Music, Parking Tags, etc.

I am taking my very first voice class. I went to it yesterday. The professor is the wife of my music appreciation prof from many, many years ago. She is very funny. There are only three or four music/theater majors in the class. The rest of us just like music. We have a dedicated accompanist and everyone seems super nice. We have to sing from the book-- most of the songs are classics but I do not recognize them in sheet music form. We sang O Danny Boy and Amazing Grace yesterday. I got weepy. I have heard those songs before and not paid much attention to them. Yesterday the sadness behind ODB-- the harsh life that was lived in Ireland at the time, that women couldn't do anything when their husbands/boyfriends were conscripted into the armies by the lords-- made me sad. Amazing Grace even got to me-- the professor was singing and while she is a professional and is supposed to do this, she still got to me and I was ready to cry as I sang along. If I were bent toward American Evangelicalism, I'd have thrown myself at the alter right there!


I spent $150 on a parking pass for the one semester. Will I park in the good spots? Most of the time I will drive to town and park where my husband works and either have him drive me over, walk, or take the bus to school. I bought that damned thing for the ten school days that he's out of town and I will have to park at the college. I got the "platinum one" so I can park in a fancy-schmancy garage that is near none of my classes, but I will park in it if there if nothing else is available. I drive a tank and park in no-man's land as it is, but parking is so hard to get on that campus! Next semester, they will charge students $10 for giving a pass out on campus, God help us, if the student doesn't want to have it mailed to them. I hate this college's administration for it's contempt of students. Why is handing out a pass in person such a problem?

My linguistics professor is a big nerd. I love him, but he a tsunami of information. I remember why I failed his classes before. He teaches linguistics like I would-- he gets so wound up that he can't possibly get enough time to teach all that he wants to!

I went to the hospital training. I went to the abbreviated one for professionals. It lasted 300 years-- 3 hours in real time. It felt like 300 years, but it's what you have to see. The flicks of people trying to make something boring watchable. I hurt for the actors. These are the shows with the actors playing new employees, talking to their bosses, "I don't want to rat anyone out, but if I see someone not washing their hands, do I tell someone? Do I talk to them?" The boss says that "A gentle reminder to the person is good, but if they keep not sanitizing, you can bet that someone else has seen it, but you should tell a supervisor anyway and they will discuss it with the group!" It was hand sanitizing, harassment, all the usual stuff that they have to show employees and volunteers. It's critical for them to show and with what my father went through with MRSA before he died-- important, but painful to sit through. I cannot imagine that lasting the 8 hours that they also offer for people with more time.