YES HELLO I'M HERE BLAAAARGH

So I got this message in an email from my dear mother yesterday:

I've been checking your blog for an update on your professorship... Nothing ?!?

Which, if I really want to flatter myself, I am going to assume is a sentiment you all are sharing. In fact, I have imagined you all wringing your hands and rocking back and forth just willing there to be an update on my blog for the past week. And to that, I say to you, well maybe if you'd goddamn comment on my posts a little bit more, I'd feel like updating. Harumph.

Just kidding. I kid, I kid. The truth of the matter is that Holy Sweet Jeebus I Am Effing Busy. What with the shuffling of private students around to every possible previously-free corner of my workweek to make room for this class I'm teaching. Oh, and did I mention that the Bossman who initially offered me this teaching gig called me this past weekend to ask me to teach an Ear Training class as well?? Zounds. Clearly, I couldn't say no. And by that, I mean the part of me that has been struggling to make ends meet (i.e. decidedly NOT making ends meet and feeling like Schmooblebuns' kept woman) couldn't say no. But seriously. I think my epitaph might read:

 "She thought she could handle a 50% appointment teaching at a university and teach a studio of 40 clarinet students. And keep up with all the LOST forums online."

Speaking of: Holy sh*t!! LOST!!! Who watched?? Who watched it again on Saturday?? Who watched it again on Sunday?? Who spent the entire weekend trolling LOST forums online instead of grading tests for her class?? (besides me)

Anyway, one of these days I promise I'll expound on my college-teaching adventures. In the meantime, it's the end of a long day in which I taught clarinet lessons from 7am to 6pm (I'm not kidding) and then prepared lecture notes and test grades from 7pm to 10pm. So I'm going to go now...and may or may not visit a few LOST blogs before bed. The end.

Hello. My name is Ysabel...

...and Barack Obama is my President. Huzzah!

***

Also: 

Dearest Kablooie,

Seeing as today was my very first day ever teaching music at a university, it would have been really cool if you had picked any other day of the goddamn year except today to decide to have a dead battery in the morning. Blaaaaargh!

Sincerely,

Ys

***

FYI: I made it to the class on time, thanks to Schmooblebuns. And it was AWESOME!! (more later)

Bring me my elbow-patched tweed blazer!

Classes start tomorrow, childrens. I wonder how much time will pass before I make my first vaguely (or blatantly) inappropriate comment in front of a classroom of wildly impressionable young southern freshman Republicans, all due to my upbringing in the fantastical hippie-land of northern California. 

Also: the first class meeting will take place at the exact same moment that President Obama (woooot) is inaugurated into office, and it will take all of my willpower and perhaps some duct tape to restrain me from ripping off my official elbow-patched tweed professor blazer (I wish!) to reveal an Obama 08 t-shirt and skipping up and down the rows of chairs saying "Neener neener neener!" Hehehe. 

In a related note: I wonder how long until this blog gets discovered by student and faculty members and I get stripped of my official elbow-patched tweed professor blazer? Egads (Yeah, I totally say that, like, all the time now.)! 

No, in all quasi-seriousness: I'm totally ready for tomorrow. I've read and re-read and re-note-taken and re-read and Wiki-ed and Googled and re-read one last time, all of the appropriate textbooks, chapters, articles, useless websites, etc. to prepare me to stand up in front of that classroom tomorrow morning and not make a complete ass out of myself. I mean, if somebody stopped me on the street today and told me that they would give me a million dollars if I could,  not only explain the differences between monody, polyphony, monophony and heterophony, but also the course of evolution of each term throughout music history and give clear musical examples...I COULD TOTALLY DO IT *SNAP*.  Also, I woke up this morning with Nuper Rosarum Flores coursing through my brain. 

And that's when I knew it was time to stop.

I <3 Star*ucks.

Um, preparing to teach just one university course is way hard. How do people get ready to teach, like, more than one class? Geez.

Wait, let me say that again in  professor-speak: "I daresay. I am finding the preparation process to teach one course in university to be altogether difficult and time-consuming. How one can find oneself prepared to teach a plurality of university courses is, frankly, beyond my comprehension. Egads."

Oh Herro!(I can say that because I'm Asian.)

1. It is my magical Star*ucks break during Clarinet Tuesday (not to be mistaken with Clarinet Thursday, otherwise known as "Day of Complete Hell") and I am spending it continuing to work on my class syllabus, schedule and course outline before classes start next Tuesday. Um, and blogging. But mostly the other thing. When I first found out about this class, I believe I may have had my sphincter scrunched so tight that I didn't poop for 3 days. Just kidding, I totally did. But I was totally stressed out, what with all the feelings of unpreparedness and such. But now I am more excited and anxious than anything. I think when I do complete all my class materials and have a clear vision in my head of what the semester will look like and actually have an itinerary and lesson plan for every single class period, then I will be stoked. 

2. Wait, do college professors use the word "stoked"? Am I still allowed to say that? How about "Blergh"? And "whatevs"?

3. ps. "College professor"? Criminy! What shall I have the students call me? "Professor Ysabel"? "Ms. Ysabel?" "Professor Y?" "Professor Awesome?" 

4. I've been battling a cold every since returning to Barbecue Land after my blissful winter vacation. This weekend it took the form of horrible post-nasal drip and a cough, which, yesterday and today, meant that my voice has been alternating between high+squeaky and hoarse+borderline manly. It's cool. I kind of hope it stays forever. Except that my throat hurts like a mofo, so maybe not.

5. Random thought: Over the past couple of years there have been some instances in the news of authors being publicly crucified for writing what were originally touted to be autobiographies, but later on uncovered to be completely made up. Like this guy. And this old guy. Maybe I'm missing something, but if people just rethink of these books as writings of pure fiction, and the authors as writers of pure fiction, wouldn't these books still be great? And shouldn't they still be celebrated? I mean, like, say J.K. Rowling originally labelled Harry Potter as a true story of this little English kid who had wizard powers, and then later on we all found out it was all false (doy), wouldn't the Harry Potter books still be great fiction? (Bad example. I actually don't like those books. Mainly because I haven't read them.) But you know what I mean.

Aaanyway, back to teaching.

ps. I hope the rest of Clarinet Tuesday goes by fast. This coffee is working its power on my bowels with alarming speed. 

2009 is off to a roaring start!

I am savoring my last 24 hours of vacation-y goodness (don't hate me because my Christmas vacation is longer than anyone else's in the entire universe...I win!) so this blog post will be brief. Suffice it to say that, one emergency heart surgery performed on Schmooblebunnies' colleague and an eeearly morning phone call from Schmooblebunnies later, and I am now going to teach actual Music History to actual college music majors. 

As in, starting this semester. 

As in, in just over a week. 

As in, I haven't studied music history in five years and now I'm supposed to look like I know what I'm talking about?

As in, Sweet Jeebus this is effing amazing! but also: WTF WHERE THE HELL ARE MY STOLBA AND GROUT AND OXFORD AND GROVE AND NOTES FROM ROUGHLY A BILLION YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS STILL A MUSIC HISTORY MAJOR ACK ACK ACKACKAAAACK?!?!