Louisa May Alcott

"Fame is a pearl many dive for and only a few bring up. Even when they do, it is not perfect, and they sigh for more, and lose better things in struggling for them. "
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888, American Author)

Louisa May Alcott is one of my favourite authors. She wrote Little Women and Little Men and worked as an abolitionist. Her life was challenging but she worked hard to meet the challenges and lived her life to the full.

International French Horn Festival

Last night, I had the privilege of being involved with the International Horn Festival. It was held at St. Paul's Anglican Church and involved several hundred French Horn players, eight of them from the high school where I teach. The students had a good time, they took quite a number of photos both before and after the festival. During the festival, the students played a number of pieces with other horn players. What an exciting sound with all the horn players.
Gloria Ratcliffe, who I worked with for several years is one of the organizers and she was certainly pleased with the event. Congratulations went out to her.
I look forward to future events.

No e-mail

Now this is frustrating. I can not connect to e-mail. I did not realize that there are people who I can only reach by e-mail. Hoping that I will be able to reach them sometime today. Need to contact someone about an event this evening and let them know that I will not be able to attend. I had not realized how much I depend on e-mail. Here is hoping that I am connected again very soon.
So much easier being able to connect any time of day by e-mail. No one is bothered and can answer at their leisure. Can not phone them! Not at this hour.
Here is hoping that connectivity is reestablished soon!

Gold for the Band

Time to get back to computing. Monday was a busy day with my Junior Band participating in a band festival. They got Gold! My goodness, what a surprise but also validation that I do know what I am doing. I left teaching with a bad feeling because I worked with an administrator who questioned my abilities. I felt that I knew what I was doing and certainly what has happened at my former school seems to validate that fact. Sadly, the programme is now a shadow of what it once was. I must look ahead to where I am now and ignore what has happened. Do not want to describe what the previous teacher did. It is too sad. There is a new teacher who I am helping but she certainly does not know a great deal about teaching band. Oh well, things change and I must remember to move on. However, I am still very pleased about the gold. What a wonderful performance on the part of the students.
Today, I had a more relaxing day. Took students to a rehearsal of the Toronto Symphony. They rehearsed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Fidelio Overture and a finale modern work which featured percussion. Good fun and interesting for the students.
Time to head out for orchestra rehearsal.

Clivia

As some of you may know, I love to grow plants indoors as well as outdoors. One of the plants that I have grown is the Clivia. Will divide my clivia later today and see about giving it the care it needs. It does seem that my benign neglect was not terrible and actually beneficial which is good.
I love Clivia which I first saw bloom in Carmel where they are garden plants and are randomly placed where ever there is room for them. In our gardens, they would not survive if left outdoors.
Apparently, there are clivia that are not the common tangerine. They were developed by a California hybridizer, Joe Solomone.
There is a garden centre offering the yellow clivia that he developed. I might just get one. Have to decide if I am going to be a good enough gardener.

Another mystery series

Just finished another in a series of books, A Hannah Swensen Holiday Mystery in this case-Joanne Fluke's Plum Pudding Murder. Love reading gentle mysteries. Have another book that I am reading but had to put down for a bit because I found it too violent. I know that violence exists but sometimes, I do not want it in my literature.
Back to the Hannah Swensen Mystery. If you want recipes, the Swensen mysteries are great. The main character, Hannah owns a cookie cafe and the recipes for new cookies are included in the book. The author tries many recipes and is thinking of preparing a cook book to accompany the books. Good idea! Won't give away the actual murder, you will have to read the book.
I do recommend the series for a nice read. Have some other sto mention but will wait until I actually read one.

Reports are done!

Finally, reports are done and sent to the main office. Now, I can get back to blogging among other things. It is a challenge to keeping things going when reports are due. Thank goodness they do not take as long to complete at the high school level. Always, amazing how things get put aside while this important piece of paper work is completed. The important aspect is that the results do affect students lives. Some students want early acceptance at university and need the marks. I need to relax which I will do tonight.
More tomorrow.