Tag 3

I've been tagged! by Holly, thanks. (my first time ever) I almost didn't recognize it since I haven't been Marie F. for very long (only 2 years, ha ha)

I'm supposed to name 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random/surprising facts about myself, then tag 3 people. Here goes:

3 Joys

1. The gospel of Jesus Christ. In the scriptures the word joy is used mostly in connection with Christ. I think it's important to remember that true joy comes through Christ, and that anything in our life that brings us joy is given to us by Him. I especially like 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,"compared with 2 Nephi 2:25, "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." To me that says even so in Christ all might have joy. And yes, this is me waxing philosophical.


2. My husband, JP. I feel like I'm more in love with him than ever before. This may seem cheesy or cliche, but it's definitely true. He is a joy in my life.


3. Music, especially classical music. Listening to music, playing music (I play the viola), all of it. I'm missing it a little right now because of the symphony break, and my students not showing up. I love music, and I'm grateful for all of the people that taught me that love, including my music teachers. But especially Holly who taught me how to listen to music, and not just play it.

3 Fears

I have worked hard to overcome fears in my life, including heights, and being in front of people. The ones I'm currently working on are water/fish and spiders, so I guess technically I'm still afraid of them some, but I've come a long way. We now have a fish named Haiku, and I've been swimming 8 or so times this summer, and I've killed a handful of spiders in my house (big progress.) So things I'm still afraid of:

1. Snakes, we saw one on a hike in Yellowstone this year. It was afraid and got away fast, but I still didn't like it. And I didn't like walking past them in the pet store yesterday either.


2. Not getting enough done/procrastinating. I think that's what puts me on edge and makes me high strung. The interesting thing is, it's still not enough to keep me motivated for a whole 8 hour period. *sigh* So it sort of ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.


3. Failure... not being good enough at something, whether that's teaching violin or being a wife or mother. I've had a lot of successes in my life, but I haven't really learned to deal with failure. And I don't even have a good definition of what failure is to me, which is why it continues to be a looming fear, instead of one I can conquer.

3 Goals

1. Suzuki teaching; I want to build my violin/viola studio, and I want to improve my teaching skills.


2. The "Scrapbook Pile:" we have a huge pile in our bedroom of all the stuff we've both collected over the years. There's photos, certificates, memorabilia, souvenirs.... everything. It needs to be gone through, de-junked, and made functional. Included with that goal is putting together something about our wedding, a small scrapbook, or wall hanging that I can feel happy with so I can feel like it's documented and I can move on. Also, the family history stuff we've been collecting and we want to work on more keeps migrating to that pile.


3. Health; I want to get more in shape through yoga and running. I did really well last month, with water aerobics, and even ran with the high school cross country team one day, and then we went to Yellowstone, came back, and all of the sudden I quit. So hopefully I can jump back in here soon.

3 Current Obsessions/Collections

This is a good one for me because I live my life obsession to obsession. I read about them, and research them, and talk to everyone about them, and then I move on to another one, having sponged up everything I can. I guess the overarching obsession of all of these is reading. So these are my three most recent.

1. Birthing. I have two friends that got me started on this. One friend had 2 home births, and the other friend is planning a home birth. I'm not sure that I would want a home birth, but my mom had a midwife for her last few births, and I think that's the way that I would like to go. Luckily I don't have to decide anything right now, and I have a lot of time to keep reading and researching. But if anyone has suggestions on great midwives in the Salt Lake area, let me know.


2. Homeschool. I've been researching homeschool because I know I'm going to homeschool my children, at least for the elementary school years. JP and his siblings were homeschooled, and my parents are teaching my siblings at home now.


3. Sign Language. I've always loved ASL, and as I learned about signing with children as a second language and pre-speech communication tool I've loved it. In my research ran across Signing Time! and think it's really fun. I also studied deafness, and deaf culture somewhat. I learned a lot, and then got a job working with a boy who is deaf last year.

3 Random/Surprising Facts About Myself

1. I love books, especially childrens books, and poetry.


2. I play the string bass (only classical.)


3. I have two metal rods in my back for scoliosis.

3People to Tag

1. J.P.


2. Mom


3. Brit

Thoughts on my last job...

Now that my job from last year is finished, and I've had some time to process, here's some things that my student and that job taught me:

• Sign Language- I feel like I could now be confident to sign with someone, I learned so many new signs, and the daily practice helped make things become more fluid. Now I want to keep it up so I don't get rusty.
• Discipline Techniques- I even had the district behavior specialist help me. I learned about setting boundaries, and knowing the plan before hand so you don't overreact. It's not the exact techniques I want to use forever, but it's learning and a starting place.
• Endurance- I often said, "It's ok I can wait longer than you." But then I had to stand by that. And to go to work everyday got difficult by the end, but I went and I endured.
• Parenting Skills- Not enough to get me through 24/7, but enough to realize parenting is an extremely big job. Also the importance of bonding and connecting with your own children, and the power that comes through being the mom instead of the babysitter/teacher.
• Early Reading and Math- I saw how many intermediate steps there are to basic reading and math that we sometimes take for granted.
• Mandt Training- How to physically restrain a child, and how to avoid it at all costs.
• Public School- How much I don't like it there, and how much I'm capable of teaching my children.

I also built friendships and relationships, and was able to bond with an angel child. Although he's crazy and frustrated a lot of the time, he really has an angel spirit (as his mom calls it) and is trying his hardest to be heard and understood.

American Sign Language

With the attention the Pepsi commercial "Bob's House" drew during the superbowl to deaf culture, and the nature of my job right now, I've been thinking about American Sign Lanuage a lot. (Yes I did know that deaf joke before the commercial, it's a really common one)
My job right now is to work one on one with a student who is deaf in special ed at an elementary school. I am not an interpreter, but we communicate in ASL. He is behind grade level, so I do a lot of teaching and very little interpreting for other teachers.
I've been surprised at how much sign I've been able to learn in such a little time that I've been working with my student. I knew just enough to get by when I started, and it's been expanding so fast.
A lot of this, especially what I started with, I owe to Signing Time! videos which I found in the library last summer. I now own a couple of them, tivo them every week (click here for a link to the TV Schedule), and watch Rachel's blog and forums regularly. I think they are fun videos, and will be great for helping me to have a signing family.
Another book that I found at the library is Baby Talk: A Guide to Using Basic Sign Language to Communicate with Your Baby by Monica Beyer. I think this is a great introductory book to using Sign Language with babies, and especially a good one to show to the skeptics of signing in your life. It's cute, and concise. Although I believe it would help to have some supplementary vocabulary builders to go along with it, like Signing Time! or the Michigan State ASL browser website. It depends on how much you want to do, and how enthusiastic your toddler is to sign.
Although I don't have a baby of my own yet, signing is definitely in the plans for my family. I am so glad I've had this year to practice and learn with my student at school.
The other thing I've loved is seeing how signing has benefitted some children with disabilities, especially some with Downs Syndrome or Autism. Somehow signing seems to bridge the gap that some of them have with spoken language.

What I Teach

There are some subjects that if you get me started on them I will probably talk your ear off. Especially if you have a question, they are the subjects that I'm afraid I act like a know-it-all about. Recently in an email to my cousin I went off about homeschooling I then apologized and finished up the email with this sentance, "But I do have a goal to encourage and educate people in my passions: homeschool, music, strings, music theory, and sign language [and yoga.]"

I'm sure I will eventually devote more than a blog entry to each of these, and I know that my opinions still have some room to change on all of them, but to get to know me (and not from my uninformative profile) I think you need to understand my veiws on these subjects. So I'm going to present a paragraph (and only one :) ) on each subject.

Music

This one may be somewhat obvious, with my past blog posts, and since I graduated from college with a music degree and my senior year in high school took 5 out of my 8 classes in music. Mostly I just love music: the challenge, the sounds, the comraderie, the teamwork.

Strings

As a music ed major (which I did not finish) I had to learn to play "the other" instruments, the brass and woodwinds. They're OK, but what really floats my boat is the strings, especially the viola and the bass (yes, I am odd, most people like violin and cello, maybe I just enjoy being different, or at least being good.) Which is one reason why I finally graduated in Music - String Pedagogy. It also has something to do with how much I love teaching and I dislike public schools, but that's for a future paragraph. This love of string pedagogy (or teaching strings) has really hit home in the past year or so as I've had a handful of students. I realize how happy I am when I finish teaching a lesson, or how much I enjoy the challenge of trying to find how to connect with a student, will it be a visual representation, or a kinesthetic sense. And how to get them motivated, excited, and listening. It's like the things I love about music in a new channel.

Music Theory

Anyone who has been a music major will doubt this one. Ask nearly any music major what they're least favorite class is and they will say music theory. But ever since I took my first music theory class at 5 years old, or did theory worksheets with my piano teacher it has been my favorite. Maybe it has something to do with how much I love math or the foundation I was given young. Whatever it is my AP Music Theory Class in high school was wonderful, and we all got 5's (highest marks) on the final test. The only stress I remember having with music theory was when I got to college and I was supposed to take the first theory course even though I'd passed the AP test. I found myself crying in Professor Nielsen's office until he asked me what an f sharp was in the key of C and I said "a French sixth chord." Although it was the wrong answer, with a little prompting I got the right answer and he was impressed that I'd even heard of the first one. So this gift of loving theory is one that I hope to pass on to more children through teaching, and to keep this to one paragraph there will need to be a future post on how I plan to do that.

Homeschool

First of all, I was never homeschooled. My husband was homeschooled for most of his life, with some private schools in there. And at this point my brothers and sisters are as well (I'm the oldest of 7 kids, 4 of them are currently homeschooled.) But the main point of this is I plan to homeschool my kids, even though I don't have kids yet. DH and I have discussed often what our philosophy for homeschooling is, and why we want to homeschool. The interesting thing is that some of it is different than our parents, or others we know that homeschool. But the main point is that we will be homeschooling our kids starting last year (with research, building our philosophies, and our own learning). And I want to share with others and encourage homeschooling, although I feel underqualified at this point, since I have little experience. But I do have experience with public school, and I know that's not what I want for my kids, especially in elementary.

Sign Language

I've been extremely interested in sign language ever since Junior High School, I think it's a beautiful language and I've always wanted to learn more. That's why when I heard about baby sign language it was very interesting to me. So last year I began to research, and I've made a few decisions: It's not as hard as it sounds to use sign language with a baby, its about exposure not teaching. It is exciting and helpful for a family to use sign. An actual signed language should be used instead of a made up language, but it's okay to have some family/home signs if necessary. And part of my children's homeschool will be sign language from the time they're very small, (yes, homeschool starts long before the age of 5).

Yoga

Honestly, this one is mostly for me. I like to do yoga, it makes me feel better. Once I asked one of my yoga teachers if she could ever picture me as a yoga teacher (back to "I love teaching"). She said she could, and I now feel that I could at some point too. But there are a lot of other things that come first (as you can see above). For now, yoga is for me; and my children are welcome to join in. (I'm sure I'll research more on baby and children's yoga, so I can still have yoga and my kids too).

In summary: I love teaching! I'm excited to teach my kids. I'm excited to teach lots of other kids about music and theory. And I hope that through teaching my kids I'll be able to gain the experience and confidence to work with other parents as they teach their kids.