Amazing Grace!

So I have finally met my dear Internet friend Grace! Haha. We've been talking online for about 5 months, since we found each other on the Global Student Teaching website. We were (are) the only 2 music education interns in New Zealand from North America in the Summer 2007 placements from GST, so naturally we contacted each other before we left. She's been here since May, and we've been excitedly anticipating our meeting in person for months now. On Friday night we finally got together in Wellington to hit up a karaoke bar and strut our stuff on the dance floor! I tell ya, Grace has got moves like no other. Sometimes they embarrass her friends, but when she's got friends like me the embarrassment factor is really irrelevant. In fact, I just join right in and get my groove on with her, a la "the running man," "the shopping cart," "starting the lawnmower," etc. (For those of you who may not know what I'm talking about, I'll just have to show you sometime.... really, these moves defy explanation).

The above picture was taken just a few hours ago at a coffee shop in Wellington that is about a 25 minute walk from the train station. Grace and I have gone here twice now, and will be making a habit of getting together on Tuesdays before I head off to Wellington Youth Choir rehearsal. Today we took a ton of ridiculous pictures on her I-Book using Photobooth. If you haven't seen this program, you need to... you don't know what you're missing. Basically you can skew the images that your computer camera is seeing in various ways (bulge, light tunnel, pop art, sepia, stretch, mirror, etc.), resulting in the most ridiculously hideous pictures you've ever seen of yourself. Some are pretty neat though, like the pop art ones - they look almost like Andy Warhol pictures. Grace is going to post hers on Facebook, and once she does I will steal them and post a few on here.

WYC rehearsal tonight was interesting... our director and accompanist were both missing, so we did some sectional work. We had altos and sopranos together, and the group nominated me to lead the sectional because I apparently seemed the most confident with the pronunciations and the notes, rhythms, etc. So I led sectional, and then when the rest of the group came back, they nominated me again to conduct the choir. So in my 2nd ever rehearsal, I conducted the Wellington Youth Choir singing the Credo of Schubert's Mass in C! It was pretty darn cool. When we finished, one of the guys called out from the back row, "Good conducting!" and the whole choir gave me a round of applause. It was a pretty neat experience! :o)

Mom, you'll be happy to know that I gave everyone in WYC Canadian pencils today (which got another round of applause, haha), and I've also given them out to my Year 13 and Year 11 music classes. They're very popular around here - too bad I didn't have room for more! Anyway they're going to good use... my Year 11s are using them for score analysis. Our last score analysis class will be coming up shortly, and I have an activity planned for them where I've cut out descriptions of various sections of the music (based on the themes and development of those themes, etc.), and they have to put them in order as they appear in the score. The team who gets it all correct first will win homemade chocolate chip cookies with Canadian flag toothpicks in them (thanks Karyn!). Fun stuff!

I should get to bed now - tomorrow will be busy. I'm teaching my first class of Year 9 guitar, and apparently this group is VERY difficult. We'll see what tomorrow brings - it will be interesting, regardless. Hopefully I can handle it.

Hope everyone at home is doing well. Leave me comments, people! I want to know if you're reading this! Haha. Love you!