License to trill

So today I found the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (are they getting paid by the letter? Cuz what was the point of changing it from Department of Education to the deliciously verbose new version?) so I could look for the necessary information on obtaining my teaching license. A very useful website, which is rare for government websites because they're usually extremely difficult to navigate. Anyway, I already knew the 2 main requirements: receive a Bachelor's degree and pass the MTEL (Massachusetts Test for Education Licensure) but I wasn't sure if there was anything else, like if you had to do so many hours of student teaching or whatnot, and of course where to apply for the license.
Well, there's the preliminary license and the initial license. Both are valid for 5 years, but the preliminary is for those who have not yet completed an "approved educator preparation program." With just my Bachelor's degree and my passing scores on the MTEL I can get a preliminary. So then I checked under the initial license requirements and besids the degree and MTEL passing it says "completion of a Massachsetts Music: vocal/instrumental/general all levels approved program" so I clicked on this for the list of approved program and it says Berklee College of Music baccalaureate. I'm like "WTF is baccalaureate? Is that just a fancy Latin word for Bachelor's degree?" Of course I gotta double-check so I go to dictionary.com and sho' nuff, baccalaureate is just another word for Bachelor's degree. And that's what I've been doing at Berklee for the last 6 years, doing Bachelor's degree courses in music education. So I've already completed the so-called approved program, got my degree and passed both halves of the MTEL. So I guess I can get my initial license. I think I might ask my grandmother for some more info, tips and advice since she used to be a teacher. The only snag is she started teaching in the 1960s and retired 5 years ago, rules and requirements have changed, so I don't know how much she's going to know. At the least I could just run through the application process and see what happens. I'm not in too much of a rush, I probably wouldn't get hired until the start of the new school year anyway, I don't think anyone would hire a new teacher with 5 months left in the school year. Also, I already have an in with one of the local schools so I don't need to rush to snag rare teaching openings or things like that. I have to rush a little because I've been overdue to start my career and I got student loans to pay and I'd like to finally move out and get married.
I'm still kind of wary about going straight into a classroom, especially after the negative experience with my proficiency. I know I got the skills, I'm just rusty because I haven't done anything music-ed related in over a year. I still have all my notes and books and the infinite reference of the interwebs to brush up with, but I think I'd be more comfortable if I could get some student teaching hours or start off as a teacher's aide or assistant teacher. If chorus teacher David Seaman stayed on, that's what would've happened. I would've been his aide for a year or two then I would've taken over for him. What happened was he was diagnosed with a neurological disorder a few years ago (I forget which), and was in the hospital for a long time with complete loss of speech and mobility. His speech came back pretty quickly but he never regained full mobility, but came back to teach in a wheelchair for a while then abruptly quit about a year, year and a half ago and nothing the city could say or do would bring him back. It's a shame because he was an awesome teacher, one of my favorites when I was doing observations (how many other teachers are going to listen to Denis Leary with you in his car on his lunch break? LOL).

So I got a lot of good on my side. It looks like I'm all set to apply for my license, I have a school principle who wants to give me a job - especially since he wants to get rid of this cunt-like vocal and general music teacher that no one likes, and I got plenty of resources to brush up and practice my teaching skills with and the support of a former teacher grandmother. Holy shnizz, are things going to finally work out?! WOW!

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!

WTF

So I emailed the head of the graduation department at Berklee asking about when they mail diplomas or if I had to pick it up. She tells me I still had to fulfill 3 history credits. I'm thinking to myself, the Professional Music chair, Kenn Brass, went through my whole transcript to make sure I fulfilled all the credits, manually overriding exception courses and everything - since I had to switch majors. But before I said anything in a reply email, I checked my graduation evaluation (EVAL) and it said I still needed to complete 3 credits in a history course. I'm like, what the fuck? Back when I took my required history courses, you could do, like, World Civ 1 and 2 or American History 1 and 2 or something like that, but then they offered prototype courses that you could take instead of World Civ 2, so I took a class called Gender and Power in History. That should've been credited for history, but what happened was Kenn stuck it in the required Liberal Arts electives credits. It's a simple mistake, it looks more like a Liberal Arts course than a History course.

The good news, it's an easy fix. All graduation department lady, Grace Aldrich, needs is an email with the clearance from Kenn to apply Gender and Power to the history credits and Japanese 1 to Liberal Arts electives and I'm 100% credit-fulfilled. The bad news is Kenn Brass is taking a sabbatical - he's taking the whole spring semester off. I don't know if he's checking his emails or not. But I just realized something - some Pro Music major always needs something done -a waiver, guidance, credit substitution, etc. Kenn Brass is probably the busiest department chair. It's just the nature of a versatile, catch-all major like Pro Music. His office waiting room was always packed during his office hours and he frequently had to extend his time so everyone could get seen. He couldn't be away from his office for a whole semester, so he either has to keep up with his email and remotely take care of things or have someone else in the department doing what he usually does. In the Music Ed department, chair Cecil Adderly had an assistant, Mary Deane, who took care of EVERYTHING. I don't know how she did it - and she remembered practically every Music Ed major's name too. So Kenn has to have someone like that running the department while he's gone for the entire semester, otherwise students would panic and things would fall into shambles. People who need to graduate in a semester or 2 need a waiver to get into a required class or else they'll lose their student visa and get deported because they have to remain above 5 credits or something like that...
So it should work out. Kenn or somebody will give the OK for the switch and Grace will put it through the system and I'll get my diploma when they mail them all out in February and I'll officially be able to say I have a Bachelor's Degree and I'll get a real job. I think when I frame it, I'm going to put it on a chain and wear it around my neck like Flava-Flav for about a week, just to prove I got it. Either that or I'm fucked - again. (and it's things like this why I keep sending in those Publisher's Clearing House entries even though it's a one in a billion chance...I want my $5,000 a week for life so I can pay off my student loans and finally move out!)

Today I'm got a few things I need to work on. Lesson plans - cuz I'm still aiming to teach private lessons, craft projects, reorganizing my DVDs, and trying to get back into doing Wii Fit. I also promised to drive Wig to work at 3. Then of course when I'm home in the evening, I never miss Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. I'm such an old person LOL. But I am AWESOME at these shows and I've actually applied to be a contestant on Wheel and am considering trying out for Jeopardy too. Then I'm going to New York and flagging down cabs 'til I find the Cash Cab.