Adult life

So while not technically graduated, I was full time student teaching and for all intents and purposes, a college graduated adult on my own. I was at Nathan Hale during the day as if I were teaching, and then I would work nights serving tables at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Rich Sumstad was my cooperating teacher and probably one of the MOST influential people in my life because of the ways he influenced my teaching philosophy, music performance philosophy, getting me my first (and still best!) teaching job, and, of course, introducing me to my wife! Student teaching was a bit of a wake up call, but I survived and I even got to go to Hawaii for a week for free!

I had to leave the UW Medical Center because the schedule didn't really work with student teaching, I asked Mike if they were hiring at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and I got a serving job there. I averaged about $120 a shift and 4 shifts a week. About $2000 a month in tips and maybe $500 in regular pay. The problem is that your tips are cash, give a 22 year old cash, what do you think is going to happen? Yep. I bought booze.  I won a scholarship from my last year in the Husky Marching Band saved my butt! I owed my roommate/landlady about $2000 for rent! So I was finishing college, student teaching, serving tables, and applying for teaching jobs. Busy busy busy!

My first job offer was a job Rich recommended me for, Mercer Middle School in South Seattle. I got it (I was the only viable applicant), and I added cleaning that hott mess of a classroom to my list of daily things to do. I could spend a lot of time describing my first year of teaching. A lot. I'll try to make it mercifully short and give details in later postings maybe... My first school, Asa Mercer Middle School, was on Beacon Hill in South Seattle. Down the street a little ways was Garfield High School, home to 4 time Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival Winner GHS Jazz Band. My principal was excited about getting a decent music program based on what she saw at Washington Middle School down the road (they played better than a lot of high schools in Washington State), and saw the same potential in the kids at Mercer. It was a title I school that was actually diverse. I say that because a lot of times a school will claim diversity when it has a population of 80% Black and 20% other, or 60% white, 15% Asian, and 25% Hispanic/Black/Native. That's not really diversity. One Pakistani kid doesn't make your school diverse. Mercer, at the time, was about (I'm not giving specific numbers because it was a LONG time ago, and while that information is available, I'm not going to look it up), 20% Black, 20% Hispanic, 20% Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and even a little Japanese) 10% White, 10% Pacific Islander, 10% Native American, and 10% other (Arabic, Ethiopian, Eritrean...). My friends, THAT is diversity.

My immediate predecessor from the year prior was an older gentlemen that was not at all prepared for the rigors of teaching 6-8 graders, it was disastrous and there was a lot of broken mess that I cleaned up from him. The last consistent music teacher there had been there for 18 years and I don't believe he had done ANY music organization and/or cleaning his entire time there. So needless to say, it was a difficult start. I was a first year teacher in a seriously challenging situation with little to no information on what the situation with the students actually was. I had to train the support staff how to do their jobs for me, and not the way the guy who had been there for the last 18 years did it. It's hard to be 22 years old and telling experienced adults how to do their job differently when they've been doing it for decades... To put this in perspective, my first Sunday night after the year started, I cried like a 3 year old that doesn't get ice cream (that's Sam's most recent tantrum that I can think of...). The only thing I can relate it to is the 2nd week of basic training when I was done in-processing, I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night, and I was getting "smoked" about 18 of the other 20 hours of the day. Your thoughts aren't about anything except how stupid you were to make this decision and how it's not worth the pain you're enduring to get to the end-stage. The difference is the pain at Basic was physical. My first year teaching, it was emotional. Much worse in my opinion. More on Basic later...

9/11/2001 was during my second week and I seriously considered joining up to get out of my teaching contract. I met Tina and that stopped that proverbial train.

Anyway, I spent two years at Mercer. I have a lot more memories of that place, and after the first few months they're mostly good. Most students I have on my Facebook are students from Mercer. I liked them and they liked me (in general). I didn't know how good I had it there and if I had stayed, my life would be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY different.

I also had a SWEET gig playing trumpet for a Mexican Dance band "Banda del Sol." $100 per gig and 2-4 gigs a month. Cash. I was playing trumpet a lot (Banda del Sol and elsewhere), had a full time teaching gig, had 3 or 4 private trumpet students. I met Tina at the end of January that first year at Mercer. At first she didn't want to date me because of religious differences, so we "not dated" for about 3 months until she admitted that we were having enough fun to make it "official." That's a fun story that I'll save for a marriage blog! I moved away from my college apartment back into an apartment with Mike during the summer of '01. The second year at Mercer was FAR less traumatic, and I was determined to not become a statistic of failed teachers... oh the irony... Tina got a job (it was MY job, but I wanted her to hang around...luvya sweety!) at Ingraham High school. She later got laid off and Tina and I decided that we were going to move to Chicago for no reason than an adventure as a couple, and to see if we could make it in the big time!

August 9th 2003. Tina's Mom claims that's our "real" marriage date... I can see that... It's the day we finished packing and left for Chicago.

So Chicago. Wow. I might have to make a separate blog about our story in Chicago, but here's a summary I guess...

We got there on the 14th. I was scared poopless about living somewhere completely new with no job or friends. I recommend that everyone take a risk like this at some point in their life... Anyway, this move and the move back financially cost us tens of thousands of dollars that later set us back behind many of our friends that didn't spend their hard earned money on moving, but you can't buy experience. So on to the story!

We didn't have jobs. We couldn't get teaching jobs because our teaching certificates (sent last May) hadn't processed into Illinois yet (5 months. 5 friggin' months. Even the Army isn't that slow) and we didn't have Illinois identification so couldn't get other types of jobs. So Tina tried starting a Mary Kay business, I worked on getting our paperwork for living in Illinois squared away and we both played Playstation 2 for about 3 hours every morning... and we racked up a credit card bill! Tina met Michelle at a Mary Kay meeting and we met her then boyfriend Edd, so we found our Chicago friends. Let the Bourbon and Ginger Ale flow like water! She also found the Chicago archdiocese for the Catholic church and started singing for their volunteer group. I somehow or another got our paperwork fixed and got two jobs as a cashier at Albertsons and a host at Olive Garden and started playing with community bands in the area. I found a bald Italian guy with a bad toupee that could push our paper work through the system (funny how that worked in Chicago eh?) so we finally got jobs in Chicago public schools. I started at Steinmetz Academic Center in January as a building sub, and Tina got a gig in the Calumet Park district at Burr Oak Elementary school. Both of us were in for extremely rude awakenings on how horrible schools can actually be. SAC had weekly shoot outs (Friday's off campus usually), constant gang violence, and extremely harsh conditions in the school. We both got hired on full time for our second year there, Tina moved into Chicago Public Schools at Mather High School, and I got into Steinmetz as a full time music teacher instead of just a building substitute ("just" wow...I saw some pretty horrible stuff as "just" a sub). So both of us had some extreme experiences with the worst type of administrators in education, we both left those schools. I got "laid off" and Tina told them to "F" off. We applied for jobs in both Illinois and Washington and whoever got whatever job first is where we went. Tina got a job in Longview, WA at Mt. Solo middle school. We were moving home!

So! Back in Washington now, but in Clark county Washington in August of 2005. We moved into Mike's HUGE house in Woodland, WA and stayed there until November. Tina was getting ready for the school year to start in Longview and I was looking for any teaching job out there. I got a job in Vancouver public schools teaching all choir at three different schools. Boy was I in for it... But first, Tina was not happy at Mike's and wanted out as soon as possible. I understood why, but I wish we had waited a little longer... it was the height of the housing market and we just couldn't afford a decent place in a location we liked. We ended up buying a piece of crap house in Battle Ground, WA.

The next 5 years of our lives is a damn emotional roller coaster. Some great and amazing things happened for us, but mostly our house was depressing, my job was soul sucking, and Tina's commute was grueling. The house is the shortest story, I'll start with that one. It was on a 1/4 acre lot which sounds great, until you have to mow it weekly in the spring. There was new roofing on the house, but the flashing underneath wasn't replaced and it was moldy. I saw this when we did our inspection and the real estate agent said "it's the Pacific Northwest, EVERY house has some mold. You don't want that on record." Which sounded kinda' sketchy, and it was we found out later... We put in new flooring and found that at some point there was SERIOUS water damage, and mold in the floors. After we replaced the flooring we started all getting sick from mold spores we had unknowingly stirred up. When I left Vancouver schools, the housing market had just crashed and we tried to work out something with the bank, but they weren't willing to work with us so we stopped making payments. That got their attention! In the end, we got out of the house with a Deed-in-Lieu of foreclosure. There's someone living in the house already, and they're doing some cool stuff, so it worked out well for everyone (including the bank) I think. There's a lot more details to this story, maybe it too needs it's own post...we'll see how that works out!

My first year in Vancouver School District (VSD) was teaching choir at Fort Vancouver High School, McLoughlin Middle School, and Jason Lee Middle School. While there I met a man named Bob Thompson, who changed my life! The words "National Guard Band" rolled off his tongue and I said "tell me more about this National Guard Band" I'd mentioned earlier that I wanted to join the military, but it wasn't the right opportunity, this was! Anyway, my second year in VSD was choir at Fort again, drive to Alki middle school to teach beginning band, drive back to Fort to teach 6th period band. This was a BRUTAL schedule. I went to Basic Combat Training in April of that year (2007) and I was almost relieved to be gone. I got back from BCT just before the school year ended and poked my head in once (40 pounds lighter) and saw that my sub had done well, and that everything was still intact, but I should've known when I walked through the door and was NOT excited that I should've left then, but I didn't. I finished my Masters in Music Education at Northwestern that summer, which after BCT was extremely difficult (going from not moving or talking unless told, to presenting my projects and questions to Dr. Janet Barret... whew!!!)

My third year I believe was retaliation from my district for going to BCT. I was teaching TWO high schools, band at Columbia River and band and choir at Fort Vancouver. River had a competitive marching band, and I was completely set up for failure. I did it because VSD had some significant stipends and no one was really checking on if we followed them. They did after that year!!! =) Mostly because of me, but I paid off a LOT of students loans that year =) I knew I was set up for failure so I did well enough to consider it a success. I had just finished BCT AND my master's program, did they really think they were going to throw me a challenge and watch me back down?! Hell no!!! But I didn't make any friends there either... I've run into the boosters president in town since then and she won't even make eye contact with me. I'm not sure why, but ok... 4th year in VSD I FINALLY got a reasonable schedule. Band, choir, and guitar at Fort and choir at McLoughlin. I started making it rain. At least in choir... the band was falling apart. My predecessor at Fort I respect a ton, but he babied them a little (but was successful!). I had more realistic expectations and was not successful. Also, the guitar class I taught based on a project I did at my masters program on teaching the way popular musicians learn. The district didn't like that. I didn't give a flying turd that they didn't like it, and told them (not my best choice).  My 5th and final year in VSD I had the same schedule, and I was hanging around with the 8th grade band at Mac a lot my 4th year, so I was starting to get some good kids back in, but there were only 23 of 'em. Nothing kills morale like a small band where only half the kids can play. I started doing creative stuff like having guitar kids join band and making it into a funk band kind of thing, a really big horn section... =) I had some serious plans to make Fort an example of the future of music education and an example of success in a difficult low-income school. I had plans and ambitions! Then they cut the guitar class from the curriculum of the entire district. I had EIGHTY KIDS signed up for the next year. EIGHTY!!!!!!!! That was it. I tried to deploy so I could take a year off, but it didn't work out so I just resigned. I'd had enough. I'll talk more specifically about that some other day too...

One of the best moments in my life did happen while we were in the Clark county phase of our lives, Tina and I had our first child Samuel Allen Sterne on November 19th 2008. It really is the best thing ever. Parents complain, like Soldiers do, because there's lots to complain about, but in reality, we wouldn't have it any different. Well... most parents (and some Soldiers).

After I left VSD, I tried to go active duty as a bandsmen, couldn't do it, tried to commission as an infantry officer, couldn't do it, tried to re-class to a combat arms NCO position, didn't do it in time because I stopped making house payments. Army won't take you if you have outstanding debt. But it all turned out well when I got and Active Duty position in the Oregon National Guard. It's a good job! I won't be here the rest of my life, it's basically being a secretary... (but it's in the Army and we don't call it that, so it's ok for tough guys to do it...but I've seen what school secretaries do, and I'm doing THAT now). We'll see though!

This concludes the Bio portion of this blog. If all two of you read through all of it, I owe you beer. And if you're not saying this, I am "Thank Gawd THAT'S over!"