A Teacher's Influence & Cheesy Bay Biscuts

So this morning I got this email from the lawyer who taught my last class at St. Mary's: 

Paul;
My wife and I took our granddaughter to dinner last evening. I asked her if she did anything fun at school this week. She excitedly explained that she learned a new song from Mr. Weller. She then began singing something about drinking water from a gourd. The patrons of Red Lobster seated at the surrounding tables would probably agree that Madisun is not the next American Idol, but my wife and I were pleased to see her excited about school.

I am assuming that you are the revered Mr.Weller?

Wow, so now I'm the "Revered Mr. Weller"? Now you all must call me that whenever you address me. All my minions shall unite under me as I am most revered.

AGEHR

Last night I recieved a draft of next month's clapper chatter (Area VII newsletter).  I was anxious to see how my bio turned out and how it compared to my competition.  After paging though to the 5th page, I finally found the bios for the candidates for Chair-elect.  I had kept mine short because I knew that space was an issue.  THe other candidate's bio takes up 3/4's of the page leaving me with a paltry quarter page.  Is that fair?  I suppose I could write back and add to my bio to make it longer, but that would really mess up the layout.  Plus, I feel that I have said all I wanted to say.  It's short, concise and hopefully people will identify with that.  If not, I'll just have more free time on my hands.  
But now that I've seen it in print, I REALLY REALLY want to be chair of Area VII.  

Anyone have any thoughts on this?  What should I do?  I have to say something TODAY if I want it changed in any way.  I could say more about myself and what I want to accomplish as Chair, but is that nessesary.  Here is the bio I posted.  Someone give me some feedback:

PAUL WELLER has been
involved in handbells for over 20 years on both sides of the table. He earned a B.A. in Instrumental Music Education from St. Olaf College and is a certified Orff instructor from the
University of St. Thomas. He is excited and humbled to
be nominated for Chair-Elect of Area VII and hopes to use this position to involve more young adults in the AGEHR organization. Paul is a strong believer in the mission and purpose of AGEHR and wants to keep that legacy strong for
future generations.
Highlights of Paul’s handbell accomplishments
include:
♦ Rang with Twin Cities Bronze for three years
and developed classes for their unique workshop
“Insights Into Artistry”;
♦ Chair of the Area VII Young Ringers Festival for
two years;
♦ Currently directs three handbell choirs at Abiding
Savior Lutheran Church in Moundsview, Minn.;
♦ Established the first handbell podcast dealing
with education and research in handbells.
Paul is a passionate and energetic conductor and
has led numerous workshops around Area VII. In
addition to his many handbell activities, Paul teaches
general music at Jefferson Elementary School in
Blaine, Minnesota, and is earning his Master’s
Degree in Education from St. Mary’s University.

test post from school

okay folks I'm trying to post this via a dashboard widget.  I know that I can be sneaky and blog from school using email, but I am just cuirous if this widget will work too.  here goes.  Happy friday everyone.  

Podcast #3 is up

Hey all you handbell junkies podcast #3 is up and is quite good if I do say so myself. So I expect EVERYONE TO LISTEN TO IT. There will be a test later so y'all better be ready. More exciting stuff coming tomorrow from blogland...but for now I must get some sleep. Sitting in meetings all day and then sitting in class all night is quite tiresome.

Blue pictures

So, I forgot to include this story in with my V-day post.  Some brilliant person thought that Valentines day would be a great time to have school pictures taken.  Yes, let’s get the kids all sugared up and then try to get them to sit still or keep their clothes nice.  As I’m walking by a 1st grade room in the afternoon I see that they are having their v-day party.  It is then that I hear a teacher yell:
“nobody eat anything blue we have pictures in 5 minutes”

Mmmmmmmmm.....blue candy.  

A Great V-day

All I can say is it was wonderful...

Cathy said it best It was a big kid craft fair;

And yes, we did have to drag her away from the Fondue table.  

A new guitar

In the theft last weekend, the thieves stole a guitar that was sitting in my classroom.  They took this guitar out to the playground and performed a great impression of Eddie Vedder (rock guitar legend who was famous for smashing his guitar during performances).  Yesterday the kids found it when they went out and brought it in to me in pieces.  It was very sad.  This morning one of my dear 5th grade girls wrapped up her old guitar and gave it to me to replace the one that was broken.  How wonderful.  The kids at this school really are amazing and caring.  I almost got choked up when she brought it in.  Even with all the bad in the world, it is so heart warming to know that there truly is good trying to beat out the evil.  Happy Valentines day everyone.  I hope this little story warmed your hearts as much as it did mine.  

Much love to you all!

A sad and scary day

Yesterday I got a call from the custodian at school saying that someone had broken in to the music room.  They didn’t take much but when you get there on Monday see what is missing.  So today I walk in and see the disaster that was left for me.  Everything that was on a shelf or in a drawer was taken down and thrown onto the floor.  They took the stereo (but not the speakers), broke the computer and took the keyboard and mouse, took a DVD player, a few recorders, and worst of all they took all of my Koosh Balls!!!!  I know that seems funny, but they don’t make Koosh balls anymore...especially the nice big ones like I had :(  They were $10 a piece and I had 6 of them.  

It’s creepy because they broke in through the window and then knew where the band-aids were in my desk and left bloody fingerprints on the drawer.  I’m really hoping that none of my students did this.  I would be very sad if I found that out.  

I’m very upset by this because the alarm was not turned on because the alarm company had not finished fixing it yet.  What the hell is up with that??!?!?!  I”m sorry but I have thousands of dollars of equipment in here and they think that just because it’s the music room that no one will steal it?!?!? What the hell man.  

More on this later

Calling All Firefly Junkies!

You need to check this site out NOW:

http://www.donetheimpossible.com/index.php

Tell me what you think. Everytime I turn around I see another posting on some blog somewhere about a Firefly project. I think it's great...although some of them are a bit ambitious and hard to beleive. THis one is actually already done and has been shown and will be available for sale soon.

Flat cookies...hot!

a sweet gesture

so, I did a favor for a teacher at school and she promised me cookies in return. Great! I'll do anything for cookies right? So she comes up to m e today apologizing saying that the cookies still taste good but they look wierd. "that's fine" I say, "as long as they still taste good". She is such a nice lady, although a little scatterbrained. So I go back to my room and open up the box of homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were flat and trasparent. Being the cooking snob that I am I immediatly knew that she had forgotten to add the flour to the dough. So while the cookies were quite good it was chocolate chips joined together by butter and sugar. Yum! Pictures to come.

A big day for me

Well everybody I made two VERY HUGE decisions today so be ready to applaud my tenacity (is that the right word?). Not only did I accept the nomination to be the chair-elect of Area VII AGEHR but I also now have HIGH SPEED CABLE INTERNET ACCESS and no longer need to swipe it from neighbors.

Thank you everyone This is such a big day for me I'd like to thank everyone who made it possible for me to get here today...all the little people who I stepped on... DEFAULT wireless router I'd like to thank you the most. If it wasn't for you I would never have known the joys of non-dialup access

See you all in high speed soon!

podcast update

You can now search for the handbell podcast on iTunes! Happy listening everyone...there will be a test later.