Cruise

Back in the USA!

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What a fantastic vacation! We made it home safely this evening, and we are completely exhausted, but had such a wonderful time. I will try to do a recap of the week’s events in the upcoming posts, and include some pictures as well. Basically all my planning really paid off–the excursions I booked NOT through the ship worked out fantastically (thank you cruisecritic!) and I even got to eat iguana. I took over 500 photos, and need to go through them and pick out a few to share.

This week starts slow, but it starts tomorrow nonetheless. I have a meeting with my new parents and students at Good Shepherd Lutheran School and hope to meet a few more of the students. I’ve basically got my schedule worked out, I think, though no real progress was made while I was gone. I have quite a few emails to go through, though oddly no calls (unless my voicemail is acting up?). If you called me, please call again!

My running is behind schedule. I managed to do a lot of working out on vacation, but the treadmills on the cruise were really too hot to use for long (very much in the sun) and for a few days before the cruise I had managed to hurt my shoulder, so I’m a bit behind. I will just have to buckle down for the next five weeks.

Cruise, Food

Lucky

I was thinking yesterday how lucky I am that I am able to go on a fun vacation every year.  Not everybody is able to get away for a week or two and do something different, and I am really appreciative that I can.  Sometimes I get a bit jealous of other people’s travels, but I am glad to be able to experience what I can.   It’s always good to put things in perspective in your mind, and be sure to appreciate what you have!

When I was a child, we traveled quite a bit in the summer as well–I have been to many of the 50 states and visited many National Parks, along with lots of SC and FL beaches.  I have many journals and scrapbooks from my childhood travels.  These days I blog instead of journaling 😉 and take pictures.

Additionally, I have friends and family who travel and bring me back nice souvenirs.  I was given a beautiful (yet a bit overwhelming!) blouse from China for my birthday.  I took a picture of it yesterday as I wanted to share this picture with the person who gave it to me.

I have been working hard the last week, both preparing for my upcoming cruise, and getting ready for the beginning of school.  I am gone until after school starts, which is fine as it’s nice for the kids to get accustomed to their new school schedule and then start violin lessons or classes.  It just means I will need to basically hit the ground running, or at least at a brisk jog.

I have mentioned my upcoming cruise several times in my blog.  Let me tell you more about the plans!  We are going out of Tampa on an “Exotic Western Caribbean” itinerary.  We will be visiting Georgetown, Grand Cayman; Cozumel, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; and Isla Roatan, Honduras.  In the Caymans (where I have been before!) we are planning to do a jet ski excursion where we will jet ski around the island, visit “Stingray City” where we will be able to pick up stingrays and “pet” them, and probably hit up a beach as well.  We should also have time to get lunch where I really want to get some conch fritters.  In Cozumel we are going to a beautiful beach resort for the day and might also do parasailing!  Belize we are going to Xunantunich Mayan Ruins, and in Roatan we have a private island tour booked.  Roatan seems to be the least built up of all the ports (though Carnival just built a gigantic complex on the beach there) so I am particularly looking forward to it!  We have several “excursions” that I booked through private companies versus paying a premium for the ship tours.  I haven’t done this before, but I read many many reviews online of various activities and feel pretty secure in my choices.

While in Tampa we will be visiting a good friend from when I lived in Cleveland, and spending a few days there as well.  Several years ago Chris and I spent a week in St. Petersburg, Florida, and one of our favorite places was the Salvador Dali Museum.  I think we might go back there!  On that previous visit we also went to several Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now just the Rays) games and the Holocaust Museum.  The Rays are out of town, and while I remember the Holocaust Museum being very good, it was of course very sad and depressing.  We’ll also see what our friend recommends to do, as she now lives there year round.

We got a great deal on the cruise since we are going after school starts up (it seemed the rates dropped then).  I used priceline to get a hotel and a rental car, and felt good about those rates as well.  Can you tell how excited I am?

I hope to be able to continue my half marathon training while on vacation.  I will get a little behind on the long runs, I think, but should hopefully be able to run 4 or 5 miles every day or two.  I plan to eat as much as possible though 🙂

Teaching

The great rewards debate

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It seems that the question of rewarding children can be a good debate. I finally finished the Alfie Kohn book, “Punished by Rewards” and brought up some of the points tonight at a friend’s house. Most of my friends (many are teachers) swear by stickers and the like for their students (younger). I loved stickers as a child as well!

It seems that it boils down to external motivation versus internal motivation, and how the child needs to move towards being internally motivated in order to learn and grow.

Of course, I am not really internally motivating to practice the violin…though I love the violin, I am still externally motivated to practice. I don’t practice for fun or love of playing, I practice FOR things like a gig, an audition, a recital, or because I am afraid of sounding bad in front of people. I suppose if I’m not internally motivated now to play, I never will be. Then again, I do practice quite a bit…maybe it’s just that I was always shown that practicing was a means to an end? Or perhaps I just don’t love the violin as much as I love other things?

The author used the example of the “Book It” program as a bad program for getting children to read. This was a program from Pizza Hut where children got free pizzas for reading books. I loved reading books as a child, and also loved pizza–this program combined the two! Mr. Kohn suggested that the program didn’t make children want to read, and at most would make children eat too much pizza. I do recall that I always read plenty of books, regardless of the pizza, and hated when I was required to write a summary or something like that. I am definitely internally motivated to read–I read for fun, I read when I am bored, I read to entertain myself, I get lost in books and the time flies by. I don’t need a reason to read, and would probably list it as one of my favorite activities. Then again, I was brought up seeing my parents read all the time and learned from a young age how great reading could be. The pizza was just a bonus!

In any case, the book was thought-provoking, and evidently quite controversial. I will have to try out some of the ideas with my upcoming classes.

Random thought: I am writing a book report of sorts for fun here, and I’m not getting pizza for it (in fact, my trainer would definitely 🙁 upon the idea of pizza). I’m just doing it because I like to blog. Hmmmmm…also no one made me read the book…I read it because it was recommended by a teacher I respect and wanted to learn more about it.

(I guess it boils down to this: no one can motivate you to do something, you have to choose to do it. I think that is true.)

Teaching

Excessive Heat

Today is another excessive heat warning day here.  I’m just thankful I haven’t had to play outdoors in awhile!  August is usually a slow month for weddings, and this August is no exception–in fact I have only played one wedding so far this month, and will only play two or three more.   September and October really explode though.

I spent Thursday evening at Good Shepherd Lutheran School’s Registration.  I’m the new violin/strings teacher there (part time) so I spent several hours hoping to meet parents/students and answer questions.  We have another open house before lessons start up there.  It looks like about 10 to 12 had signed up, and hopefully a few more will yet.  I’ll be teaching private lessons during school and having a small orchestra program also.

This week I’ll have open house at Child of God Lutheran School (my other new job this year!).  The program is only one year old, and the previous teacher did group classes.  I plan to continue that, and hope to get last year’s kids back in addition to adding a few new ones (or more than a few, I’m not picky 😉 ).

I also will be continuing at the Ballet School and (I presume) at St. Margaret of Scotland. (And continuing my home studio).  Basically I will likely be teaching somewhere four to five days a week, and I can’t wait!  After a few years of barely working, it will be really interesting to be at so many different places and meeting so many new students and, of course, teaching them to play the violin.

Teaching

Teaching

It looks like this year should be full of teaching! I will be doing several new things, and I look forward to the challenge.

I was talking with someone today regarding the merits of rewards versus the no rewards school of thought. As a child, I actually worked really well towards rewards. I haven’t finished the no rewards book yet…(got caught up with some Sookie Stackhouse and other things 😉 ) but I am reserving judgment on the matter. I was realizing how many concepts, ideas, details, thoughts on teaching, etc, that I have been exposed to this past year and a few months, and how I have barely had any time to utilize those ideas or let them sink in. Hopefully this year I will be able to do that! Then by summer, I will be ready to attend either another Suzuki Institute or maybe Mimi Zwieg’s Institute, or perhaps something else. Though I have no intention (at this time…) of continuing formal schooling, I want to continue to learn. There are so many things in the world I don’t know…

Travel

Back in town, for a bit

Okay, I’m back now. Two more weeks of summer teaching left, then cruise, then it’s back to school/fall schedule. I still feel at odds as I don’t have my schedule set, but I’m just going to have to try to relax because things are out of my control right now as far as that goes. I’m sure by the beginning of September I will know what days and approximate times I am working! (teeth gritted, palms sweating).

I had a great time visiting family in South Carolina, both in my hometown of Clinton, and also at Surfside Beach. I was able to just relax for a few days and read a few mystery novels instead of my usual education books 🙂

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.