St. Seraphim Choir

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I was browsing on St. Seraphim’s choir website today, when I ran across pictures of all of us, taken a few weeks/months ago (can’t quite remember…:). It’s always weird to click on a page and suddenly see your face! Here they are, in case you want to see.

My friend, Jenny is on the bottom left in black. You’ll probably recognize her from other pictures she’s been in on this blog.

In this picture are my other two St. Seraphim friends, Karen (with the curly hair) and Heather, of which I KNOW you’ve seen lots of pictures:)

I wanna go back to preschool!

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Having worked at several preschools teaching piano lessons, I feel like I have come to see at least a few of the different types. There are your average “daycare” preschools, which are usually cheap and full of 20-somethings who are constantly yelling at the kids. Then there are “discovery” preschools, which are actually a more glorified version of the daycare preschools, only with more expensive toys and better paid teachers. Lest you think I’m joking, the one of these that I taught at had a “Hollywood” room with costumes and pretend video cameras, a 50’s “diner” that they ate snack and lunch at, a “Theater” room with a big screen tv, and an indoor jungle gym. Then there are the Montessori preschools, which are very expensive and are only focused on discovering the child’s unique strengths and abilities.

St. Peter’s Preschool program, I’ve found, is not like any of the above. It is not uncommon to see all 6 of them, trailing like little ducklings after Miss Annie, who used to be the secretary for the school but switched to being their teacher when the school couldn’t find the right person. Today, Annie was taking them all into the chapel to “sing songs to Jesus”, a fact which they were wildly excited about. Yesterday, they made bead jewelry together at craft time. The day before, Annie taught them how to make cookie dough. It was strangely fascinating to watch, and I felt as though I too was being drawn towards them as they crowded around the bowl, learning to crack eggs and measure sugar. I’ve also seen Annie play number and letter games using hopscotch, teach them how to “be fairies”, and play Charlotte Church for them as they’re napping. The school also has a bunch of tiny harps on which they have taught all the kids to play “Jesus Loves Me” in unison. As far as motor skills, Annie helped them learn both dexterity and service by having them shine Mr. Smith’s silver Civil War toy cannon. For recess, they catch bugs in little cases so that they can look at them up close.

Now, some of the more academically rigorous preschools could look down upon this and critique it, but perhaps its because they have missed the point entirely. School should be for teaching you to be a whole soul, healthy and balanced. So often, kids are infused early on with the idea that life is intended for the sole purpose of getting you to your next destination. Preschool is about preparing you for Kindergarten, grade school is about teaching skills for middle school, middle school about making sure you actually survive high school, high school for getting into a good college, and college for getting you a good job. What they end up passing on is a sense that life should revolve around accomplishment and evaluation. They train the actions without ever reaching the heart and teaching about the essence of life.

When and where are we supposed to learn about life, in all it’s innocence and simplicity? It’s easy to learn your ABC’s, but once you forget how to find joy in life, you almost never regain the ability. Done well, preschool can be the most valuable and formative part of one’s education, because it can either make or break your view of the world.

Perhaps we should all go back to preschool and never leave.

My Messy Desk

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They say that how your desk looks is a reflection on the current state of your life.

So it begs the question: What has become of my life? My once clear and un-obstructed desk is now cluttered and full of reminders of all the work I need to be doing right now.

Then again, as you can see, it is cluttered with the Ipods of my students (which I did NOT confiscate, they are so that so I can upload the E-Book mp3 version of Longfellow’s “Evangeline” poem being read out loud), my Norton Anthology of Classical Literature, “Composition in the Classical Tradition”, and Crider’s “The Office of Assertion- The Art of Rhetoric for the Academic Essay”. I also have several coffee mugs, pictures of my husband, little sister and god-family, and tissues for my allergies (which have to be the one thing I HATE about Texas!). Oh, and duct tape and glue. Not sure what they mean!

Yup, that’s pretty much an accurate reflection of my life right now!

Reason #450 to love Texas

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Maybe I should actually rename this: Reason #450 that I love living in the Bible Belt.

Do you ever have this experience? Where you are on your way home from work and your gas light turns on, but you have absolutely no motivation to go fill up? You say to yourself, “I’ll do it tomorrow, on my way to work” (or in my case, on my way to the carpool-pick-up-point).

But then morning comes and you take way too long in the shower and making your coffee, and all of a sudden its 6:45 (yes, AM, I get up EARLY now!!) and you’re running late.

This is what happened to me this morning. I actually had to drive myself this morning, because Bryan called last night to let me know that he was LEAVING at 5am this morning. Not waking up, LEAVING. This is not normal, he just has lots of relatives from Houston staying indefinitely with him, and can’t get any work done in the evenings, thus necessitating early morning work hours at school.

Anyways, there I was on my way to work, and I had no gas. When I say, “no gas” I mean, NO GAS. As dangerous as this was, however, I desperately wanted to get past a few heavily trafficked spots that only get worse the closer it gets to 8:00. So I set off, praying for the best. As I continued driving, the little line that says, “EMPTY!” rose higher and higher above my gas line, and a little sign on my dashboard that says, “REFILL NOW!” began to blink incessantly, as if pleading me to stop being so stupid.

But the minute I got past the bumper-to-bumper sections of highway, I was in a not so good area of Fort Worth. Regardless, I had no choice to pull over.

As a result of living in LA, I am usually pretty careful about where I pull over for gas. After all, in LA this is sometimes a life or death issue. So I was pretty nervous about having to pull over in this “rough patch” of Fort Worth, even at 8 in the morning.

I got out of the car, and immediately laughed. This run-down, sketchy looking gas station, in the middle of the poorest, roughtest section of Ft. Worth, had the Newsboys blaring from their overhead speakers. Inside the window of the station was a Jesus Freak sticker.

As scary as it is hearing “The Breakfast Song” and getting flashbacks to junior high, it was a nice change to hearing “ghetto-make-your-mama-cry” lyrics and worrying about getting shot.