Had cheer up contacts from my Calif fam and my England daughter yesterday. I think I’m doing okay.

The music went very well at church yesterday. I am beginning to have my doubts about the general direction of the priest, however.

I’m afraid we are sort of floating. Maybe I am expecting too much too soon. But I sure wish the bulletin looked better. And I wish the priest had attended the highly successful music minister party. I wish there was more of a coherent direction in general. I will voice some of this to my boss in our meeting this week.

Eileen suspects that due to my getting jerking around at college I am on extra critical mode. She’s probably right about that.

But I still think that my insights about parish life are salient. In the meantime, I am trying to resolve to accept the situation and ignore the parish stuff and just do the music.

My boss took a two week Xmas vacation and came back all tan and still the music was pretty top notch yesterday. I guess the message is that I can do well when left on my own. But I find it troubling to be what I call a liturgical juke box. But maybe that’s what I am. It could be worse, I guess.

There is a new musical called The Beastly Bombing re-opening in East Los Angeles on Jan 19. It’s sort of a modern Gilbert & Sullivan treatment of what would happen when some skin head terrorists bump into to some Al Quada terrorists. Both groups planning to blow up the Brooklyn bridge. They discover their mutual hate of Jews and sing and dance their ways into each other’s hearts.

A bitter reaction to current antisemitism.

There is a generous selection of mp3s of the tunes on their website.

Titles include “The Song of the Sensitive White Supremacist” and “The Bravest President.”

NYT article for more info (this is where I ran across it).

I managed to figure out how to get WordPress to insert pictures yesterday. Progress, slow but sure.

Choir party

My choir threw it’s annual costume Epiphany/12th night party last night. I’m not much of a party animal but these people did well.

Two new members came dressed as We Two Burger Kings. The man had applied a false beard to himself.

The host was dressed as a jester.

One couple came as a shepherd (he kept saying his name was Yassar Arafat) and an angel complete with electric candle.

They gave a prize for best costume. It went to another two kings couple who were very solemnly dressed and were carrying wooden boxes with actual incense it. One of them had a bishop’s Mitre hat on.

One not quite this fancy.

These lucky people received a slinky.

There was also a pre-announced limerick contest. The host insisted they be clean. The winner wrote three pages about the choir and his frustration with having to write a clean limerick finishing off with three that got more and more naughty.

Along with great food and drink, this was a pretty impressive evening. It was a shame the priest was not there. I only hope she saw her invite.

The gift I got my priest finally came in the mail yesterday. I bought her a collection of readings from the ancient fathers (and mothers…. truly: Egeria, Julian of Norwich).

I was looking at my copy this morning and realizing I have owned this book for fifteen years. As of late it has been gathering dust. But I realize that my theological notions such as they are probably grow largely out my liturgical understandings which are strongly expressed in the writings of Egeria, Julian, Augustine, Cyprian. God help me

Okay, I just sent a long email to Danny Phipps the chair of the Music Department at GVSU. I reminded him that he had taken away a class from me in the previous term.

I told him I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of last minute negotiations that redound to his benefit and my detriment.

And that I would show up Tuesday with materials in hand to teach the classes on the original agreement and we could discuss what was actually going to happen.

Eileen is adamant that it would be better for me not to teach than to continue to get jerked around in this way. I am prepared to just not teach rather than continue to wonder just what I am going to teach and when and why.

The class that they took away from me seems to have been reassigned to a teacher who said to me that he like MU 129 classes (Music Theory for Non-music Majors) because there was no prep.

No prep. Sheesh.

After sleeping on it, I am leaning toward at least asking the chair of the music dept to honor the contract he gave me.

This is the second time this chair (who is relatively new) has renegotiated my contract to his benefit and my detriment. Last term I had a contract for three classes. I got the phone call the week before asking me if I would mind cutting back to two. I agreed.

Am I getting punished for being co-operative (read sap)?

I am considering going ahead and making materials for the two classes on my contracts. Then Tuesday I would have syllabi (and info sheets and skills assessments for my theory class) for the two classes I have been prepping for.

The worse that would probably happen is the chair would say sue me I don’t want to honor that contract and you’ll never work in this school again. I think I could live with that.

He may on the other hand give me something that looks like what I was expecting (two tues thurs classes, one Music Ap, one Music Theory) after he reads my email refusing to teach a once a week Tuesday evenings class that he suggested as a possibility in our brief phone call.

It’s possible that I will end up with something like what I was expecting like Friday morning…. possible, but not highly probable.

12:36 PM
How discouraging

Just got off the phone with the same office assistant I spoke to this morning. Apparently the executive administrator is taking the day off (The Friday before classes start. Good.) And the chair won’t be in until Tuesday (Classes actually start on Monday). So nothing is happening about getting my correct class online.

Even more discouraging

3:49 PM

It turns out that my scheduled classes were changed and no one bothered to notify me. They took away my theory class which I have been sweating bullets over and gave me a Thursday evening class which I cannot teach.

The chair (who is suddenly Dr. Phipps instead of Danny Phipps. I’ll have to remember and call him Dr. Phipps, I guess) called me from Washington (DC?) to tell me this. He actually wasn’t sure what my schedule was but he was sure that the Blackboard courses were the ones I would be teaching.

I had to check myself online and then call him back in Washington on his cell.

We talked for a bit and he told me some of the difficulties he is facing in last minute faculty problems. He asked me to email him exactly when I could teach and if I would teach a Tuesday evening class.

I called Eileen and briefly asked her what she thought. She thought, “no on Tuesday,” so I felt comfortable in telling Phipps that.

He assured me I would use the syllabus I told him I had prepared with much effort and diligence in the fall. Right.

Dang. I was looking forward to teaching some theory.

The chair doesn’t get back into town until Monday evening. So this means I will get in the car on Tuesday and not have a clue what I will be teaching this semester other than the one Music Appreciation class.

Great. I bitch because I don’t have ways to discuss ideas with people and then I blog about goofy trivial day to day shit. Seems like my dissatisfaction might be my own responsibility, eh?

Anyway, I logged onto the college web site yesterday (Blackboard) and discovered that I was set up with an incorrect class online. Instead of setting me up with my Music Ap class and my Music Theory class, the powers that be had set me up with two Music Ap classes. This was my original contract offer which was changed for the convenience of another prof by the department.

I waited until after 8 AM to call them this morning. No answer by the phone message cheerfully invited me to call back between 8 AM and 5 PM Monday through Friday. After a little persistence I got an office assistant on the phone. She took my info and told me she was the only one in the office (sooprise sooprise). I hope they can fix this before Monday so I can get the materials I have been preparing up online.

Choir rehearsal went pretty well last night. I am beginning to think that the choir is suspecting that I might know what I am doing. I have felt like they support me emotionally and all that kind of stuff since I started. But they are beginning to treat my attempts at rehearsal procedure with a bit more respect. Nothing too earth shattering. I had more people talking directly to me in rehearsal last night than usual. They would request to go over a line that they (or tactfully someone nearby) was having problems with.

Also for once when the late people came in (people who actually had the courtesy to phone me ahead of time to tell me they were running behind) the group didn’t drop everything and make room for them.

This was hard for them. But I continued relentlessly rehearsing (my usual procedure when someone comes in late) and this time it was evident people were trying to keep up with me. A small thing, but significant in the arena of building rehearsal discipline (and hence better choral sound). Cool beans.

Yesterday’s project was picking anthems for tonight’s rehearsal. This is complicated by the fact that I have thrown out so many single copies of anthems I used to have. And I don’t collect new ones as much as I used to.

So the resources laying around the house are much more meager when I go to do last minute planning. Given a week or two, I can come up with anthems that fit the readings, challenge the choral resources appropriately and will usually hold the interest of the singers.

Lately, I’ve added another criteria: can I stand the piece or even like it.

Yesterday I began the morning going through the readings at home. I am force to do this because my church computer is not connected to the Internet and is old and slow anyway. I like the fact that if I am looking at an anthem and not sure about the origin of the text, I can usually figure it out on google.

Anyway, I spent the morning reviewing anthems in the house (which included a semi-complete master file of anthems the church owns). Then went over to church in the afternoon and made final decisions. This process included manually flipping through the four file cabinets of anthems the church owns. I have cataloged them, but the silly database program the church owns is pretty awful and does not allow flexible searches of anthems.

I ended up picking about 11 anthems out.

This took me until about 5 PM which is when Eileen gets home on Wednesdays. I came home and we went to Margaritas for supper. My mental health is worrying Eileen a bit so she is being extra thoughtful I think. I enjoy her company always and I’m not sure what’s going on with my head but life goes on, n’est pas?

Came home and read “The Trial” by Kafka while Eileen went upstairs and worked crossword puzzles and watched TV.

This morning I have to go to church and prepare for this evening’s rehearsal. This includes photocopying anthems (mostly legal photocopies… all ethical)… ordering anthems… stuffing the folders (which I do in order of performance which is also how I usually rehearse…. this procedure still baffles a good number of choristers).

I have a funeral this afternoon (Greek Orthodox people using our building). I would dearly like to begin my Music Appreciation syllabus today. I am beginning to feel the crunch

So. I am trying to fix my comments section and make it more user friendly. If you have time and patience, please leave me a comment so I can see if it’s working properly.

My goal is to allow instant online comments. Hence the word, “discussion,” that WordPress uses to categorize this section. Ahem.

Yesterday was pretty much entirely taken up with writing a syllabus for my Music Theory for Non Music Majors class. It took so much timer primarily because there is a new edition of the text and I had to also write a “75 minutes for two days a week” syllabus versus a “50 minutes for three days a week” syllabus.
I also got the bright idea to write a teacher’s syllabus in which I recorded my ideas about how I was going to teach each session. Just a few sentences like “Collect Homework. [give]7 pts. [credit for this assignment. There are now] 63 [homework] pts. Remaining.”

This ends up being a mini-lesson plan as well as syllabus. Helpful when I teach it but a contributing factor to why it took me so long to do it.

I found my copy of “The Trial” by Kafka last night. I sort of had the idea to try to finish some of these books I have been reading before next week. I read a bit in it, but I’m not sure I’m going to get it finished. Also just about done with “The Pickwick Papers.” I do like Dickens.

I am feeling more isolated recently (as I think I stated below). Not sure what’s up with this exactly. Everything is really okay in my life. It’s just I have a diminishing number of people that I feel like I can actually talk to about ideas. I guess it’s basically down to Eileen, Sarah and Elizabeth.

It feels like too much weight for family relationships.

I am increasingly conceptualizing relationships with dead people like Kafka, Bach, Dickens, Bartok. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, I find myself in conversation with my old teacher, Ray Ferguson. He really was the best teacher I had. Very helpful at many levels. Probably the most gracious person I have known. And, of course, eccentric as hell.

I think it’s silly to choose to live in Holland Michigan (or probably most places in the US right now) and kvetch about companionship. It’s a strange world and most people seem to be preoccupied with stuff that doesn’t interest me (money, religion, confused ideas about the world).

I know this is arrogant, but I can’t help how things seem to me, right?

And I do have the teaching which should help. But increasingly I am trying to be a better teacher and less self-indulgent in how I approach it. Better teaching, but a bit less colleagial pay off. In other words, students just watch and don’t talk usually. They are reacting on the INSIDE. I guess.

I looked over last years, student evaluations for the Music Theory class. It turns out I remembered most of them anyway.

So.

It looks like I can at least get started with WordPress.

I hate the theme idea.

It’s just so restrictive.

Ideally I would like to make it look more like the design of my present site. I’m sure this is possible, but I’m still learning.

In the meantime, if you have a response to anything on this or the other site, please try to leave a comment, so I can see how it works.

So.

It looks like I can at least get started with WordPress.

I hate the theme idea.

It’s just so restrictive.

Ideally I would like to make it look more like the design of my present site. I’m sure this is possible, but I’m still learning.

In the meantime, if you have a response to anything on this or the other site, please try to leave a comment, so I can see how it works.

Tuesday 1/2/07 7:48 AM

Spent more time with Bach at the organ yesterday. Played through some Leipzig chorales and trios. I logged onto the church secretary’s computer and messed around with software that indexes all the church resources. I asked for a working copy of this software months ago. My boss said she didn’t find it that helpful and I took her word for it. But my brother convinced me over the holidays that it does indeed search the texts of all the resources of the American Episcopal church. I was kind of confused as to why my boss didn’t find it useful. I will ask her as soon as I get a chance.

In the meantime, I used the secretary’s copy. This is clumsy but possible when she’s not there.

I didn’t work too much on college stuff yesterday. Sunday morning I got up and looked at the syllabus for the class with the new textbook (Music Theory for Non-Music Majors). Eileen helped me with some ideas I have for this class. Discovered the new text has the same number of chapters as weeks in the semester (14). That can’t be an accident. Will probably organize my new syllabus that way. Need to work on it today.

I also ordered a copy of a book on WordPress. I am using OpenOffice.org to do this website right now. I am satisfied with everything except the possibility to leave comments. My gut tells me there’s a way to do it with a basic html editor (like OpenOffice.org)but so far no luck. I have installed WordPress on Bluhost, my server. But don’t see how to get started easily. I did it once before and got discouraged at the template nature of everything.

On the other hand I seem to be feeling the lack of collegiality more keenly lately for some reason. As I have been playing through Bach I realize how many conversations I have had with my former teachers about Bach. Mostly Ray Ferguson at Wayne State. Ray is dead now and I continue to realize how much he taught me. In retrospect, my time at Notre Dame was not as helpful. But I think I color that with my current distaste for Christianity and especially Catholicism. It didn’t help anything when one of my profs killed himself the year after I left because he couldn’t face the fact that he had AIDS. He was sure it would ruin his career as a liturgist. He may have been right.

Anyway, I hope I can get a comment feature up on this web site sometime and see if anyone talks back. I don’t check the stats on this very often (I think I’ve done it once) but when I did it surprised me how many people actually visit the site. I wonder how much they read. I suspect my main readers are family (Hi Sarah!). That way they can keep up with what’s going on I guess. I keep envisioning the Internet as a means to more connecting and developing of ideas.

A guy on the radio today called it “Technotribes.” He was naming developing trends in 2007 of course. Not sure I want to be in a “technotribe” but I’m willing to consider it. I feel more like a blogger I read who gets on and writes pretty much the same negative stuff over and over and then dumps reams of quotes from books he doesn’t seem to process I think he’s my “moral stoplight.” Heh.