Reading Writing Thats the Rule

This time next week, I will be going to Neumann University, and beginning the classes that lead off my very final year of school.  Yes, my senior year of college begins next Tuesday, with an 8 am Classical Music class no less.

Being a senior year, there will obviously be harder classes as I come closer than ever to my major, but there will also be some extra challenges.  The first and hardest will be entering my last semester participating in Neumann Music.  This music program has been amazing and I have learned so much, I will dearly miss it.  And this last semester of Music comes directly after learning about the departure of a dear music teacher and friend.  Her family has to move to Morocco, so it will make the department at the University very different.

This first semester will have a very challenging class in it, Senior Sem, where I will be learning about everything I will be doing in the spring during Student Teaching.  I know I will be blogging about the crazy stuff I will have to do there, so look for those.  The other challenge for this semester will be working on my Honors paper.  These are usually written in the spring semester, but because of student teaching, I have to write the paper this fall.

It shall be an interesting 10 months, so look for the occasional update as to the status of my classes and the challenges I face with Student Teaching.

Concert with a Disney Flair!

Ok everyone, it is officially shameless plug time! (not that a blog isn't a shameless plug device to begin with)

Tomorrow at 8pm EDT, the Neumann University Jazz Band and Wind Ensemble will be performing for everyone to watch, including YOU! That's right, the concert will be streamed LIVE online at media.neumann.edu! Just go to that page and click on Neumann Live, it should be up on there, running live! (If it is not, there may be technical difficulties and I apologize in advance)

So, why should you watch this concert at my university? Well...I am in it!....Yea, I know, so what? Well, here is the real reason - We are playing a Disney Medley! That's right, the 3rd song in the concert, the last one played by the Wind Ensemble is filled with Disney songs! I am very curious as to who can name them all! There are quite a lot! So I post this challenge to you - Name all of the Disney songs in the Medley played! Just leave a comment under this post or send me an email with all of the songs you got! I will post after the concert all of the songs played so you can see if you were right.

And, if you are curious, I will be the flute/piccolo player in the center of the flute section during wind ensemble and in Jazz band.....just look for the little girl playing the BIG saxophone! ;)

Where have I been?????

I have honestly been wondering about this question myself lately!

I first want to apologize to all of my great readers for not having anything posted recently here. Thank you for being so patient with me! Because of your great patience, I thought I would let you know why I have been less active recently and how I have been.

The first reason of course is school.....it always gets in the way of the important stuff.....I started that a few weeks back and unlike my last semester when I had at least 1 day off per week, I do not have that this semester. I have class Monday through Thursday and on Fridays, starting this week, I will be teaching from 9 to 3 at Chester Community Charter. I am looking forward to this even though there is a lot of work involved. I found out that this is my very last field placement before student teaching next spring....wow is that never wracking!! Oh, and pile on top of that the 4 PRAXIS tests that I have to take and pass by December......yikes......

My health has been doing quite well recently. The fiasco I was going through with my medication has been subdued for at least a while and I have my medicine and am doing quite well on it! I have been so well I have actually started to regularly work out about 3 times a week at the gym at school. It is great fun and quite relaxing. Get to listen to my Disney music and bike around, its a great time!

My honors class has been taking up quite a bit of time. I am still writing my paper on something Disney related, I just haven't been able to pinpoint what I want to write about as of yet. At this point, I am contemplating doing the paper I was going to work on this summer, which is examining Walt Disney's vision of EPCOT and seeing how realistic and possible it would be for today's society. That will give me some more time to brainstorm on the other topic I am going to cover for my last paper. I have also been working on creating a blog for my Honors class. We need to get our name out more, so I figured one of the best ways to do that would be a blog. Once I have done some work on that, I will post a link to it from here so you can see what Neumann University Honors is all about.

My radio show on Sorcerer Radio, Sorcom Review, is still going very strong, as is my Neumann Radio show Imagine the Magic. Still having so much fun with those, I really enjoy the radio!

With all of this craziness around me, I was finding it difficult to fit in the things I really want to do: Write on my blog and talk Disney! I am going to try a lot harder to put this in though, I find it so relaxing to talk about Disney, I think it would really help me balance the other stuff I have to do. I do have lots of stuff to write about and I will work to get it all posted.

Again, thank you for your patience with a crazy college student, you all are awesome!!

Peace, Love and Mickey Mouse!!

P.S. Keep your eyes open for something that Chris and I have in the works as well.....

The start of 8 great teaching weeks!

In the fall semester of Junior year at Neumann University, elementary education majors have field experience, where we go out into schools to observe and teach, for 8 Thursdays. Today was my first day. I am teaching and observing in a 4th grade classroom at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Delaware. I was a little nervous this morning because I have never worked with kids this old for so long before and I was kinda worried that they would be taller than me. When my fellow students and I got there, we met with the principal and got a tour of the school and she answered a lot of our questions that we needed for one of our assignments. She then took us to our teachers.

We walked passed a room and I stopped for a second and admired the Mickey Mouse banner that was outside welcoming everyone, almost missing when the principal said "This is the 4th grade room one of you are in. As you can tell, she is a big Mickey fan". I was so excited!!!!! My mentor teacher liked Disney!!! Not only does she like Disney I later found out, but her daughter is a Supervisor in the cafeteria at All Star Music and her daughter's husband is a chef!!! She went down 2 times this summer!!! Her room is covered in Mickey's; I felt right at home! I am so excited to be in this classroom, the teacher is nice and the kids are so well behaved! I think this is going to be a real fun semester!!!

Below are a few pictures from my Mentor Teacher's room. Its so Disneyfied! I thought you Disney fans would enjoy these!
One of the bulletin boards that was in her room!

The Smart Board and white board with the Disney touch!!!
Part of her Mickey collection!!!

Who the heck am I?!

So, if you have read up to here and have stuck with me so far, you must have found something I said interesting. I figure its only fair for you to know some things about myself.

As I said before, I am a 20 year old college student. I am a junior at Neumann University (Formerly Neumann College, we got our University status in May!). My major is Elementary Education with a Special Education Certification and I am minoring in Music.

Music is one of my big passions. I've been playing flute for 14 years, piccolo for 5, baritone saxophone for 8 months and alto sax for 6 months. I've played a little piano, but nothing huge, I'm trying to teach myself. I've done some singing in musicals and in a couple choirs, but it is not my big thing. Music is a huge part of my life and you can guarantee that I'll be talking about it often, especially the music program that I am working on for a nearby elementary school. That's a story for another blog post though.

I live with my Mom, Dad and little sister Emily...ok, so she's not that little anymore. She's 16 and a good couple inches taller than me. I keep telling her though, I don't care how tall she gets, she's still my baby sister.

Another thing you will notice about me, I love pictures. This blog will be filled with pictures from trips to family and friends. Pictures are not only with 1000 words to me, they are the portal to treasured memories. Looking at pictures of past vacations helps me relive the fun that I had and always is able to put a smile on my face. Plus, I feel visuals help get points across or make them stand out. So, if you don't like pictures, this is not the blog for you!.....should have had that in my warning......oh well.....moving on...

I am a big sports fan! Been so for about 7 years now. I love Football (Fly Eagles Fly!), Baseball (Phillies and Blue Rocks) and Hockey (Flyers and Phantoms). Yes, I am a huge Philly fan. That's what happens when you grow up 20 minutes from the city. Feel free to send team bashing comments, I'm expecting them. I also play Fantasy Football. Played my first season last year on the College Radio station team and came in first place! Needless to say, the boys in the station were not very happy with my good fortune.

So that's just some information on me and my life. If you have any questions for me, please don't hesitate to ask!