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Hores should be free

shitmystudentswrite:

Hores should not be tamed.  Hores should be kept wild and free.  If a hore gets caught she will kick you in the face.

So I’ve got two motivations for auditioning for a wind band next year:

A) I miss it.
B) I’ve got to meet that trumpet player.

I think that’ll be enough to get me to practice all summer.

I wish I was a music major

Because this trumpet player is hoooot.

Ugh. Watching the house finale with a non-fan is ruining the experience.

Today was my first day interacting with high schoolers for my AP English tutor job. I tutor at a urban high school near USC and I had been warned that the area was “lousy.” Having heard about teachers’ negative and frustrating experiences, I really didn’t know what to expect from the kids. I went around from group to group, asking them what they were working on. Most seemed ambivalent about my presence, but some asked about college and one actually asked for help on a previous essay. Then he and his friend got into a very intelligent discussion of the poetry they were analyzing and hit the poems right on the nail. The more I walked around the room and listened to them talk, I realized most of these kids were college bound: two kids I spoke to were accepted into UCLA, one to Berkeley. I was downright floored. Listening to those two high school senior boys understanding Wordsworth gave me so much joy and hope for my own teaching career. These are kids who didn’t have much growing up, and probably didn’t have native English speakers around, yet here they are in an AP English class just doing their thing. I’m so excited for this job. The shitty traffic was so worth it. 

Cool story, bro: Coachella 2012

Now that I finally have a free moment to myself, it’s time to reflect on my Coachella 2012 experience. The only way that I can describe my weekend is that it was simultaneously the best and the worst experience of my life. Let’s start with the bad: the 100 degree heat. I was covered in sweat (not always mine) and dust the entire time. I was always on the verge of dehydration. Porta-potties. 

Moving on to the amazing: the music. The heat and my permanently damaged ears were worth it. I can’t even begin to name a favorite. Seeing all the bands I knew in person was absolutely magical. Discovering new bands was possibly even better. I’ve discovered some permanent additions to my life. Nothing compares to seeing a live performance. Recorded music sounds lifeless now: #coachellapeopleproblems. 

This weekend was so out of my comfort zone. I’m not hip. I don’t do weed. This being said, Coachella expanded my horizons. I got over hating the smell of weed. I got hit on by a guy who worked for the festival for doing the most mundane task. I hung out with this guy, even though he was far more grungy than my usual tastes (and turned out to be 32), but he was pretty cool! I don’t know where that came from, but I did it and I’ve got life stories now.

Thanks Coachella. See you next year. 

I haven’t felt this good in awhile. Going to enjoy the day.