Yours portly is back into the swing of things at school, and therefore have not had much time to write.  I meant to hammer out a post last night after work, but the siren song of Civilization VII, coupled with post-teaching relaxation, was too strong to resist.  As such, here’s a quick update:

School is going well so far.  I have a massive High School Music Ensemble this year, to the point that we’re overflowing our tiny Music Room.  But the kids are eager to learn, and we’ve been diving directly into some challenging material, like Supertramp’s “The Logical Song.”  We’ve also started working on David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” which has some wild chord extensions (I love teaching the kids A7sus4, which is not as hard as it looks—just A, D, E, and G).

Middle School Music Ensemble is comparatively smaller at just seventeen students, but just three fewer kids makes for a lot more room.  They’ve been working on some “oldies,” with a heavy emphasis on Ben E. King:  “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Spanish Harlem,” and “Stand By Me.”  We’re also learning a simplified version of the theme song from Ghostbusters (1984).  The younger guitar students are started to catch on to the chords, as are my newer piano students.

Lessons are off to a slower start, as most students like to wait until the second week of school to start taking them, but they will pop off very soon.  I’m currently looking at at least eleven lessons next week.  Assuming I don’t have any cancellations, I’ll finish this week having taught six.

World History is going well.  We’ve been covering prehistory and early humans, and the kids are having fun learning about Ötzi the Ice Man.

I’ll be proctoring the SAT Saturday morning, and I’m calling the varsity football game Friday night.  Then I’m back at the Methodist Church Sunday to play piano.  Shew!  Dr. Fiancée will in town Saturday, which is exciting.

That’s it for now.  Back to regular programming tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday!

—TPP