new heights

Today my CT basically said, "Umm, so I think I've taught you all I can...you've sort of got this teaching thing down." I was like, um, what?

I mean it finally clicked with me last week to just be myself with these kids. They seem to like me. So much of it all is just knowing how to talk to them.

I got my school pics back today. My CT says to get a school bus frame with little window openings to put all the pics for each school year to watch myself age. I couldn't find them at Hallmark as he had suggested. I think I will do this though. Also the third grade quotes page needs to be just put in a book I think.

Mid-semester break this weekend, thank goodness. I'm headed north with the parentals to just veg and enjoy the fallness with them and the puppies. After that there is no more messing around...lots of work and such.

I'm just so happy with my school situation right now...great people with me at my school, great CT, great Field Instructor - we've sort of become friends which is awesome. I'm beginning to see some alignments in personality with my CT and being able to chuckle over the same things with the kids really adds to our relationship.

I'm plotting a trip out east over our mid-winter break to visit the baby sis, go to Boston and also Providence to visit Kirsten. I want to see Plymouth and John Adams' house. Yes, history nerd, right here.

Matty Nathanson

So, Sunday, 6 of us went to the Matt Nathanson/Cary Brothers concert. (Cary Brothers, not THE Cary Brothers, as he pointed out - "People look at my posters and say 'there's only one guy...wow he must be a real d***'"). Kate Voegele opened and every song was a breakup song. She must have been like 17 and, as Suzanne pointed out, well logically she would have had about 7 awful breakups ever.

Oh, wait, so the venue was tiny tiny (thing Little Bro's in Cbus) and we were like third "row" I guess. Cary Brothers was good good... a little mellow for the bar scene, but his songs are some of my faves on the Garden State and Last Kiss soundtracks.

Mind you, it was like 87 degrees allll day that day and when we first entered the bar, we were like oooo chilly! and then all the other people rolled in and soon enough we were all in a sauna.

Matt Nathanson is great because he looks and acts so badass (every other word the f-bomb and a nose ring), and yet his songs reflect this sort of deep understanding of the heart in a really human and relate-able way. Some songs are dirty, but not too dirty, some are tender, but not too mushy, but the lyrics always make you think about them more and more every time you hear them. He's fun, the music is fun, and he just seems so down to earth.

Before busting into his song "Laid" (see the lyrics for yourself), he said "This...is the greatest song ever written by anyone in the history of the world!". He did a little mmbop by request, prepped us for a sing along of "Answering Machine" with a full version of "Don't Stop Believing"...oh Journey.

It's great to find a musician who is of the laid-back, normal yet quirky people variety. I haven't left a concert feeling like that since, well Great Big Sea, but that's a different story. Perhaps it was being so close to him, but the energy that was in that place was amazing, and I think the 4 of us who were not so familiar with him left a little bit smitten:)

Ok, and really, I hate sweating, but strangely the fact that everyone was just disgustingly hot, but we all suffered through that part together and no one really seemed to care - that's how good it was. Weird? Yes.

He was shocked that everyone knew every word to his new album that came out like a month ago. You could tell he was so appreciative and just happy.

Songs I remember him singing....
Princess, Suspended, Angel, Answering Machine, Heartbreak World, Come On Get Higher, Car Crash, Wedding Dress, Gone, Still, Laid, Bent, I Saw, Pretty the World, Detroit Waves

probably more...oh sigh:)