Tribute

This Friday marks three years of The Other Dentist. It hasn't always been called that, you know, but it marks the official three year anniversary since the first real post.

How cool is that? I'll try to think of something epic to do. No guarantees though.

It's 12:04, and I'm fairly ready for tomorrow. In other words, I just finished my calc assignment. w00t. I always feel good about myself when I finish a calc assignment.

Today was very important. Madrigals was tender. Usually when I throw "tender" out there it means that I'm joking, but I'm totally not this time. It was a tender class period. It changed us all a little bit, I think.

I want to write more about it later, but I don't want to run the risk of losing it, so I'll write a bit.

I've been looking at mads for these past seven weeks as either giving or taking away some of my life force. I'd go in with my bucket, with the water level dependent on how the earlier part of the day went, and invariably I'd walk out of mads with either significantly more water or significantly less water. There were very few days that didn't change the water level. Mads either filled me with energy, optimism, and hope, or it sucked all the enthusiasm out of me and made me a cranky old man in English.

Today was different though. I think that because it was so tender, it changed me a little bit. I walked out of mads today with a lot of water in my bucket, yeah, but that wasn't what was important. What was important was that I walked out of mads with a bigger bucket than before. I think that we grew a little bit today, as people. I know I did.

I don't get sentimentally attached to associates in my life too much. I love my friends, yeah, but I'm not one of those "close" kind of people. I always work a ton with mentors in my life. Sharpe, Hansen, Coleman, etc. etc. When the time comes for me to move on from those people though, it's never a really big sentimental break. We both respect each other a lot, and we both know that we're a little better for having worked together so much, but we just move on. It's a pretty good system.

Ms. Webb is departing from hence at the end of the week. She's been with us for seven weeks now. For the first time in quite a while, I'm going to miss a mentor.

And it's not that me and Ms. Webb were close by any means. We shared our moments, of course, but that's just because of how incredible she is. It's just that she had an effect on me, and on everybody around me. She changed us, raised us all up a little bit.

School is going to be different without her around. I've gotten very used to the way things are, and it'll be a big change going to something different.

But it's not so much the choir as it is the absence of that figure. She had a way of radiating truth about what's going on. She always told us to come to the party. Why should we be excellent, why should we try so hard? Why do the things we do? She knew. It was that truth that she carried and always shared with us that changed us. Anyone could have instructed us using the exact same methods as she had and it wouldn't have made the difference that she made. She carried truth about life, and she gave that to us. It wasn't so much about singing as it was about being the people that we should be.

She's had an effect. I'm going to miss that effect a lot. Looking ahead to next year, I wonder what the baby mads will ever do without her. It's just a bit inconceivable to me, thinking of senior year without Ms. Webb.

I know I sound like a bit of a doofus. It's not often that I go about on all this sentimentality stuff. But here I am. As a mentor, she made a difference. I'm a different person because of the seven weeks we spent together. She talked about this the first day she was with us. i didn't know what to expect, but it's my custom to give everybody the best shot at working with me as I can. So I gave it a shot. There were days when I didn't come to the party. Days when I wanted to stop the party, really. But at the end of seven weeks, I'm a better person because of what we've done together. Music is just the very smallest part of all of this.

What a neat lady.