Tears of Sorrow, Happiness and Pride

My students had rehearsal tonight. Lindsay and I know the girls are ready and just worked on a few little things here and there to get them ready for State on Saturday. Then we had their final run through before State. Lindsay lost it because it was sadly the last time she would see the show. Itried hard to be the strong one, knowing I would still have at least one more show (two if they make finals) before we start a new season with some former members, some new members and with less of Lindsay's spunk and personality (sad). So, I waited until I was in the car...and then I cried. I cried my sorrowful tears for Heather, wanting and needing her here; for Mama Susan knowing she would not have her only daughter physically here to calm her; for Lindsay for not having what I get next year; and for me and the team knowing that in a few short weeks we will be different.

But I also cried happy tears too. I mentioned to my girls how high they have set the bar for next year. They have averaged sixth place (top 6 in our division go to finals on Saturday) and achieved the highest placement and score they have ever received in the past last week. They are so close to placing (top 3 place) and could receive he needed recognition they need. They were happy today and that always makes me happy. I cried knowing next year could get much better.

I then had tears of pride. Lindsay and I brought these kids along and helped them achieve their goals. We both have had the amazing opportunity to watch them grow and develop as performers. I could list off each one of them and tell you their personality, how they think, where their motivation lies and why they do colorguard. I love all of them like my own children...al 10 of those crazy, dorky kids. They will probably be the death of me one day, but I grow to love them more and more everyday.

I think about the journey I have been on with these kids and I learn something new everyday. I learn how to handle irate parents, how to deal with teenager, when is the best time to motivate students and so on.  I am so looking forward to the upcoming 2011-2012 season.

Now, off to bed. I have a long weekend ahead of me.

It Really Is March Madness

I hear talk of March Madness in terms of basketball season, but I am going through March Madness in terms of life in general. I am writing this blog when I should be in class. Now you may be asking, "Kristen, Why are you not in class?" That is a very good question. You see for the past week, my life has consisted of nothing but school and teaching colorguard. Plus, this week, I had cleaning checks for the apartment which is basically a white glove inspection for the entire apartment. The last two nights I have stayed up nearly all night to finish homework, sew more flags, clean, and finish midterms. I finally went to bed, this morning at 4am after finishing up everything that needed to get done! In my exhausted condition I forgot to set my alarm. However, my phone was on and, after receiving a few text messages from my sister, I woke up realizing it was 7:55am. My class was starting in five minutes. It takes about 10 minutes to get to school and I was not even ready yet. Just getting my ballet stuff together and putting in my contacts would take about ten minutes. So, I decided to carefully take my time with everything and then come to school. So, here I sit in a computer lab writing important emails and updating the general public about my crazy busy life. I think I will start with school.

Midterms seem to last forever. I take my last midterm today and I am stoked to have midterms over with. But then tomorrow my second Chemistry test starts. I am so excited to have a three-day Spring Break next week to finally unwind a bit and relax. I will still be teaching as my students don't have spring break until April, but no classes, hopefully no homework, and enough time to relax a bit! In about seven to eight weeks I get to start the process of finals (exciting would be too sarcastic for everyone). I am not looking forward to finals but it is a way of life I guess. Then I get a nice week and a half long break before starting summer semester!

My job as the colorguard co-director at Springville High School is turning out to be successfully stressful. I do love it though. I love watching my kids excel! I have to sew non-stop for ALA though and that keeps me busy all the time (the sewing finally ends on Saturday). We had a mishap with the ALA flags and I decided to take them home and fix them. My Springville kids are on the cusp of complete success. Last year they were last all the time. This year they are averaging sixth place, but Lindsay and I know they can do much better than sixth place (we think they can do as well as third place)! We will see what happens on April 2nd (Circuit/State Championships).

I have two more things I want to address before I wrap up this blog. First, I am trying to decide if I want to make this blog protected. I don't mind sharing my views and opinions with other people but some people are just plain stupid when it comes to reading things on a person's blog. I have not decided to do so yet but it is an option I am pondering.

The second thing is this...while cleaning my room yesterday, I found a HUGE list of goals I want to accomplish. I am planning on posting it here. Some of it is personally. But it shows people how I think too. I have categorized the list into spiritual goals, educational goals, physical goals, etc. I plan on posting it here and even showing a picture of how long it is (one category takes up 3/4 of a page). Yeah, just some thoughts and pre-cursors to what is to come!

Until next time (hopefully soon), I hope everyone has a fantastic day!

Marching Forward

I can't believe it is already March. This semester is drawing to a close. In 23 days I can pick my classes for the summer term and in 30 days I can go ahead and pick classes for fall term. I have a rough idea of how busy my summer is going to be. So far, my students have parade rehearsals in the mornings from 6am to 9am every Tuesday and Thursday. I plan on having morning classes and possibly working part-time in the afternoon or evening hours (we'll see how that goes). But I need to add in rehearsals for my students in August, Band Council and Staff meetings, and I would love to schedule in some fun!

Thanks to the idea of the semester drawing to a close, all my teachers have decided to dump massive amounts of homework on me. I just finished writing a ballet critique paper and will have to write two more papers for my modern dance class this upcoming week. In chemistry, I finally understand everything...yes, everything, from the previous chapters now. It felt like I was going through the motions, but now everything is clicking. Papers and tests are all I seem to do these days. Plus, I recently helped pick the percussion staff for summer parade and fall marching band. Oh the joys of a growing group. I don't mind that the Springville Marching Band and Colorguard is growing, in fact, that is a good problem to have, but sitting through interviews for potential staff members can get tedious and boring. Then there is the "problem" of picking which staff more will fit with our team. Glad the interviews are over!

I feel that march is kind of a turning point for many people. It is the transition time between winter and spring (unless you live in Utah..lol) and the quarter mark of the year. For me, it is the time to thing about the rest of the year as it approaches. For my colorguard students, it is the time for me and my co-director to start looking at what next year will hold for them even though their season doesn't end until April. It the time to focus on school as finals approach and think of the coming terms and how each term will benefit me as a student. Deadlines start popping up and everything seems to happen at once. So all I can do is "March forward."

Graphs, graphs and more graphs...

I decided to make graphs for my students today. It will all take a while since a good major of it involves previous scores from past shows. They seem to think they are not good enough so it is time to give them a visual representation of how well they have been doing even though Saturday was rough for them (they got seventh, almost eighth place out of ten groups). I am planning on taking pictures of the score sheets and posting their progress here in the near future (before April 4th). Maybe I can snag a copy of their final performance in April to show everyone what their show is!

Until then off to bed.

Why Them?

I have had such an interesting morning. I have cried several times just thinking about the events that I am about to describe. As many of you know, I co-direct colorguard at Springville High School and am a consultant/technic supervisor and American Leadership Academy (ALA). ALA has tried their hardest to pay me. I asked to share a bus with them back in January and they said I either get paid or my kids ride for free. If I had gone through the Nebo school district for buses, both Lindsay and I would not get paid. So, I decided it would be a good trade. I teach and my kids get to competitions (while still getting paid at Springville). So, every competition, my girls get ready, meet at Springville, load the bus and take off with me usually following them in my car behind them. At 1am this morning, I received a frantic text message from the director AND bus driver at ALA...she broke her ankle and can't drive the bus again until...NEXT WEEK. So, I am now thinking "okay, I will just head on over to the district office and request a bus" which is exactly what I did. Little did I know you need to give a weeks notice to get a FREE bus. If I wanted to get a bus for my kids today for the Saturday competition, we would have to fork over over $1,000 (this is to get someone last minute, pay for gas AND mileage, pay the driver, a service fee, a late fee, pay for bus maintenance, as well as a few other little fees). Well, that plan fell by the wayside. Plan B was to get parent to drive the 2 hours and 15 minutes to Garland, Utah, but none were too keen on that idea so that got shoot down very quickly. Now, I wait...wait for a phone call from the Maple Mountain High School and Payson High School director telling me whether or not we can share a bus. If nothing pans out, we have to pay a $150 fee, withdraw from the competition and cannot compete in State Championships in April. Now, I am still looking for a way to get my kids to the competition. All this made me ask the question...why them?

My kids have had a successfully rough year. I know that doesn't make sense so let me explain. When the winter season started in November, Lindsay and I had so many goals for our girls. We had asked them if they wanted a very easy, simple show which would give them the opportunity to stay safe and be about mediocre in the circuit or risk a lot and have a difficult show and possibly do well. They choose the later and had their show staged in under four hours. Since then they have had such success getting their show on the floor. However, that is not to say there haven't been bumps along the way. They are never given ample gym time, the district refuses to fund a team that has not come home with a championship medal, and every coach at Springville High School has made sure or road to success has not come easily. We even had one girl quit and have spent the last week furiously re-staging their show and giving them harder work. Everything that could go wrong with the program has and does. I cry all the time for them hoping that one of these days, they get the break they need. I am hoping to get them out of sixth place and into the fifth place slot this Saturday but we shall see how that works. I always ask why them, because they work so hard to get what they want and deserve...respect from their own school, a chance to prove themselves to the district, funding and a day where they don't need to fret about transportation.

I love those girls to death and would do anything for them. All nine of them are MINE AND LINDSAY'S kids. We stand up for them, show them how to be successful and in return that respect and love us and give us there all.

I love being a teacher...even if they have some disappointments in their journey.

"As For Me and My House..."

I decided to take a short break from writing out the first 36 elements on flash cards to write about something that has been on my mind since this morning. I went to institute were I am enrolled in History of the LDS Church. We were covering the year 1837 which was a year of trouble for the church. Our class learned that Joseph Smith had a lot of people angry at him. To make a long story short many people blamed their economic troubles on Joseph and not themselves. My institute teacher noted that the world today is in a similar situation. When President Boyd K. Packer came out with his recent talk, much of the Homosexual community and it's supporters along with some church members felt that he was wrong. Then my teacher asked the question of all questions..."Are you going to be the people in the temple who saw angels and manifest that the church is true but Joseph Smith has fallen and the people of the world who calm President Packer is wrong, or are you going to follow the Lord? Because the Lord never takes back what He intends to say. He uses the prophet and apostle to share His teachings and He never excuses what He says. I know all of you will face the time when you stand by the prophet because that is what the Lord says or to stand by your friends because they are offended. So, whom will you choose? Whom will you serve?" After class I approached my institute teacher and said "Brother B, I am facing this right now. Although I could never understand what it feels like to have al your friends abandon you like Joseph Smith did, I know the feeling of losing a friend because I choose to serve the Lord." He then looked at me and asked how? So, I will tell everyone how...

Back when Prop 8 was a huge deal, I had a bunch of my friends ask me to join them for a march on temple square. This march (or demonstration if you want to call it that) was to ask the church to not support such a decision. I asked all my friends to leave me out of it since it was for California voters and I need not to vote on it. When it did pass I had many friends become very enraged that I would not pick a side and could not understand how a religion group such as the Mormons could do such a thing. Luckily, I do my research before voting and found out that only 5% of the voters were, in fact, Mormon. A good majority were Catholic. I pointed this out to several friends and soon, thanks to my research, they calmed down and instead focused their efforts on other things. I thought I was in the clear and did not need to defend or explain myself to them. Then, a few years later, President Packer gave his talk and let me tell you, my phone was receiving text message after text message with friends asking how could I support such an intolerant, unsupportive and fallen church. I even had one friend send a text that went something like this...

Friend: I am going to tell you right now...I am angry that you are turning your back on people that care about you.

Me: I care about you so much and love you. We will not stop being friends.

Friend: Not if I have anything to say about this...

Me: ???

Friend: It's me or God and choose wisely because this may be the last conversation we have.

Me: I am amazed and appalled that you would make me choose. You are my friend and should know me well enough to know that if God asked me to leave everything behind and disappear for a while with nothing, I would. I choose God. I love you and I know you are angry but if you can't support me in that decision, we must not be friends then.

I never received an answer back from him. I have seen him around and make special efforts to smile and say hi. After this conversation, I had about 20 other friends delete me from their phones and facebook. The time was now. I had to choose whom I would serve. I cried the entire week knowing what was to come. In the months that followed, more and more dear and close friends of mine asked me to choose them or God and every single one of them left. I have not heard from most of them since that time. In total, I have had over 40 friends leave.

Now, I told this story to my institute teacher not to show that I am some great follower of the Lord, because I am honestly not that great. Everyday, I have doubts, everyday I cry thinking how difficult this task will be, but everyday I receive strength knowing things will work out in the end. My institute teacher then said, "My dear sweet friend. At 23, you should not have had to face such a decision, but I stand by you and your decision. You have my word. May God bless you for this sacrifice. Now, go to your next class. I am sure God is so proud of you!"

I don't know about the dealings of God and how everything will work but this decision is one I have made. I don't tell anyone this story to have a pity party or to show that I am a faithful follower. Instead, it is more of a reality. What I call the Great Division is starting. Christ is coming and everything is going to get much harder before it gets any easier, but "...as for me and my house, I will serve the Lord!"

God's Precious Gifts!

I was reading facebook the other day and noticed a status my sister wrote. Long story short, my niece (due June 7th) has clubbed feet. That is when I realized something. One precious little soul from God was loved the moment my sister found out she was pregnant. Then when the rest of the family found out she had more love and support. She will have her great-grandparents to constantly coo over her, both sides of grandparents (first granddaughter for both sides, second grandchild for Kory's side) numerous aunts and uncles (not to mention great aunts and uncles since I know Aunt Pam and Aunt Marie will probably fight over her! Good thing Aunt Lindsay lives in California so all Cali visits get to be with just Aunt Lindsay) as well as many cousins and friends. This little gift from God will have a trial the moment she is born and yes it could effect her walking. But I haven't met her yet and love my little niece regardless of what will happen to her. It makes me think of God and all His children. I am not even the child's mother and I feel so much love for this baby girl. Yet God has billions (maybe even trillions) of children He loves so deeply no matter what trials they face. No one knows the severity of her condition yet every one of us can't wait to meet her and will be overwhelmed as we all make room for this little one in our hearts. Maybe a few dance lessons from Aunt Kristen will make her a prima ballerina!