GRADUATION AT LAST!!!

Been a while since I have posted, busy with school and work...life in general. Welllll, Its finally happening...still haven't completely determined what will happen afterwards...I have applied for admission Post bac, still waiting to hear back on that. I go down to San diego for a week the day after graduating. I may wind up moving down there if I like it, we shall see.
In work news...aquired a new student that actually practices. He came in with two years on the instrument, a heck of a lot more ability than I had when I had been playing as long as he has been. Now we are filling in some holes where he is lacking...theory, knowledge of the fretboard and so on. He could be a monster player.
Nothing profound to say at the moment...

Practicum/school almost over/here comes summer term

Today I taught spelling and will continue the lesson on monday. The teacher I am working with, Martha, was complimentary immediately after I finished, saying I have a calming voice yet with some authority. It wasn't as wierd as I thought it would be, I have been teaching guitar long enough so its not like teaching is a foriegn concept to me. Funny thing is, I dropped the class that the practicum is for but I have come to enjoy working with the kids and an abrupt exit wouldn't be good. THere are only a couple weeks left so i decided to stick it out, see what more I can get from the experience.
Since I dropped that class I am now going to be going to school full time this summer. The first half of the term will be in American Fiction and The Psychology of Learning then the second half I will be in the History of Guitar. I am hoping it will be somewhat easy but at the same time I know it will be a little bit hectic with the classes only lasting 1 month. We will be meeting mon-fri for 2 to 3 hours for each class, a lot of info to absorb in such a short time, but at least with this they are cutting away all the fat and getting down to the gist of the class.
Come August 19 I will be graduating. I am still unsure as to whether or not I will pursue a masters in education, Oregon is not a hotbed of opportunity when it comes to teaching jobs, the state of education here is in shambles. I have thought about going into some form of law, and I would still love to go to a school of luthiery (guitar making) or musical instrument repair. I have really enjoyed working on people's guitars as well as my own over the years. My mom has been buggin me about movin to San Diego, I am not so sure I want to do that. I will be going down for a visit after graduation, I will see what I think of it and where God is leading me to be. I know living in an area that is consistently sunny would do a lot for my disposition. I hate rainy weather, I have lived in the Pacific NW all of my life, a little change might be good. We shall see what the future brings. I need to do some research on schools down in that area as well as some other places...I have thought about moving to Austin Texas...right now its just a thought.who knows...more to come

New Term, New Challenges

THis term I am taking 12 credits. One of the classes has a 30 hour practicum attached to it as well as three papers and reading, one is a Lit. class (ten different books to read), another is a survey class that has some reading and interviews/papers to write and then my one credit geology field trip that happens in two weeks. Its kinda insane. I am currently behind in all of my class readings, its hard to stay awake for some of it, not interesting enough and my eyes get tired. Since I am doing 12 credits this term that means come summer I have to do eight credits and then August 19th is graduation day. I am SOOOOOO looking forward to that...of course i will be back in school again a little over a month later trying to finish up my pre reqs for grad school. It never ends.
My practicum...I am in a fourth/fifth grade classroom assiting the teacher and she has even said that she would let me teacha class so I can get the most out of the experience. I am not even doing my student teacher internship yet, I am just supposed to be tutoring. I told her I would like to get more acclimated to the kids before making a decision. She wasn't forcing me on the issue, its not required anyways. That sort of thing is grad school, but doing a little now may not be too bad. We shall see.
I got a new toy/songwriting/practicing device. Its called a Jam Man. I am able to record musical phrases and then it will loop those phrases and I can over-dub to my hearts content. I have over 20 minutes of space on the memory card. It is helping me in working out harmony parts and figuring out the different ideas I have for songs. I ams till learnig what it can do...its loads of fun.

Birthday, School, Work....Life I guess

My birthday was on the 19th of March. For the first time in the five years I have lived in the Portland area I had a decent birthday. After church, I was invited to go out to lunch with my friend Emily and her family (thanks Em, I really appreciated that); had some good conversation about life in general and some things regarding a good friend of ours (miss ya lots Wendy). Later than evening, another friend from church calls and invites me out to dinner. All in all a pretty decent birthday.

THe term is over. YAY!!!!! Of course spring break is way to short, I have to start back up on monday and do it all over again. I have to take 16 credits spring term and then I will only have to take four over the summer and then I will graduate. I am still trying to decide what ceremony I want, the large one at the end of spring term or the smaller on at the end of the summer. I am leaning towards the summer one.

Work! I had a new student start up that pays $75 and hour. I go to her house, We charge $40 an hour at the studio so we account travel time...heck the studio set the rate and they are willing to pay it so I have no qualms with making that kind of bread in an hour. Most people have to work a full day to make that much. I also have another guy starting up this next Tuesday, an older guy (he's older than me by almost ten years)whose daughter is taking drum lessons from one of the studio owners and may eventually take guitar lessons from me. I may also wind up getting the daughters friend as a student too...we shall see, I guess I have to pass through the dad first.

I also have a new student (a 9 year old girl) starting in my home this friday. I got her through some networking. A gal at my church teaches piano and one of her students also wants to learn guitar so Diane directed them my way. From what I am told, she is very musical and likes to create her own music. It should be fun.

Recording...I hope to have some the track done in the next few weeks, there are a lot of paying sessions and I have to go in in the breaks. I am hopeful that it will turn out well. I want it to have a semi orchestral metal sound to it...like Nightwish or Ayreon, or Rhapsody. We shall see what we can pull off in the time we have.

an actual music post

This Saturday, at some point I will be going to lay down some scratch tracks for a a tune I am doing for the studio website. Its an older tune that I have improved upon over the years (written in 96). I will be haivng the same drums and bass as I had on the last tune only this tune takes a bit more work on their part, there are more changes, its not straight forward. I still need to finish the melody of the tune and figure out some harmonies for some parts. I gotta get my reording software up and running here on my home computer so I can at least dork around with parts to see if what is in my head is do-able. So many ideas, I just lack the patience to figure out the dang computer...I have started working towards it though; why have the software if you aint gonna use it?

It seems the crap just keeps comin

I went to speak with an advisor this past friday (10 minute walk in appt) to make sure i was on track to graduate this spring, make sure I I knew what classes I need to take and ask some other questions about some classes that had been suggested by my advisor who is actually out on maternity leave. Lo and behold, the class I dropped because of being sick turned out to not only be a pre req for grad school but in some twisted way also applied to my degree...meaning...I don't graduate this spring. I could've freakin killed someone, I was so pissed, it still annoys the hell out me. I have a half hour appointment with an advisor on the 10th of march...Par tof me hopes that the gal i was talking too was freakin clueless and stupid and somehow missed something...i had already planned on going next fall to take care of any other pre reqs or maybe even take some of the grad classes if I could as I got the application together after taking the summer off. I will know more then and will be able to map something out, some sort fo battle plan to get this mess done. I was ok with it after talking with some friends and family but now that I am dredging it up again here its pissin me off again. People have suggested taking whatever classes i need to take during the summer and then i would be done. that is more money than I have right now, and I am already having a hard time with school, I want to be done so bad. I am so fed up. So far it seems that the only way i would graduate next term would be to take 20 credits, 19 of them upper division...that would literally kill me and I wouldnt pass anyways. So apparently God has other plans...i wish I would have just kept the dang class instead of dropping it, and played the catch up game but no...I cannot fix what has already been done. ___________!!!!! insert expletive here

these are the days of my annoyance.

My Biology teacher needs a serious boot to the ass, maybe even upside the head. To say he is disorganized is to understate the situation. The homework I had to do most recently; couldn't find most of the answers in the chapter we were going over, and then half the material in the chapter wasn't even covered. A week or so ago he posted Homework for the endocrine system...well there was only one question relating to that subject where the rest were ones we did a few weeks earlier for the cirulatory system...I am beginning to wonder how the hell this man got his phd to teach at a university. I posted my complaint about it on the class board online and there was one response to it and now my posting is gone...strange. My ending line was "someone needs to pull their head out." Maybe I pissed off the teacher, wouldn't be the first time I have done that over my educational career.
Then there is math class. UGH! I hate the metric system. Leave it to the English to hold onto such a f'ed up measuring system. We are having to do conversions in class and on the HW, it would be one thing if we only had to do the problem but we ahve to be able to explain how we got it, IE understanding it. The very little bit that I was liking math more because of this class is diminishing fast.
I had to drop my childrens lit class because of the bronchial infection. It is a pre-req for grad school. I will either have to tack it onto next term or take it post bac. I hate getting behind, then you are constantly trying to catch up, way to much stress.
Not so annoying....I have two new students starting this wednesday night. Mo money, mo money, mo money! Not a lot but any helps at this point.

PHEW!!!!!

Got the results back today from my blood test and urinalysis. I am all good healthwise, no sign of diabetes or anything. Adult onset diabetes does run in my family but the wierd nausea and dizzniness was part of the infection I had apparently. I am thinking of getting an std test for the hell of it, its been freakin ages since I have done anything of that sort but for the sake of peace of mind I may have a test done. I guess the little episode where my airway got blocked has me a bit more aware of my mortality. Of course i explained to the doctor the situation and his thoughts were that I would be at a very low risk since its been as long as it has but he did say it could be done just for peace of mind.
Lookin forward to seeing the Seahawks take out Pittsburgh on sunday. GO HAWKS!!!!

Doctors!

This past wednesday, I went to the Doctor to figure out what the heck was up with this cold/sickness. I had a hard time determining if this guy was sincere or what, at times it seemed as if he didn't believe a single thing I had to say. In any case, I am at the tail end of a bronchial/upper respitory infection. The Doc. gave me an asma (spell?) puffer to help with the coughing (what a God send) and to do a check up on my health he took blood and urine samples. I find out how I am on wednesday of this next week...adult onset diabetes runs in my family and a couple times during this infection I have had some wierd experiences of nausea/dizziness when i was really hungry. Ordinarily I get a headache and I get irritable when i am hungry but this was so much different. I figured it was worth checking out sicne i am no longer ten foot tall and bullet proof as I was in my late teens/early twenties. A couple major injuries proved that point to me over the years since. More on this soap opera to come...

Its a Miracle!!! and other stuff

THE SEAHAWKS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!! and in my lifetime. Talk about a dominating defense! I am so stoked. Now they need to win the Superbowl. I have been a Seahawks fan as long as I can remember, my dad got me Curt Warner's autograph back in the day(still got it somewhere).
In other News.....I have been sick the last few days. Basicaly a cold of sorts but accompanied by headaches. Now it seems that its only a cold, i am coughing periodically and I will be glad when it has finally run its course. I had a near death experience last thursday...I stayed home from school to rest and try to get well; laid down for a knap and woke an hour later unable to breathe in. I had my heater on and whenever i ahve it on at night I wake up with a dry throat. Well, with this cold, all the build up in my throat kinda glued my airway shut. I got out of bed and after much effort was able to muster up a cough and was finally able to breathe. Talk about freaky! Other than that, not much else is happening...

PS

oh yeah...comments on the tunes I have posted on myspace (can be accessed a few postings down) would be appreciated. :)

New Quarter

I am taking 15 credits again this quarter. I am debating on whether or not to drop the CHildrens lit/Library Science class cause of the work load and that most of it is online and group stuff. When i registered it said nothing of it being online and to make matters worse, the online system is in beta so God only knows what could happen. I will be talking to some others that have taken the class, see if they had to take it online or if it was all classroom work.
I have a couple new students, one of which is starting tomorrow and the other questions why he even needs the knowledge i can give him...duh...don't you want to be able to communicate with other musicians on a professional level? He is in his 40s so I guess he is kinda like me(though i am at least 10 years younger than him), wanting a practical application for everything instead of wasting time on random BS. My death metal student has been arguing with me over a part in this song he wants to learn and its driving me nuts. I ahve been playing longer than he has been alive and he is trying to say that the way i have been going at the song is wrong. The dude doesnt even practice what i give him nor can he really play anything other than noise so i am about to put him in his freakin place. That or I will have the other teacher that is teaching him piano help me out by helping this lil putz to understand rhythm and time, cause the kid is freakin clueless and he is going on a live version of the song which is different from the studio recording and there is also the possiblity that he is looking at the worng guitarist since there are two different guitar parts going on according to some music I ahve for the tune. The joys of dealing with know it all teenagers (ie I am a teenager and I have my head up my backside can you direct me to the exit?).

HAPPY NEW YEAR and....

Hope everyone (the few that read my blog) had a good and safe new years celebration. My new year festivities were a bit on the lacking side, I spent them with my brother, which was cool but I picked a bad movie, NEVER EVER EVER! get the White Dragon. I was in the mood for some martial arts action and while this one has it it was beyond ridiculous in its plot, storyline, and acting...like I was expecting shakespeare or something (tongue in cheek). I almost want to destroy the dvd but then i would get charged by Hollywood video for the damage.
I now have some of my music posted up at myspace.com. If you would like to check it out go to www.myspace.com/mikeleslieproject. THere are four different tunes there some older than others. I hope to have some newer ones later this year. Let me know what you think. There is some background to the songs under the blog postings on the page.

Changes in Life...its Christmas Time

Children of Bodom are a Finnish power/thrash metal band. The music sounds very power metal but the vocals are more thrashy.
Christmas this year wasn't anything like last year, in fact it was the polar opposite. Last year i got EVERYTHING on my list and this year I didn't get anything at all. Not that my mom or I wanted to do it that way, its just that she is moving to San Diego in a month and there are a lot of things to take care of and no money for any sort of gifts...I didn't have any fundage either. It was still nice to see her though, I guess next year I will be visiting San diego for Christmas.
I am a bit bummed about her moving down there only cause she won't be 3 hours away...but then I realized some other problems with her moving....I still have a number of friends that I have spent the holidays with for the last several years and now that she is going to be living nowhere near Renton WA it makes it impossible to do such a thing...an end of an era so to speak. Guess I will have to invade my friends homes at other times of the year. They could always come and visit me too but that has yet to happen.
I did get to go to one of my friends/extended family's homes on Christmas Eve and I got a Orange County Choppers beer stein with some mint candies. It was nice to see my friend's new baby and also her older kids that I have known from the time of their birth, even spent their first christmas with them. Other than seeing Nikol and Jim with their family I didn't have that much of an eventful Christmas. It was sad more than anything knowing that its probably the last Christmas I will spend in the NW for a long time or ever. Life goes on, just gotta hold on for the ride.

5 weird facts about me...

Per RT's request...5 Weird facts about Michael J Leslie

1. My music collection goes from Beethoven to John Denver to Children of Bodom to Trans Siberian Orchestra to Bryan Adams to Def Leppard to Depeche mode to The Cure
2. I like romantic comedies...love to laugh and where is it the easiest to laugh? The Human condition when trying to keep a relationship together.
3. I can be a perfectionist to a fault...case in point, this weekend helping my mom with some work around her condo, i had to work aroudn what was already there without all the proper tools. i would ahve loved to have a radial arm/chop saw combo for this job as well as more stock to redo some of the trim work that was shoddily done.
4. I won the weirdest guy (funny haha) in my class award not only out of my classmates but also out of the entire school (my class was only 26 people total and the school had about 125).
5. Despite my size (always big for my age), I was bullied growing up till I eventually got sick of it and then I stopped taking sh*t from everyone, daring them to step to me.

Grades and Work stuff

Ok. Grades were posted today. I got an A in Human Development(a slight curve as I originally had and A-); an A in Elementary Art, B in Elementary Math, B in Bio Lab, and B- in Bio Lecture. The GPA is safe for now...
Got a new student that is into black metal...Dimmu Borgir is his favorite band. Fortunately this band, unlike so many in the black metal genre, embraces good production so its listenable. I dig the music but all of the satanic imagery and lyrics coupled with the cookie monster vocals kinda make it difficult to listen. He wants to learn some of this stuff. He is also taking keyboard lessons from one of the other instructors who is hoping that I can widen this kids palette of music...it should prove interesting; the kid is very close minded when it comes to music, I can remember being kinda like him when I was younger too because this kid can be a bit snooty about it as I was when I was younger and still can be at times. Nothing like having a new challenge...now to figure out some of the music from this band.

FINALS ARE DONE!!!!!!!

I am bouncing off the walls here. Got an A- in Human Development, B- in Biology, B in Biology Lab, A in Art, and my math final went well so i expect a decent grade out of that class to. Now I have a month off. Gonna be working on a couple different songs; Yngwie Malmsteen's Black Star and Steve Vai's For the Love of God over the break, as well as get my butt back into the gym. My ankle is not healed competely which is wierd but I should be able to ride bikes and treadmills just fine. Now to relax......ahhhhhhhhhh!

Holidays and Finals

Thanksgiving was a fun time. I spent it with some friends and their families, first at one families house and then we all went to another families house...people from my church. Once at teh second families house we watched War of the Worlds...so so movie, nothin to write home about. I missed being with family a little bit but I was with a sort of extended family. The bad thing about Thanksgiving was that I wasn't able to make any money on Thursday, I don't get paid for holidays...at least I don't think I do.
Next week is finals. I have so far gotten my Human Development quiz grades up to A, B, and C level and the final is worth 80 points. I already took my Bio lab final, went well for the most part. My bio lecture final is Tuesday and my math and art Final are on Wednesday. The Human Development final is going to be done over the weekend as it is online. I have two chances to take it and I get to keep the better score. I think things should come off pretty well after all this quarter as long as I keep my nose to the grindstone this weekend.
Tonight I get to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra for the fourth year in a row. Each year the show gets bigger and bigger. I hope they play more new material this year. I am really looking forward to the release of Nightcastle (their upcoming release, God knows when they will finally release it). The stuff I ahve ehard so far is far and away better than the stuff they have done previously.

life goes on...sometimes without me

Well, I sorta put a gun to my head when it came to studying for my latest biology test...I got a B. That will certainly help my grade. Still have a few more weeks to go. I have to catch up in my Human development class. I am of half a mind to drop it cause I am so behind. All the quizzes, essays, and final are on the internet so it made it way to easy to be lazy. I didn't keep up with the reading so its bitin me in the butt. We are able to take the quizzes as many times as we want until the quarter is over but the esays are a one time shot and I am sure the final is such as well. So my weekends for the next few weeks are gonna be full of biology and human development studying in the hopes that i can pull my fat ass out of the fire. I will be so glad when graduation comes this june...of course i need to keep on top of my classes or else I wont be graduating...my family would kick my ass.
I just took on another day at work, one of the other guitar instructors is full on Tuesdays and Tuesday seems to be a popular day and I havent been getting to many signups on thursdays and saturdays so I am hoping that my tuesday will be filled fast. I need money like yesterday. We have our last instrument petting zoo tomorrow, though I guess its gonna become a regular once a month thing for a while. Hopefully we will have a good number of people show up, I hate giving my time without any sort of benefit (ie new students). Maybe the Tuesday thing will help out. i do have a new student starting tomorrow but at the same time I had one student quit, her finances aren't where she can take lessons as often as she should. She was doing both vocal and guitar lessons. Hopefully she will start back up when her finances are better.

Petting Zoo and more tests to come

Yippee! I have yet another midterm in Biology and math this next week and then finals are in the first week of December. I am so looking forward to winter break, we have almost a month off. I need to meet with my advisor and apply for graduation, get the ball rolling on that. For the last few weeks we ahve been ahving a muscial instrument petting zoo at work. The idea is that people can come in, meet the instructors, check out/play various instruments (brass, woodwinds, drums/percussion, acoustic/electric guitar, bass, and piano), and also see the facility in hope that we would get more students. Our first week we had only two families show up, one which took some flyers to her elementary school that she taught at. the second week...no one but oen woman that is doing some promotion for us with the Parks and Rec dept. This week we had two different families show up, one kid wants electric guitar lessons and his parents want him to learn to read music/learn music theory as well. I am hoping to get him as my student but if they decide to put him in the theory class then the other guitar instructor may get him because the days I teach (thursday and Saturday) dont have music theory being taught on those days. We shall see what happens. We have one more petting zoo before the thanksgiving holiday, I hope more people show up for this one and then get more students from it as well. Then I guess we will start having the petting zoos once a month. This past wednesday we were on AM Northwest. We almost didnt get any mention because we were unable to get 10 people to show up that were affiliated with our group. They hooked us up anyways. It would be nice if they would do an interview segment with us as well, thats something we are looking into. Now to do a little work on a guitar and do some studying....