Adversity

Adversity...one defintion I found was a state of misfortune or calamity. Adversity is not something that we look forward to but it is something that we all face, and in overcoming it, it can make us stronger.

This past weekend was the boys final marching band competition of the season and Flu had hit the school:
8 band members were out sick
2 soloists & 1 drum major with a speaking part were sick
& 1 was injured and on crutches

No fear... they worked it out. Two students were given solos the day before the competition (Jacob was one of them) and our injured member stepped up to do the speaking part on his crutches... we can do this! The band director decided to go even with our many holes in the line not to mention sounding quite different with that many musicians missing. Then we got to Missouri... People kept mentioning that the field was muddy, but the kids had no idea just how muddy until they stepped onto the field. The mud was just slick! I saw at least 5 near misses as far as falling goes but everyone managed to stay upright. The kids were a little dissapointed in how they did but I think they did awesome in light of all of the adversity.

What a better way to learn that life does not always deal you roses and sometimes you just need to step up and do you best.

SNOW!

Oct. 10th and it is snowing! You know I love snow and winter activities that come along with it like skiing and Christmas, BUT OCTOBER! I sit here looking out the window at the snow accumulating, thinking about the Cross Country meet and Marching Band competition that we have on the schedule for today, and I can enjoy the view knowing it won't last long.

What Makes Me Smile...

Sometimes SMILES come from very unexpected places. This morning, I had several students in the library finishing up World Civ poster projects. I glanced over to see one student pasteing the journaling boxes on his poster with a Big Grin on his face. I thought, how nice that he is enjoying his project (most high school students loath poster projects). Upon closer examination, I noticed that he was pasteing his boxes on by writing funny saying with his glue stick! It made me smile even bigger but for a whole new reason. He made "enjoying the simple things" take on a whole new meaning.

What a good way to start off a Friday!

With Pride!

Marching band is in full swing! The band has a little motto for this year "With Pride!" and it came to mean so much more this past weekend. The boys had 2 performances again - a Friday night football game and a Sat. Competition. It was a pretty rough week as far as practices went. Both boys were frustrated that they were working hard to get better while other band members didn't seem to care how they did. Practice before the Friday game went exceptionally BAD! Even the band director couldn't believe their attitudes - practice ran long and the drumline didn't even make it out in time for the National Athem. Things were not looking good...we were on pins an needles before the performance. It's hard to watch your kids go out do a bad job. But teens always amaze me at how fast their attitudes change - good and bad. They actually pulled off a pretty good show and were all in good moods after the game.

Saturdays perfomance was a competition. In Iowa, all bands compete at a level that is determined by their school size which puts Xavier at 4A (just barely). That puts them up against bands that are usually 200-250 members in this area. So, when you put our 65 member band on the field, we look pretty puny. There is just no way that we can compete with the sound of a band that has 150 more musicians. The kids pulled off their BEST performance yet! It wasn't perfect but they really tried hard.

No matter how hard you try to be proud of what you have done it is hard for the kids to be excited about coming in last place. Granted, they definitely did 100 times better than their first performance, but it is hard to always come in last. How do you motivate your kids to do their best when they know they are probably already out of the competition. I am PROUD at how they did and I hope they are proud about their performance but this is a tough one. How do you keep students motivated on pride alone. It is so easy for them to only see trophies & placements. Our last competition will be in Missouri. The good thing about this is that they will competing with other marching bands their size. If they can keep that in mind.... I am anxious to see where they will be in 3 more weeks. "WITH PRIDE!"

Driving Myself to Work

I know this may sound like an odd topic… but for the last several years my schedule has always revolved around the kids school schedules – who had to be where & when. In Aug. we finally broke down and bought a 3rd car (something Bob said that he would never do) but it was his idea. We found a small used car for the boys to use - only to be rear ended, on the 2nd day of school about 2 weeks later, so we were back down to 2 cars again. We are finally back to 3 cars and, TODAY for the first time I didn’t have to go into work early! I know this may seem trivial but for most of my career at Xavier, I have worked around driving kids to school. Today, they went in early and I didn’t have to go in until 8:30 am! The FREEDOM felt amazing and the extra hour really makes a difference. It was amazing how much I got done this morning before work. I drove to work with a smile on my face and it is still there.