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elissa_dear
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Name: elissa
Country: United States
State: Texas
Metro: Abilene
Birthday: 5/4/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: vacations and road trips, God, music history (and trying to make it interesting for everyone), hot tea, Germany, good literature, RAIN and spring mornings, the art nouveau era of art, not getting too frazzled and stressed, old houses and buildings, football- esp college, late 18th century through mid 20th century history, keeping the peace, french fries and ice cream, duke basketball, any music by frederic chopin or cecile chaminade, mixed media art, having quiet time, reading a good book w/o falling asleep, arts and crafts/mission style houses and decor, putting things off until the last possible moment in which they can be done and done well and on time (it's a challenge!!), savoring the moments that show us who we truely are....
Expertise: nerts.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
AIM:  lissa mb20
Member Since:
10/31/2004
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i'm not a big sport's girl....
but duke basketball is on right now.
and the amazing tech game is saturday.
it's a great time of year for me and sports.
summer... not so much.
but this time of year is awesome!
so many games to distract me from my powerpoints and papers. : )
i've almost survived this week. and it's so much closer to thanksgiving now which makes me very very excited. i have a lot of work that i want to get done this weekend- to make my life less stressful. so we'll see how that goes.
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| good day/bad dayso today... this morning up until about an hour and half ago was an amazing day. i got work done in the morning, listened to new music, started gathering things together for the holidays, read an article for world music that i felt i could talk about intelligently (it was a gender study). and i did indeed talk intelligently in world music briefly which is very good for my usual quiet self.
never mind that it's tuesday. my very long day. 6 pm looms large. i have to give a presentation on barbie and i didn't understand the postmodernism/ posthuman cyborg plastic philosophies the author was spouting. so i'll be BSing my way through it all, hoping that no one else understood it.
but still i was doing incredibly well i thought. happy. my work will get all done. my professors saw how stressed we (the music department in general) were and changed the schedules and formats of assignments-- i'll be able to focus my attentions more spaced out on each final project.
but then 330 came around. and i saw a girl who i consider a friend. a fellow musicology student. and she is so incredibly stressed she's about to collapse. she's shaking. she has had panic attacks. she didn't put off doing all of her work by any means- her work just happens to all be due on the same weekend. and i don't know-- something really gets to me when people who i care about are upset. i just wanted to cry for her. help her with any work. but she has to do it all herself. yikes. anyway, so i'm sad for her. and now starting to get a little anxious about my hideous presentation.
so tech's doing well at football. which is awesome. but that just adds onto the stress level for the music department.
supposing there are good things that happen saturday for us, goin' band will miss finals to attend a very crucial game. which not only puts stress on the 400 musicians, but the profs and TAs that teach them (thank heavens, not me). and supposing good things happen at that game, then goin' band will miss the beginning of the spring semester for another huge game. (i'm not going to jinx it. i'm just relating what i heard. i laughed at least).
i should say, our schedule is horrid this semester. we have thanksgiving, get back monday, three days of classes, dead day and then finals. there's other little rules, like saying when tests can and can't be given- scheduling of final exams and when grades are due that professors have to be stressed about as well. it's laughable how awesome (sarcasm) our schedule and timing is this semester. i wouldn't change the football team's success for anything, or my job assisting a prof. but it's so outrageous it's laughable at this point.
and it seems that while undergrads are stressed, overall it's us- the grad students- straddling the world of student and teacher- that are facing the greatest amount of stress.
anyway, i'm going to survive. i just really wish i could help some of those who think they can't right now.
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| this semester, and future plansthis semester has been filled with: -- going to classes (obviously)
--taking a class on how to teach
-- assisting a professor in teaching his class
-- because of aforementioned job, going to workshops on how to utilize online sites for teaching (ie blackboard)
-- occasionally teaching classes
-- talking to fellow grad students constantly about teaching
and really, even though it's by far been the craziest semester schedule wise (and looks to only get better in this last month, ick)-- i have learned more and progressed further than i ever thought possible. it's been eye opening. not necessarily the most fun semester ever. but very enlightening. since i am an only child, when i was little, i always had to have imaginary play situations. i had an imaginary friend, but i often remember teaching imaginary classes in my bedroom, the bathroom, living room-- wherever. from the time i was like 3 [how i knew what classrooms were like, i'm not sure- maybe tv?]. i would even pretend grade papers. i loved school. i couldn't wait to get into the classroom and then move onto the next level. i was ready for college in middle school, no joke.
and from grade school onward, i knew what i wanted to teach. through middle school it was 4th/5th grade science (yeah- wow- that'll never happen). from high school until my junior year of college, it was high school english or history (that still is my fall back). but the minute i set foot into a music history classroom, i knew that was what i wanted to do. i want to teach the history and culture of music to students. whether they be music majors or non-majors. even though teaching at a big school like tech is somewhat appealing in that i can stay focused on my 'area of expertise,' i still love the idea of finding a small liberal arts college like mcmurry and teach there. so this semester has been the greatest in solidifying what will work. what won't work. what i need to do to get ready. how i'll cope with it all. and realizing that i think i might just be able to handle this. whether it be a class of 3, 30 or 300. the a/v program at UT-- yeah it's just falling into my lap. and i probably will apply to it when i apply to phd programs as an option... i just don't know if my heart is into it. i love sorting through old things at work. but the idea of spending days upon end working on computers, cleaning up old recordings in wavelab....? anyway, i'll be looking into it further. the money and assurance of getting in is quite appealing. as for now, i stay at tech. i should graduate in may (and i guess if i rushed and tried to kill myself with inputting information, i might be able to still). i have enough hours. but i want my CV, my resume, my transcript to be the best it can be when i apply to the larger programs. i want my writing to progress further. thus i stay an extra year. and i found out today that i might try to finish up in the summer or fall '09, at least earlier than may '10-- apply to the phd program at tech (which isn't an issue whatsoever) and start getting doctoral hours that then transfer to other schools. and because i will have already been accepted to that program and have stuff done, other schools will be more likely to hire and accept me. it's all about making myself the most marketable and appealing for schools-- it's like getting a job really. the more teaching experience i have will help too. anyway, i have way too many presentations right now to work on, and yet i sit here typing. i lack focus. it's friday night. most people are watching movies or on dates. and i'm about to curl up with research on bollywood and/or barbies (my women's studies class- not my choice of topics this time) that all must be done this week. | | |
| two musings for today:
one: about a week ago, my boss at the archive proceeded to tell me that i could get my phd not in musicology but in something along the lines of what i'm doing at work-- audio/visual preservation. at ut. okay, mildly interested. i could get a full scholarship of $20,000 a year. so my degree would be paid for. and that the scholarship would almost be guaranteed because of my work at the archive and because of my masters in musicology. oh and starting salery after i graduate? usually around $60,000.
holy crap. that's an awful lot of money being thrown at me. and yet, i remain only mildly interested. because it wouldn't give me the opportunity to teach. how sad a creature am i? resigning myself to being poor all of my life.
oh well.
second musing: i am counting down the days until thanksgiving. i'm not a big holiday girl... have yall ever noticed? ha ha. i don't do halloween/4th of july/valentine's day. i just don't.
but thanksgiving and christmas are different. it's the one time of year that my family is festive. i adore thanksgiving. because i get to cook. i get so busy and stressed that i don't have time to cook most times. (or if, like last weekend, i finish a huge project, i usually start cooking because it's stress relief and i enjoy it so much).
anyway, so thanksgiving is always amazing cause i'm home, i'm cooking, we put up the christmas tree, watch parades/football, and it's my parent's wedding aniversary- so the house that's always loving is super filled with love. and i turn on tv this morning to set my vcr and i realize that all the commercials are geared towards christmas/the holidays and i watch a moment of morning news shows like GMA (which i only ever get to do while i'm cooking on these holidays), and it gets me incredibly excited.
so i have a ton to get done before thanksgiving-- after the holiday is i think a week of school- 3 days of classes and finals-- but i am incredibly ready for it all.
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| i have an approved thesis topic (well, mostly, but essentially it's approved).
my big scary mid-term was postponed to thursday, and has now been made into a take home exam, available until saturday.
that means i don't have to go to classes on thursday at all. a complete free day.
i am caught up with my scanning project for the moment.
[not that i'm a huge raider, but...] tech is ranked #2 in the nation, after the most amazing football game i've ever seen.
and i had a very positive meeting with my advisor.
: )
so all i need to do right now is:
take my midterm.
prepare a 10 min. presentation on carole king for a week from now.
figure out how i would teach a class on latin american music (for an assignment on "teaching in unfamiliar territory")
prepare a 20 min. presentation on bollywood for two weeks from now.
and then before the end of the semester:
write a syllabus for a class on women in music.
present 20 minutes worth of lecture that might be seen in said class.
create a blackboard site for 500 students.... that mirrors an already present webct site. joy.
and write a paper that will turn into a condensed partial version of my thesis.
my thesis is over women as they are portrayed in a music magazine called the etude. my scanning project has been to request volumes of this magazine, and then scan them in at the library. that way i'll have them at my fingertips at all times-- makes research much easier. it takes about 2 hours for each year to scan. and i've done almost 15 years. i've lived in the library lately. and it's why interlibrary loan people know me by name. [they are very nice people, btw.] no more volumes are here- hence why i'm caught up for the moment, and it feels great- not having big huge 10 pound books looming to be scanned. eventually, if lending libraries start to hate me, and if i can't get all the volumes anymore, the suggestion has been made for me to go to the source-- go up to the publisher in philadelphia. heck yes. i love my career.
i've got my list of things to do. so i'm busy. but it's all spaced out time-wise, it's all fesible, and i'm happy with what i'm doing. sigh. somehow it's all working out. this semester didn't start out as the happiest one. but it's getting much better.
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