I'm in between final exams (giving, not taking), and reflecting on the semester. It's definitely been my best semester of teaching. It's amazing how much there is to learn about teaching musical skills (sight reading, musical dictation, identification of chord and interval qualities, keyboard harmony). My first two semesters, often when I'd have a student who couldn't even tell when the melody goes up or down or whether it's stepping or leaping I'd just have no clue what to tell them. Now I feel like I have suggestions for any situation I could possibly be in. (Students are forever surprising, though, so I'm sure that's not quite true.)

So that, I think, is the success of my time as coordinator of this course. The things I perceive as successes of this semester stem from that and my always-increasing understanding of where the students are coming from, what their goals are (if any), and what my goals are. I know the dogmas that are important to me (for example, a consistency of approach: scale degrees OR solfege but not both, lots of structure in pace of learning, etc.) and when they're not useful. I often know when students will think material is too hard or irrelevant to them, and how to preface it in such a way that they understand its usefulness and how to approach it. Because of that, I have had very few student problems this semester. (That's not quite true. I had a few cases of academic dishonesty, and the inevitable attendance problems. But nothing directly relating to the content of the course or student attitudes towards me.) In the past, I've had students get very upset about my stances in the class: not allowing people to use perfect pitch as a crutch, using scale degrees instead of solfege, expecting them to do work outside of class. But I've had no big complaints this semester. What few I've had have been reasonable requests and presented as constructive criticism. That may be because the class is bigger than ever (about 70 at 8 AM and just under 100 at 10:10) and they feel less connected to me. But it could also be because I frame the material better now than I used to, or because I introduced myself one-on-one to at least a majority of them and they are more amenable to seeing where I'm coming from.

Most heartening of all have been comments from students as the end of the semester grows near. In all of my cases of academic dishonesty, I've met with the students, heard them out fully, and let them suggest an appropriate penalty before making my decision and sending it out by email. In response to that email, most of them wrote me back. That was mostly to tell me that they found my decision acceptable, but many also wanted to make sure I know that they got a lot out of the course. Today after the exam, another student came up to me and said, "I think I'm actually starting to get better at this aural skills thing. But I don't want to lose it over the summer. What can I do to keep it up?"

I'm sure getting my evaluations will give me a more discerning view of how the semester went and reveal both some good things and some bad things that I've overlooked. But right now I'm quite happy with how it's gone. I've learned a ton being in charge of this class, and I really look forward to bringing that knowledge with me next year as I teach honors sophomore music theory. Those honors students had better be ready to sing!

I decided at the beginning of the semester that I'd get to know all my students by face and name. I kind of ran out of steam about halfway through the semester, but still, here at the end, I'm up to 96 out of 166. Not bad! (Especially since a lot of those don't ever show up...)

Last night I woke up at maybe 5:30 to vibrating windows and bed. Being half asleep, I was astounded but had only the vague thought process "wow, I wonder if that was an earthquake... maybe it was someone driving by with their speakers on really loud... or a huge gust of wind" before falling back to sleep. But this morning I looked it up online--definitely an earthquake! 5.4, centered in Illinois.

Okay, I'm gonna get caught up on here. First some news, then some pictures. In the past week, I've:

1. registered to vote in Indiana
2. auditioned and gotten accepted into a vocal studio for next year
3. accepted a part-time job (pending approval) from the IU Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature proofreading Latin texts to be entered into the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum
4. cooked a delicious Turkish meal (red lentil soup, pita bread with hummus, spinach borek, iskender kabob, and--not made by me--rosewater almond pudding)

Two weekends ago, Sara and I went out to McCormick's Creek, Indiana's oldest state park. It was really beautiful.

We were there for (much of) the sunrise:


There were lots of little springs like this lining the river:


And lots of cool rock formations:


I have lots more beautiful pictures of McCormick's Creek, but there are enough pictures up here right now. And I'm caught up! So more maybe soon.

Nate and I told Claire that we wouldn't post till our blogs till she put up her first post. Well, that hasn't happened. I give in.

Spring break seems so long ago now. And I guess it was--three weeks ago. Sara and I headed to Iowa. (I guess there's just something about visiting family in the winter in a place that's colder than where you live.) I won't speak for her, although I think she agrees, but I had a terrific time. At the beginning of the week, we relaxed a fair bit. Sara met May (who goes "mmmrrph!" when you surprise her) and helped us finish a puzzle. We also biked around Grinnell, went inside the Jewel Box bank, went on a hike at the Krumm prairie Preserve, and got a nice tour of the college campus. Of course, since there was still a lot of snow on the ground, we had to head out to Hamburger Hill with our sleds:



And we went to the Neil Smith National Wildlife Refuge. They've got a terrific prairie learning center (geared a bit toward kids, but still interesting for adults). We went on a hike, where we saw (two kinds of) signs of the resident buffalo:



And then, on a drive through the fenced-off area, we saw the buffalo themselves. Pretty cool.
But as neat as that part of the week was, it was nothing compared to what was to come. On Thursday, Mom, Dad, Sara and I drove out to northeastern Iowa to prove that Iowa Ain't Flat:



You wouldn't want to be walking through a field and suddenly fall 200 feet.
First we walked through Lost Canyon, a beautiful canyon with a stream running through it. We had to cross this stream several times, and Mom made somewhat of a habit of falling in.



The whole area was full of beautiful bluffs and caves:



We even saw some ice stalagmites! The cave kept them cool enough to be intact even on this relatively warm day.



On our way out of the canyon, we saw about 10 bald eagles circling high up in the clear blue sky. Pretty amazing. Once we were up, we looked over the beautiful Iowa landscape:



...before going to a point that, according to signs, was called "overlook." Sara and I didn't really know what to expect. We were walking through snowy fields for a while, then through a wooded area. Then suddenly you could see through the trees. It was rather dramatic: out of nowhere, a 200 foot drop into Whitewater Canyon. Pictures didn't really capture it; it was so surprising and amazing to see this view.



That night we headed to Dubuque and stayed in a retreat bed and breakfast owned by the city. It was a turn-of-the-century mansion, complete with servants' quarters, large fireplace rooms, and beautiful views out the bedroom windows to the Mighty Mississipp'. Turned out we had it all to ourselves: no one else had rented a room! We had the run of the place, and played card games (and Dad dozed) in front of a nice fire.
Here was our view:



Not bad.
The trip to the Dubuque area was definitely the highlight of Spring Break for me. The hiking through the canyon, amazing bed and breakfast, and the trip the next day to the amazing Mississippi River Museum were all truly wonderful.

We made our way after that back to Bloomington, by way of historic Galena, IL, and Chicago. But boy, I'd love to travel to Dubuque again!

(And Claire, this doesn't mean you're off the hook.)