Friday, July 19, 2013

7/19/2013

My fondness for computers grows dimmer day by day as I try to figure things out on this new Windows 8.
Couldn't use the printer until I loaded it on and then it wouldn't work but kept pulling up this onenote thing that I have never used.  Sister Yturralde was here and with her experience, which is extensive, she finally got it to work an hour and a half later.  So my big plans of getting alot of work done on the history just vanished into thin air. Oh well!  I wish some of this Dominican laid-back stuff would run off on me...
  Thursday was a good day as I was able to get much of the writing for the history. Somehow I just managed to loose half of the blog.  We had a lesson at night that went from 6:30 to almost 9:00 because some of the kids stayed after class to practice more.  This time we were locked out of the church and had to wait half an hour in the rain for the missionaries to return with the keys to the building.  Five of the students were there waiting for us which is very unusual.  Jose, formerly referred as "cool kid" was even there early - he usually comes half an hour before the class ends.  I have actually come to be quite fond of him. His little buddy, Ralph, is out in the country for the summer so we may not see him before we leave.  They were to play one of their recital pieces at the end of class.  There were only two who could do it!  They have four weeks left so here is hoping they will actually work on getting them learned.  One of the funniest things happened with Jose.  He called me over to listen to his piece which he knew well.  So he had the hymn book open to these two hymns and as he played I realized, even with my lack of Spanish skill, that he wasn't reading the music on either one of them.  He had the pieces memorized.  They so often do that but then if they get mixed up they can't find their place on the music page so we encourage them to read the music to play.  He didn't realize the book wasn't open on the right page so it was pretty funny when I asked him if he was reading the music or playing from memory.Caught in the act!!  I would say at least half of our students memorize the music or they play by ear.  We have three older women in our class there that are so sweet but they all struggle with the piano.  One of them asked why it was that her children seemed to learn so fast but she didn't.  It helps me to realize that older minds just don't learn as quickly as young minds do.  Somehow I thought more mature students would do better - but they don't.  When I compare it with how much I have worked on Spanish and still know so little I completely understand where they are coming from.

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