Pandora vs Grooveshark

Now that I'm teaching high school I listen to a lot of music during the day. At first I only knew of Pandora for online music. The problem with Pandora is you only get 40 hours worth of listening time and then they kick you off for the month. Even with careful planning I was maxing out with a week go each month.

There is an account tab that will tell you how many hours you have left to listen. This month I'm doing really well and have 17 hours left! That is because I discovered the joys of grooveshark.

Grooveshark has many wonders. At first I thought you could only search the music and make a playlist. Which is pretty cool, but annoying if you just want to listen to music all day. My first hour advanced drawing does enjoy this feature because then they can all request songs and they just line them up in the playlist. When I thought this was all grooveshark could do I didn't use it very much. But then I discovered the stations.

Of course there are not as many options as Pandora where you can choose an artist and it finds like artists, but I really do enjoy it. My favorite station is the Indie station. It has great music that is mellow and the students can draw to it. We did listen to electronica once but it really just made everyone want to dance.

And the final feature that I have found is that you can search other people's playlists. You just search and instead of looking under the songs tab you search playlists. Kind of fun to see what other people are listening to. So go check out grooveshark. It is my new favorite!

My Custom Mug!

You may recall that I love mugs and that I broke a mug I bought from Rachel Akin earlier this year. I saw Rachel at the Plaza Art Fair. Although she had changed up her style a little bit she offered to remake the mug I broke. It arrived a couple weeks ago and I have happily added it back into the morning mug rotation. It is not exactly the same as the one I purchased at the Brookside Art Fair, but it is a wonderful substitution. Now I just need to be careful with this one! Don't want another freak accident in the kitchen.

Good Trade

I stopped by Tom and Tara's this weekend because Tom told me he had gourds that he grew and I should make the students draw. But I got even more than homegrown gourds. Tom took me into the garage, which apparently Tara doesn't ever go and saw the fruit of Tom's hunting. He has several different deer skulls. I was really excited. Skulls are pretty fun to include in a drawing. I have drawn several drawings of bones from college. Then Tom got excited and ran out to the yard to pull another rotting skull from a leaf pile. (Which is where you let them rot according to Tom) That one is not quite ready for the classroom but I'm hoping it will come my way eventually.

After visiting Tom and Tara I walked away with one deer skull, four gourds, and a few magazines for a collage project. All I had to give in return was one vitamin water to Tom. Thanks Tara and Tom! I love me new still life items!

Halloween!

I love Halloween! This year I threw a party at the wonderfully dated condo clubhouse. Costumes were required and everyone came out in full force. Although I wasn't very good at taking pictures, I did get a couple good ones.

Here are the girls. Tara won one of the prizes. Anne didn't want to dress up and then showed up as a homemade pumpkin. Kate was a homemaker and her husband Adam was the milkman. Erica is sporting the bee costume I made a couple of years ago, but added letters to make herself a spelling bee. She also won a prize. and Lisa is of course Twister...which she made. Very impressive ladies!

And here is baby Olivia. She was the hit of the party even when she cried because she didn't recognize her mom as the devil in disguise.

I was a peacock. Although I couldn't find yellow tights I did sport some yellow shoes, that you can't see, with blue tights. My mask spent most of the night on my forehead but you can get the full effect below. I think I left glitter everywhere I went.

Thanks to all those who came to my party! Next year I'll have to plan some themed games. I've already starting thinking about what I want to be next year.

Happy Halloween!

High School Halloween

Today is the first day I really miss elementary school. I looked forward to elementary school Halloween all year. Sarah and I would always coordinate our costumes and keep it a surprise until the parade. All afternoon was devoted to getting dressed, parading around the school, and parties!

Halloween at high school is not nearly that cool. It's just a normal day! So I borrowed my mom's awesome headband and wore my Halloween shirt. In my first hour Cooper was worried that I was trying to be cool with a feathery headband and then realized it was a Halloween headband. I guess I'm right on the edge of strange and cool.

Because I knew I would be a little sad I'm throwing myself a Halloween party so I have an excuse to wear a costume. More on that later.

Happy Halloween!

The Rodeo!

I had never been to the rodeo before this past Friday. Luckily, Kate got free American Royal Rodeo tickets! Here is Kate showing off her cute belly. Although Kate isn't sharing the name of her baby boy, she did tell us proudly that none of the cowboys bore her son's name.

And here are Anne and Nanette. We enjoyed to privacy of our own private box at long forgotten Kemper Arena. We were glassed in to separate us from the common folk. There weren't many people at the Rodeo, but we had a great time nevertheless. Since I had never been to a rodeo before it was a good thing we brought Nanette along. She told me all sorts of fun facts. For example, do you know why the bulls and horses buck the way they do? It's because they tie something around their balls and of course they don't like it!

So the rodeo is hard to photograph and here are my attempts blurry as they may be. My favorite event was the mutton busting. This is where little kids ride sheep like the cowboys ride bulls. It was pretty cute. I also enjoyed when all these kids had to wrestle calves to ground, tie a rope around their neck and then drag them to the middle of the arena. I was impressed, as I don't think I could do that.

Parent Teacher Conferences

In high school everyone treats you like a real teacher. And with this new status comes real conferences. I got lined up just like every other teacher in the commons with a little table, two chairs for parents, and a sign with my name on it. Parents stopped by and I pulled out their grades and talked about their kids. Mostly, these went really well, because most kids do really well in drawing. But there were a few special conferences. Here are a few of the highlights.

After showing her son's failing grade due to the fact that he just choose not to turn in half of the assignments, his mom said, 'Oh he is so grounded for like a month!'

One student was doing really well but ended up getting a C because he didn't turn in a big project. To which his mom says, 'You mean he just threw away an A?' I told her he could do extra credit by visiting different museums around town. Her response, 'Oh, I've been wanting to go to the Nelson. There is going to be some forced, family, museum time!'.

Another mom asked my to let her know if I discovered the vitamin to motivate. So if anyone if out there who knows if this exists, let me know.

Other than that the conferences went a little like this, ' I really like your student. They are doing really well. Is he/she signed up for drawing 2 or painting?' I've got to keep building my program and one way to do that is to put the bug in parents' ears about signing up for more of my classes.

I believe conferences were a success. I guess we'll see next year when I see who enrolls in my classes.