Delicious Fat-food

KFC's double chocolate chip cakes are the win.

So, the credit issue on my graduation evaluation seems to have righted itself over the weekend, because Kenn Brass replied to me and said everything was where it should be and when I looked at it again, he was right. But it was DEFINITELY missing last Friday when Grace Aldrich mentioned it. But I can't complain, that means I don't have to panic anymore.

Seriously, for the past couple of years I've wondered if going to Berklee was a huge mistake. On the one hand, I've been dicked over a bunch of times: The vast majority of required courses for the Music Ed major have only one scheduled class which filled up quickly, meaning there were a bunch of courses I couldn't take when I was supposed to - on top of that there were courses you had to take before you could take other courses, this all made some things take longer to complete. Then on top of that was the issue with the Music Ed proficiency. This covered everything: I had to do a solo on my principle instrument, demonstrate basic knowledge of one woodwind and one brass instrument and piano, conduct a vocal arrangement, demonstrate the vocal ranges, do a powerpoint presentation for a lesson unit, and teach a children's song by rote. I failed the solo, rote song, powerpoint and conducting despite the fact that I felt I did OK. When I went to make it up, I still didn't do too well on the solo and the rote song, and the Music Ed chair, Cecil Adderly basically said I wasn't going to graduate as a Music Ed major and to switch to Pro Music. He wasn't even going to give me another chance. He made it seem like I was unfit to teach, but it was just nerves. It's one thing when it's little kids but another when it's a panel of professionals scrutinizing your every move. And maybe I wasn't ready to teach then, but now I've had some time to work things out and will probably do better if given another chance. So anyway, I switched to Pro Music, but instead of the one more semester of student teaching I would've had under the Music Ed requirements, I now had 2 more semesters because there were 2 classes I needed to complete for Pro Music and I couldn't take them at the same time, I had to take one before I could take the other.

The good thing about that though was the last class I would've had to take, Final Project Seminar, Kenn Brass the Pro Music chair AND teacher of the Final Project Seminar literally told me I did NOT have to take the class, I could do the project on my own time and just check in in his office hour and submit the project for credit. He's like, "You don't need it, save yourself a couple of grand." So while I still had to wait out the extra semester and work on a project to be eligible for graduation, I at least didn't have to pay for an extra semester. That man is the shit. He is the best person at Berklee. I wish I'd known Pro Music was an option, like, 4 years ago, I would've done that instead of crawling through the Music Ed timeline with all it's speed bumps, and I probably would've been done sooner and with less stress. But they still haven't perfected the time machine, so I have to accept the fact that I had to deal with some bullshit.

The one thing I don't regret about going to Berklee is the experience. If I had gone to UMass Boston, the other college I was accepted to, I wouldn't have gotten a concentrated music repertoire and I wouldn't have become a better musician. Thanks to Berklee, I now better understand music theory and am a better keyboard player and can play clarinet pretty well and know the basics of trumpet and flute even though I didn't pick those up as easily as clarinet. And of course, I gained a lot of knowledge about the philosophy of education and lots of tips and skills for teaching. Then there's the handful of really cool teachers I had and the friends I used to hang out with on the Beach (the stretch of sidewalk in front of the 150 Mass Ave building where everyone hung out and smoked between classes). I've lost contact with all but Zac in New Jersey who I still talk to on the phone at least once a month and I got to see when I went to AnimeNext in Jersey last July and Catherine who used to live in Springfield but now lives in New York who I used to IM all the time but I have her friended on FaceBook now.
So while I was raped of 6 years of my life and more than $60 grand of my money (and my parents' and grandparents' cuz they pitched in), I did still learn a lot and had a pretty good time going there. Plus I have bragging rights. While many people consider Berklee students to be pretentious jazz players, there's a lot of people who are awestruck whenever they hear I go to Berklee, since it's such a famous school. So it'll look really good on my resume for anything music-related.

Anyway, today I worked for 4 hours and then hung out w/Flav as I do every Tuesday. My friend and former co-worker from Toys R Us Medford Jill got a really good quality bootleg copy of Twilight and made me a copy. Then my co-worker Lars gave me a burned CD of a band call Powerglove who makes rearrangements of video game music in, like, speed metal style. It's Children of Bodom meets the NES. So hurray for free stuff. But I left Twilight under my register and I'm not working til Thursday night. Maybe I'll swing up there real quick tomorrow to grab it so I don't have to wait 2 days. Heather will be more interested in it than me. I saw the movie in the theater and thought it was really well made and very close to the book but I can't imagine watching it over and over. The books are good but they're not rave worthy. But Heather loves it.

Tonight Flav and I got BK and KFC - she got BK and I got KFC, not both of us getting both, we're not fat kids - and watched YouTube Poops and Shamwow parodies. Tomorrow I'm hanging out w/Wig as I do every Wednesday and lovin's shall ensue.

I would totally order the Hard & Heavy CD collection, but I already have like, 90% of the songs on there either on the original CDs, Best of albums or other compliations. But the free bonus DVD w/Bret Michaels is very tempting. How can I order just that?? I'll wait like a year and someone will trade it in to Newbury Comics or sell it on eBay I guess.

But now I'm going to continue watching reruns of classic South Park episodes and then I'm gonna go to bed. I've been really tired lately and my body doesn't like to get up in the morning. I'm all like "I should get up, get some chores and crafts done, start doing Wii Fit again." at 8 or 9 in the morning but my body's like "Nooo! Roll over! Comfy warm bed sleepy sleep" until 11 or 12. I dunno, I got up at 930 yesterday so there's hope for me yet. We'll see what happens tomorrow. G'nite!