So I went to my very first pep rally today. My school never had them, which is guess is odd? Maybe they did and I never bothered with them. Well this one was the last period of the day and the whole day my co-op was dreading it. So last period we went into the gym and it started with an extended cheer thing from the cheerleaders. It kind of reminded me of Sparkle Motion from Donnie Darko. and then they went on to introduce a whole bunch of the sports teams. and then they played a giant game of musical chairs!

heck yea!

they had about 30 people playing, including some teachers. with everyone cheering them on. It was really awesome. After that they introduced the rest of the sports teams. and then they had a pie eating contest!

heck yea!

is this how pep rallies are supposed to go?
the best part was at the end. after the pies the guy who was MCing just yells "and now it's time to dance!"
someone turned on michael jackson's "thriller" and half the school came onto the floor to dance

a few students started doing the thriller dance. and then everyone caught on. it was so odd.
I'm not talking about just that weird zombie move. I'm talking about the entire dance from the music video. It's like the entire school already knew the dance. kind of like a bad musical

it actually looked a lot like this

a student of mine from student teaching just tried adding me on facebook. i honestly felt bad rejecting them.

so i was just reading through my old blog and i came across this word art stuff I kind of got into way back when. this stuff isn't supposed to make any sense. it's just supposed to be enjoyable to look at and listen to. don't try to make any sense with the connotations, there aren't supposed to be any. here are two from freshman year

the filing fresh octopus flies scales the moon in a single lept bound with a leg gone on vacation with ms gunglefur. WATCH OUT for the low down thoughts of the popular populous. they might get you. with their pompadors...

Logs of honey, dew, and honeydew roll down the hill with a force previously unheard of by our verouse ears. For the phrase would petrify our dietary think tank. The logs tinker along the lowlands to the lute of Lawrence XTaylorX. They crush sweetened logging nests with their unheard of inebriated force. But lowlands survive with ease in case of other confectioner surprises. In case of logging incident break glass for a break from other o no uh-oh watch out for shingles from SPAIN! N X X X every story ends in stone i really enjoy reading those. maybe i should get back into that

Today was my first day being observed by my supervising teacher. He observed the middle school band rehearsal and an 8th grade clarinet lesson. The band rehearsal went really well. There were of course some improvements that could be made but I was really happy with how it went. But the lesson was a disaster. These girls would not stop talking and couldn't play quarter notes in time...

On an upside, I taught a 7th grade clarinet lesson later today and the kids were awesome. The lesson was really fun and the kids knew all their music. But the best part was when I was pointing to a spot in the music and on of the students goes

"Mr. Swider? Your fingers look like sausages."

She didn't mean it in a mean way. She was just making a valid observation.

Student is pretty uneventful lately. I've had a few more stories but none that I would really be able to post on here. I'm really not doing much while teaching. Below is a breakdown of today. Each period is 45 minutes give or take

1st: Did nothing
2nd: Took attendance for study hall and did nothing
3rd: Observed the theory class
4th: Taught half of band and observed the rest
5th: Ate lunch and read
6th: read some more
7th: Observed music tech
8th: Fiddled around with what was taught in tech (importing midi samples of songs and assigning tracks)
9th: Taught a euphonium lesson

I did a total of 1 hour of work today. Now everyday isn't like this. But they're all pretty laid back. Here's the thing tho. Every time there seems to be nothing to do I ask my teacher if he needs me to do anything and he almost always says no. I'm afraid that at the end of the block my co-op and supervisor will say something like "You did nothing all semester!" I'm trying to do more work but there's none to do!

I mentioned before a church in Iceland called Hallgrímskirkja. I just wanted to post some pictures so you guys could get an idea of what this thing is




seriously, so beautiful

I'm officially the cool teacher. My co-op started teaching a 7th grade sax lesson and about 15 minutes into it he says

"alright, now mr. swider is going to take over"
then the student says
"for the rest of the period?! heck yea!"

o man. it was awesome.

then during the last period the greatest thing ever happened. I was teaching 2 beginner trombones and a student who I will refer to as Student G is really excited about playing the trombone. during the lesson Student G makes a rather sour sound on the horn and says

"o man, I'm the trombone master. Gotta catch 'em all! trombone!"

he said this singing to the pokemon theme music.

i laughed super hard.