It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm being a bum. You cannot underestimate the time in which to do absolutely nothing when you don't really get the chance the rest of the week. It's golden, really.

I just finished watching the Abyss, which if you've never seen it, you need to go rent it. Ed Harris is in it, and I suppose it has a bit of sci-fi in it, but that's not what it's about. Honestly, the best sci-fi doesn't focus on the robots or the aliens or outer space. It's about the normal people whose stories are being told within that framework. It's a really good movie. But the credits begin to roll, and I go, wait a minute, they skipped something! There's a whole subplot revolving about how the world is on the brink of world war three, complete with nukes. The 'aliens' are about to wipe out humanity because we're about to destroy ourselves, until Ed Harris' character tells them about the good things humans are capable of, like love. And the entire subplot wasn't there.

And then it hits me. The aliens can control the oceans, so there's a gigantic tidal wave about to crash down on every coast . . . and then it just stops, then it recedes. See, they actually have Tsunamis in Thailand, there was a tsunami warning last week after the earthquake in Indonesia. The big tsunami that hit a few years back hit parts of Thailand and Malaysia pretty hard. I get why they took it out now!

It was a very very long week. I started out Monday with meeting Norman, the GST person who flew from England to observe me. (!!!) It was a little nerve-wracking, but he was lovely and we had some very good conversation. It was good to get the perspective of someone who knows the British curriculum very well, but who also has experience outside of the system. He could admit to the shortcomings, but also see the strengths and compare it to other systems. Kraig and I could also ask him questions and get, I suppose you could say, a straighter answer than from others, because he could get where we were coming from.

One thing I learned was that the British curriculum for music is entirely academic- there's no practical performance at all. The Wisconsin standards are split up into three areas- choral, instrumental, and general, which implies that at a secondary level the curriculum centers around choral and instrumental performance, along with a more academic class. Any sort of performance beyond simple keyboard, percussion, and singing skills are not in the curriculum at all. Any choir or band is after school, and is treated as such. Private lessons and serious instrumental or vocal study is entirely out of school. School music teachers often don't deal with ensembles at all, which explains why one of the other music teacher reacts with such . . . the idea was alien to him. The one contradiction I see is that once kids hit key stage 4 and 5, they're expected to have studied an instrument for years, they're expected to be at a certain level without any support from the school system in the earlier years. If one's parents don't start them on their own, they don't get started.

Another contradiction is that while it is a British school, they're mostly Thai kids in an international situation. And being an international school, they're expecting 'top quality performances'. They want the orchestra, to be able to show them off. That's partially why performance is big in American schools- they want something to be able to show. And that's at odds with it being entirely extracurricular, and not associated with the school as is customary with the Brits. I suppose that's just par for the course, Bangkok being a place of contradictions. :D

I taught a lesson to the year 13s about vocal and instrumental ranges, and other characteristics useful in composition. They were writing a chorale, and they didn't know that the tenor line probably shouldn't be above the alto line. It makes the pianist's hands go wonky, and it makes the tenor and alto's brains hurt. A lot of what I put on the handout I gave them one picks up through trial and error, and through being involved with a choir or a band, and just knowing that the flutes generally stay in the higher areas in band literature. But they don't know that because they have no experience being in a band. They were like, why do I need this? I don't play the trumpet? But that's not a good answer, because what if you're comissioned to write a trumpet concerto someday? You can't rule anything out.

After school on Monday, Norman took me out to dinner at his hotel, which was simply lovely and very kind of him. The buffet was amazing, and I took the opportunity to eat a lot! He'd never had dim sum before, and I love dim sum, so I taught him something there! We also discussed things in Bangkok- he didn't know what the yellow shirts were for, things like that. He was the epitome of a British gentleman, and it was a lovely evening. I took the MRT home afterwards, and it was also nice to see a bit of Silom, where I hadn't really been before.

Did I tell you all about the yellow shirts yet?

Norman came back Tuesday, to see my choir rehersal. My write-up of the lesson the day before had been good, but with a few things to work on (that of course I knew about, and made sense to me). The choir rehersal, despite having a small number (I seem to be scaring them off. Must adjust strategy) was lovely. He wrote that he could see that this is where I was in my element, and I got things done, and I made the singers at ease, and kept a smile on my face, etc etc, It was lovely to hear, made my day. One of the things he did say was that ultimately my certification would be in the US, so while I did have to conform to the curriculum here, I couldn't lose my skills more focused towards the American system.

Thursday was an adventure. My entry visa ran out on Saturday, so I had to go on a Visa run to Cambodia. Not really my idea of fun. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. The hardest thing was finding pictures for the paperwork with about 12 hours notice. The school took some, but they had none on hand so it was up to me. At home, I'd just go to the Walgreens and get the hour-pasport photos. Ha, no such luck here. I ended up on Sukhumvit before 7am, in an attempt to find someplace to either take photos or else get the one I took at home developed. I was missing my printer Thursday morning! But I did find a picture place, hallelujah. It was 4 hours to the border, I spent 20 minutes in Cambodia, and then came back with a month's visa. They took good care of us, movies on the bus and water and lunch, but still not fun. And a waste of time- I had to miss my Thursday choir rehersal. I need to look into what I'm going to do next month, see if I can get a longer visa or something. But I survived!

Friday was tiring, capped off by losing a score. I'd spent about two and a half hours arranging the Royal Thai anthem for what orchestra we have on Wednesday. I went to find it on Friday, and it was gone. I'd saved it on the hard drive and it was gone. It was either a student or a teacher, deliberately or inadvertently, or it was just the computer wiping somehow. Either way, I was not happy.

I went to MBK yesterday, and I managed to get everything I went there for. I got lovely and cheap dim sum for starters. :D I got a backpack, a new case for my ipod, some dvds, a copy of Sibelius for my own computer (hooray!!), and some audio cables. I wanted a backpack so I had something to bring if I needed to haul a lot of stuff. I got on DVD Ratatouille, the Shawshank Redemption, Pirates 3, Sunshine, Master and Commander, and A Mighty Heart. The one TV show I wanted to find they don't have- Life on Mars, a BBC 1 show. I'm catching bits and pieces of it on BBC entertainment, on the telly, but I want to start from the beginning. It's really good but it's confusing me!

The audio cables are for hopefully recording the music for the school musical, to use in auditions next week. We've got a pianist, but the recording things here aren't set up in any sense of the word. I think we can hook the clavinova straight into my computer, and record through garage band, so the cables were to achieve that. Thank god for them I know something about audio equipment, because Kraig doesn't! If somehow you're reading this, Phil Granucci, thank you for all the electronics and computer knowledge I learned from you!

The copy of Sibelius is LOVELY. I was going to buy it anyway, but having it on my own computer and not the ones at school is wonderful. I need to buy a usb keypad, so I won't have to hit the num lock key every two seconds to input rhythms!

That was a lot of rambling, right? I'm generally doing very well. I like it here, and it finally feels like things are being accomplished and moving somewhere. I'm still frustrated at a few things, like the quality of internet connections here. You'd think if every person has a cell phone and I had a signal there the entire trip to cambodia, they could have internet access that wasn't a snail's crawl. And the apartment complex tells me Friday that apparently I never signed the lease when I got here. Why did I not get this when I arrived, a month ago? They can't give me an answer. I'm not impressed.

:D There's a few other neat things in the works, and we've got a lot to do. Talk to y'all soon!