why are there so many guidos?

i recently discovered that one of my students is a real guido -- likes to hit on girls, dates a LOT, is a real flirt. you know, guido -- greasy dude with his old beat-up car with the loud clanky engine, hanging out the window smelling really strongly of cologne and saying "eh babee, you lookin' really fine" with the little upward nod and sly smile. i guess a player, is all. my question is, do girls really fall for that? sure, they're hot and they know what to say. but i don't know, that used to be a total turnoff for me. i guess i always fell for the quiet geeks. ;)

graduation

my school's graduation was yesterday. it was probably over 90 degrees and crazy humid and my kids were in black satin and velvet dresses, and i was in my black scholarly robe type thing. oh, and did i mention that the ceremony was outside? i think i have to say that sitting and sweating is one of my least favorite activities EVER. i suppose it was a blessing in disguise, as they sped through that ceremony in an hour and a half. SERIOUSLY shorter than normal, but still.

at least the guest speaker's speech was great -- we had the treasurer of the united states speak at our graduation (LOVE living near dc), and she was a mexican american who spoke of how you really could do anything -- she expected to harvest fruit all her life and somehow, through working hard and being piss smart, wound up as treasurer. that was pretty amazing.

usually i get very grandmothery and feklempt at these ceremonies, but i think the frequency with which i attend such events have started to render me immune. it really *does* start to sound all cliched after a while. the valedictorian's speech was sort of to that effect, too -- how not all graduation cliches are true, like how you didn't really learn everything in kindergarten, how there really are such things as stupid questions -- all sort of true, but it's not really the sort of uplifting message you're supposed to get at a graduation ceremony. i can't decide if i appreciate the honesty or wish we could continue on with the sugared encouragements.

this video always makes me feklempt cause it addresses my college graduation year, the class of 1999. i can distinctly remember being in the front seat on the top of a double decker bus, somewhere between vienna and prague, listening to this song on european choir tour the three weeks after college. and bawling my eyes out. i think it was the only time i really grieved the loss of college days. those really were the best days of my life (so far).

cultural celebrations

every teacher lets their kids throw an end of the year party. well, most do. there are so many things about "THAT music teacher" that i never want to be, you know? the ones who throw fits when the music is not coming together and locks themselves into their office; the ones who show movies after concerts and in the weeks leading up to the end of the school year; the ones who let the kids throw ridiculous parties -- but shoot. i have to admit, i've done those things. girl, you get TIRED by the end of the school year; after a while you need a break too.

so. i don't let my kids throw "parties," per se -- instead, we have "cultural celebrations," which involve celebrating our different backgrounds by bringing different foods that represent our culture. a bit of a load of crap, but it makes me feel a little more like an educator when kids throw parties. it actually worked once, in my middle school teaching days -- one kid brought a crock pot with tortillas warming and brought all the fixins, one kid brought plantain chips like the ones he ate in ghana, one made irish lace cookies and brought a step dancing video. but normally, cultural celebrations involve some kid baking brownies, and others bringing chips and soda.

so i ask my men's choir -- what shall you bring to the cultural celebration? and they get all fancy (boys take their food seriously) -- they say, i'll bring cups and napkins, i'll bring donuts and bagels, i'll bring strawberries. well, I'LL bring crepes, i'll bring a cake, i'll bring ice cream, and then my kid rollo (who can be a totally different post) says, oh, i can bring fondue. and i get all excited -- oh really? and we eventually leave the subject with all people excited about the amount of food that has been promised to bring. to be fair, i was pretty skeptical -- we had done this once before and most everyone forgot and then we were left with two bags of chips and one bag of soda to feed 16 teenage boys, which DOESN'T.

the day of the celebration, my guys come through -- bag of bagels, two boxes of donuts, strawberries, chips, bottles of soda. even my ditzy freshman who waltzes into class 20 minutes late because he "was in the bathroom" came through with the ice cream. but then rollo walks in, two large bags in hand. he pulls out -- pause for effect -- a MINI-STOVE with TWO burner eyes, and plugs it in. then he pulls out his -- pause -- DOUBLE BOILER!!! -- and starts melting chocolate and heavy cream with the ORANGE PEEL he brought. then. THEN! he pulls out a bottle of vegetable oil and puts it in another pot, which he sets on the second burner for a meat fondue. THEN he pulls out his bags of MARINATED chicken, beef, and shrimp. rollo came through with the fondue. oh my god.

okay, SURELY this is illegal. i'm even on the FAC (faculty advisory council), for god's sake, i really should be more of an upstanding citizen in my professional community. but ohmahgawd, i loveloveLOVE fondue. i'm COMPLETELY thrilled -- THRILLED -- at all the trouble he went through, and express my excitement in a manner akin to my college days (which, depressingly, is a level of emotion that i attain far less frequently these days), which my guys get a kick out of -- yet i am completely TERRIFIED that some administrator will walk in and smell the electronic burning smell of the mini-stove. those are two emotions that have difficulty co-existing inside someone.

but how can you stop the fondue? so it went on. we had chosen a two hour extended testing block (normally classes are 90 minutes, but they alter the schedule at the end of the year to accommodate SOLs) for our celebration, and thus could enjoy fondue for a full two hours. at the end of class i said to my guys, "let's never speak of this again, okay?"

that was the best men's choir class EVER.

jibbity

i like to have an all-purpose word, something that describes any number of inanimate objects. i guess it's my version of the word "thing." in the past, i've used "thingamabob," which morphed into "doo-bobby," and then "jibby" came from "thingamajig." my current vocabulary word is "jibbity." let me give you some examples of conversations i have in my classroom using this word.

s: "mrs. woods, can i borrow a pencil?"
mw: "sure, there are a couple in the jibbity (cup) on the piano."

s: "mrs. woods, what does that marking mean?"
mw: "see that jibbity (crescendo) on the bottom of the page, that looks like a neernt-wernt (and yes, i do actually make that sound)? that means you should get louder and then softer."

thank GOD my students understand me. how unclear an educator could i possibly be?

4/20

so tomorrow is my birthday, april 20th. in my first year of teaching, i remember my students asking me, "ms. marbella, when is your birthday?" i told them, and they were like, "huh huh, huh huh -- 4/20." and me, in all my infinite innocence, replied "why, children, why does it matter so?" because i was teaching right outside of boulder, colorado, which is most likely the marijuana capital of AMERICA. (for those of you who are *still* blessedly green, 4-20 is the police code for a drug bust or something. april 20 is a popular day to smoke up to honor this code. brillant, right? :P) what a day to be born. i share my birthday with hitler, luther vandross, and the most popular day of the year to get high. sigh.

so in a scant hour i will be 30. i actually glanced at my reflection in the car window today as i was unlocking the door and thought to myself, "this is what your 30 year old face looks like." i freaked out a bunch about hitting the big 3-0 last year, and now that it's here, i guess i can deal with it. you're supposed to try and age gracefully, right? i guess i take solace in the fact that you're only as old as you feel (i guess that's not a fact, it's a belief, but whatever), and that i surround myself with people every day who will likely prevent me from ever feeling old.

here are the two best birthday serenades i ever received:
1) senior year of college, right after a wren singers recording session in the wren chapel. or maybe it was right after a concert, i don't remember. anyway, they realized, oh hey, it's margie's birthday, and broke out into song -- except when a small chamber group breaks out into happy birthday, they harmonize like crazy and ended up with a like, 8-10 part chord at the end. it was BEAUTEMOUS. too bad we didn't record it.
2) my first year of teaching, doug, my band teacher, sent over his percussion class to sing happy birthday to me. they all had different instruments -- claves, cabasa, ratchet -- and would sing a phrase and then bang on their instrument. "happy birthday to you" -- BANG! BANG! BANG!!! i was ridiculously pleased with this.


my favoritest birthday card to send