Tigers On Fire!

No, the zoo isn't burning. =) Yesterday was the championship game for the volleyball season, and my girls won! Tigers are champions for two years in a row (only one of my team was a repeat customer, since the teams are mixed up every year). By the way, the title was our team "cheer." We started using it last year in the tournament, and it really seems to get the girls excited. I'm so proud of the girls and the progress they made, and I'll really miss working with them. One of them told me this morning, "Teacher, I wish volleyball wasn't over!" Last year my team started with a lot of talent and didn't have to work as hard, but at the end everyone contributed to an extremely hard fought championship-by the end of the year, the other teams had improved greatly and only the determination and team work pulled it off for my team. This year, I started off with one returning player (who ended up as my team captain), 1 other who could serve fairly consistently, and 2 with a little experience, but extremely inconsistent serving. The other 4 had never played volleyball before. Annais (aka "old lady"), the team captain, was our "glue." She was our most consistent server, and could always be depended on to pass the ball back over the net. She was also the team cheerleader-I always noticed a definite difference in team spirit when she was at practice and games, and I heard several comments from spectators about her good attitude. The girls really looked up to her, and I'm happy to say she provided them with a good example, in serving technique =) and attitude. Valeria (from 6th grade) had experience, and was fairly consistent in serving, and always dependable to return the ball. When Annais couldn't be there, Valeria took over and got the job done. Paola, my only lefty, at first constantly served outside the line, but after much practice was able to remember to step, and hit it straight, and became a very consistent server. She was also a big part of our team spirit, always cheerful, and excited to play, and when the 6th graders were late or absent, Paola took charge. Julimar began with inconsistent serves, and very hard time focusing, but by the end was consistently serving well, and paying attention to the game. I'm really excited about her progress. Amarys began the year playing scared (with a family member watching practice and chewing her out the whole time) always popping her serves up to the roof-strength was definitely not her problem. =) But as soon as practices became closed, she was able to work with out being scared, and turned into another very consistent server. Yarelis began with very weak serves, but after LOTS of practice at home, she turned into another consistent server. Valeria (from 4th grade) started out very weak serving as well, but at the end I could always depend on her for points coming off the bench. Alejandra was my smallest player, and therefore had the hardest time with serving, but she was able to figure it out (with the help of Annais and her visual example) and toward the end, though not necessarily consistent, had several very important serves (including a series of 3 to win a game) and contributed to the team effort in every game.
If you can't tell, I'm very proud of this team and what they accomplished. I'm excited about the volleyball they played, but as I was commenting to another teacher that out of the 4 teams I've coached in my years here, this is the best by far not in talent, but in attitude and team spirit. We had a great season, and I'm really going to miss them.
Go Tigers!

FBFI Conference

So far it has been really good! I'm looking forward to the rest of the week. You can check out the messages online here . The date is listed, and those with the word "bilingue" in the title include translation into Spanish. The message last night by Mark Bouslog was especially good.

Jumbled Thoughts

We're very busy here getting ready for the FBF conference on Sunday, as well as beginning rehearsals for Christmas program songs. Because of that, I haven't had much time to sit and blog. So, here, in no particular order, are several thoughts and "stories" that have ben stewing in my head for the past couple of weeks.



1. This week in our Wednesday night service, we had a couple walk in that I recognized. They have a open air restaurant just off the beach in Pinones, and when visitors come, we take them there for pinchos and pina coladas. This couple has 3 girls in the school, so I wasn't too surprised to see them, but when Pastor got up, he gave some encouraging news. He told us that this couple got saved on Monday night in visitation. It was so exciting to hear that! Sometimes it would be easy to get discouraged with making visits, and making visits and making visits and not seeing fruit, but this was another encouragement to keep going. The couple's oldest daughter is a junior in high school, and has been in the school for 8 years. That means that this couple has had teachers in their home for visitation for 8 years, and in the most recent years up to 3 times in a year (because of the three daughters), and now they have finally been saved. A good encouragement not to give up-you never know when God is going to work in people's heart to open them to the truth. It may take years!



Obviously I never got past one thought, and this is 5 months later-this couple is still faithfully attending Wednesday night services.

......Or Not

Yesterday around five, we got an email saying that school was canceled because the governor had canceled everything for today. I didn't actually get that until this morning because I don't have internet at home, but I had heard from several admin people that we didn't have school today. I still got up this morning, though, at 5 to listen to the radio for school closings. Every time they made the announcement, they said our school was closed. For some reason, I couldn't go back to sleep, and around 6:40 (teachers are supposed to be in at 7) the announcement when they got to our school was "CBCS is....um....we're not sure.....we think they're open" How's that for indecisive? I called my supervisor, and she suggested coming in, so I started to get ready. As I was getting ready, the announcement every time was that we were open. Honestly, I prefer to be at school than at home by myself.

Hurricane Omar

Well, school has just now become interesting-they've decided to suspend all after school activities (late stay, homework help, etc) as well as the evening service at church tonight in light of possible weather and road conditions (flooding, mudslides, etc). School tomorrow procedes as usual until further notice. So, parents are starting even now to come and get their kids early.We're under a tropical storm warning and hurricane watch for the next couple of days. The hurricane is not supposed to actually make landfall here-it's supposed to hit St Croix in the middle of the night. But, since St Croix is not that far from here, the eastern coast of Puerto Rico is going to see more of the effects than we are here in San Juan. We're still cautioned to bring everything inside, etc.

More rain

Apparently, we have another storm forming on top of us. This time, however, instead of starting as a group of storms, then becoming a tropical depression, storm and finally hurricane Kyle, like what happened in September, tropical storm Omar has formed to the south of Puerto Rico and is expected to hit us on Thursday. I'm not sure if the projections are for it to be a hurricane by then, or not. Some roads have already been closed from the rain, preventing at least one of my students from coming to school. One of the teachers was hoping for school off tomorrow, but I would rather have the time off during the last two days of the FBFI conference, because having school and conference at the same time is draining. If we don't have to have hurricane days (like some of you in the States have snow days) then we will get those last 2 days of conference off.

Fall Fest

Fall Fest is almost here! I've been going a little crazy making sure everything is ready-ordering 200 cookies, buying and coloring 120 oz of icing, etc. Should be lots of fun. At least I didn't have to make the sign-Mrs. Zimmer did that for me. I'm also working on auditions for a Christmas program choir. Why do the most beautiful voices have to come from the children with the worst behavior?

Weekend fun

This weekend I spent some time organizing my apartment, hoping to have some girls over Sunday afternoon. Didn't happen. When I got to the next to last turn on Sunday morning, I noticed that the temperature gauge had begun to rise, and I heard an odd hissing noise. I thought, "this sure can't be good." Those of you who know how much trouble my car has given me this last year will know how discouraging that sound was. I was able to make it to church, and when I stopped the car, I still heard the sound, and honestly, I didn't even want to know what it was that was gonna cost me a lot more money. I finally decided that I'd better at least look, so that I'd know whether or not I'd have to get a ride home after church. When I opened the hood, the radiator hose was doing its Old Faithful imitation. At least since I saw it spewing, I knew exactly what had happened, and what needed to be replaced. After Spanish service, I told Mrs. Jacobson that I didn't know for sure whether or not I was going to have transportation for choir practice, and she told me she'd come get me if she had to, but if someone took me somewhere for the after noon (happens occasionally) to let her know. After the service, Mrs. Santana asked me what I was doing for the afternoon, and I told her that I wasn't sure because I was going to have to find a ride home. They invited me to eat lunch with them, and before we left the church, Mr. Santana asked if I would show him the problem with the car. I showed him, and he said that we could stop at an auto parts store after lunch. We went to Macaroni Grill, which was excellent, as always, and had a good time. As we headed back, we stopped at Western Auto. Not only did Mr. Santana buy the hose, coolant, and a funnel, but he also went by his house to get the tools, and when we got back to church he rolled up his sleeves and changed the hose and put coolant in the car. I'm especially thankful because I wouldn't have known what to do about it myself, and I probably couldn't have gotten it to the mechanic during business hours for a couple more days. It was exciting to see how the Lord takes care of me even when I start to panic and forget that He's in control and he knows what he's doing.

Our volleyball game on Friday went ok. We lost, but we took it to 3 games, and I saw improvements in all my girls. I can live with the loss if we're doing our best.

Tonight is college choir again, and when I get home I'm going to straighten up the apartment and stir up some colored icing. Tomorrow night I'm having some girls over to make and decorate cookies. I've ben testing things for fall fest (we're going to have a cookie decorating activity) and I have some leftover icing and cookie mix that I need to use up. I'm looking forward to it-the first time I've had anyone over for a while. Before my car died last year I had people over a couple of times, but when I got it back towards the end of the year, things were so busy that I didn't really have the time. Hospitality has been something the Lord has been challenging me about, so hopefully this will be a continued thing. We'll see how it goes.

Kyle's leftovers

Ok, so it wasn't named when it was raining on us, but now it is-Tropical Storm Kyle. After college choir last night, and talking with some of the staff, I have a better understanding now of how it's actually affected us. Apparently because of all the storms and rains, the city/municpality reservoir is full of silt, and has to be processed differently before being dispersed to homes, etc. This process takes a lot more time, so the city is only turning water on from 2AM to 8ish. Problem with that is that we don't find out that the city has been turning the water off until we are close to the bottom of our reserve tanks. Last night we only had 1200 gallons in the tanks for the college kids to shower, etc. since we had used so much water for the bathrooms at the school. Hopefully over night we were able to get some water in the tanks so we'll be able to have school. The weekend should be a little better because there won't be the huge water consumption of the 600 school kids to deal with-just the college which I think is somewhere around 35-36 people. Last night we had carryout food and plastic utensils from the cafeteria so that there wouldn't be any dishes to wash. Right now we're just trying to conserve water to make it through the day-remind me not to walk past the bathrooms unless I have to......

Also, on Wednesday, the governor canceled sales tax for the day supposedly to help storm victims (who wouldn't get aid money that soon anyway) who are rebuilding/recovering from the storm. I don't know how much rebuilding is done since structures are more built to withstand winds etc (everything is concrete....ok, almost everything), probably just more flood recovery. It's not just the storm victims taking advantage of the no sales tax-people are rushing to buy computers, plasma tvs, and other large items. And, the governor extended the tax holiday until Saturday. I'm dreading a needed trip to Walmart-the parking lots and aisles will be packed!!

Not too much to say today, I think, but since I'm trying to make a habit of writing more often, I'll at least say something. Today went pretty well-my composing students are slowly but surely getting the idea of how to do dictation, although I did let them out 15 minutes early because I had it in my head that this was the class that gets out at 10 after the hour. Oops! I did have one funny incident where I was trying to return Diego to his classroom after his piano lesson (this first grader is not trusted in the halls by himself) and we couldn't find his class. We even went outside, but apparently the class was walking in an area where we couldn't see them. One of the other teachers told me where the class was, so I just kept Diego with me while we waited for the class to come back. He began to get worried about his teacher. He told me he missed her, and he was convinced that someone had come along to steal her. I tried to assure him that the teacher was ok, and he said to me "Ok teacher, I'll trust you." A few minutes later he was worried again, I tried to reassure him again, and he said, "I'll try to believe you." I don't think I've ever seen a student quite so happy to see his teacher as Diego was when we finally found his class.
I play for college choir tonight, so I'm still at school pretty late. They sing Sunday morning in church, so I'm sure that's what we'll work on, as well as some of the music for the FBFI conference.
Tomorrow we have our second volleyball game, and hopefully the uniforms will be here in time to have the girls try them on and check to make sure they fit.

Happenings

I can't believe it's been so long since I've written........or maybe I can believe it. I spent all summer at home (which should be no excuse, but I spent most of my computer time on Facebook) and since I've been back I've been super busy.
So, for a quick run down of what's going on, here ya go.
I'm teaching 4th grade music, 6th grade music, 7th grade composing, 8th grade guitar, High school girls PE, piano lessons, playing for HS, church and college choir, scheduling all the church music (which is a challenge since we lost several people this year who were very involved in the music program) and next semester will add music appreciation.
Honestly, I was not looking forward to teaching high school, but the Lord has really been doing a work in our teens, and it has been exciting to see the changes in hearts and lives since this school year has started. Several of them went to camp this summer, and were really impacted by what they heard and learned, and they have not just been talking about the decisions they've made, but we're all seeing the evidence. Very exciting!
So, it's been busy, but I'm enjoying things. I'm teaching more middle school this year, which definitely brings its challenges, but they're also a lot more fun, even when they give me way too much information, which is pretty often. =)
I'm sure there's other things to write, but right now the headache is obscuring them, so I'll save them for later after I leave you with this quote (ok, it's more of a story than a quote):

Jasmine had been gone from school for a few days, and when she came back, on the way to PE she was telling me that she didn't think she could do all the running, that her strength ran out at three laps, that she was gonna fall over and die, etc, etc. Since we really had only been doing 2 laps around the bball court (which we started while she was gone) I wasn't quite sure what she was talking about. Turns out the other girls told her that we ran 12 laps every class.......and she believed them!! I was definitely amused, and I'm still not sure why she believed them.

And for those who are wondering, no, I haven't drowned from all the rain we've been getting. Basically the set of storms that's projected to become a tropical depression and eventually be named Kyle has been forming over our heads this weekend. The governor's trying to get the south of PR (that received 24" of rain in 24 hours) to be declared in a state of emergency so they can get federal funding. In the south (I'm in the north) apparently many houses and businessess were affected, as well as the plantain and coffee crops. All we've gotten on this end of things is a bunch of rain.

And one more thing that I almost forgot-last Sunday I (along with some friends) narrowly, or not so narrowly according to some counts, escaped being hit TWICE by lightning. We headed to Walmart after church, because my campus daughter needed to pick up some money being sent to her by money gram. As we left the church, it started to rain a little, but with in a couple of minutes, we found an area where it had stopped raining. Eventually we ran into rain again, and as we sat a a stop light, we began to see lightning, and instantaneously hear the thunder along with it. One of them struck extremely close, and I thought it hit the traffic light in front of us. I found out later from the girls in the car with me, that they actually saw sparks from my car. How I could miss the car being hit by lightning I'm not sure, but they were quite sure they saw sparks in the area where the antenna connects to the car. Not 30 seconds later, the electrical pole next to the traffic light behind us was hit by lightning, and this time, all the traffic lights went out, and a cloud of orange smoke rose from the pole that was hit. We got to Walmart as quickly as possible after that, and after I had dropped the girls off and found a parking space, I was walking through the parking lot (which at some points had ankle deep water) to get inside when another bolt of lightning struck close and loud enough that it set off several car alarms in the parking lot. And believe it or not, when we left Walmart, the sun was shining, the sky was almost clear, and it was getting hot!

Finished.....almost.

One more K5 graduation tonight, then I'm finished!!!!!!!! I'm looking forward to sleep.

04-18-08

If you can't tell from reading it, when I wrote the last post, I was extremely exhausted. That, and I had a headache. I'm feeling a bit better now, especially with the prospects of finishing the last Spring Program tonight and no school on Monday! (yeah for another Puerto Rican holiday!)

This morning, when Sophia (2nd grade) stepped out of her car, she said, "Teacher, this is the second best day of my life!" Of course, I had to know why, so I asked her. She told me, "The spelling bee [she won 1st -3rd grade division] was the first and today is the second." Today was when they announced the winner of the year-long team competition among the three teams (red blue and yellow). Red team won, and Sophia is red team.

This afternoon, I was sending two piano students back to class after their lesson, and as the left, I said, "Goodbye, gentlemen." As Irvin headed out the door, he replied, "Goodbye, gentle lady." Made me laugh.

You think English with a Spanish accent is interesting, try Spanish with a Chinese accent. Wow. I heard it for the first time last night speaking to one of the school parents bringing her child for the program. Some of you who know me know I love languages and accents, so it was definitely interesting for me. We have several (5-6) kids in the school who are fluent in English, Spanish, AND Chinese! Amazing, especially little Kolea who is in first grade-she speaks each equally well (at least I know she does English and Spanish-I don't speak Chinese, but I'm assuming she speaks it pretty well). I sure wish it came that easily for me.

Pray for my middle school students if you think about it. Middle school music classes have been a struggle lately. I teach them during the last period of the day, plus it's elective which they think translates to playtime. Also, it doesn't help that it's the end of the school year. Classroom control has been difficult, but that's not my main concern. The attitudes and behaviors I'm seeing are scary (not that I'm afraid of the kids, it's scary what those attitudes and behaviors lead to) The problem is not that they don't obey in class-it goes deeper to a heart issue. Many know they're doing wrong, but try to blame it on others. Others know, but say it's too hard to behave correctly. A great deal of them just don't care, and these are the ones my heart breaks for. I can just imagine some of the things waiting for them if they don't let the Lord get ahold of their hearts soon. I don't know what more I can do for them, but I do know that I can pray that God will get their attention before it's too late. I love these kids, and I know there's still hope for them. Just pray that the Lord will give me wisdom in dealing with them, and that He will help me know how to reach their heart, not just their behavior.

Now, off to final prep for the last program. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

04-17-08

Tonight we have the second of our three spring programs. I will be sooo glad when they are finished tomorrow night. I think they're going well, but I won't be sad to be finished. We're doing "The Life of Fanny Crosby" from a book of Soundforth programs. My car is finally back and functioning, many dollars later. It's got one more trip to the mechanic to be officially fixed/finished, and I'm going to be taking care of that on Tuesday.

03-18-08

This was actually written last week, but since internet was down, it didn't get sent again until today.

Wow, have I found a treasure!! Actually, Clarissa found it for me but it's still exciting all the same. Yesterday during Carlos's piano lesson in the afternoon, Clarissa came in with a huge stack of music and told me that they were about to throw a box away (they're reorganizing the library after its move) but they found all this music. As I looked through the stack, I got soo excited! One thing that I have been specifically looking for was in the stack-a book of 6 Clementi sonatinas! Carlos's hands are so small that he can't reach an octave, and 7ths are pretty difficult for him, and it's quite a challenge to find music that challenges him but doesn't have huge stretches for his hands. Also in the stack were books 1-5 of the John Thompson piano method, plus Teaching Little Fingers to play and Book 1 in Spanish. More exciting stuff!! Besides the Clementi, the most exciting thing in the stack was 5-6 copies of the music magazine "The Etude" from different months in 1940-1942, as well as one from 1949! There are many different articles with specifics for different instruments, question and answer columns, book reviews, new pieces of music, and some of the most interesting things are the ads. One article that was interesting was about "new" recording technology. Anyway, I'm looking forward to wading through the rest of the stack of magazines-I've really enjoyed the ones I've already ben able to look at. Carlos says the only time he's ever seen someone as excited as I was when I saw all that music was when he watched "Trading Spaces"

After school yesterday, Mrs. Santana and Carlos took me home, and before they dropped me off, we went to a neat store that's within walking distance of home-a cake store. They have everything you could ever imagine possibly needing to make, decorate, and store a cake. All kinds of decorations, tools to decorate, ways to display, different types of pans, frostings, fillings, ingredients, etc. Anyway, a pretty cool store that I look forward to going back to some day when I have a functioning oven that's of a decent size. Right now, I have to settle for the toaster oven, where at least I can make cookies, even though it's only 5-6 at a time. I can tell you that makes life interesting especially since I really have a problem making single batches of anything-it's a good day when I can hold myself to a double instead of a triple batch. =)

My order from Bath and Body Works came yesterday! Finally! Ok, so it wasn't really that long, especially by Puerto Rican standards-a little under 2 weeks. It was exciting for 2 reasons-first, Janice's birthday present got here before Janice's birthday, and second, there are no Bath and Body Works stores here in PR, so it's really nice to have some of the stuff.

I'm doing tons of work on the spring program. We'll see if it actually comes together-every year/season, I'm convinced it will never work, but it always does.

One more thing-I was able to have a good talk with Jorge on Monday. He got saved in December after one of his piano lessons, and on Monday he was really struggling with forgiveness towards a classmate. Pray that he gets ahold of the concept-bitterness and hate are so nasty and hurtful, and that's not just to the person they're against. I shared with him several verses about forgiveness, and even encouraged him to pray for the boy, who really does need the prayer.

Spring break is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I'm excited because I'm looking forward to our traditional trip to Culebra, hopefully for some good snorkeling, and gorgeous view on the ferry ride over and on the beach as well.

2-27-08

We're furiously preparing for Field Day around here. I'm working the score table again, and it should be less stress this year since we should already have the ribbons ready. Since this is the third year I'm doing score, I've got my system pretty much worked out. We are doing it in a different place this year, so that should be interesting. I think I'm gonna miss it being within walking distance of the beach.

Once Field Day's done, I'll be concentrating on the spring program, for which we're using a program on the life of Fanny Crosby from a Soundforth book of junior programs.
And of course, a blog entry wouldn't be complete without a couple of student quotes.

In PE we've been learning to pass the baton correctly in preparation for the relay during Field Day. On Monday, I was asking my second graders why we were using a certain hand to hold it, and Sophia raised her hand and said, "So that we will fast-en up!"

I was talking with Luis after class today, and he was talking about how hard it was to keep from talking in class. I was joking with him, and said, "Yeah, life's rough, isn't it?" He said, "Well, not so much since we have the opportunity to be saved, but some other things are tough."

Trilingual conversation, Lunar eclipse, the death of a chair, and a new best friend

Quite a strange title, but it helps me to remember the things I wanted to write about, and it reminds me of the days Amy and I used to email and compete to find the strangest subject lines possible that many times had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the emails (remember the 99 bottles of nail polish, Am?)

First of all, the trilingual conversation. I've ben able to pick up a bit of ASL since I've been here. I understand much more than I can actually sign, but I'm still in the learning process. Milagros (one of our college grads who happens to be deaf) was working as a hall monitor and was trying to communicate with a parent, but it wasn't working. Many of the parents are able to make basic hand motions, but others, especially those who aren't as familiar with the school have a little more trouble. I happened to be passing through, and asked the mom what she needed. Since I know Spanish, I understood what she needed and turned to communicate that with Milagros. Most of my sign language, however, I associate with English words, so when I turned back to the mother to explain, I started talking to her in English, and didn't realize my mistake until she looked slightly confused. Talk about brain fry! I thought 2 languages was hard, but adding a third is even more interesting.

Lunar eclipse-it was pretty neat. I sat outside for an hour or so and watched and took pictures. I wasn't the only one out on my street. There were about 3 others from time to time coming out with their cameras.

The death of a chair-as I was sitting on the walkway in front of my apartment, my only portable chair (not a recliner) slipped off the edge and broke. =( Oh well, one more thing for the shopping list.

My new best friend-Tide to Go! I love this stuff-it has saved me embarrassment and stained clothes many times. It's saved a a few friends too. =)

Wish I had more time to write, but I must go to supper!

2-13-08

I've gotten tired of trying to come up with titles that usually sound cheesy to me, then I never end up writing because I can't come up with a title, so here goes with using the date for my title. Maybe I'll write more-who knows?

Probably not since I wrote all that 11 days ago.

I have decided that January in Puerto Rico provides what is quite possibly the world's most perfect weather (as long as I could vacation to see snow every once in a while). It's cool at nights and in the mornings, and not obnoxiously hot throughout the day-the weeklong forecast reads "Hi-81 Lo-72" 7 times in a row most weeks, occasionally with some rain thrown in.

This semester 8th grade choir has started, and we've had surprisingly good attitudes and participation. We'll see how long that lasts us, but for right now it looks good.

Last night we had an interesting visit-the mom is very faithful in her Pentecostal church, and neither father nor son are saved, but seem to be interested in the things of the Lord. I'm hoping they'll come visit on Wednesday night.

Soccer season was canceled for not enough kids signed up. They were sad and so was I. I was loooking forward to the fun and extra exercise, but I guess we'll have to wait for next year.

I've started work on our spring program. Hopefully it will not drain me quite as much as the last one.

And just as I was typing all this, Judith came in looking for a translator, so I saved it and left. After I finished with her meeting, as I walked out of the room, another 2nd grade teacher asked for a translator, and by the time I was done with that, it was 4:15, and I had to devote myself to finding a ride home. I was hoping to make it home at 4, so I would have time to walk to Walgreens before it got dark and do some last minute Valentine's Day shopping, but that didn't happen. Everyone who would go home early enough was gone by 4:15, so I stayed. It worked out alright though, because Mrs. Rojas had to go to Costco, and she didn't want to go alone, so I was able to go with her, and get at least the candy I needed. When I got home, I went to the pharmacy almost right across the street to get the gift bags that I needed. So, in the end it worked out, but I didn't get back to the computer until this morning.

How was that?

Sometimes my students just leave me speechless.
Today Kamila saw the picture of a bunny in her piano book, and told me she had a bunny, and the bunny's name was Beethoven.
I asked her if she knew who Beethoven was, and she said, "He was the very best player of the piano." I was pretty impressed that a second grader knew who Beethoven was, but I don't guess I should have been surprised because her dad's a pianist himself. Anyway, I asked her if she'd ever heard any of the music Beethoven wrote, and she said "No, but he is friends with my Daddy!"

Interesting thought

Today during his piano lesson, I was using whiteout on the finger numbers in Efrain's book. (at this point I'd rather him focus on the note names than finger numbers)
He was fascinated with the whiteout, since it looked like the numbers were just disappearing, so he looks at me and asks, "So, if I put that on me I'll be invisible?"