To Do Lists (and how not to do them)

Blogs are good for a lot of things... including procrastination. I'm usually pretty disciplined about it. But when I want an excuse to sit on my patootie the blog is a perfect solution for that.

On my list of things to do today: print and mail seminary opening social invitations. I have been waiting to do this until I asked the seminary/institute director about it. The prior seminary teacher in our area help a meeting the night before school started to get parents and students on the same page about seminary so I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I've got it all planned out and invitations all typed up and designed the way I want... and now I've been told that I need to okay it with all the bishops and ask them to speak and so forth. I don't have a problem with that, but I feel like it makes everything so much more complicated to make 3 busy men do what I have already prepared. Hopefully it won't really be that complex to get it approved and have one or two of them speak... I just hate when I can't make things happen because I have to wait for things to go past a handful of other people. I thought I was ahead of the game but now I wish I had brought this up two weeks ago. Oh well. No check mark on one.

On a less stressful note, some of you know that in April we received a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts for me to draft a curriculum that integrates dance with some portion of the TEKS (Texas Educational Knowledge and Skills or something like that - basically the state's core curriculum that they test on). I have a cooperating elementary school teacher and together we have chosen to integrate dance into 3rd grade science. I will do all the lesson planning and she will occasionally give some academic guidance and make sure the science curriculum is correct. On Tuesday I had to present this curriculum idea before a board of school district and community members. I was nervous but it went really well and people LOVE LOVE LOVED the idea of dance being an educational teaching tool. (Wahoo!!!) They were so compelled by the idea that they asked me to come to a science summer camp for gifted/talented students they were putting on and help a handful of students do their final project as a dance piece that represents what they learned.  (We figured it would be a great way to show people how well science concepts and dance can be integrated.)  I didn't really know what to expect when I showed up today but it ended up being fun. Only 3 kids signed up to do a dance project (and who can blame them... most of them have had little or no exposure to dance) - a 7th grade boy, an 8th grade boy, and a 4th grade girl. How's that for an interesting group?! I was a little overwhelmed at first because no one had really explained very well what I was getting myself into, but they ended up creating a GREAT dance about the Wastewater Treatment Center and the journey of water from our toilets to the irrigation system. (We fondly called it the poop dance.) I'm so grateful that it was a success and that those who were involved as well as the audience saw it as a really valuable learning experience for these kids.

At that meeting I also got asked to provide training for all the PE teachers in the school district on how to incorporate creative dance into their gym classes. Whew! I'm so nervous and overwhelmed. I have just over a week to prepare. I'm really excited about all these great opportunities to bring dance into San Angelo... its just what I've wanted to do... but its hard not to have a mentor nearby to ask questions of.

Well, I should probably go check some more things off my to do list... call Midas so they can fix my car window, type up some more Old Testament reading guides, write a talk on the Holy Ghost for a new friend's baptism tomorrow, and pester some bishops about a seminary opening social.

Wish me luck!