The Busiest 36 Hours of My Year...Starting Now!

This evening is the beginning of OCMT - the Online Conference for Music Therapy's annual conference. So, I am awake an hour before I set my alarm, sitting here, trying to figure out when I am going to get all sorts of things done before tomorrow morning when I have to be moderating presentations. Today is not a snow day...yet. I am not holding out much hope that it will be a snow day at all, but another snow day would be really convenient for me. So, that means that it will not happen.

I will do my usual things for this conference. I will spend some time explaining to people that they cannot register after the fact. I will send lots of links to panicked presenters who didn't register. I will be present for the opening part of the ceremony, and then I will head out to get some sleep while the other folks take their turn at the helm. I will come back when I wake up. I am an early morning type person, so I will be helping out in the early morning hours. Then, I present on music therapy futurism. After my presentation, I go into moderation mode, moderating several sessions as either first or second moderator for most of the day. I do not have the same sort of seating this year that I had last year - I was able to sit on my loveseat last year and not sit on my wooden desk chair. This year, the loveseat is upstairs and I will need to shift things on my desk area to get to any other comfortable seating. Maybe I will bring down a lazy susan to put my monitor on to facilitate the types of changes in seating that I know I will need. That could work. I have a couple of those tools that I could repurpose - in fact, I think there is one down here in the bathroom that I could use for the next several hours...hm. Be right back.

Okay. That will work.

In between OCMT things, I have a subscription to release to my subscribers. Things will change for this conference because my circumstances have changed, but I am looking forward to having to go up and down stairs. I am looking forward to my usual thrills about this conference as well as dreading some of my typical responses to the things that happen in this conference every single year. Before the conference starts, though, I am going to work.

Since it is Friday, my intern will be leading opening TMEs for our two groups. We have four individual sessions as well. That's it. I will be able to do some of the chores that usually need to be done around my room - switching out things in the Sub Plans drawer since we've had two days of snow days in a row. If any groups have been using my room, they have used up the materials that I have in there right now. So, the parachute will go back into that drawer and some new things will be swapped out for the used things. Work, though, is simply a time-filler for me today. I have to focus on OCMT and my subscription release.

It is amazing how exhausting it is to watch a computer screen for a very long period of time.

Last year, for OCMT, I got my second COVID shot hours before the conference started. I was achy and tired and all that, but that is my usual way of interacting during OCMT, so I was not sure how much was shot-related and how much was just the way things go when I am helping to facilitate this conference. Turns out (at least, based on my booster reaction), that lots of the complaints that I had were shot-related. This year, no shot, so we will see how I feel. This is the weekend that usually makes me sick in February. We will see if it happens this time around.

I will grab my music therapy conference notebooks so I can take notes or doodle or write questions. I will grab some colorful markers and pens to increase my joy when referring back to these notes later on. I know that I will enjoy the presentations that I moderate - I always do. I love hearing perspectives about music therapy from around the world. That's one reason why I continue to be part of the board of directors of this non-profit organization.

It is only 4:30 am now. I will get started on my subscription packet release scheduled for tomorrow about the time I start my presentation. If I can get that finished this morning, then I will be able to shift my attention to all OCMT all the time! Then, work, then home, and the start of the conference!

Here we go...