Teaching

Today, I went to All Region Band auditions. I am in the middle of my third year to teach middle school band in the same school district. As a result, I now have a whole bunch of students in band whom I taught as beginners. I love going to these auditions and seeing how the students have progressed in the time since I started them out. Some of them absolutely amaze me.

The clarinet players, for instance. I am not a clarinet player. I can play it, but I took one semester of lessons in college and played it in band for one semester. That is the extent of my clarinet experience. And yet, I can teach them very well. We had sixteen clarinets in the All Region band, and eleven of them were my beginners. Makes me feel like maybe I'm doing something right!

So how do I teach? What does it take to be a good teacher? I plan to begin a series of posts that will address just such a topic.

PayPal $15 Rebate

MyMoneyBlog reports here that PayPal has a $15 rebate promotion going on. Check it out for more details.

Blog Update

I have slightly changed the layout and added some stuff. There will be some major updates later this evening as well.

Web Sites

These are some sites that I have built. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

Del Rio Christian Fellowship
ABA Academy

The Seduction of Pornography

The Seduction of Pornography
by Dr. Albert Mohler

The pervasive plague of pornography represents one of the greatest moral challenges faced by the Christian church in the postmodern age. With eroticism woven into the very heart of the culture, celebrated in its entertainment, and advertised as a commodity, it is virtually impossible to escape the pervasive influence of pornography in our culture and in our lives.

At the same time, the problem of human sinfulness is fundamentally unchanged from the time of the Fall until the present. There is no theological basis for assuming that human beings are more lustful, more defenseless before sexual temptation or more susceptible to the corruption of sexual desire than was the case in any previous generation.

Click here for more.

Colts Win!

I've been waiting for this day for about 7 years. Congratulations to the Colts. Tony Dungy is such a humble leader. Oh that I could be that way!

Welcome...AGAIN

I am trying to make this thing happen for real. I changed the URL and colors today. I am not a big fan of these colors. It's not that they are a bad combination, but they are far from my standard comfortable colors. Leave feedback and let me know what you think.

I will try to make a post to this thing at least once a day. It may be a link, it may be an article, but I will try to put something on here. There will be lots of subjects covered.

2007 - The year of _______

This year is going to be both an interesting and exciting year, I have no doubts about that. I just have no clue what it holds.

I anticipate some major changes this year. Not the least of which is that I will completely eliminate all of my remaining credit card debt. As I enter the new year, my credit card debt is just over $9,300. I put my student loan in forbearance last spring so that I could get my past due credit card bills caught up. Since then, I have paid off three small credit card balances, had some major dental work done, had some car repair done, gotten my baby emergency funded with $1,000, and am pounding away at debts. Living on a budget is slow to begin with, but it gets easier over time. It is far less expensive than paying overdraft penalties month after month because I was too immature to control my spending. I'm learning to act my wage. :)

If everything goes according to plans, there should be some other major changes taking place this year. We'll see what ends up happening with them, though.