Spring Break

So now that we're on Spring Break, I have time to catch up on all the things I've been meaning to do. I've been doing some coding, working on video...maybe I'll even get some new pictures posted!

Our school recently had a "China Day" to celebrate Chinese culture. The director of the Chinese Language Training Center, which provides language training for all of us teachers, wrote this skit for us to perform called "Who is the Most Chinese?" Now you, too, can view and decide for yourself.



Oh, and in case you missed it, GirlTravelOR put up this video a while back from Chinese New Year that includes more foreign Chinese-speaking goodness.

Danny Boy

This is my second recorded tin whistle track. It was recorded at the same time as Moonlight B, so it suffers from the same mic placement and recording issues, but I spent more time on it in Garage Band. Hope you like it!

Moonlight B

We've been working on setting up a combination video/audio recording studio at school. We already had some small, mostly soundproof music practice rooms, so we knocked out a wall to stick a couple together, put up lights and a bluescreen, and now we've brought in sound recording equipment. The new Macintosh lab is located just across the hall, so it's pretty convenient for audio processing. Right now, I've got my middle school technology electives working on audio dramas. I've been wanting to do some music recording for a while now, though, so the other day I finally sat down and recorded my tin whistle. I then took that track and dropped it into Garage Band, told the program to process like a flute, added a little extra reverb & echo, and underlayed the whole thing with some nighttime sound effects. You can hear the result below. It's a little rough--I'm still working on mic positioning for recording my whistle, and I did the whole thing in one take without any rehearsal, just sort of making it up as I went along. I hadn't planned on keeping this cut, but it turned out so nice I thought I'd share. (There's only audio, no real video--Blogger doesn't seem to want to embed an mp3.)



Ah, the power of Garage Band to make musical magic. This is why we pay so much for you, iMac.

Happy New Year!

It's the Year of the Tiger in China, and we celebrated with a trip to the Philippines where, among other things, I became a PADI-certified open water scuba diver! For more info and pics, head on over to GirlTravelOR's blog. For now, I leave you with a short video of the fireworks display put on by our school. Enjoy!

18, 21, 23

If you haven't been following GirlTravelOR's blog, the following pictures, taken at 18, 21, & 23 weeks, might come as something of a shock.

 

I'm happy to report that mother & baby are both doing well. No complications that we can see, and we Hope it continues that way.

We had a wonderful time at Christmas back home with our families. To think, the next time we see them, they'll be Grandparents (and Uncles, and Aunts)! It's hard to believe, but it's exciting to think about.