until the end of august - at least the major philosophy paper (dave vance will you edit that for me if i ever finish it?? i promise to use proper punctuation) isn't due until then... jazz assignments are due on monday - so they may be the cause of some panic - but perhaps not... we'll see where i'm at after spending tonight and tomorrow in the library.
last night i went to see snow white and the huntsman at the uwo theatre with one of the girls from my class... i actually enjoyed it despite kristen stewarts uninspired performance...
my goal is to complete reflections 3 and 4 (3 is written just not typed or edited) before the library closes and then find a piano room to plunk out the rest of my transcription assignment with enough time to bus home and drive to pub - which isn't until 10... so i should be able to accomplish my goals - however i am the worst student ever (i have references) so that may not happen haha...
i'm off. 

yesterday was a bit of a downer day... probably had something to do with the fact that i was at school for 14 hours --- 5 of which were spent sitting in "my" chair in the 3rd floor lounge trying desperately to finish a presentation on an article about american educational policy that i still don't really understand. but i have a presentation prepared - so that's good i guess.
jazz started yesterday with an exam - i've been fairly at peace with the whole concept until sunday night when the panic struck and did not really subside until after the exam. i know the theory stuff - it was not hard for me to re-pick up --- but the listening killed me. anyways - we took up what the listening was after the exam and i got some of them right - so that's good... we'll see what that ends up looking like overall. At this point I have 5 days of classes left - 4 major assignments and 2 or 3 smaller assignments. I am hoping to knock off a large part of one major assignment and 2 of the minor assignments tonight but we'll see --- i also have to leave school early enough to bring my glasses back to get fixed and to head to the music store downtown to pick up a book that i ordered 3 weeks ago. the end is in sight... i can do it.
other than yesterday - this whole school thing has been pretty fun. i'm not loving the homework - but who does really... the classes are good - i'm learning a lot - i no longer feel like i'm too stupid to be here. life is good.

i sincerely hope that whatever i am learning in this jazz class this summer i am able to replicate in my classroom. dr. watson's teaching style is positive and encouraging and allows us to try new things despite the fact that we often fail - or feel like we're failing anyways.
today we learned to play the drum kit in a swing style - i think i did alright... it was especially fun when we added the double bass and the piano back in -- and i felt successful playing each part.
now i just need to figure out how to have a drum kit in my classroom to use in band and class without taking away the worship team kit... hmmmmm
the cottage this weekend was fun- not super relaxing as most of the time was still spent reading and writing for school - but christina came up and we spent some time floating around the lake on airmattresses which was mostly relaxing - the only non-relaxing part were the boats zipping around not really watching where they were going...
oh well we survived...
i should go back to my work - i have 2.5 hours (self given) to complete about 4 assignments... good luck to me.

Wild heart, child heart, all of the world your home.
Glad heart, mad heart, what can you do but roam?
Oh, I'll beat it once more in the morning, boys,
With a pinch of tea and a crust;
For you cannot deny
When you hark to the cry
Of the Wan-der-lust.
(The Wanderlust, Robert W. Service)

we went and saw wanderlust at stratford last night. it is a musical based on the poetry of robert w. service. it was my favourite show so far this season. the setting was a bank and other than a brief stint in a boarding house,  at a train station, and deep in characters' imaginations, the bank is where they stayed.  despite this rather drab setting the musical was great. all about adventures and the dream to go and move and leave which i totally understand. it has a male heavy cast which is also fun because it provides for different musical opportunities. there was of course a love story woven in but it wasn't predictable and it doesn't turn out the way you expect at all - and there was a cremation of sam mcgee which of course is necessary when dealing with anything to do with service --- all in all --- go see it!

when i got home at around midnight it was to find 2 policemen and a police dog in my backyard... fortunately there was a dude across the street who told me they were there when i got out of my car because the dog running around the side of the house and sniffing me would not have been quite as peaceful an experience if i didn't know there was a possibility for it. 

classes are going well - i LOVE the jazz pedagogy class... this morning we spent 2 hours playing the double bass.... if this entire masters could be taken in practical courses my life would be much happier - and i'd learn a lot more... because as much fun as sitting around being hoity toity and discussing philosophy is - standing and playing bass is sooo much more. 

anyways - i'm off to tackle at least part of my transcription... hopefully there are pianos available...

saturday was the day i was going to get all my work done... i had to move from week 1's lodging and head to week 2's place but there is no internet there so i went to western for the day to do said work.
apparently the music library is closed on weekends- which i guess makes sense - as far as i can tell they have 8-12 grad students this summer and not a whole lot else to cater to. so i hunkered down in the 3rd floor lounge and started to work. i read through my article about economics and disney (again) and understood about as much as the first time - something about numbers and budgets just makes my head spin... i started to create my presentation for it which was going to start with a clip from mr. holland's opus because the author talks about that movie for the first 2 pages of the article - so i found the clip and proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon watching the rest of the movie...
so with very little work done - i grabbed some dinner and picked up hannah for my 3rd stratford show of the weekend. she had gotten free henry v tickets and invited me along - while not a huge fan of shakespeare's history plays i am a huge fan of free stratford plays - so i went. sandra met us there having also scored a ticket.
so my non-review review...
henry v was awesome. there were points when i was confused if the people talking were french or english... but eventually you could figure that out. they made strong artistic decisions that while i didn't always agree with them - they were bold and made us talk about it - which is something i can totally appreciate. i picked up a bunch of ideas for artistic decisions for our plays too - i will probably forget most of them as they wont necessarily work for whatever play i choose but their use of flags and props were really cool --- the horses were just tall saw horses with a saddle... very effective.
sunday was spent taking the bus to church - hitting up sunfest for a while (yum samosas) - taking the bus back home - working on my reflection (that i did not finish :S) - going to bible study - going home and to bed... good day over all
now i'm at school 10 min away from jazz class - fortunately i'm done all my work for this class --- we'll see how long i hang out on campus tonight to finish the philosophy stuff...

stratford mini reviews - and by reviews i mean thoughts - and by thoughts i mean - i may be a drama teacher but i have no idea what is "good theatre" - and by good theatre i mean that my philosophy class has taught me that is all relative anyways so it doesn't really matter - and with it being relative i don't actually plan to say a whole lot about the play anyways... and with all that -->

much ado about nothing: i saw this one with my sister a couple weekends ago. we had fun despite not seeing the biebs (he was busking outside the afternoon show at the avon - we were the evening show at festival theatre). the play is shakespeare - basically about a guy who loves a girl but things go wrong of course - shenanigans ensue and we end with a girl who is "dead" but the guy gets to marry her "cousin"... my favourite characters were the friends of this couple - i think they are classified as the leads and i found out later watching interviews that they are married in real life --- i thought that would be really fun - getting to act as a couple with your real life couple in a theatre company where you do the same play for months - the chance doesn't come around a lot i'm sure.

42nd street: i saw this one with christina this afternoon. the story line was weak but the singing/dancing was GREAT. cynthia dale was one of the leads - i love her... i spent a lot of time super confused about what was happening - basically it's a musical about creating a musical... lets just say the musical they are creating would be the worst show ever! but the show 42nd street was really fun. tap dancing is something that i may have to try someday... maybe if the ghanaian dancing doesn't happen next year i'll try tap...

matchmaker: i saw this one with my momma tonight. i loved most of it - actually hoped it would pass my stringent guidelines for a play to do with the school but i'm not sure it will - i'd have to read the script and see if some of the semi-inappropriate parts are actually semi-inappropriate in the script or just in the portrayal of it... and to be clear - when i say semi-inappropriate i don't really think it's inappropriate - just maybe in the context of my school... anyways - moving on. also, the kid who would do really well in the lead has now graduated... and it doesn't highlight the girl's i'll have this year as good as i'd like.... so i'll have to read the plays i have stacked up in my car and cross my fingers something comes of that...

anyways - those are my non-review reviews... stay tuned for henry v tomorrow and wanderlust on tuesday or whenever i get around to posting them...

hope you're all surviving this heat :)

it's break time on day 3 of my summer master's program.
things i have learned this week:
- i procrastinate with the best of them
- there is a good reason i don't have tv at home
- i honestly love school (nerdy i know)

i am taking 2 courses - a philosophy of music education and a jazz pedagogy.

the philosophy course has 8 students and we sit around a large table and just discuss philosophy and how does that impact what we do... it is overwhelmingly theoretical which is fun to be hoity toity and sit around discussing music education - it seems like an odd sort of luxury. at some point this afternoon i have to present on the history of how music education has been justified in the united states - good thing creating prezis brings me great joy - hopefully it all works.

the jazz course is much more practical - i spent a good portion of yesterday sitting at a piano plunking out the melody he was playing - if i can duplicate this in my classroom it will be fantastic because i quite enjoy it and know that some of the kids will too.

i have pretty much done school all day and returned home to study/read/create presentations all night. so much for hanging out with the london crowd while i'm here --- we went to the beach on monday and i spent the whole time on a blanket under an umbrella doing course readings instead of swimming or playing football or whatever...

tonight i'm moving across town and going to pub (yay!!! i miss pub night) and tomorrow i'm hitting up stratford to see 42nd street (with christina maybe - otherwise by myself...) in the afternoon and then i'm hitting up the matchmaker with momma at night... tuesday i'm heading to see wanderlust with erin, sandra, and kirsten AND kimberley and i saw much ado about nothing in stratford a couple weekends ago-- gotta love stratford's play on tickets. i'm excited for the brief break tomorrow and experiencing different culture where i get to be passive.

UPDATE: going to see Henry V in stratford with hannah on saturday (for free)... i am so cultured... now if i could just find time to do my homework life would be great...

my prof just mentioned labrador... perhaps i should start re-focussing....
later!