Aaron Copland in Peru

I am beginning a unit on 20th century music with my 12th graders and I am really excited to start talking about more recent (relatively speaking, in the music world) composers. My 12th grade boys are just awesome and we have a great time in class. They all know now that Aaron Copland is my favorite composer and that I am looking forward to talking about American music with them. I've been playing a lot of Copland lately in my classroom, just because I love listening to it so much. It brings back good memories - I played "Appalachian Spring" on the cello with the UNH orchestra my sophomore year and I will never forget the experience. Copland was a bit of a traveler and I came across this great photo of him landing in Lima. How neat is that?

Here Comes The Sun...

I think spring has finally come to Lima. After 2 months of grey, cool, misty weather, we finally had a picture-perfect day in the city. I spent the morning at school, doing work in my classroom and trying to wade through the 18 years of junk that my predecessor managed to collect. It was sunny and warm out at school, but usually when that is the case, it is cool and grey by the time I get back to my apartment on the coast. Luckily, that wasn't what happened today! The sun was shining and the sky was blue, until 6pm, when it started getting dark. Unlike most of the rest of you, I am close to the equator, which means the length of our days doesn't very much at all. No more long summer nights when it stays late until 10pm. I will definitely miss those from Berlin and from NH. But I will take the dark as long as it stays warm. Hopefully today was a taste of what is to come for the next couple of months.



My friend Reada and I enjoyed the nice weather for a while this afternoon, but then we got sucked into "Grey's Anatomy". We are both terribly addicted and we spent this afternoon catching up on episodes from season 2 that I missed, since I didn't jump on the Grey's bandwagon until I moved down here. I bought the DVDs at Polvos, but they are still showing season 2 on TV down here. In fact, we just started season 2, which means season 3 is months away. As tempted as I am to read about the new episodes online, I am trying hard not to break, so, if you watch it, don't tell me what is happening. It is hard enough that they talk about it on CNN online every morning! I decided it was only appropriate to include a picture of McDreamy on my blog, since he is so dreamy. I have a picture of him up by my desk at school, partly to gaze at and partly to make my kids laugh. They get a big kick out of it, especially since he is hanging up next to some pictures of my favorite conductors.

Machu Picchu

I spent this weekend visiting Machu Picchu and it was amazing! We stayed in Cusco, which is the former ancient Incan Empire. It is also the oldest continuously inhabited city on the continent. This photo is of the central plaza, the Plaza de Armas. It was larger when the Incas controlled the city and has always been the heart of Cusco. The cathedral on the left has a painting of the Last Supper where the main course is guinea pig, a Andean specialty. And Judas has the face of Francisco Pizarro, the Spaniard who brought about the downfall of the Incan Empire.

We took a bus from Aguas Calientes up this very, very windy road to the top of a mountain and there was Machu Picchu. It sits up there in the middle of the mountains and is impossible to see until you are almost on top of it. It is no surprise that the Spanish couldn't find it when they were trying to conquer the Incas.

There are a couple of llamas that hang out up at Machu Picchu and add to the Andean ambiance. They just wander around and people chase them, trying to take pictures. This one happened to stop right in front of me and I was able to get this great shot.

I never once imagined that I would ever visit Machu Picchu. I've seen pictures and always thought that it looked amazing, but I never thought I would have the chance to go there. I'll be honest, traveling in South America was never really on my radar - I've always been much more of a Europe girl, as you all know. But I am so glad I have had the chance to see Machu Picchu. Standing on the top of that mountain, looking down on these incredible ruins was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Nueva Acropolis

There is a huge annual music competition in Lima called Nueva Acropolis. Roosevelt has participated for something like the last 30 years and has won the majority of those times. It was a little stressful to come into this new school and have to prepare for a competition in 6 weeks. But the kids did a great job and we managed to pull it off. We won't know if we have won until sometime next week, which is fine with me. The winning isn't important - I'm more interested in the process of preparing for a performance. And now that Nueva Acropolis is over, we have started working on new music for our next concert in November.
(Thanks to my friends Tim and Reada for chaperoning and being great photographers!)

Here are my students, getting ready to perform.
And here we are, in action.

Visitors

Speaking of visitors in my last post, I just wanted to let everyone know that I would love to have company anytime you can get down to Lima. I have plenty of space - 2 extra bedrooms and an extra bathroom - and I would love to have visitors. I had hoped my brother and his girlfriend would come down in February, but they are bailing on me. I don't have as many breaks as I had in Berlin, but there are still some good times to visit. Anyone up for a trip to South America for Thanksgiving? Or mid-February? I will be home for 6 weeks, beginning at Christmas, but other than that, I will be here. Lima is a great place to visit and the perfect jumping off point for trips to Machu Picchu, the jungle, or anywhere else in Peru or South America. So, give it some thought and be in touch. I love having visitors and I am starting to feel sad that I have no plans for company this year.

Another Saturday, another trip to Moore

My friend Jen and I have gotten into the habit of going to Moore every Saturday morning at 9. I haven't decided yet if it is a good habit or a bad one. These are my latest purchases and I absolutely love them! They might be the last pictures of shoes that I post for a while. I am determined to take a little break from Moore. I didn't order anything today and I am going to wait until their summer styles come out in a few weeks.
For those of you interested in getting shoes from Moore, there are a couple of options:
1. (the best option, as far as I am concerned!) Come visit me and I can take you to Moore and you can order the shoes or bags yourself. You just need a week to get them finished. We can go and order them the first day you are here and they will be finished before you leave. So, check out those flights and come on down!
2. Send me pictures and sizes and I can try to order them. The ladies at Moore would much rather you are there in person to try them on, but we might be able to work something out. Bags are no problem - send me pictures and the colors you want and I can order them very easily.
I'll be home at Christmas, so let me know what you want before then. I think they get pretty busy at the holidays, so I should order things before Thanksgiving.

Another Sunday in Miraflores

Reada's boyfriend Dave is visiting for the weekend from Houston, so we took him to lunch at San Antonio, a very good restaurant near our apartments. This is Tim, Dave and Reada after our yummy lunch.
This beautiful courtyard is near my apartment. It always catches my eye when I go by. I think it is so pretty and peaceful.








This building is one of my favorites in my neighborhood. Look at those balconies!! I would love to live here.

There is a chicken restaurant that delivers and this is what their delivery bikes look like. I had to do a double take the first time I saw someone riding by with this huge plastic chicken on the back of his motorcycle.

Cajon Drums

My friend Gilles and I just went and bought some cajons, traditional Peruvian drums. They are really neat. You sit on them to play and the center has a low pitch, while the top edge is higher. I've seen them played very well and I'd love to take some cajon lessons at some point. The first photo is of someone playing cajon so you can see what it looks like. The second photo is of my drums. The left one is of the back of the drum, the right is the front.

Yes, this is an addiction...

This is my latest Moore purchase. I picked it up this morning, and ordered 2 more pairs of shoes. This has become quite an addiction. I am going to try to slow down after I pick up the shoes next week - my goal is to NOT order anything next week! This is a little out of control...

Final Day of ICC

The last day of ICC involved tug of war, which was quite a sight. It is actually really fun to see all the kids so involved in this week. And they are pretty good sports about it. The seniors won the entire event - I guess the seniors win every year, though this year's sophomores are a great class. They came in second place and everyone seems to think they can win the whole thing next year as juniors. We'll see...

Here are the freshman boys trying desperately to beat the seniors at tug of war. It was a losing battle - they got dragged across the field.
The junior boys, working hard to beat the sophomores.
Here are the sophomore girls celebrating their victory over the juniors.
The freshmen girls, putting up a good fight. They are tough girls! I think they ended up winning this one.

ICC

A big tradition at FDR is the Inter-Class Competition. This week long competition involves the grades competing against each other in athletic and scholastic events. It is a pretty incredible event. The kids get way into it - each class has t-shirts and sweatshirts that they wear all week (they are pretty happy not to have to wear their uniforms for a week). We teach 4 classes in the morning, then each afternoon is spent doing the competitions. Each grade receives points for everything, from the sporting events to showing up on time, and at the end of the week, the points are totaled and a winner is declared. There is even a huge trophy! The tradition of ICC has been going on for something like 30 years. I have really never seen anything like it. Other people compare it to Homecoming, but we never had Homecoming in Epping, so I guess I could maybe compare it to Spirit Week, but it is really even more involved than that. It is neat to see the kids getting all excited about it and fun to see them out on the playing fields.

ICC - Day Two

The second day of ICC included boys basketball. Here are the freshman, in green, playing the seniors, in pink. I am pretty sure the freshmen won. A couple of my band boys are on the team and they are really good athletes.
These are my 12th grade IB music boys. I got a big kick out of seeing these senior boys in hot pink every day this week. They are great kids and we have a lot of fun in class. Here they are being goofy.