Beginning of the semester . . .

I apologize for my lack of posting over the last three weeks; the students are back and this is a very busy time of year for all the employees at St. John's.

A quick rundown of the last 2 and a half weeks at work:

Tuesday, Aug. 14--

That morning I met with a friend and we recorded all the parts of the Mass that the priest is supposed to sing. Eventually I'll be handing copies of this recording off to all the priests here so they can practice their parts.

Spent the afternoon furiously preparing for the arrival of my student directors. Our first event was to be a nice dinner with the staff, the RA's, the sacristans, and my choir directors. I was told that the dinner started at 6:00 so that's the time I gave to my choir directors. Of course at 5:27, I was told that dinner actually started at 5:30. Great. Needless to say I was in a crappy mood throughout dinner.


Wednesday, Aug. 15 (Feast of the Assumption)--

Met with the directors all day. Here's the situation: we have 6 musical ensembles at St. John's that provide music for the weekend masses and one during the week. I direct two myself, but I have 4 student directors that work under me that take the other 4 ensembles. We have an intensive 3 days together before the semester starts to do some bonding and training.

We met for morning prayer, had workshops during the morning and afternoon, went to mass at noon, and then did something fun in the evenings. Wednesday night we went back to my house and had pizza and played games. This was one of the few times during those few days that I actually got to spend some time with my wife and kids.


Thursday--

Same as above, but we went to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant and then went bowling. These evening sessions together are great to build some rapport between the directors and myself. Things are pretty professional during our workshops during the day, but we're able to let our hair down a bit at night.


Friday--

Same as above, but we had a free evening after our busy day.


Saturday--

Move-in Day. Ugh. I was required to be there by 7:30 AM so as to be present when the students and parents started arriving at 8:00. It's a brutal day of small talk and boredom . . . we had our first choir mass that afternoon and I had to fill in for the accompanist. It was a decent temperature in the chapel (rare for August . . . we don't have air conditioning in there) and the small choir (most choristers had not returned yet) did a fine job. A pizza party with staff introductions followed. I didn't get home until around 7:30: a 12-hour day following 3 other 9-12 hour days.


Sunday--

I welcomed a few choir members back to my choir for the 10:30 mass. I dearly love this choir and it was good to see some friendly faces after a long summer. Mass went well with pretty good attendance. Took the rest of the day off (Hallelujah!)


Monday--

Went to the Cubs-Cards game in Chicago with my dad, brother, uncles, and their friend. Rainy day, long drive, late night . . . but we had a great time! (Other than the Cubs losing) Another day away from the kids though . . .


Tuesday--

Busy day at work as it was Quad Day. Quad Day is when all the student organizations across campus put together a booth on the "Quad" and returning students browse around and sign up for various organizations. St. John's has a booth and I had each choir director representing the music ministry for an hour time slot. We had some folks sign up but one of the sheets went missing . . . it still hasn't been found. Fewer things are more frustrating than that; we have a hard enough time competing with other student activities and even other ministries at St. John's without losing names of people that are genuinely interested in our music ministry.

We had a cookout at the rectory that evening to greet new students. Great turnout . . . another 10 hour day for Heath.


Wednesday--

First day of classes when things surprisingly start to slow down a bit. I had my first choir rehearsal that evening. A good returning core, but I need to add some tenors and altos (we lost a few of each to graduation). Here's the difficulty with the beginning of the year in the music wing: we've just lost graduating seniors, so your group is already somewhat depleted after the summer. So, of course, you need to recruit more singers which is hard to do since you're not at full strength and therefore, you don't sound as polished as you'd like. And therefore, people are less inclined to join since they're not hearing a polished product. Throw in the fact that we have brand new inexperienced directors and many other ministries to contend with, and "recruiting week" becomes a tricky time.


Thursday/Friday--

Still keeping my head above water. I'm a technological idiot, and a worship aide I used last year has been passed off to me, using a computer program that I know very little about. I had to get it done by Friday afternoon though so as to have it copied, folded, and ready for Sunday mass.


Saturday--

Cavan's birthday party; a day off for me! So good to see friends and family. Cavan had a great time. Shannon went all out with a dinosaur theme and nearly all the gifts (though we said no gifts!!!!) were dinosaur related. Exhausting day.


Sunday--

Got up at 6:00 AM to do my early mass at a small parish outside of town. Hustled back into town for my choir rehearsal at 9:30 at St. John's. The choir sang beautifully; I'm very blessed to have such talented singers. This was an important Sunday . . . Fr. Greg preached on stewardship (yikes!), encouraging students to share their time, talent, and treasure with us. They then filled out cards showing their interest in various ministries/organizations that we offer here at St. John's. This is where most of our recruits come from . . .

Met with a wedding couple afterwards to plan mass, and then had to put out a fire between two colleagues; a misunderstanding which was easily resolved, but I just wanted to go home!


Monday--

Day off. I needed it.


Tuesday--

A nerve-racking day. I had to crank out another worship aide for the Latin mass that we have on Tuesdays at St. John's. Of course, it uses the same program as the previous one that I'm ignorant about. I had a mishap with it and it wouldn't print anything out for me. I frantically e-mailed some of my computer savvy friends for help until I finally figured it out, just in the nick of time. The biggest blow was the fact that I misplaced the Latin-English missalettes that we used all last year for this mass. I have no idea where they are. We had to use some old ones.

The Gregorian Schola met before mass to prepare for the service. I had 5 singers (including myself) which is not bad for this fledgling group. I think at the most last year we had 7, so we're already headed in the right direction. We sing nothing but Gregorian chant, a genre ever so close to my heart.


Wednesday--

Received the names of people interested in the various St. John's ministries. I had a total of 150 people express interest in the music ministry. That sounds like a lot, but the fact is, only about 10-15 percent of those people will actually participate this year. That's the name of the game . . . anyway, I spent a good part of the afternoon sending out an e-mail to that huge list of people, detailing each ensemble that we have and how they can get involved. Choir rehearsal at night . . . dismayed (but not surprised) to see how many of my choristers are heading home for Labor Day weekend. I'll be down to one soprano! Luckily I planned for just such a situation, as I learned a good lesson from years past. : )


Things will hopefully slow down a bit from here on out. Continue to say some prayers for my sanity!