Big Decisions

"Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come." ~Robert H. Schuller

One of my last posts talked about a job opportunity that I had in Kuna, Idaho. After speaking to my Dad about it I really started thinking about it! I did math (shocker, yeah?) and figured things out. I know that I couldn't afford to live here with a part-time job! It was a hard thing to come to; I didn't want to accept that. It was a scary thing for me to accept! In fact, I'm still not sure if I've fully accepted it yet. But, I know that I couldn't afford it. It is such a wonderful opportunity for me and I'm so grateful for the support and love that I have from my mentor teacher in finding this job for me! I'm grateful she helped me fill out that application and helped me realize that I really could do it! I know that the Lord has other plans for me though and I need to follow that!

Another decision I've had to make had to do with Institute Choir. I have really enjoyed being in the Institute Choir! I miss Collegiate pretty much every day of my life! The friends that I made there and then the music we would create; man I miss it! It feels nice to be a part of a choir again! Several weeks ago Brother and Sister Knight asked if I could learn a piano piece for our Christmas performance. I was so excited!!! It is a jazz arrangement of "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and it is so much fun to play! I've been working on it for weeks and I'm finally getting it! On Wednesday Brother and Sister Knight announced that our performance will be on December 1! I was so excited! After choir Sister Knight and Brother Knight asked if I would be interested in conducting a small group for the performance! Of course I was all over that!! I accepted and then went on my way!

Well, when I got home I checked the dates and realized that I would miss 3/5 rehearsal we'd have before we performed! That just isn't acceptable! I thought to myself that I could try and squeeze it into my schedule and do my best to get it done, or I could drop it all together! Again, after much prayer and thought I decided that I can't do it anymore. I was broken hearted and I couldn't really handle it! I called my parents on Friday night before I went and watched part of the BYU vs. BSU game (go Cougars!!!) and talked to them about it! More than anything I just wanted to be home and have all of these decisions past me. I spoke to my parents for a little bit and they gave me great comfort in my decisions. I haven't taken care of them yet, but I am this next week. I'm nervous about it, but I know that I cannot do these things! These decisions have been some of the hardest I have ever had to make, and yet I know that the Lord is going to help me get through it all.

I Met Iron Man!!!

The last few days I've been working at Skyview High School's Haunted House! My job is to escort the people out who get really scared and don't think they can go on. I thought my job was going to be pointless because I thought it was going to be cheap and lame, but it was really quite elaborate! Scott went all out on this! On Friday I was there and, in all honesty, I really didn't want to be there! I had had a rough week and a particularly rough day and I just wanted to go home and go to sleep!

I was standing by my spot and I saw that a little boy (about three years old) was scared and they started walking him over to me. His Mom told him that I would take care of him and he grabbed my hand and we walked out. When we got outside I looked down at him and my heart broke! He had blonde curly hair, big blue eyes that were full of tears, and his bottom lip was poking out a little bit! I sat down with him on the concrete and asked what his name was. He responded by saying his full name! I smiled at him and noticed that he was wearing an Iron Man costume. I gasped and asked if he was Iron Man. His face lit up and he said, "No. It's just a costume!" I laughed and told him that he looked like Iron Man! He giggled and started pulling on his costume, "No, I'm not Iron Man see!" He was the cutest little boy ever! It didn't take long for his family to get out of the Haunted House, but those few minutes with Iron Man really turned my day around!

As I've been thinking about that small exchange I couldn't help but laugh because God knows me so well! He knew what I was feeling and that I was struggling! He knew that I needed that light around me at that time! He knew that I needed the chance to serve and help somebody else! God is aware of me and He hasn't forgotten me! He loves me and wants me to be successful in everything I do! I'm so grateful for His love and for the chance I have to strive to be more like Him every day!

Conquering Fears

“It’s OKAY to be scared. Being scared means you’re about to do something really, really brave.” 
                 ~ Mandy Hale

I, in all honesty, am scared right now . . . according to this quote, that means I'm about to do something really, really brave. Last week my mentor teacher let me know about a job position opening in Kuna, Idaho for a part-time choir teacher. I was so excited to find out about the job opportunity and have my first real job in my field! But, at the same time, it's really scary for me too! I'd be fairly far from home which isn't necessarily bad, but it's just very different than I'm use to. I, fortunately, called both of my parents and let them know about it. My Dad and I had a really nice conversation about what kinds of things I need to think about when it comes to considering this job. Will I be able to afford to live here? Think about rent, food, gas, insurance, etc.

I've filled out the paperwork and am currently waiting for hear back from them. Joie has talked to them and they said I would at least be getting an interview! We'll see what happens!! I'm doing a lot of praying and studying to see if I could do it. Here's to hoping! :)

Critical Mass Experience

This last week has been one of the craziest, and yet one of the most rewarding experiences of my life! I had the opportunity to perform in a professional choir! This choir is made up of people from Opera Idaho, music teachers with their master's and doctorates, and it was crazy intimidating for me to sing with them! We had the music for a total of two weeks before we performed it. It was absolutely insane! Monday night I had Back-to-School night until 9:00pm. Then on Wednesday night I had institute until 8:45pm. Thursday and Friday I had rehearsals in Boise from 6:30-10:00pm. Needless to say, I was exhausted all week! And yet, I still went in every morning with a good attitude and ready to teach! It was wonderful!!
Saturday I arrived at Borah high school at 9:30am. I saw our Madrigals choir standing outside the building. One of the students yelled, "Hey look guys, it's Ms. Anderson!" and then started running to me! It was quite hilarious! The doors were locked, so we decided to play a game while we waited. We ended up playing Signs! These kids are amazing! Back-story, this choir performance ended up being the same night as Homecoming. We presented the students with the option of coming and performing with the Critical Mass choir or going to Homecoming. They students discussed it with each other and came back and decided they wanted to perform! After the concert, they went and had their own party as a choir! How cute are they!? It was a wonderful experience to perform with my students! They are all such wonderful kids and it was a pleasure performing with them! They rocked it!!!

Mrs. Cariaga, Madrigals Choir, and myself at the Critical Mass performance Saturday evening.

These kids are amazing! They gave up their Homecoming dance to perform with Mrs. Cariaga and I! We have the best kids!

 Then, today, I had the chance to perform just with the Critical Mass choir (no high school students; they were missed) at the St. Michael Episcopal Cathedral in Boise. Oh my goodness, one of the most gorgeous buildings I had ever seen! They had stain-glass windows everywhere and it was just amazing! I learned that the reason they had stain-glass windows is because most of the mass text is in Latin and they used the windows to tell the story. Also, a majority of the people couldn't read Latin either; so they let the windows translate the story! It's like subtitles, but slightly different! It was cool to see some of the different links that this religion had with my own. It was an incredible experience to be able to sing in this beautiful building! I hope to be able to do it again some day!
It was amazing to be there and hear people in the choir open up about their personal religious views. I had some amazing conversations with several people in the choir about their religious views and it was incredible! I'm not going to lie, I admired these people for having such powerful testimonies of their own. They would share their testimonies (I'm not sure if that's what they would call it) with me and I was able to appreciate their dedication to their faith. There was a couple of people that I talked to that I was envious of their dedication. Not that I'm lazy with my testimony by any means; but I think there are times when I'm not the example of Christ that I could be. I struggle sometimes, just like most people. But, I know that I have the opportunity to repent and strive to be better every day!
I'm grateful, once again, for this opportunity and the chance I had for my testimony to grow! I'm grateful for good music too! It truly made for a wonderful experience!

Today I had the chance to perform in St. Michael's Episcopal Cathedral in Boise. This was my favorite window there!

My favorite window!

My friend, Tyler, and I went to BYU-Idaho together! It was so great seeing him at the rehearsals!

Performance time at St. Michael's Cathedral!!!

Day One of Student Teaching: Culture Shock!

What a day!! I got up early enough that I could be at the school by 6:30 am; yes, by my own will! I went early enough so I could practice singing because I haven't done it for quite some time! Eric, the band teacher, told me I was sounding really good! It was really sweet of him to say!

I then got to go help with registration at 7:00 and that was kind of fun! It was hard to hear the students say their last name so I had to keep asking them what it was . . . it made me feel really old! I experienced quite a bit of culture shock as well! The dress standards of these students is so different than anything I'm use to! Even in my high school, I feel like the "short-shorts" weren't as short as the ones these young ladies were wearing! Some of the t-shirts that the young men were wearing were completely inappropriate, and it was just a huge culture shock!

It also amazes me how open some of the students are about their personal lives! There were several shocking things that I learned, and it seriously blew my mind! As naive as this sounds, I had no idea that teen pregnancies were real! I've heard statistics, I have read stories, but it never really connected with me! And yet, as uncomfortable as I felt being pushed out of my comfort-zone it made me love and appreciate the students more. They are so different from me in beliefs and knowledge; I'm not just talking about secular knowledge like music, but spiritual knowledge! I have so many things that I can offer them, most importantly knowledge of who they can become!

Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't me preparing on giving them a sermon about who they are and who they can become. As a public school teacher, I'm not allowed to do that! :) But, by how I treat them and talk about them (whether they are there or not) I am showing them their potential! I am showing them how much I care and love them! I am showing them that they are important to me and that I am willing to serve them in any way possible! I don't think I've ever been so scared to be in such a different place before in my life (there's a gym that is part of our complex and I don't even feel safe walking there in the dark by myself! In Rexburg, I would have had no problem. Here, I literally drive my car down one hundred yards so I can go to the gym!)! And yet I know that this is where God needs me. I'm meant to touch these student's lives and they are meant to touch mine.

My philosophy is that I am not the only teacher in my classroom. We are all teachers and we are all students! I look forward to being a student in these classes and learning from my students this year! It's going to be a good one!

Night on the Town!

Yesterday I received a post on my Facebook wall from my friend Lindy! She is one of my dear friends from Rexburg and she is in the area. I got so incredibly excited and we made plans to do something last night. She picked me up and we went out to eat at Red Robin. That place is so good! We split a Guacamole Bacon Burger and had these delicious drinks! I am not sure what it was called, but it was an amazing smoothie with a slice of pineapple on the side of the glass!

Then we ran to the fabric store Jo Ann's. Lindy was looking for some fabric to make her husband a pirate shirt for Halloween. While she did that Clara (Lindy's daughter) and I ran around the store and were playing games. I sincerely hope we didn't bother anybody, but I was having too much fun being chased, pretending we were animals, and just goofing off to really consider it in the moment.

After we finished at Jo Ann's we went to visit Lindy's sister, Jennifer. Her family is so sweet! I got Jennifer's phone number and she's become one of my "adopted mom's" while I'm here. Lindy also mentioned to me that she would be telling her Mom that I need to come up sometime and visit. I don't have a Mom, or even a motherly figure, close by so Lindy said, "I want to share mine with you!" It is so sweet of her to do that! We spoke with Jennifer and her daughters for a little while. One of them is in high school and said that she was going to stop by every now and then to say hi to me! I'm really excited, I already have a student who wants to do that! Jen's other daughter is in Middle School and said that I needed to talk Joie into bringing her second period choir over to the Middle school to perform. I told her I'd see what I could do!

That visit with Jennifer made me feel so much better about going into the high school. I was really scared and nervous about all of the high school students. I met a few the other day (all freshmen) that just seemed like they didn't care, nor were they in any hurry to change their attitude! And I thought, well if the freshmen are this way, what are the seniors going to be like? But, I'm receiving more peace and comfort from my Heavenly Father in small and simple ways; meeting Jennifer and her family was one of them! God knows me so well and I'm so grateful for His love and support and His willingness to help me through these new changes in my life!

What holds you back?

I had the blessed opportunity to participate with my mentor teacher, Mrs. Cariaga, in a Freshmen Boot Camp. Honestly, it was so much fun! I am feeling so blessed for the chance I have to work not only with these students, but also with the wonderful teachers here at this school! They are all so cool and truly treat me like an authority figure!

The Freshmen Boot Camp was like Get Connected on a much smaller scale. Instead of it being three days, it was about three and a half hours. We fed them, gave them a run down on what was happening, and then split them off into groups of fifteen to twenty students. In those groups they would travel to different stations and hear different talks given by some of the faculty. I, of course, was with Mrs. Cariaga. For the basis of her seminar she used the acronym S.O.S. which stands for "Starting Off Strong". She had the students listen to a TED talk by a man named Neil Pasricha. His talk is entitled The 3 A's of Awesome (I highly recommend listening to it). He started a blog called 1,000 Awesome Things. This story he shares in his TED talk is that he had (and does have) a really good life. However, in 2008 things started going south. Some big things in his life happened and he became kind of frustrated. So, instead of looking to the negative he started looking for the little things in life that are awesome! A few of the examples from the blog are: finding money you didn't know you had lost, sleeping in new bed sheets, illegal naps, rain hair, and so many others! These are all things that we take for granted every day! There is so much good in the world, but we don't see it because we decide to focus on the bad! Stop it!

Pasricha gives 3 A's of Awesome and they are: Attitude, Awareness, and Authenticity. He speaks a little bit about all of them, but my favorite was when he talked about Authenticity. He shared the story of a 6' 5", 300 pound NFL player "Rosie" Greer. "Rosie" was part of the "Fearsome Foursome" and you did not want to go up against him in a game! However, he had another passion besides playing football; needlepoint! He didn't try to hide the fact either, he was very open about his love for needlepoint! Mrs. Cariaga's point with all of this is that we need to be confident with who we are. Just because we like something that our friends don't doesn't mean we need to hold back! You are wonderful just the way you are!

Mrs. Cariaga shared a quote by Denis Waitley that says: "It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you are not." I've been thinking a lot about that. This week one of my goals has been to get into the habit of going to the gym again. I decided I would start jogging again, but I would never call myself a jogger. Mrs. Cariaga and I were talking and she was talking about how she's training for a half marathon. I commented on how "I could never do that; I'm not a runner." This morning when I went to the gym there were some sisters there doing some form of aerobics (I saw them the other morning when I went to the gym as well). The first they said when they saw me was, "Look, it's the runner! How are you this morning?"

I spoke to them for a moment before I started my jog. As I started my warm-up I thought about the Waitley quote. Because I think I'm not a runner, I haven't really tried to do it. I didn't think I could run at all! So, I made a goal right then and there! I was going to run today; not jog, but run! I started getting excited and I could hardly wait! I did it! I ran and it felt amazing! I wish I had thanked the sisters for saying such a positive thing for me. It gave me the chance to really open my mind to another side of me that I can be, if I believe I can be.

It doesn't matter what aspect in our lives that we feel this, but we cannot let our "I'm not" thoughts hold us back! There's a difference between "I'm not good enough" and "I can do better". The first is hopeless; it is telling you something you are not. It's negative, and negative thoughts don't encourage action to move forward and change. "I can do better" is positive! It shows action and the desire to improve! That's what we want! I know that, in the past, I have said that I'm "not good enough at blank." But that just isn't true! I can improve and work in areas that I can do better in! There's always room for improvement, we just need to obtain the desire to do so.