Musicals Monday

I love Julie Andrews.  Maria Von Trapp, Mary Poppins, some of my favorite songs and movies are by her.  Victor/Victoria was a very different musical for Julie Andrews.  Definitely not your grandmother's Julie Andrews, but one that I love.

In 1934 Paris, soprano Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews), can't get a job as a singer and is having trouble making ends meet.  Gay cabaret singer Carole 'Toddy' Todd (Robert Preston) may befall the same fate as Victoria as he was just fired from his singing gig at a second rate club.  To solve both their problems, Toddy comes up with what he considers an inspired idea: with Toddy as her manager, Victoria, pretending to be a man, gets a job singing as a female impersonator. If they pull this scheme off, Toddy vows Victoria, as her male alter ego, will be the toast of Paris and as such be extremely wealthy. That alter ego they decide is Polish Count Victor Grazinski.  The Count auditions for the city's leading agent, Andre Cassell, who, impressed, gets him a gig performing in the city's best nightclub.

In the audience on the successful opening night is Chicago nightclub owner and "businessman" King Marchand (James Garner), a stereotypical macho male who falls in the love with the woman he sees on stage.  King is shocked to learn that that woman is a man named Count Grazinski. While King tries to reconcile his romantic feelings for "Victoria" (in truth, King doesn't truly believe the Count is a man), his business associates won't tolerate his change in sexual orientation. Victoria, as herself, in turn falls in love with King. To pursue something with him as a woman would mean giving up this lucrative career. But the career may also come to an end in a jail term if the authorities find out that Victoria and Toddy have committed fraud in this impersonation. Written by Huggo

For your Musical Monday, I've decided to show the best song of this movie, The Shady Dame From Seville, sung by two different people.  First you will see the Julie Andrews version, and then the version by Robert Preston.

The authorities are about to discover that Victoria and Toddy have committed fraud.  As a "swan song" to their act, Toddy (Robert Preston) dons Victoria's clothing and performs the song as the finale of the movie.  I apologize that the few talking parts are in Spanish.  I couldn't find a decent English version!  The singing is all in English though, and it's worth every minute!

Where Is The Consistency?!?

I have a bone to pick with the entire Teaching Credential system of the U.S.A.  Why is it that each state has to have it's own set of requirements to teach?  Why can't there be a nationwide system so that when you get your credential in, let's say, California, you're good to teach in, let's say, Utah?

I have to get my Utah license before I can get a job teaching here.  I can be a substitute until the cows come home, but to get a full time teaching job, which is what I want, I must get it.  To get that license I have to take ANOTHER STUPID TEST!  I thought I had gotten away from having to take more tests when we moved to Utah.  In California, it was the CSET test, one I was never able to fully conquer.  I had passed two of the four tests, with math and science still to pass.

Utah has the PRAXIS.  I've had the opportunity to talk to A LOT of teachers the past few weeks who've had to take this test, and it isn't easy at all.  This is a farely new test, only about 5 year old.  That's another thing that bothers me.  If I have to take this test to prove that I know this stuff now, why don't teachers who are tenured have to take the test?  Tests keep being made to make sure teacher's know what they're doing....why doesn't EVERY SINGLE TEACHER have to take them?  Just because you've been teaching for a long time it doesn't mean you know the information, especially since these test makers keep coming up with dumber and dumber information to test people on.....the test content changes almost every year. 

If that mentality doesn't work for you, then try this:  why aren't the people trying to become teachers now only required to take the tests that tenured teachers had to take when they started working years ago?  I can GUARANTEE you that whatever test they had to take was easier than the tests we have to take today.  Many tenured teachers are happy about the fact that they don't have to take the tests we have to take because they know they would fail them!  Isn't that the reason enough to be tested?!?

The tests are stupid to begin with.  They ask the MOST RIDICULOUS questions that only scholars would know the answers to, and they forget that teachers have LESSON MANUALS that help them teach and provide the answers in the event that the teacher doesn't know it! 

Here is an example of a stupid question from the PRAXIS test:

The non-Spanish languages spoken in western South America result from
(A)  early Incan influence
(B)  the primitive nature of the countries
(C)  immigration by Mayan Indians
(D)  proximity to Central America

If you know the answer to this question, kudos to you.  My biggest problem with this question is that it talks about social studies events that aren't even taught until 7TH GRADE!  This is an elementary teacher test, grades K-6, WHY ARE THEY ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT TOPICS WE WILL NEVER TEACH ABOUT????  Oh, the answer is (A), in case you were wondering.

Here's another question, just to further my point:

The only French-speaking South American nation was the site of
(A)  the French Government in exile during World War II
(B)  the "Jonestown Massacre" in 1973
(C)  the revolt of the Foreign Legion during the Algerian crisis
(D)  the French penal colony Devil's Island

Excuse me?  WHO IN THE WORLD CARES?!?  I don't recall ever learning this stuff.  Maybe I missed that day in junior high, high school, and college when they talked about this.  Completely dumb.  The answer is (D).

Any test that provides seminars so that you can pass it (CSET), and large books on how to pass it (CSET and PRAXIS) is a test that is ridiculous.  I didn't have seminars in college to help me pass classes, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't believe we had any seminars to help us with the SAT's we took in high school.

All complaining aside, I WILL CONQUER THIS TEST, unlike CSET before it!

Star Wars Saturday

I found this clip while I was searching YouTube for more Star Wars stuff.  I haven't watched the MTV Movie Awards in a very long time, but I thought this was hilarious.  Besides the fact that I really like Jimmy Fallon, they're completely making fun of the prequels and since we all know how much I HATE THE PREQUELS, it's a win-win situation!

Ouchies

Snow is fun....until you fall down.

Brandon was getting out of the car this afternoon, walking towards a trash can to throw his apple away when he tripped over some snow/ice and went down.  Upon further inspection I discovered that he scraped his hand up pretty good. 

The rest of the evening has been all about bandaids, and "please don't hurt me" while I attempt to clean the scrapes!  Fun, fun.

YouTube Friday

This year for Christmas, Santa (aka Grandma) brought Brandon the one present he asked for this year....an Ernie Haase and Signature Sound DVD titled A Tribute to the Cathedral Quartet.  On this DVD is a song titled Boundless Love.  Brandon is IN LOVE with this song, and sings it ALL THE TIME!  He goes around the house pounding his foot on the ground to the beat of the song like they do on the DVD, it's hilarious.

So your video today, is the song Boundless Love, from Brandon's beloved DVD.

Happy Friday everyone!