The Last Day...Until the Next First Day

Today is the last day I have to go to work for our Extended School Year session. After today, we have 10 days off before we go back to work for the 2021-2022 school year. If I survive having to call off going to the lake (I chickened out yesterday), I will take the 10 days to pack and sort and sleep, all in the coolness of my house. I do not plan on leaving to do much - just grocery pick up. I will be a hermit until I go back to work.

Work is tense these days. There are lots of things being revealed about our former administrators that are not flattering to them and that directly affect us. It will be interesting to see what changes in the next couple of months. To top it all off, we are in the midst of the hottest days of the summer (so far), and tempers are short because we are all hot. So, cue the tense attitudes!

Anyway.

I, as always, have lots of aspirations for this break, but I know that I will not get them finished. I will be pushing myself to sort, donate, recycle, and box items. I want to move, but you can't tell it from my current living situation. I think I will start with my music therapy textbooks and my sheet music. If I inventory while I am doing all of this, I will be ahead of the game. This seems a bit too optimistic and aspirational for me, though. Okay - I want to clear four shelves in the living room area in the next 10 days. That seems a bit more doable...

Last year, at this time, everything was supposed to be going back to "normal." This past year was an example that nothing will probably ever be "normal" again. The delta variant is causing an increase in COVID cases in my state and in all the surrounding states. There are many conflicting messages being shared in my work environments right now about masking or not masking. I will continue to mask because I am petrified that I will get COVID. Now, I know that I am vaccinated, but I have lots of the diagnoses that tend to complicate this virus, so I am being overly cautious about everything! I am currently on so much asthma medication that I am in a constant state of anxiety (thanks, steroids!), and I am scared of dying of this virus because of contact with other people's stupidity. So, I am choosing to continue to do my job while masked - which doesn't help the asthma situation at all, but, you know. I will probably face some pushback from my supervisor for this choice, but I would rather listen to the scientists and doctors of the CDC than some guy. 

I wonder what I will be writing about next year at this time...

I really hope that I'll be writing about something...

Okay, enough morbidity for this post. Can you tell that I feel a bit messed up by the medications??

This next week is going to be reserved for eating, drinking ginger ale, and packing. I would like to read lots of books, pack some boxes, and take long naps. I want to completely break from work thoughts for a bit. I need to vacate that part of my responsibilities, but I am sure that I will not be able to do so. There will come a time when I will want to start planning things. It's who I am, so I have to embrace that part of myself.

Time to get myself going so I can get through this last day of ESY. I always hear the soundtrack of Les Miserables when I get to the last day...

One day more, (big breath) ONE MORE DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! 

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