At the beginning of each new school year, I feel like I need to justify my existence to my students, or perhaps it’s their existence in my classes. I teach the final three semesters of a four semester music theory and ear training sequence. Most musicians, unless you are super nerdy like me, probably would not take music theory if it weren’t required to get any kind of degree in music. I explain to my Theory II class that…
Last Monday marked my fifty-first first day of school. Some of those years were as a student, some have been as a professor, and the years in graduate school were both as a student and a teaching fellow. That is a lot of years of school! Most days I still love it.But, having not taught summer school for the first time in many years and thus having a peek at what retirement might look and feel like, I have to…
“A Slice of Bread” I needed a little whimsy in my world today. Though this loaf of bread has indeed been sliced wide open, the wide open here really refers to aperture.
‘Watching the Trains” For some reason, we are both exhausted and stressed out these days. I can’t put my finger on exactly why that is. All I know is that no matter how much work I do I still have a ton more things that need to be done. It is a terrible feeling. I would just like to experience 48 hours where I don’t feel that no matter what I am doing I should be doing something else, something…
“Do I Look Like I Care About Halloween?
“On the Right Track” I hit the jackpot today as far as photography goes – my favorite subject, wearing his awesome hat, on the railroad tracks and from behind. As I read that last sentence the description starts to sound like an “adult” version of the game Clue. I had a whole lot more fun taking pictures than I would have playing a game of Clue, trust me! And no matter how much Weber may dislike being my subject yet…
“Good for the Sole” My funky striped hand-knit socks are the first things that come to my mind when I think about stripes. I don’t have much of a personal style except for my socks. They are like a smile on my feet. How can you not be happy when you are wearing brightly colored hand-knit socks? I am always surprised by the fact that my students notice my socks and ask about them. Over the years, I have…
“The Hand” This is not at all the picture I had in mind for today. I snapped several random shots this evening hoping for something that was even remotely on the mysterious side. When I saw this image, the Emerson quote came to mind. There is nothing really mysterious about this. Truthfully, there was nothing mysterious about any of the photos I took tonight. I had to abandon the daily prompt and go with the muse. Emerson is right…
“Weber’s Black Hat” The hat definitely looks best atop Weber’s head but he gets stuck so many days being the subject of the daily photo that I felt like I needed to accomplish this one all by myself. This almost looks like a silhouette, but it is just the hat hanging on one of our black dining room chairs. The image was taken in very low light to further address the “dark” prompt. All that said, below is probably my…
“Blade of Grass” I had a hard time with today’s prompt. The idea was to get those dancing bokeh circles atop blades of grass. That really needs to be photographed first thing in the morning when there is dew on the grass and beautiful morning light. That was not happening around here today. Let me tell you about our morning. First of all, the alarm went off way too early. All I could think of when it started beeping at…