Another great weekend in the Big Apple . . .

I went to New York last weekend. I got permission to skip classes on Friday since part of why I was going was a choral workshop. So, I left on Thursday (I have no classes on Thursday). I stayed with my friend Sara from the vocal intensive class I took this summer since she lived right near where the workshop was. But, I got to see my beautiful nephew on Friday. He is getting big! And he is six months old!!! And I brought my camera to school so I could download photos and just realized I don't have the cable. So, I am going to have to put the pics up later.

Anyway, New York was a blast. My friend Sara and I ate at all these cool little restaurants all over the place with amazing food. My favorite restaurant was the one we ate at on the final night - it was Mediterannean. But, not Greek and Italian Mediterannean - Turkish mediterannean. I had never had food like it. It was phenominal.

Dave and Angelina took me to this wine bar. It had wine on tap! I kid you not. It was wild. It was a lot of fun. Though, me, being the light weight that I am was gone pretty quick. Dave and Angelina thought it was funny, and rounds of shots kept getting bought by their brother-in-law. Finally, I was like - I'm done guys. DONE. It was a good time.

And the choral workshop was fabulous. I learned a lot and I have been implementing some great new ideas.

My favorite part about this semester is the confidence I am gaining in myself. I really feel like I am a good teacher. Now, I've always thought this. But, as I am on my third year of teaching, I have really perfected some of my classes to the point where I rarely doubt anything I do. I feel confident in my lesson plans. I ENJOY my lesson plans. I enjoy all of my classes and part of that is because I always feel like I have their respect because I'm not "wasting their time." And the more I teach, the more I find all the little things I don't like about what I'm teaching and fixing them into solid lesson plans. There are becoming fewer and fewer days where I leave class thinking, "that flat out did not work, and I need to revamp it next semester." It feels really great. All right pictures to come!