Reunions and Reflections

Last week, I met with some of my classmates from my childhood school days. Not just high school, but junior high. Not just junior high, but elementary (small towns, small classes). I hadn't seen some of them since our 20 year reunion and in some cases, since graduation.

It was a good visit. In addition spending a pleasant evening in good company, I left with three things to ponder, which I'll share:

Some Things Don't Change Over Time

A generation has passed. Many of my classmates have children who have grown up and started families of their own. Others have remarried, while others still are single.

Yet, we can sit together and chat like school was yesterday. Which is interesting in itself because those of us who gathered weren't all from the same "clique" in school. Yet, there was no awkwardness, just the joy of catching up and spending time together.

No matter how much time changes, our inner core remains essentially the same. So we could agree on who's really nice and who is still a jerk. Not only that, we could just explain things away with, "C'mon. You know my parents..."

How Well Did We Know Each Other?

That was a big theme over dinner. Some lost one or both parents at a fairly young age. There were a few teen pregnancies, resulting in those students disappearing for a while.  Others faced challenges we knew nothing about. We attended classes together and had no idea of the pain that these folks were going through. Now, as adults, we look back on what happened to some of our classmates with a deeper sensitivity and understanding.

Between reconnecting with classmates at this dinner and through Facebook, I've been surprised to see that I share many common interests with classmates I hardly spoken to when we were younger. For most of us, these are passions and hobbies we've pursued since childhood but we just didn't know since we weren't revolving around the same circles. Therefore, it's a blessing to reconnect as adults and enjoy these connections with a greater appreciation.

One Word, One Act Can Influence a Lifetime

One of my classmates said that she can look at each of us from our grad class and remember something about us. Not only that, she said that each of us has touched her life in some way and has shaped who she is now.

Whether it's a classmate or a coworker, neighbour or fellow volunteer - we each touch each other's lives - for better or for worse. It could be just for a moment or a day, or it could be over years, but the impact can result in something big.

I don't know about you, but that makes me think about how I affect those around me. Am I affecting someone for better or for worse? If it's the latter, what am I going to do about it?

Lesson Planning - A Work in Progress

The big decluttering project continues. It's taken years to amass all this paper and stuff so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it will take a while to clean up my mess. It seems though, that no sooner do I get my office tidied up that it becomes a bigger mess as soon as I tackle a new section in my office. Case in point:

Amidst the chaos however, plans are beginning to emerge. As I file handouts and documents from the previous teaching year, ideas for new handouts and teaching strategies are percolating in my mind.

However, I don't want to break the flow of my clean up (I refuse to start another teaching year with a messy office); so, I have three medium-sized coloured sheets, labelled: "Lesson Strategies/Planning", "Handouts to Make" and "To Do" on top of one of the binders in the lower LH corner.My tin of Crayola® markers are also close by.

So far, I've jotted down things like, "How to make technique more fun," "Strategies for helping the Keyboard Geography/Hand-Eye Coordination Challenged Students" and a long list of optional activities.

For the time being, I just grab the appropriate sheet and jot down a phrase. Once I get that tower beside my desk emptied out, then I can hunker down and transform the ideas into something tangible. I imagine that by the time I reach that point, I'll have more than three sheets of ideas. At least, it will be easier to focus as by then, I'll have a less cluttered workspace.

Lessons in Email Management

Please tell me that I'm not the only one struggling with keeping my email in-boxes tidy. Managing emails seems to be an ongoing battle. One that I feel like I'm losing.

With a new school year fast approaching, I really want to get a handle on this. I found some articles that with some email management tips. I look forward to applying the "Two-Minute" Rule". I suppose I should create some rules too for newsletters:

A Simple Guide to Managing Your Email

Managing Email Effectively

10 Tips to Manage Email Effectively

Do you have any tips on how to manage your email that isn't mentioned in these articles? Please share.

Getting Those Fingers Back into Shape

I think it's safe to say that most music students take it easy during the summer. Most music teachers like to as well. However, with fall just around the corner, it's time to strengthen those fingers!

I recommended a few popular books with hand exercises a while back. Last year, I finally worked through the first book of Hanon exercises:

The New Hanon (link to my affiliate link)

This summer, I'm working my way through the Schmitt Five-Finger Exercises, op. 16 (affiliate link).

What I really like about the Schmitt exercises is that they are five-finger exercises. Sure, you're supposed to play them 15 times each, but it's really not that bad. I use the following pattern:

• Five times legato

• Five times staccato

• Five times something else

That "something else" could be portato, or jazz triplets or two-note slurs. I do notice that it takes at least five repetitions of the pattern before my tone evens out.

If you're looking for a way to get your fingers back into shape before the fall, you can't go wrong with Hanon or Schmitt. It beats playing your Conservatory scales, chords and arpeggios every day.

Starting a New Chapter on Social Media Management Tools

After less than a month of using Hootsuite Pro, I've cancelled my account. I really enjoyed being able to have "one dashboard to rule them all" but the limitations that I encountered with this social media management tool were aggravating:

1. Being limited to using the Owl.ly and Hoot.ly link shorteners: Simply not a fan. Whether I was sharing a photo or a blog post that I scheduled for two days in advance, Hootsuite would simply share the item as the shortened link - without the summary blurb or featured photo. The result? A decease in readership because people are afraid to click on the links since they had no clue what the link was about.

2. Only being able to post to my business G+ page. You know, sometimes, I'd like to post as me, the music teacher/musician.

3. The mobile app leaves much to be desired. The mobile app would tell me that one of my former coworkers posted something but half the time, it showed up as their photo and nothing else. Ergo, I'd still have to log into LinkedIn to find out what the post was about. Also, the mobile app is limited only to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

4. No integration with Feedly: Hootsuite has the Hootsuite Syndicator for managing your blog subscriptions. However, I prefer Feedly. It's slick, it's sexy and very easy to use.

5. Missing "Likes": Whenever I "Liked" a post on the Hootsuite app, when I logged in Facebook, that "Like" is gone. Now, I know "liking" only goes so far, but I thought it would go a bit further than my Hootsuite app.

Now what?

Remember Buffer? I mentioned them when I first began this journey into SMM tools. It seems to be popular with quite a few bloggers. There's a Free Plan and an Awesome Plan. The latter is $10/month and gives you up to 12 social networking profiles. Although I'm testing out the Free Plan, I can tell you now that if I'm satisfied, I'll upgrade to the Awesome Plan. It's the only plan I can look at since I have two FB business pages and my Wall, along with multiple Twitter accounts.

Buffer and Feedly are partners. This means sharing with them just got a whole lot easier. Not only that, it looks like they both will talk to Evernote (a new app that I'm trying out).

Buffer has one drawback: not G+ integration. It looks like Google+ has to be treated differently. Either I just use the G+ mobile app or check out Do Share. Now Do Share allows you to schedule posts to your business page and your personal profile. That is handy.

So that is the next leg on my journey to find the ideal social media management tools for my business.