The Beginning of the End of the Year

It is the last work day of the year, and I am more than ready to be on break after today. I am exhausted and am really looking forward to being home without having the pressure to work. I anticipate that I will still be making videos for the YouTube channel, but I will not have an expectation of doing so. That's a nice place to be in.

I sat in the sunset yesterday and watched for the planetary conjunction. I never saw anything that I thought was "the brightest object (except the moon)" or "the Christmas Star," but I was able to see both of the planets with my naked eye from just after sunset until full darkness. I talked to my parents - Mom is talking on the phone lots more now that Dad is not doing well - and then sat in relative silence looking at the sky. Kansas skies always disappoint me - clouds happen regularly and ESPECIALLY when there is some sort of special planetary or solar system event that prevents me from seeing the full effect of every little thing. At least I saw the planets for a bit

Tomorrow is the beginning of my journey into Occupational Therapy. I am driving 45 minutes to my OT's clinic for an evaluation and the start of what I hope is recovery of my full fine motor skills. I also hope I can get some answers about prognosis and all that, but we will see. I also need to get an attorney so I can get protection for this injury in the future. Ugh. This is not what I want to be doing, but I have no choice, so onward!

Other than that, I have no appointments, no places to go, limited responsibilities, and lots of time with the cat in the next 12 days. I will not be going to California for this Christmas, and I know that I am staying safe, but I am also feeling guilty about not being able to assist my family members in caring for Dad. There are so many conflicting feelings that I have at the moment and none of them are really all that suitable for 12 days of alone time.

I am ready to go into 2021. I am.

Today, intern #30 graduates from my program. I am going to have to sit down and completely revamp my internship program to reflect the assignments, all my operational definitions for the competencies, and just all the things involved in my program in general. This year has demonstrated that there are lots of things that we need to be thinking about that we haven't thought about as a profession before now. I want to redesign some of my assignments since we haven't been able to see individuals, we haven't had the opportunity to assess clients, and it has been difficult to build therapeutic relationships the way we have been doing things. I need alternatives just in case the next interns run into the same problems, and I would like to prepare folks as much as possible for the new reality that is out there. So, I am putting on my thinking cap during this break.

It is time to get ready to go to work. I need to get an intern gift put together, wrap a gift for my friend, and then move myself into work mode. I may see some students around this afternoon - I may not. Kids are supposed to be back in the building for some afternoon holiday events. I hope they come down to music, but I anticipate that they will not. We will see. My senior intern made a "Good-Bye" video that I posted yesterday. She has not had a typical internship experience, and I regret that, but I know that I did the best for her that I could in this terrible, ever changing, unstable year.

So, tomorrow's goal is to get to OT and then make some cookies. I will spend some time sitting down with my journal and trying to make some sense of things I want to do during break. I will throw away three bags of junk from my craft room. I will nap when I need to nap. For now, though, I will head out to work for the last day of work for this calendar year. See you tomorrow? I hope so!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear AMTA

Dear American Music Therapy Association: I am debating long and hard about remaining in this relationship. I have been in this relationship since college, and this is not a decision that I am taking lightly or without great cost.  I am not happy with what you are bringing to this relationship. Now, I have been a selfish partner over the past several years - mainly because I am not feeling like we share a common mission anymore. It is easy for me to place the blame on you, but I know that this is not all on me. I have tried to be invested in communication and support and understanding, but everyone comes to a time where enough is enough. I am trying very hard to decide if the benefits that you provide to me are worth the feelings that I have about where I think you and I are going. I am not sure that our destination is the same anymore, and this makes me sad. To be completely honest, I am only in this relationship these days for the music therapy interns. I don't think that is a hea...
Read more

Songwriting Sunday: Repetition

Image
One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...
Read more

Being An Internship Director: On Hiatus

Image
It has been long enough since I have had an intern that I am seriously feeling like I have little to say on the subject. At the same time, I am currently writing Chapter 5 of my general internship handbook, so I am able to write about being an intern and what types of things to think about during this important time in our professional development. It is a strange place to be in, and it is one that is a bit challenging for me. Right now, I have had three vacant internship positions since the beginning of the calendar year. I will have a vacant position next month and that will be an entire year of rejected offers. In the past nine months, I have offered positions to three applicants who have declined. It is interesting how people complain that there aren't enough internship programs, but programs like mine are empty. I guess there aren't enough internship programs that pay large stipends (which mine cannot) out there. I get it. It is interesting to me how we have moved from an ...
Read more