I should be a country singer April 7, 2008

Friday night I performed a couple of songs accompanied by Guitar. One duet- hopelessly yours, Desperado, and Wind beneath my wings. There is something nice about singing a completely simple song adding a little more chest voice to my normally operatically trained voice. Then I got to thinking. I should go country!

Famous country singers are stinking rich and not so famous that they get stalked. How many country singers do you see on the cover of tabloids? Not very many. This may be because country singers are expected to be drugged and drunk which obliterates the shock factor.

Country singers can wear clothes. You wouldn’t have to gyrate  around the stage like Brittney Spears. Just some tight jeans and cowboy boots.

Country fans are loyal. How many old pop singers are still appreciated for their contribution to their genre? Hardly none unless you count the one hit wonder show they have on VH1.  Country singers, once famous, are loved no matter how many face lifts they get. Dolly Parton, Reba Mcyntire, are a couple of examples.  Old, and still singing.

So, now all I need is a band and a contract. Any suggestions?

Spring Fever April 4, 2008

I announced that I canceled the final and my class cheered. The desire to be done with everything doesn’t change from student to teacher. My class preparation has gone from working a week in advance, to  the day before, to 6am the day of, 7 am the day of, and today I managed to prepare my class starting at 8 am. My class meets at 11:30 am so maybe I can push it even further!!!

Now, I am done for the day and wouldn’t it be nice if I could hide in a cave? No. I have to go sing country at a ski patrol party tonight. yodel yodel.

Vent April 2, 2008

Today I made the choice to play a recording of an African American Slave singing a work song. I was a little tentative since I wasn’t sure how the class was going to react. I have 57 students most from Idaho, Utah and only one student that is black (from L.A.). So, I took the plunge and played it. After the song, everyone was quiet. One student said that it had a haunting feeling to it. I said, that he made a good point and that I was hesitant due to not wanting make anyone feel uncomfortable. However, it is our history and it really happened. I am mad that I was even hesitant as Americans should remember the despicable acts for which humans (this includes Americans) are capable.

The truth is innocent Africans died, families destroyed, bodies beaten all to build America. Early Americans were terrorists as they pushed the American Indians off their land, and forced West Africans to make make them rich. Why deny it? Most of the students in my class were not taught about African American history in school, or at least not in detail. Hardly anyone raised their hands when I asked them if they had learned about the Jim Crow law in High School.

Which leads me to another frustration. How do people think that this is God’s country? What gives us the right to go in and bomb Iraq bully countries whose religion and culture is nothing like ours. What is this war against terror, when our America was built by terrorists. Is it because our God is right? The sooner we can give up fanatical Gods the sooner our world can have peace. Not only does this go for American religions but all over the world. The sooner we can give up our animalistic tribal nature can we as a species live in peace with our fellow man.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree March 27, 2008

My father has always had quite the expressive mouth on him when things broke, or projects he was working on didn’t quite fit together. He has softened in his old age. However, living on two acres, he does all the yard work himself. While over at the house I have often walked outside in response to hearing a loud holler only to find him cursing at the air. This cursing accompanies his digging, weeding, or other yard demands. However, he says that it’s his therapy and he loves to do yard work.

Today I had a day free from work. I thought I would spend a couple of hours cleaning up my dissertation then enjoy a ride down to the post office to send it on its way. Well, two hours turned into all day. All I had to do is clean up simple formatting issues. I just bought new toner for the printer so there was no excuse. Well, everything went wrong. Just stupid things like losing a couple of pertinent images.

I have NO idea how it happened (converting it from microsoft word to open office?). Then, I went to print a portion of it and 25 pages came out all messed up! I removed the toner and shook it, still no deal.

I glanced at the clock then had a tantrum. A horrible tantrum where the only words coming out of my mouth “f%$#, F#@$ing, Fu$%!” There were some G#$ Dammit’s and four letter shizzels and combinations of four letter words that when said together mean worse things then when they are said alone. No one was home. Just me. Still, this tantrum left me unfulfilled.

Fortunately my husband was on IM. I typed expletives so many times that HE didn’t even respond.

After eating up most my day, the dissertation is fine despite the fact I still need to rescan some images. Do I feel bad about the tantrum? No. It actually made me laugh as it reminded me of my dad and his very fowl mouth.