This will most likely be my last post on this blog. While looking back at the stuff I posted in the past two years, I decided to write a reflection piece about it. It is currently 1:42am, and I can’t sleep. I do not have class tomorrow on account of the Fall Break we were given. I think it’s pointless and just an excuse for the school to make money.
Looking back at my senior year, I could have sworn that I wanted to be a music therapist more than ANYTHING in the world…well…I was wrong. I still hope to maybe possibly go for my master’s one day in it, but I am in LOVE with my major. I am a Special Education and Early Childhood Education Dual Major, and I couldn’t be happier. For the first time, in a long time, I am actually enjoying school. Not the social part, but the educational part. I find myself getting A’s and some B’s, completing all my work in advance, going to bed normally before 2am, almost every night, and losing weight.
My classes are more than I could have asked for. Although I’m not a music major I have Intro to Music (Music History) and I am being allowed to test to see if I can enter Music Theory 2 for the second semester, Thanks Mr. P! But if I do not get in…all well I’ll just take theory 1 my sophomore year. My Early Childhood Theory and Practice is my FAVORITE class by far! My professor is amazing. Although it is a lecture class, I have learned some very interesting things. Also, my High Incidence Disabilities class is interesting. My professor for that class is new to SRU, so she is getting the hang of this, just like all the freshman are.
Hopefully this semester goes accordingly to plan with my grades and the sorority I am a new member of (Delta Zeta). Also, I hope there won’t be too much of a hassle for me to begin my Observing hours when I am home on winter break…and maybe I’ll be a teachers aid in the Bayonne School System in May 2012.
It’s scary, life goes by so fast. The days may seem slow, but time keeps on moving. It’s already mid October, I’ll be home in a little over a month for Thanksgiving!…that’s nuts!!
If anyone is reading this out there, I hope you enjoy it. Having this blog made me realize that I might want to just create my own blog and just write and write and write. So once again, Thank you Mr. P for helping me find something that is of interest to me.
Once I set up my blog, I plan to post it onto here. I’m so happy it didn’t get deleted because for the past two years I worked hard to write about topics, although sometimes it didn’t look like I tried. I loved this blog and it’s a part of high school I can look back on and be proud of.
The other day I finished my article to the Community News. I e-mailed it to my teacher shortly after it was edited and proof read. By the end of this week I plan to have it dropped off at the office for the Community News. I hope it gets published in a timely mannar because it really is a good article. I just hope others will feel the same.
If it wasn’t for these music teachers, I wouldn’t have been able to even question if music helps students with special needs. The teachers who have responded are hard working, caring, kind-hearted, and genuine people. With there help on this project they have all inspired me a bit more. Thank you!
This is very close to my last post. BUT my last post, of high school, which i really depressing to post will be posted next week. I’ve had this blog for 2 years now, and I’m going to miss it. But who knows, I may keep it and use it in college.
It’s funny to look back over the past two years and read about what I posted and how depending on the topic, how much my writing has changed…but that is also due to the creative writing class I took this year! I’m not going to miss high school, I’m going to miss certain people, teachers, and classes. I’m ready to move on and start a new chapter in my life at Slippery Rock University. I think I’ve been ready to move on since March, there are only two things left for me in Bayonne and within two years there will only be one. But this reason is very important to my life. So Goodbye Bayonne, I would say it’s been fun…but why lie.
I have finally reached my 100th post. And for this post, I’d figure that I would make it semi-special. On Monday evening, I auditioned for the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the JCC. After the audition, call backs were followed. I was lucky enough to recieve a call back and read for the part of Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, lisp and all! The director, Dana, told me she would be in contact within a few days. Well…last night as I was in a rehearsal for a Cabaret being put on at the JCC on Monday June 13, 2011 and Dana called me. I called her back and was reluctant to hear the news that I was cast as Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre. This is the first show where I’ve ever been cast where dialogue is involved and also where I am a one of the principal characters.
I’m so excited to start rehearsals, not only to start working on a show again, but this character in particular talks with a lisp and sings with a lisp. Most people think it is hard to do that, but it come quite natural to me…but good thing my mom is a speech teacher! She can tell me how to speak with a lisp, since she has taught so many students how to speak without one!
This is my favorite song, which I learned in about 3 hours before the audition and now I get to perform it!!
It’s that time of the year for me. NO, not time for a spelling bee, trust me I would never be able to enter one of them. This is the time where I get all nervous and get the nerve up to audition for another show. This show is ONCE AGAIN, heavily male casted. The show is the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. When this show is normally done, it is played by a cast of adults who portray children at a spelling bee and all the roles are double cast. This production, the director, Dana Levin making her directing debut, will be casting different people to the parts that are normally double casted to give more people a chance. For the girls there are only about 8 parts. I saw Dana yesterday while she was holding auditions, she had asked me when I’m auditioning. I told her Monday and asked if she wanted to hear something from the show or just regular. She told me that call backs were going to be held that night and just to sing something from the show. So so far that’s a good sign! Only issue, I look a bit young, but I think with the right stuff I will be fine. The audition is Monday, so when I go to my voice lesson on Friday, I will be working on all Spelling Bee music.
There are so many different kinds of therapies. Some you have never heard of while others you hear about daily. Currently I am in physical therapy. I like the aspect of being in physical therapy to get help for my foot but not actually being in this type of therapy. Most people when they hear therapy they automatically think of psychological therapy, where you sit and talk to someone. But there are so many kinds. Music, art, physical, and many more. They just aren’t too common…not saying physical therapy isn’t a common type of therapy. Although I choose not to major in music therapy, I could be working in early intervention, which when you think about it is a type of therapy.
For my project I have contacted a couple of different teachers. After this quick little break I plan to e-mail a few more teachers who deal directly with special needs students. I plan to send them a survey like I did to the music teachers. Also I plan to e-mail the mother of a special needs student and 2 teachers and ask them more in depth questions about students they have worked with personally over the years. After I collect all my information, I plan to put an article out in our Community News. I hope to have it out before June 15th.
“And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives
Where we’re gonna be when we turn 25
I keep thinking times will never change
Keep on thinking things will always be the same
But when we leave this year we won’t be coming back
No more hanging out cause we’re on a different track
And if you got something that you need to say
You better say it right now cause you don’t have another day
Cause we’re moving on and we can’t slow down
These memories are playing like a film without sound
And I keep thinking of that night in June” ~ Vitamin C
Graduation is only a month away. I look back not regretting but wondering what my high school years would have been like if I never got injured. If I still was a volleyball player, would I be who am I today or would I hangout with a completely different group of people, have different views on life, and even be a part of the choir? Not saying that choir was AMAZING but i got to meet some really great and talented people it was a great experience. If I will keep in touch with them after the year ends, who knows. Already I have lost the connection with people I have been close with since freshman year. We have drifted apart. As of August, I leave everything behind aside from a few important things, and start brand new. I cannot wait to get started at college in another state where no one knows me or knows anything about me.
Honestly I’m pretty much over the high school scene and I feel that I have been that way since November. I am ready to leave and start a new chapter of my life. I have learned this year especially that if a kid comes up to you and tries to help you out and he is different, don’t snap at him, just be nice and he will go away. I experienced this first hand the other day at Teen Arts. I plan to major in Special Education and hopefully specialize with children who are autistic. There is a student who is no longer classified as autistic but still is, this student is very intelligent, but this student has never really been disciplined because they are autistic. Normally in the past two years I would have snapped at them for trying to talk to me or touching me while I was crying, but I realized I can’t, this student is just trying to help like any other person would. After I took a stumble down the stairs, this student tried to give me a hug, like my mom did because they saw the pain on my face. If this were a year ago I would have yelled at this student not to come near me, but I thanked them and just please do not touch me I’m in too much pain. The student understood and gave me my space. People treat this person different because they technically are different, but they aren’t STUPID and that is what most people take this particular student for. I realized it this year and after the choir trip it really hit me that I will be working with children like this student, possibly better but possibly worse. It’s a struggle to not yell at this student and tell them to get away, but I just thanked them and talked to them like they are a person, because that is what that student is a person as annoying and aggravating as they may be, they just want to be treated normally. Thanks to this student I want to start school and learn how to properly deal with them.
Okay, so here is the thing. My Artbiz project is put on hold, so I have decided since I am stuck in my house, not allowed in school, can’t walk, and on crutches that I would give up on my hope of going to intern with Meg Z, a music teacher who works with special needs children. I have now decided to do some research and write an article or two about how music does in fact help children with special needs. I know it sounds simple, but I want to take it to the next level and interview some teachers who have worked with special needs children in their career and find out how the behavor change was for the better while they were in the class, if they made improvement, and if they are autistic do they come out of their shell a little more. I hope that my teacher will allow me to do this just because we are in a time crunch and it’s getting close to graduation and Meg Z will be busy with preparing the kids for graduation. I hope he approves this, now I just have to wait.
Hello Again! It has been a few weeks since I have last posted, and I am sorry for that. I keep forgetting that I can blog from my phone. But so much has happened in such a short amount of time. First off I am so upset I was not in D.C. for the great news! That would have been AMAZING to have been in D.C. at that time. Second Bayonne High School’s New Image, Glee Club, Bee Sharps, Sweet Harmony, and Show Choir all won FIRST PLACE at our competation and also GRAND CHAMPIONS! This means we got 7 first place tropies and then a GIANT 5 foot (in hight) trophy. It was insane. Aside from those thropies, Tara O. and Kyle won soloist awards! Tara won for her vocals and Kyle won for playing the piano. Third, I’m back on crutches, but this time it is not my ankle…it’s my foot. I have torn ligments and tendons. I have to wear this big clunky boot that emobalizes my foot so my ankle/ foot can not role. I will be out until Monday, but I have to use crutches in school, and doing stairs is a killer for me. =/
Have you ever listened to a song and said, “That is awful!” but in terms of musicians or even people, they find it enjoyable and of good quality. But which quality is it? The awful kind or the good/enjoyable kind? Quality cannot be determined. It is to be determined by the person and their artistic views and values. Personally I do not like heavy metal, but does that make the heavy metal bands a lesser quality band than a pop band? The answer to that is No. Just because it is not my particular taste in music does not make it bad quality. I can honestly bet that some of the songs written by Korn are of better writing quality than some of Justin Timberlake’s songs, they are just different.
Although certain music may not be my taste, does not take away the quality of the music. To me quality matters about how the piece is constructed and made rather than if it is popular or not. The basis to writing the music, lyrics, arranging it, and performing it in the end is what the quality of music is about. (In my definition of quality)
