Monday, June 26, 2006

A simple phrase hard to put into words

So this might be the first entry not really focused on music in, well, a freaking long time. Maybe, I did have a neat thought as I was driving down 641 yesterday...

I did my last microteaching thing today. It was okay. I really have mixed feelings about being a teacher. There are moments when I feel like I have a certain knack for it. And then there are moments when I am certain I have definitely gotten in over my head. Too bad those moments alternate like a strobe light in my head. Is that called manic depression? Ah, dear.

However, one thing I know that I have a knack for is creating really cool manipulatives to use in the classroom. (What am I? A kindergarten teacher?) Last night, I made some things I am calling "conjugation cubes." Basically, they're a set of three cubes that you can move around and, by so doing, make Spanish sentences. What I like is that they are sort of, um, interchangeable. Right now, they are covered with pronouns, regular -AR verbs stems, and present -AR verbs endings. I realize that none of that probably makes any sense, but here's the point. They could be covered in something totally different. They have Velcro covers that you can take off and replace with different Velcro covers. I have to say that I am pretty dang proud of them. You should ask to see them sometime, and I'll let you have a look -- as long as you promise not the steal the idea. A patent could be in the works...

So I know I am weird and all, but I got a little something for you. I had something like reverse deja vu this weekend. Maybe that's not the way to describe it, but I'll try. For who-knows-how-long, I have had this sort of "flashback" to a place that I've never been. Weird, I know. Well, this weekend, I was finally there. That's all I am going to say. I know that dreams and dream-like states are the hardest thing to talk about. It is so fascinating to the dreamer, but when you try to explain it, it doesn't make a lick of sense. So there.

Well, I have to go give up the rental car now. I suppose I could get all of my stuff out of it first. It's back to the ol' Taurus for me. It drives like a tank. It will definitely feel like that after driving a little tumble bug for a couple weeks.

Hmm. Yes, I think the music-related posts tend to have more substance. Therefore, I'll let you in on my 641 musings.

Music -- all forms of creative expression, really -- is like an imprint of the soul. I had heard some lyric -- could've been "I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for" or "I hope you can feel me in the air" or something else of that nature -- and I began thinking about the separate entities of body and soul. You know, questioning it, considering the magnitude of its implications, what have you. And it ocurred to me that art, namely music, is a way of extracting soul from the body. We can use our mouths to put forth a voice or our hands to write a story, but what is left on paper or in the air isn't our body. It's something intangible. And I have a hard time believing it's just particles in the air bouncing against one another. Maybe it is. You know, I really have no idea. But it's through those airwaves or rearranging molecules or whatever that people are able to connect with one another. Here's what I am saying. Sometimes knowledge -- specifially, really knowing someone else -- seems so inaccessible. Even attempting to comprehend the concept of "soul" boggles my mind. But there is something about creative expression -- be it a painting, a dance, a song, a poem, a nicely turned phrase in a conversation -- makes knowledge a little more accessible. It puts the soul in a language we can understand.

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