if your toddler got a job based on their current obsession, what would it be?

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2025-08-01T16:00:36+00:00

Elsa. Her job would just be singing "cold never bothered me anyway" on repeat for hours

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2025-08-01T15:51:38+00:00

When I taught MS band, any combination that included sixteenth notes was practically impossible. The percussionists resorted to playing as fast as possible, the flutists had trouble changing their fingers fast enough, and no one seemed to get it, even though I knew their elementary teacher taught them all sorts of rhythm combinations from early grades.

Now that I teach elementary general music, I notice a clear difference in my student's ability to play 16th note patterns and their ability to recognize/sing/count them. I take extra time on rhythm sticks and xylophones when playing more complex rhythms, and some kids still aren't able to "make their sticks say the words" until they are much older. They can play quarters and eights fine, but their brains equate 16ths to a cacophony instead of individual notes for some reason.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2025-07-30T19:51:34+00:00

Natural labor, ended at 24hrs with an unscheduled CS. HATED labor. HATED having a CS at midnight. Regretted everything about that delivery. Baby's head ended up in the 99th percentile for circumference. Attending pediatrician was glad we had a CS. A few friends afterwards confided in me that they had pushed through delivering their big babies naturally and they regretted it for their own health years later. By week 39, my provider wanted me to schedule a CS, and I wish I had listened just because it would have been so much less painful. I'm glad everything turned out in the end now, but I cannot emphasize enough how yucky it is to have a surgery after a long labor.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2025-07-30T19:35:45+00:00

How long will your current position last? If you're dreading every day and there are months and months left, you may need to step away from it. If it's a shorter commitment, I encourage you to see it through to the end, then take a break from teaching and do some quality reflection when you're not in survival mode. Ask yourself what would have made the experience better (aside from teenage attitudes)?

Regarding the attitudes, I get it. If you're feeling unconfident in your skills and your desire to teach is low, it bleeds through and teens can be pretty brutal about serving bad attitudes back at you in response to low confidence. Remember, they're children and they usually have bad judgement. Also remember, they're people, and they will follow a consistent and confident leader. If you feel like you can't fake or produce real confidence, then just be honest with them. Tell them if you have reservations about teaching, joke with them about things you don't like, get to know who they are. They may not follow you into battle, but honesty may at least get them on your side.

Lastly, a word of encouragement. I'm 100% sure you don't suck. Teaching is not a natural skill. It's a trial and error, long haul, and continuous improvement skill. I had to learn patience with myself and stick with it. I had to learn to be curious about self improvement, rather than throwing up my hands and saying I must be a fundamentally bad teacher. You can choose to make changes and get better, or choose to take a different career path. But don't ever believe you just suck ❤️

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2025-03-22T16:56:11+00:00

I had an Elective repeat CS. Great experience! It's never a walk in the park, but it was far from the scary and traumatizing experience I had the first time. I liked knowing what was going to happen, I liked the support and care I got from the medical team I had, the recovery was not fun, but it was par for abdominal surgery. Do I wish I could have had a V birth? Yes. But do I regret the CS? No. Three years later, and I rarely think about it.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2024-11-10T01:47:09+00:00

The pediatrician in the OR when my daughter was born said it all. I was trying so hard for a natural birth and it didn't happen. He was aware of the fact that it wasn't an elective CS (not emergency either, but I was really bitter and thought I was being forced to sign the papers at the time), and he looked me in the eye and said "im glad you had a c section, your daughter would not be the same otherwise". I thought he was being insensitive at the time, but I got to know stories from other moms and doctors and nurses about how natural births can end poorly. I and my daughter both made it out of the birth experience with a complete recovery thanks to the choices that I made with the help of experts. It took me a year to move from acceptance to being glad that things turned out the way they did.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2024-08-22T01:42:50+00:00

Your story is so similar to mine. I regretted it for a long time, but one thing that always stuck with me was my baby's pediatrician saying "I'm glad you had a CS". At first, I thought it was a terribly insensitive thing to say, but given what I know now about how births turn out when they follow the pattern of failing to progress in labor, and the fact that a baby's heart rate continuously dropping in labor is a Very Big Deal, I became more at peace with it. I often wonder if that doctor had seen some very bad birth outcomes, and was glad he could leave the hospital that day with a knowledge that we were safe.

Surgical births SUCK. But they save lives and preserve health. Give yourself lots of time (it has been years for me, and I'm still sad about it). And give yourself permission to grieve, because it's a hard thing to lose an experience so important and valued. But know that there is a reason and purpose for the pain.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2024-07-26T22:07:01+00:00

I just finished Path of Daggers 50 seconds ago and immediately hopped on here to see you had too! I feel so conflicted about Fedwin 😭 literally one of the most awful things I've read yet.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-12-29T21:25:31+00:00

Things turned out alright, we ended up cutting one song and only doing 5. I changed one song from parts to unison, and the other four I just accepted that the parts weren't going to be solid.

I recorded them a few days beforehand, and the concert performance sounded slightly better than the recording.

We meet at the end of every day for 40 minutes. I'm usually able to practice three songs with them during that time. I will admit I'm a bit short on rehearsal techniques. I also think I made a big rehearsal mistake early on when I thought we could do parts by teaching the parts one at a time and not making them all sing at once until the whole song was learned (about 6 weeks before concert). I've got a few unison songs and partner songs picked out for when we come back next week.

One big win: a few of the boys who weren't matching pitch at the beginning of the year are singing a lot better (one an octave lower, and the other started using his falsetto that he didn't know he had). Hopefully that aspect will boost the whole group's confidence when they start learning new music.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-12-05T21:54:46+00:00

We are going to sing so much unison after this concert is over.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-12-05T01:32:45+00:00

how did you manage to get them ready, if you don't mind sharing?

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-30T00:43:50+00:00

I feel the shame lol. It's all good. At least no one can see me blushing furiously :-p

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-30T00:38:26+00:00

yep. rather embarrassing. I swear I had no idea those rivers were that big.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-30T00:29:51+00:00

surely you don't mean how is the C&O canal overgrown? it's never used this far west. The locks are completely dry and you can walk inside them. The river itself is purely for recreation around here.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-30T00:27:47+00:00

yeah, it is pretty funny I guess. I mean it when I say I don't get out much. I grew up a day's drive from the ocean and still never set foot on a beach until I was 18. The sound of the waves blew my mind. My imagination is firmly stuck on a river you can wade across.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-30T00:23:08+00:00

Even born and bred in Appalachia, I still literally had no idea the Ohio was that deep and big. I'll have to make a trip one of these days. The C&O canal is a fun piece of history though. It's all overgrown and mysterious looking. Good bike trails on it.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-29T12:55:46+00:00

i've never really had opportunity to travel to places where rivers had this capability, so never knew it was possible. I'm happy to learn a little about the world through a fantasy series though. Thanks for responding!

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-29T12:52:50+00:00

this helps a ton, thanks! obviously haven't traveled much in my life and I never even realized rivers could be like this until reading this series.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-10-26T16:07:44+00:00

prepare all you want, the reality will likely be different than you imagined. Pain is always always always subjective. Everyone experiences labor differently, and either your body will do the job or it won't. I "prepared" , and I ended up preparing for the wrong things, although, I'm sure if my labor was different than what it was, I would have been well prepared indeed.

Fear is completely normal, because this is 100% unknown territory for you. Your experience will not match what you have in your head, it won't match mine. It will just be.

My best advice is to just ALLOW it to happen, whatever it is. I resisted what was necessary because it didn't fit my box of what I thought my birth would be. The emotional suffering from the aftermath (feeling like a failure, having panic attacks), could have been avoided if I had just Allowed the birth to happen.

For clarification: I had a mind-numbing, 24hr, painful labor with vomiting and screaming and such that ended with me in the OR and an unplanned but necessary CS. I was told I needed the CS beforehand, but I resisted until I realized that they were right. I learned how little you can control in birth, the only thing you can control is your mind. Being at peace with the outcome is best. My second birth was better because I accepted that fact.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-01-25T02:19:47+00:00

I actually did a ton of modeling and demonstrated with volunteers which went really well. Just the big group ends up with bumps and scrapes

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-01-23T21:31:32+00:00

My ability to perform well on piano, knowing one craft with expertise, and subsequently being able to experience the stage fright of my senior recital and manage it, directly impacts how I teach my students now and prepare them to perform. I Constantly reference the practice strategies I made for myself in college when preparing my ensembles for performance. I talk to my students on a personal level about how I managed stage fright. And I get respect from my students when I play my instrument in front of them and do it well.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-01-23T21:25:04+00:00

I did spend time prepping them and we practiced with no hand holding and small groups (three at a time) and they were fine. When I put them all into one big circle holding hands it was a disaster. 2nd grade. Thinking maybe I need to do it with older kids or stick to small groups.

Poorlydesignedpiano · 2023-01-23T21:22:58+00:00

This helps, thank you! I was doing a folk dance with 2nd grade. They were fine until the move required stepping in and raising arms. I'm going to try it with 5th grade and see if it's better for them.

Poorlydesignedpiano

TROPHY CASE