Have you heard …

I know it’s an ambitious aspiration, but still.

I began attending the drama class at Jubilee Christian Center when I was ten years old, September of 2006. I only had one line that year and was one of those kids who doesn’t talk unless they absolutely have to. Last year I was the narrator, who has the most lines, and I frequently get slight reprimands for talking too much and too loud. = ) I also personally believe that the quality of the plays and skits has improved significantly.

The former drama teacher, Wesley Milliken, has moved to a different church. So, we have a new teacher. Her name is Callie Garrett. She has been in a few theater productions. She recently starred in The Wizard of Oz at Ohlone College, which is about five minutes away from our house. She was even in our newspaper! I congratulate her.

What I wouldn’t give to be doing that myself. Meeting new people, getting to “play pretend” for hours each day as a career, and having fun all at the same time. Learning about and playing with different kinds of animals in productions that have animals in them!

One of our friends almost always has a skit written for us whenever we are visiting with each other. I have tried to write skits before but nobody wanted to act them. Another one of our friends used to come over roughly once a week. A few times we didn’t exactly write skits so much as we decided what to say and when to say it and memorized it. Then, we would put on these original skits for our parents. With other friends of ours we are working on a script. A lot of our friends have performed in musicals, among other things. My aunt has been in a few things with Stage 1 Theater, including The Music Man and The Man Who Came To Dinner. Her friend might be working on this year’s childrens’ play. I hope to be able to audition for it.

Being an actress is an ambitious aspiration, but one can dream, can’t she?

Two weeks ago, on Tuesday, I began teaching piano lessons to one of our friends. She is an excellent student, I must say. One thing I should tell you, though, if you are teaching beginning piano, use the Prep Course Level 1A Lesson Book from Alfred’s Basic Piano Library. That is the one I learned from in the beginning and it is working well so far for my student. I started out teaching from a lesson book from Hal Leonard’s and it did not work out too well without the technique book, which neither my student nor I happened to have. In Alfred’s, however, it teaches as you go along in the lesson book. It is better to have the theory book with it, too, but we are doing fine with just the lesson book for now. My student, who I mentioned is also a friend of ours, is doing well. She passed three to five songs on the second week and six to ten the third. I am sort of teaching theory from my brain but the book helps, too.

This week’s lesson happened to be on a rainy day and after worrying if their electronic keyboard still worked (and finding, fortunately, that it did) my student’s mother, my mother, my student and I came to a unanimous decision that on rainy days we are using our piano.

The second week after lessons my mom, my siblings, the Valencias (my student and her mother), and I all went for a walk down a pleasant little path by our house. It was beautiful that day and all the children, including myself, wanted to have a spontaneous picnic. Most of us knew it was pretty much impossible to do that, but one can dream, can’t she? = ) So we had decided to possibly have a picnic this week, but seeing as the floodgates of heaven had been more than simply opened, that plan went down the drain. Way down. Oh, well. We played a rambunctious game of tag with my student, anyhow. She is a faster runner than most of us and it sure got our blood flowing! Hopefully we can have a picnic next week, but there’s always good old tag!!!

So my teaching job has been going well. It is also helpful for me to have a teachable student. I enjoy teaching; the after-lesson activities, too!