The joy of Citation Machine

If you ever have to write a research paper, this website is the way to go! It has all different formatting (MLA, APA and Chicago style) and will basically do the formatting for you as long as you have the correct information. This has saved me SO much time typing papers and I wanted to share the joy of this website with you. Use the link in my Favorites to get there. Happy writing!

SNOW DAY...of research

I am so thankful that we have a snow day today. At my grad. school class on Monday night, I was reminded that we have an annotated bibliogrpahy and an abstract for my research paper due this COMING Monday. Needless to say, I was beginning to feel overwhelmed because I hadn't even begun to do any research for the paper and felt a bit crazy. After flying through the Mc Donald's at 8:30 that night on my way home from class, I flew upstairs to the computer hoping to find articles for my paper. So far, I am hoping to write about Nazi reception of the music of Schoenberg and Mendelssohn but the articles are leading me down a path of frustration. I spent all evening last night reading and scouring for articles and have now spent all of today until now doing the same. Have you ever gotten a headache from reading on the computer? If not, don't do it. Its no good. Thank you God for giving me this day at home because if I had to do all this work without a snow day, I think I might lose my mind.

Wicked

On Tuesday night, Kyle and I went to see the musical Wicked at Playhouse Square downtown. You might think that this sounds like a date and I guess it was, since we also had over 250 6th-12th graders along on the trip. This was the first time that Kyle and I have ridden a school bus together. Now how many married couples can say they've done that?

Anyway, the musical was FANTASTIC! It is the untold story of the Wicked Witch of the West before Dorothy dropped in. I had seen it 3 years ago in Chicago and I love this show not only for the music but also for the witty characters and creative lighting and scenery. This show is touring the country now for its third year in a row and if it comes to your city, go and see it! Maybe not with 250 kids though.

Hope's Chapel CD

If you have not heard Hope's Chapel CD from this past year (2007), you really should! It has such a different sound than what they did when I was there but still quite reminiscent of the dreams I had for that program my senior year of college. The new CD is called "Awake My Soul" and can be bought at the bookstore or online. I think that the new worship director Josh Banner is doing great things for the campus ministry program.

My trip back to Hope

This past weekend, my college room mate Amy and I went back to Hope to give a short presentation to the current music education majors. We had such a great time! I woke up early on Saturday and drove to Amy's house in Detroit where I left my car and she and I drove to Holland. We walked around downtown on Saturday afternoon and then headed to Dr. Sharp's house where we stayed for the evening. The Sharps treated Amy and I better than family! They made us delicious food including chicken marsala, risotto, stir fried veggies as well as a home made pear tart. We each had our home room to stay for the night and our own bathroom. It was great! We stayed up eating and talking to them until after midnight. They taught us this great game with dice called Farkle. I can't wait to teach you!

On Sunday, Amy and I woke to the sound of choirs and organ music and the smell of frsh crepes. It was so wonderful to stay with the Sharps and they were so generous to extend the gift of hospitality to us. That afternoon, Amy and I talked for an hour and a half to the music ed. majors and shared some of the things we learned in our first two years teaching that no one shared with us before we started. My professor and coopoerating teacher, Mr. De Boer is now in charge of the Hope chapter of MENC so I got to see him too! I love mentoring students and I hope that this made them feel not only empowered but that they can call me if they need to vent about teaching. It was great to be back. Amy and I left Holland that afternoon and drove back to her house in Detroit. I drove back to Cleveland Monday morning and I am happy to say that my friend Amy is only 3 hours away. It was a really easy drive. Coming back to Hope couldn't have been better!

Cold and snow

I told you that I'd hoped school was cancelled yesterday and it came true. Over 600 school closings took place yesterday due to sub zero wind chills. I still had my class last night at CSU but thankfully the drive there are back was pretty good.

Today, we did have school but now we have a LOT of snow. Its still coming down outside and we are under a winter storm warning until 11:00 tonight. My happiness of this day is that parent teacher conferences were supposed to happen tonight and luckily that got rescheduled. On conference night last year, we also had a huge blizzard and I was never more terrified to drive than I was that night. So, I am home and warm now and Kyle should be home soon. Now to try to tackle the driveway...

Cold in Cleveland

This past week has been busy but all in all, it was quite good. Thank you to those that sent their well wishes and prayers for my family. We could feel your love so much and I think that the funeral couldn't have gone better. My parents' long time family friend was the minister for the service and spoke very highly of my grandpa and presented the message of salvation through Jesus Christ in a way that I know many found accessible. It was a military funeral with a 21 gun solute and at the end, one trumpet played taps while the ROTC members folded the flag and presented it to my family. I know that my grandpa would have been pleased. It was great to see my family in Kentucky again and really great that Kyle got to meet many of my relatives that he'd never seen before.

This week was the first full week of school we've had since the start of the year. Between snow, power outages and holidays, its been a slower start to the new year. Although we lost our soccer game on Friday, no one got hurt (unlike last week when my friend Becky broke her arm). Since this, I have been a little more cautious in my playing but I now have 2 black and blue knees as a souvenir of our loss.

Kyle and I had a real bargain day yesterday. Great Clips has a promotion for $6 haircuts this week so we both got new hairdo's and got more FREE Applebee's at another restaurant opening last night. If you have never tried a pomagranate margarita, it is the best! Despite the cold weather, I felt like I was on vacation. It is REALLY cold and windy out now (-15 wind chill) and I am hoping it remains this way by tomorrow morning...