Monday, February 24, 2014

A Day in the Life

I'm going to try something new this month. I'm going to try to blog daily. It'll mostly be about the days events. I'll try to keep the minutia to a minimum. As an aspiring writer I can always use more practice and this could be a good exercise. Plus, maybe it'll help make up for my usual lack of updates. For all three of you who follow my blog. Expect a mix of workout info, writing updates and school shenanigans. 

Today starts the new cycle of Cajun Barbell. Now, since my school administration has decided to move first block back fifteen minutes I haven't been able to workout in the morning. To that end I set my alarm for four. Technically the doors don't open until five but several of the coaches get there early and I thought I'd join them. 

Unfortunately I woke up at 1:15 and couldn't get back to sleep. Nothing physically hurt it's just that lately anytime I wake up I'm pretty much awake from there on. My mind instantly starts racing and before I know it I might has well not have gone to bed. I actually got out of bed when the alarm went off but I could barely stand up straight. In no shape to drive I just laid back down for another hour. 

Up at 5:30 to take the dogs out, eat, get ready and out the door by 7:15. That's about 10 minutes later than I need to leave. So, late as usual. 

My first block class is kinda small and so far struggling with the material. I'm a big believer in constant reviewing by way of warmup exercises. I'll take whatever technique lines are introduced in the book and play them every day to solidify things. So far that's worked well with every class I've ever had. This class, not so much. We've even gone back to the beginning at least once and just started over but no dice. Since it's a small class that leaves me room to experiment. I'm going to try splitting them up for a few weeks and have them work solo. This way I can float around and work with them individually at least a little every day. I'll keep you posted on how this works. As I say it's just an experiment. It'll work or it'll fail. I have two brass players who are really struggling to even play in the staff. So I put them on playing lower long tones and they seemed to do very well with that. 

After that I raced to the school board to meet about uniforms. I've been trying to purchase some used uniforms since November. I finally got the go ahead last Thursday only to find that they had sold earlier in the week. Got a tentative promise of new uniforms, an expanded budget and a separate travel budget for next year. For the past two years we've been given $2,500 to cover everything from repairs to buses to get to football games. All this depends on a tax passing this year. 

Junior High showed up around 10:40 per usual. This class is a jumble of 7th and 8th grade. Beginners and advanced all at once. Since I'm running on four hours sleep with no coffee I just put in a video. The only thing I had was the Winterguard Championship from last year. But halfway through the class my Guard from last year came on. And man I'm still so proud of them. To this day any time Feel Agajn comes on the radio I get a smile on my face. Shoot, any time Let the Drummer Kick comes on I think of my little guard at OCS and smile. 

Made it through concession stand and power hour. I've been reassigned to monitor a student doing E2020. E2020 is an online program for students to take classes. It let's students either catch up or get ahead. I was going to do some writing then but alas the computer wouldn't let me log in. Made a few notes on my phone of stuff to work on. 

Fourth block was definitely a Monday. I work out of the Foundations for Superior Performance book for warmup/technique stuff. There are four sets of lip slurs that we rotate through on a weekly basis that are starting to build some chops. We're also cycling through key studies every week. This week is E Major. You should have seen my poor trumpet players eyes when they say all their sharps. 

Unfortunately our festival pieces are still eating our lunch. Selections include Crown Point March, grade 1. An Irish Air, grade 1.5. Contempo, grade 2. All easy works. None working. I'm at wits end. I can hear the judges comments already. Now, I make no claims about being an amazing band director. I'm a mediocre band director who has learned to make the most out of what he has. But I feel like our problems are mostly concentration and lack of focus. Motivational issues. That's something I struggle with. I just can't understand not wanting to play your music well. 

Did a little editing on a short story after school just to say I did some writing. Made a file on my phone for part two of Thorn in the Side so that I could get some on the go writing done. And then hit a wall. No idea where I even want to start. 

Got home about 4:15 and took the dogs out. Decided to at least get the main lifts in from the AM workout that I missed. Also helping the wife train for a 5k. So the workout looked like this. 

Squat 12x2@190
Ease Into 5k: Two Rounds
Run 3 minutes
Walk 2 minutes
Run 90 seconds
Walk 2 minutes
Run 3 minutes
Walk 1 minute
Deadlift 10x2@205

Didn't have time, or the energy, to do all 70 or so assistance exercises my crazy coach wanted done. I exaggerate. But not by much. Between the running and the Deadlifts my lower back is beyond fatigued. 

Got cleaned up and back out the door by 6:30 to head to community band. I meant to be there about 6:45 to get a good warm up. Alas, that didn't happen. It feels good to be playing in an ensemble again after all these years. I haven't performed since the last time Masquerade stepped foot on a field. Anybody remember them? I'm definitely out of shape though. An hour and a half rehearsal wrecks my lips. They are swollen and feeling a little bruised at the moment. 

Headed home at 8:45 to finally eat supper. Taking a melatonin tonight to see if it'll help me sleep all night. Not even going to try to get up early. I guess I'll be heading to the box at 4:30. Well ladies and gents, that's a glimpse into my life. It's simultaneously busy and boring as you can see. I'm going to try to keep this up. From here they'll, usually, be a little less in depth. Goodnight world. 

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