music, therapy, and me

If you are interested in reading more of this story, please search "Persephone" in the search bar above. This is my futuristic fiction of a music therapy student, and I am having so much fun dictating what she has to do to become a music therapist. What do you think of all of this? Would you be able to do what Persephone has to do for her first mid-terms?? CHAPTER EIGHT All of a sudden, it was time for mid-terms. First year mid-terms were very important. If you did poorly, you did not move on. In fact, if you did poorly, you left. From what Persephone had heard in the hallways, this set of examinations was more important than almost everything else in the curriculum. The musical performance elements made up seventy-five percent of the grades, so it was imperative that all repertoire was note-perfect. Persephone had been signing up for every possible time in the over-crowded practice rooms. She and Calla took turns as accompanist and vocalist for random songs from the ...

July starts this week. June sped by, and I have no idea where it went!! I guess this is a good thing, but I'm not quite sure that I am ready for the second half of this year. The first half hasn't been lots of fun, you know?? Anyway... I took advantage of a positive mood and some downtime today to sit down and outline my goals for the month and for the quarter. I am always overly ambitious, so I decided to try planning the bare minimum for this quarter to see if I could get these things done. Of course, I used my bullet journal for this task - you knew THAT was coming, didn't you?? I am making time management (at-home time management) my biggest priority this quarter. I am working on making a bit more productive use of my early evening hours. I started last week when I went back to full-time work, and it seemed to work pretty well - every day but Thursday when I was exhausted and went to bed about the time I got home. So, this new routine isn't quite a habit yet, but I ...

I just got rejected...again...from something that I was hoping would happen this year. Oh well. After I get over my feelings of rejection and disappointment, I know I will be perfectly fine and dandy, but I have to get over those feelings first. I am feeling "less than" right now, and I don't like those feelings. On the other side, this means that I will save some money that I would have had to spend if I had been accepted to do what I wanted to do. Now I can stay out of the entire thing without remorse! That's a benefit. I don't like rejection. I don't know of many people in the world who like it. I think I will no longer offer my services to people who do not value them. There. If it wasn't a requirement, I think I would leave the organization completely - there are too many things happening that I don't like happening right now for my comfort. Unfortunately, I have to be a member of the organization to do what I want to do with my life. For the mome...

Ugh. I just finished the CBMT/AMTA joint survey, and I have to say that I hate taking surveys. Now, please know that I used to be one of the desperate graduate students who used to write those same surveys and requests, so I know what it all entails, but I have to tell you... I HATE FILLING OUT SURVEYS! The questions never fit me the way I want them to fit me. I always want different options than are on the options, and I know that I format mine that way as well. As a survey designer, there is no way to think of all the possible answers that people need to answer your question, but at least offer an "other" option with a short paragraph available. I will admit that I have started surveys and then stopped in disgust due to poorly constructed questions and answers. I also appreciate a personal request to complete a survey. I will NEVER answer a survey that is posted on Instagram or Facebook. How do I know that this is actually an IRB-approved survey if it comes from someone on ...

My mood-elevator keeping me in one place. Yesterday was not my best day when it comes to writing blog posts. I always hesitate to publish my rants because I don't want to drag you down into my dark moods, but I also try to remember that one of the pledges that I made to myself was to always tell the truth about what music therapy is and how I navigate the world of music therapy as a practitioner. That sometimes means that things don't sound happy. It happens. Yesterday's last session was a frustrating one for me, and the frustrations continued today, but I was ready and able to handle those challenges a bit better. This is often my pattern. I hit a wall - BAM - and then I am able to see the wall. I don't ever seem to see the wall until I hit it. It's silly, but that's me, ESPECIALLY in the summer months when I tend towards Seasonal Affective Disorder stuff. When the perfect storm hits, I tend to go off the deep end. By the end of last evening, I was in full-out ...

CAVEAT **** I just want to warn you that this was a bit of a rough end to my day. I don't usually blog at the end of the day, and this is why - I tend to focus on the things that went wrong in the last session of the day rather than remembering the successes that also happened. If you do not want to read about my frustrations at the moment, then I would recommend that you look at another post on this blog. ***** I am looking for positives here, but it's not easy to do at the moment. The last session today was comprised of 4 kids being very disrespectful and outright rude with two students who actually did anything. Two others were absent. I am so tired of the rudeness from this particular group (which had mostly disappeared until this week - thanks, day student in particular), and everything I have tried has backfired. It's been years with this particular kid, and I am so frustrated by his rudeness that I just can't seem to get out of the conflict spiral. He used to be ...

Today is the start of a new routine for me - mainly because tomorrow is a return to my regular 9 hour work days with little to no changes except that I will have to wear a mask for twice as long...oh dear, hadn't thought about that. Here come the headaches. I am taking this change as an excuse to start some other new routines, and, you guessed it, I am using my bullet journal to organize myself. I finished up my last journal - actually, it was a Passion Planner that I got as a gift. It didn't really do what I wanted it to do, but it was absolutely beautiful and I learned quite a bit from using it. I learned a bit about what I wanted to do with my planner as well as what I didn't want to do with my planner. I looked at the website to see if I wanted another one from this company, and I like what I saw - they donate one planner for every planner purchased - but I decided that I just didn't use the one I had enough to justify getting another one. I had a different idea in...

I have always collected things. (I know, you know this if you have read my blog - I collect more things that is good for me.) One of the things that I love collecting is pictures that catch my eye. I have been putting them into a book that I use when I need some ideas for songwriting or therapeutic music experiences (TMES). The pictures are just things from magazines, but they are fun and inspire me to think about the stories behind the pictures. Something else about me is that I enjoy making and filling books and journals. I've been thinking about combining my picture collection with my current love of making books and starting to make myself an inspiration art journal/glue book/junk journal. The purpose of this particular project would be to house these pictures to use when I feel blocked and unable to be creative. I think I'm going to use one of the books that I already have because I can't seem to find paper to make into a book big enough to house some of the pictures ...

The last two days have been a bit challenging for me. I got hit on the top of the head by a client (whose teacher laughed and said, "My bad," when it happened - Gee, thanks for your support) on Monday in the first group, and then, when I started driving home, I started with an ocular migraine. The ocular sparkles happened for about 30 minutes and then the headache came. I called my Dad when it started and got the daily call over with because I knew that this one would be a doozy - and it was. Now, I am not entirely sure that the migraine was due to being hit on the head - I get plenty of migraines that aren't preceded by a hit - but I'm not entirely unsure of that either. I did try something new to eat in the morning before going to work, and that could have been the trigger as well. It is also possible that both things contributed to my pain. I will never really know, Anyway... I got home, took some Tylenol, turned on the tv, and got into bed. I then proceeded to sle...