More Miracles!

God has answered SO many prayers lately it's insane...first of all, my friend's mom is doing really well. She did have a small stroke but they got her to the hospital in time and the doctors took great care of her.

Secondly, I had a whole ton of miracles last night at the Music Banquet. Every year, the music department has this banquet to recognize all the members (well...all the ones that show up), hand out senior awards, and announce scholarship winners. There were three awards/scholarships available that I was eligible for.

The first was the Director's Award, which is something Mr. O gives out and he chooses who he feels is his most "outstanding" senior. He started giving a speech about it, talking about how the person receiving this goes above and beyond and hasn't stopped working since 9th grade...well BEFORE 9th grade...and at that point I knew it was me. He loves to tell the story of how when I was in 8th grade, he came to the Spring concert at the middle school and after only being there two minutes, this girl came up to him asking, "When does marching band start? Did I miss it? Can I join? When's the first day? What do I need to bring?" Yupp...that was me. :)

The second was the Matt B. Scholarship. The distributor chose to give $1000 to five people this year...and I was one of them. :)

And the third, was the Chaz H. Scholarship. The recipient has to play at least 3 instruments, be a positive role model, excellent work ethic, great grades, a leader...all these really great qualities that Chaz had (he was a member of the marching band...died in a car accident in 2008). Well, I got to hug Mr. O a third time that night...cause I was awarded that scholarship as well. :)

Mr. O (band director), myself, and Briana H. (Chaz's sister)

It was so unreal and overwhelming...after I was named as the recipient for the Chaz H. Scholarship, my mom came over (she was sitting at another table) and gave me a huge hug and told me how proud she was of me. And then of course we both start crying right in the middle of the banquet...haha.

Praise God for such a wonderful night and a phenomenal four years with the music department. :)

Thanks, God. :)

One of my very close friend's mom's was admitted into the hospital tonight due to severe chest pain. The doctors have been doing tests for a few hours and they think she might have had a stroke.

Please add her and the entire family to your prayer list...

God is Good

Last night at post prom when they were drawing the raffle tickets for the prizes, I was actually praying that I would win something. But not so much for me...for my mom. I've always known our finances aren't that great, but recently I found out just how bad things have gotten.

I put my tickets in to win a gift card to Best Buy (so I could buy my laptop for college and mom wouldn't have to worry about it) and a gift card to the mall (because I need to buy nicer clothes for my Career Study and didn't want her worrying about that either).

As they were pulling the raffles I just kept praying...God, I really need a miracle right now. I don't know if you consider my number being picked a miracle but that's kind of what it is to me and my family really needs it right now.

Well, I didn't win either of those. But God works in mysterious ways...instead, I won $50 cash from a random drawing.

The miracle continues...

This morning when mom came home from church, she told she had exciting news to share. She talked about how during worship one of the songs really affected her and she started crying. After service, one of her friends took her outside to the garden to talk, cause she could tell my mom needed it. When she had finished sharing about all the stresses of still dealing with grandma's death, school, taking care of the house, kids, and paying bills, her friend told her she needed to go to one of the church staff and let them know what was going on.

The church is now completely paying for two of our overdue bills.

God gave us two miracles. :)

God is so good,
God is so good,
God is so good,
He's so good to me!

He answers prayer,
He answers prayer,
He answers prayer,
He's so good to me!

The English Major in Me

Morning after prom all the prom pictures go up. I was looking through one of my friend's albums and saw a really goofy picture of her and another girl. In the comments section, she wrote, "you and me were SOOOOOO hot!" And then the other girl replied, "Oh yeah!!!!!!!!! ;)"
Okay, let's go through this piece by piece and explain how it is completely and utterly INCORRECT.

First of all, the 'y' in "you" is not capitalized.
Secondly, because the phrase "you and me" is subjective, it should be "you and I".
Third, there should be a comma after "you and me", which, as previously established, should be changed to "you and I".
Fourth, "were" should be "we're"--without the apostrophe the sentence meaning changes completely. Instead of "we ARE hot" in the present tense, she is praising that they "WERE hot", past tense...something I'm not sure they want to be celebrating.
Fifth, the caps lock and extended use of 'o' in "SOOOOOO" is not necessary.

Oh the joys of being an English major and feeling the need to correct a trivial comment on Facebook. :)

I have a corner in my classroom. :) I've been getting notes and pictures from kids and I put them up on the back board along with some drawings I've done in class and now I have my own little part of the room. :)

Career Study

My little sixth graders are awesome. :)

For Career Study, I decided to stay with Mrs. T teaching language arts at the middle school. My first three days have been AWESOME. I used to only be there from 1:00 to 2:30, so I got to know her 8th period class and her homeroom really well, but now since I'm there the entire day, I'm getting to know about 100 students. And I so do love getting to know people. :)

It's great too, cause Mrs. T and I have been working together ever since November, and so we've developed a really good tagteam approach to teaching and managing the class. For example, today the kids had a big test to take. When each class started, Mrs. T collected homework and while she was giving directions for the test, I graded and put the grades into the computer. Then I moved to the back table, where I worked on one of the activity drawing sheets Mrs. T had laid out for kids to do after they finished the test.

As they started handing tests in, I graded the multiple choice section and then passed them to Mrs. Thorpe and we worked on grading the essays together.

I don't know if that sounds like a lot of fun but it really was. :)

Words of Wisdom from Dr. Tim

You have to be persistent to be a leader.

Give up giving up.

90% of being a leader is attitude. 10% is skill.

The worst decision is no decision.

It is not fashionable to be positive.

DO leadership, don't talk about it.

You are measured by what you complete.

A leader does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether they want to do it or not.

Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're always correct.

If you don't think you can make a difference, you're crazy.

Tell the truth, but be sensitive.

You can't lead others until you lead yourself.

Several months ago, I was eating Chinese food for lunch with my mommy. Out of the blue, she asked me if I had ever wanted to do drum corps. I told her it had been a crazy fantasy dream but never something I had given serious thought to. This was how the rest of the conversation went:

Mom: "I think you can do it."
Me: "Well it's not a matter IF I could, but HOW...I don't play a brass instrument, and I'm not good enough for the drumline."
Mom: "What if you got lessons?"
Me: "For bass drum?"
Mom: "Yeah, you could get them over the summer and then try out."
Me: "You have to be INSANELY good to make it...like ridiculous. I don't think I could get to that level."
Mom: "Rachel, you have never tried to reach your full music potential. Every single one of your directors/teachers have come to me and said that you could make it in the professional world if you practiced and became committed to your instrument. And I've told every one of them that playing sax is more of a hobby for you and you're happy with the level you're at. But I want you push yourself. And I know that drum corps will do that for you. So if you're committed, I'll get you bass drum lessons."
Me: "But touring with a corps costs THOUSANDS of dollars..."
Mom: "I'll find a way to make it work. If I found a way to buy you a professional saxophone last summer, I can find a way for you to march."
Me: *the reality of what she's saying finally sinks in* "I could march drum corps..."
Mom: "Yes. You could march Bluecoats with David if you work hard enough."

The rest of the conversation was pretty much me freaking out saying how much I want to do it now that it's a reality.

I texted David right away, and after we talked for a bit, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to get the private lessons for bass drum...I wanted to do mellophone. First off, getting into the drumline is nearly impossible (especially for a top corps) and they usually require at least one year marching a lower level corps. Well we don't have the money for that. And also, I've always wanted to learn a brass instrument...so here was my perfect opportunity.

I start mellophone lessons in two weeks. I will hopefully be working two jobs this summer in order to save money for Bluecoats and college. I will then be playing mellophone for Millersville's marching band in the fall (it's official, I confirmed it with the director).

If by Thanksgiving time of this year I'm ready, I will audition for Bluecoats. If I'm not ready, I will take another year to prepare and then audition.

I am going to do this.

DONE

I AM ALL DONE. *victory dance*

No more AP tests...

No more finals...

NO MORE HOMEWORK.

NO MORE HIGH SCHOOL. Instead, I get to spend the next four weeks at the middle school working with my 6th graders for the entire day. It's gonna be awesome. :)

Oh and I turned 18 today...and I'm starting mellophone lessons in two weeks...and my boyfriend's home (for a short time before he leaves for Bluecoats, but he's still home!)...and I'm getting my license next month...and and and I am SO happy!

Final(s) Week

It's almost over...incredible. This is my last week of school. Next Monday I start Career Study, which means I'll be spending all my school days over at East with my 6th grade Language Arts class that I've already been student teaching at the majority of the year. It's gonna be awesome. :)

But for now...I have to finish all my crazy last assignments and study my butt off.

Then it's my birthday, David comes home from college, we get less than a week together and once again he's off to Ohio for Bluecoats...but I'll be plenty occupied this summer, what with reading amazing literature, sorting through everything I'll need for college, and oh yeah...learning how to play a brass instrument.

Maybe I'll make a separate post explaining that...no time right now though. Gotta go study up! Charge!