I'm tired of tykes titles (but not tired of the tykes)

but clearly not yet tired of alliteration (as though that's ever going to happen.)

Yesterday was yet another fly by the seat of my pants operations. We sang a couple of songs from Tanzania that I learned way back at the beginning of last year- and they worked a treat.

The first one "Kalele" is a welcoming song that is great because you can put in each child's name (wonderful since I still am struggling with the names) and then they giggle or roll their eyes back in to their head (that was a weird reaction) or turn bright red or grin or curl up into a little ball.

Green class nursery is my first class each week and I feel a bit bad about them because they're the experiment class- is this going to work? Is this enough material? Do I bring the instruments out? Are they going to enjoy this? Is it engaging? I find all of this out in green class. Or rather, I begin to find this out and then refine as the day goes on.

The thing about 'Kalele' is that you can, at any point in the song, throw in this bit where you have a call and response "hey!" shouty thing- which is totally fun- but a helpful tip is to not do it after every child's name in a class of 20+ kids. Also, make sure that you're singing in head voice instead of chest voice so that you don't go totally hoarse by the time you get to blue class nursery. These are the sorts of things I learn in green class nursery. I felt bad about it too- because their attention was totally wandering by the time we got halfway through the group- but you can't not include half of their names, that would be *devastating* and you also can't totally change how the song goes halfway through. That would be totally bewildering.

I was pleased to hear after school that the playground/field area had been filled with song as everyone was singing the two songs that I taught this week. Apparently non-stop- which I can see would be annoying for the teachers, but I was chuffed.

I found out this week that I get to write a lesson plan grid for the next term with learning objectives, activities, resources, topic links, and learning outcomes. Surprise! I kind of love the fact that I have been given so much autonomy and am only beginning to have supervision now; in my third week of doing the job. I won't have a proper meeting with my upper school counterpart until next week at the earliest and I've been enjoying the ferreting out process of figuring out all that my job actually entails- things like writing a term long lesson plan.

Wednesday was gorgeous and I hadn't yet gone out to the garden- so I wandered around a bit after my last class and ended up getting heavily involved in a rocket ship trip with stops in Spain, Ecuador, and Tanzania to gather pebbles. I kept trying to leave and let them get on with playing by themselves, but my hand was very firmly grasped and it was clear that I was going to be staying. I loved that they didn't change how they were playing just because I was there- I was just another one of their playmates- albeit quite a lot larger.

Getting ya'll up to speed

Sometimes I get really behind and think "Oh! There are so many things I need to blog about!" and then that gets overwhelming so I don't write about any of them...which is doing you guys a disservice. So in an effort to catch up- here is what's been happening in short, easily digestible list form:

1. The bass is at the luthiers. We'll know more by the end of this week. Cross your fingers that he won't have to take the top and/or back off!

2. There was a lot of snow! ("lot" being a relative term here...) and I made it home just fine. School was canceled the next day, which was nice as it meant I had time to do other things that hadn't been possible to schedule beforehand.

3. Did I tell you we had a leak? On Monday morning I woke up incredibly irritated because there was some sort of rhythmic noise that I couldn't identify and it was driving me up the wall. Driving me so crazy that I woke up at a quarter after 5! It turned out that there was water dripping from my ceiling, which was concerning as I am on the ground floor of a three storey building...We think a pipe burst upstairs- or they left a faucet on or something. We're not sure- but currently there is water damage to the upstairs bathroom wall, the kitchen ceiling, and we have no electricity in the downstairs bathroom because water was coming through the light switch. (Which isn't good.) We can't use the upstairs toilet because it flushes onto the floor and floods, and the basement has no light...it's been a fun couple of days.

Hey landlords, come fix our flat!

4. The gambas! They are fun! I need to play them a little bit more before I make a decision, but I've really enjoyed having them around and in fact took one to a jam session yesterday at a new friend's house. So that was cool.

5. I'm going to a piano recital tonight- Mitra is a pianist who stayed at our Baltimore apartment for a week two summers ago while she was auditioning at Peabody. She is from London and is now going to school in New York. I haven't seen her since she stayed with us and am very much looking forward to the recital.

6. I'm taking an optional class on "action research" which is all about research in artistic contexts and practice based research. The woman leading it, Helena, is amazing. She really knows what she is talking about which is simultaneously wonderful and terrifying. For instance, you'll state what you're looking in to and then she'll ask you a question that is about five levels deeper than what you have been thinking about- which is incredibly helpful and like "Ooo, good question!" but also "Ahh! I have no idea!!! Ahh!" I'm enjoying it, but in a lets be brave sort of way.

7. Life is good and I spent yesterday evening cleaning the entire kitchen. I even cleaned out the microwave. It was necessary. I may have been prompted to do all of this as a way of staying in the kitchen as it is by far the warmest and most comfortable room in the flat.

Back in London

We arrived at Gatwick airport at 3:45am this morning. None of us managed to sleep very well on the plane, but we were all fairly coherant all things considered. I think we even managed to get all of the instruments home to their proper places. Simon, Kate's boyfriend was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and drive us home. We fit 5 people and 16 pieces of luggage in to his station wagon (oddly called an estate car in the UK) and drove home as the sun was rising.

When we got back to Sundial I was very awake and very hungry so I scoured the kitchen for food and ended up eating some pasta and writing out the previous blog while sitting in the middle of all of my stuff that I dropped on the floor of my room. I managed to be totally awake until about 8am when I passed out on my bed.

I woke up again at lunchtime and called up Jon. We went wandering around brick lane and ended up eating at a BBQ stand before heading over to Regent's park to meet the dinner club people. They were having a picinic but unfortunately were just about to leave as we got there (we had taken our own sweet time and bought ice cream cones because it was such a lovely day) so Jon and I borrowed their frisbee and went off in search of more ice cream.

It was a bit too windy for the tiny, flimsy frisbee but we did have a nice game with four cousins hanging out with their father/uncle at the Park. There was a large group of fun people under a tree that I was convinced were a bunch of goths that looked like they were having a lot of fun. Jon and I kept trying to figure out a way to go over there and say "you look cool, can we hang out too?" without being you know, weird. Fortunately frisbees solve all problems and we ended up having a fun game with their heavier, and therefore better, frisbee.

Anyhow, it was a lovely nice day wandering around London and it reminded me of when I came to audition and exploring all over the city. Good welcome back day that way.

The tiredness is hitting now, so no more writing for the time being. I have uploaded all of the pictures and will begin transcribing my journal and posting pictures and videos starting tomorrow.

cherry trees are silly.

Cherry trees have got to be the most gullible plants ever. It is November you silly tree! November!

Not that I'm not grateful, mind you. I mean the cherry trees are always lovely, but it's a bit disconcerting to see them at the same time as vibrantly red leaves. You know?

For context's sake, this picture was taken in the courtyard behind the GSMD main building. Behind the photographer (me) is the waterside cafe where we ate the day that we saw Philly play at the Barbican (Grammy, Grandpa, Laine, Andy) or the day when I was having a cranky fit because we hadn't eaten all day and we got soup (Mommy). The rounded concrete things are some of the flats in the Barbican.

Planning...again.

I now have a place to stay in Amsterdam for 1 (one) night. I'll figure the rest out when I get there. I'm going to have to be moving every night because no one has a block of more than one night available. (um, if that didn't make sense here is an example: hostel a: has space on Monday and Wednesday, and hostel b: has space on Tuesday, well Tuesday and Wednesday, but different rooms.) I now also know how to get to Gatwick from Swiss Cottage, which is a lovely thing to know, and also how to get to from the airport to hostel a.

I'm almost ready, but I can't figure out what to pack in. My rolly suitcase (which was so very helpful when I arrived in London) feels like it is silly-big to pack in for three nights, but my duffel would be a pain in the butt to drag around while I am traveling and walking all over the place. So I guess I'll take the rolly. Hmm.

But enough of this thinking out loud- I finally got to the Tate Britain and I took a boat ride on the Themes! (which smelled oddly of celery. Explain that one to me.) The weather around here has been bordering on silly. I feel like I should be outside at all times to soak up the loveliness. And quite frankly, I have been sitting in front of the computer working on my Amsterdam trip for too long, so soak up the loveliness is what I am going to go do now. Sorry for such a short post-I'm sure I'll make it up again soon.