Finals!

During finals week I was probably the least stressed-out person on campus, but I wasn't cruzin'.
I didn't really have finals.
how did ya swing that?
Well, I'm a music major.  The week BEFORE finals was my finals week.  I had dress rehearsals and concerts every night until at least 9pm.  
I did have juries.   When you take private lessons (which you must do if you're a music major) you must perform at the end of the semester for all the (in this case) voice teachers.  I was nervous about it all semester because I don't do well performing on my own, but I was lucky enough to have my last voice lesson the day before my jury.  I was ready, then Sister Belnap told me I needed to dress up. I wasn't banking on that... So on Tuesday I got ready for school---no, no pictures, sorry :(

I discovered something.  This is groundbreaking.  

When I feel like I look good, I do really well.  REALLY well. When I feel like I don't look very good, I don't perform well.  I didn't think that I worried about my appearance, but apparently I do.  This discovery explains why I did not well for the Choir concert last week.  
Now I know.

Before I let myself leave my house I stood in front of the mirror and made sure I could look at it and say 'Okay, you look good today'.  I went to class, I warmed up, I sang for my jury and rocked it.  They chose the songs I had planned for them to choose.  I was ready.  I went to work afterwards and ran into the caroling brass band.  

That was one final.  It was on Tuesday.

My other finals-

Well, I had a 'hearing' on Wednesday.  We prepare melodies and do some sight singing.  EXCEPT- Dr B has us sing numbers instead of solfedge.  I'm not good at either.  I can sing numbers when I write them down, but for my unprepared melody, I started with numbers and ended up singing 'du du du du du du'.  But I was right so it was okay.   Also, I can sing almost any chord progression but I have a hard time playing them.  Odd?  Dr B thought so.  "How did you pull that out of nowhere but you have a hard time finding that note on the piano?"  I don't know.  All in all, I did well.

I had to finish my Composition project.  There was a problem with one of my drafts and I had to re-write a section.  The Composition was the final for Music Theory 3, we had to perform it for the class during the allotted 'final exam' time, Friday morning.  Low stress.

After the Composition....'recital' if you will...there was the dictation exam.   Think of it as the part 2 to the hearing and this is for Music Theory Lab.  This isn't the kind of thing you can cram for.  We prepare all semester, training our ears to discern harmonies, and if you don't know it by finals week you can't really pull and all-night-er and be ready the next day.  Again, low stress. 

What really stressed me out was work.

WORK.

AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

The online students have finals too.  True, they are due a week before regular finals, but there are tons of issues with people's finals.  Especially my class because we allow them to go through YouTube...which makes it easier for some people, and harder for others, but mostly stressful for me.  For kicks and giggles, these are my students' finals.  There are 2 Music TAs but Nichel (whom I love and am very grateful for) had a ton of finals.   

Technically, we aren't allowed to go over hours.  But at this point the finals must be graded, the grades must get in, there are very few people who can do it- you stay until you are done.  I had 19 hours by Wednesday evening, 9 of those hours were done on that day.  I worked a total of 23.5 hours from Monday to Friday.  :0

BUT, the grades are in. All the students are accounted for. I emailed my professor and told him the grades are ready for review, which here means that Dr K goes into the gradebook and clicks 'approve all'.  Most of the work was done by Wednesday which made it possible for me to help with a wedding reception....