8.28.2003

 
I LOVE GRAD SCHOOL. Oh my goodness. I'm happy. I'm taking four kick-ass classes that are EXACTLY what I wanted to study, unlike undergrad which sometimes just isn't, and I'm teaching two classes with the cutest little freshmen anyone has ever seen; they're just adorable. So young. I had my first real teaching gig today (I wasn't paid for student teaching and therefore don't count it). =) Both classes went really well, and I'm eager to get into more complex stuff with them. This is going to be fun. I also have an office all to myself... I'm the only TA in the music school who can say that, because there were an odd number of us and my advisor decided it would be my turn to be alone first. This means that not only do I have a personal space on campus to keep my snacks, extra books, and various school supplies, but I also have a piano that's all mine, mine mine mine, and I can practice whenever I want. YAY! I feel like a little kid. I'm elated when I walk around campus and when I get to take only a notebook and a pen to class instead of lugging around all the stuff I need for the day... boy, people with offices really have it made. =) Okay, enough about that.

So the classes I'm taking are Symphonic Literature, Theory Pedagogy, Theory & Analysis of Tonal Music, and Editing Early Music for those keeping score at home. I opted out of Russian Piano Music because the class is still TBA (four days into the semester) and I'm really enjoying Symphonic Lit. I knew I'd like the professor, and I was right; he's excited to be teaching this class, and he's demanding in a very positive way. He teaches the music history portion of the freshman class for which I'm a TA, so I'm working with him twice; I'm also taking Theory Pedagogy from the professor who's teaching the music theory portion, so he gets to teach me twice how to teach. He's even going to have the Pedagogy class members do observations of graduate TAs, so some people from my class are going to have to watch me teach. Ugh. That part isn't so great, but I'll deal with it when the time comes, and I'm sure it'll be fine. In the Editing Early Music class we've been transcribing a 15th century manuscript into modern notation for homework, which is actually really fun and works well in my mathematical-type brain, even though I feel like I should be doing it by candlelight or something like the monks used to do. See? In my office, I can pretend to be a medieval monk while I do my homework, and no one will know. Mwa ha haaaaa.

Wow, I'm having a silly afternoon. This is one of the few times this semester I'll actually be home before 5... I have classes late most days and at that point in the afternoon, it takes at least 20 minutes to battle traffic out of campus. It's terrible. I even drive the opposite direction as my apartment to get on the highway because 5:00 traffic on I-10, horrendous though it sometimes is, is preferable to the one-lane, 2-mph-if-I'm-lucky mess coming out of LSU. It's just bad. Luckily I have to be there quite early in the morning (my first classes every day are in the 8:00 hour), so if I get to campus by 7:30, traffic isn't bad at all. That gives me some time to put my stuff down in my OFFICE (room 280 if you're planning a visit), walk over to the coffeehouse if I so desire, and warm up at the piano or do whatever I want. I could get used to getting up early. Did I just say that? Who was that freak who just wrote that? Wow, I'm becoming an adult. Be careful; it could happen to you too.

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