What's up Philly what's up?

Well hello friends! It has been much too long! Things got really busy as school started for me and we got in the swing of a new routine! But we are definitely feeling settled in and have so much to update our friends and family on!

School: Wow! It's great! I am taking three graduate courses: Quantitative Research, Measurement and Evaluation, and Learning Theory in Music. They are all taught by a different professor, roudning out 3 of the 4 music education professors. It's really fun to experience all of their different ways of teaching. They are all pretty challegning and require a lot of reading and studying. But it's amazing how much I've learned after only five weeks. It honestly blows my mind when I think about what I knew five weeks ago compared to now. In addition to those, I am also taking a graduate seminar course where all of the masters and phd grad student TA's sit down with all of the music education faculty and discuss current issues in music education. I'm also taking a choir class twice a week. I auditioned for the wind band on oboe and got in, but unfortunately they meet during two of my graduate courses this semester. But I'm really enjoying choir and am learning a lot in there too. My TA duties include teaching beginning oboe and bassoon to a bunch of the undergraduate students which I love. It's really nice to have my own class and be able to teach still. I think it's helping keep me sane. One of the highlights was having a student write me an e-mail to tell me why they were going to have to miss class one day and began it with, "Dear Professor Franzwa..." Oh man... made my day. :-) In addition to that, I TA for a class under one of the professors teaching undergraduates how to teach band in one of their last courses before they go out for their student teaching. My other less demanding duties include working in the "pet shop" where I check in and check out instruments for the undergraduates taking their classes on their non-major instruments, which we call methods courses. I spend 6 hours a week in there, but most of the time I get to just spend the time studying and help people every so often when they come in. It's like a library for instruments. Then I'm also helping plan and coordinate for a new non-auditioned wind band that will be starting up next semester that I will get to help conduct along with Dr. Sheldon, my advisor and the head of music education at the school. It's pretty time consuming, but I'm excited to have podium time under her direction next semester!

David: He finally found a job! Well.... several. In short, he wasn't hearing anything back from anyone and it was just beginning to get a little stressful and a little disheartening. He was definitely bored with sitting around at home, especially with me in full swing at school, and we were definitely starting to feel the stress of budgeting. But then he heard back from a temp to perm agency with openings for two different positions that he was qualified for: an office assistant position and a sales position with an internet company. He went in and interviewed and was offered both positions (because he's just great like that). ;-) That same day while he was in interviewing and be offered these positions, he heard back from a company that he had a lead on previously and had been trying to get in touch with for several weeks. He called them back when he got done with his interview and they TOO wanted him to come in and interview. He set up an interview for this last Friday with them, but went ahead and accepted the sales position at the internet company because there was no guarantee with this company he set up the Friday interview with. On Friday he went in to interview with this other company and it went really well! It's right downtown and is a "sales retention" job for a company that sells a language learning product, like Rosetta Stone, but different. He liked the atmosphere a lot and it would be a much easier commute. We have our fingers crossed that he will hear back from them tomorrow (on Monday) for an official job offer, which he would gladly accept. In the meantime, he is going in for training tomorrow for the other job he accepted. I think we both feel happy and blessed that so many opportunities are finally coming out of the woodwork. Now we're just praying for guidance on which is the best for him. We should know by mid-week this week what he'll be doing for sure though!

Highlights other than school and work include a few different fun things. We've been going downtown to a bar called Cavanaugh's (where we get a plate of free wings with each pitcher of beer) and watching the Husky games each Saturday. It's a great way to be able to watch the games on TV, hang with other Husky fans, and just get out in general. There's usually around 5-10 people there including us on any given week and everyone is young like us which is fun (no offense to mammas and pappas)! ;-) It's a fun crowd and we always have a good time! And a couple of weeks ago our good friends Mike Leichner and Rachael Bauer came to visit us for a weekend! We went to the Phillies game with them on Friday night when they came in which was really fun. I am modeling the super awesome free knit caps we got as a giveaway! And on Saturday we watched the Husky game and bar-hopped. And then on Sunday we visited historic downtown Philly and took a tour of Independence Hall and visited the Liberty Bell which you can see in the picture above! I can't really even put into words how nice it was to have friends visit us here. Like a little bit of home here in Philly!

So we are definitely settling in out here, but we OF COURSE miss home so much. Whenever we see pictures on facebook we sit down and look at them together and think of all of our friends and family back home. But at the same time, we are really excited about how things are going out here and how much we're growing together. I will update again soon, but in the meantime, now you know "what's up" in Philly!

xoxo

Haley and David