music, therapy, and me

I think we have started a new tradition at my facility - YouTube Friday afternoons! We spent the last hour of our music therapy day watching 80's music videos (with some videos from other times - we HAD to finish up with the Muppets and Bohemian Rhapsody, of course!). It came about in a silly way, but an organic way, so I hope that we will continue this type of interaction and music sharing beyond these two interns. I love having two interns at the same time, and I really love having interns overlap with two different interns during their time with me. We have had many intern traditions over the years. There were the pens bought by senior interns for their junior interns. There have been chair upgrade ceremonies. We still have the anointing of the senior intern, but this has become my tradition rather than one that my interns share with one another. I had an intern wisdom notebook a long time ago, but that tradition died off - it was my fault completely. I may ask my next intern to...

So, no medical test that could figure out what is happening with my back right now, but I am not surprised. I am very tired because I didn't take my meds until after my discussion last night. So, I will take some more time to prepare for my day instead of being in an hour early. I can't keep my eyes open. I wish it was Saturday so I could just sleep the day away, but, alas, I have to head to work so I can afford to pay my mortgage and not be homeless. I could take the day off, but that would mean a significant deficit on my paycheck which I cannot afford. This is a horrible mess. The week has felt slow again. It is finally Friday, but reaching this day has been a long trek through time. Next week is my favorite week of the year, and I get to do most of my sessions next week because of it! I will spill the beans on Tuesday when it is TME Tuesday time. Since I can't seem to keep my eyes working, I think I am going to end here... 

Hint: So much to celebrate next week!! I get to surround myself in a movie franchise that I have loved since I was seven years old!! Do you know what I am referring to? Not Teacher Appreciation week. Not May Day, but May the Fourth!! If you have no idea what this is, you may want to skip the rest of this post. If you haven't ever watched this franchise, then I'm not sure we can be friends (just kidding, but I may try to convince you to dive into the stories...I'm just saying...) I have arranged to take over music therapy sessions from my interns next week so I can share my love with my clients. I have identified the t-shirts that I will be wearing. I have to get batteries for my robot prop this weekend - my favorite character, by the way. I may have to prepare by watching all the movies this weekend...I wonder if I have enough hours from this evening through Sunday evening to get through everything! Am I vague enough for you? This tends to be the week that my music therapy ...

It seemed like a regular morning. I woke up with a blazing headache, pain in my back - still, and looked across the room at my clock. Quick glance to see what time it was. My light turns on now about 3:40am. I decided that I could sleep in a bit more - my medications are really messing with my level of exhaustion right now - so, I flipped over in an attempt to relieve my head pain and lapsed into a state of almost sleeping. I had a dream about my family and another one about the cemetery at my school and kept opening up my eyes to glance at the clock. I waited until I had about 40 minutes left before I had to leave, and then I used the bathroom and headed downstairs to get my allergy medications and to check my email and all that. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, the clock on the wall stated that it was just 5am. Not the 6am I was expecting. I apparently cannot tell time on the clock that is in my room - this is not the first time this has happened to me with that particular clo...

I am currently in a place where I am spending more time watching interns than doing music therapy, so my boredom is increasing. To be completely clear, the boredom is not at all due to what my interns are doing with our clients but with the fact that I am not doing much client interaction and am stuck in my office, listening and watching rather than participating... The enforced decrease in client contact has the benefit of a surge of creativity that is happening right now. Since I am tasked with listening and responding via observation notes, I have lots of time to sit and think about music, about music therapy, and about what I enjoy doing. I cannot spend time working on my visual aid system really easily because I have to respond to session events as they happen, but I can write notes and jot down ideas for future TMEs while I am watching. I have one group to co-lead today and three groups to observe completely today. This happens every time I have two interns at the same time. They...

Here it is, Sunday again, and I haven't cracked a book to talk about. I did, however, continue a course on Music Education and Special Needs from Berklee yesterday. While most of the information covered yesterday did not have any sort of relevance to my life as a music therapist, I am working on a concept of preparing my students for any future music education experiences that they may have. During the course that I am taking, we are talking about how to prepare as music educators for persons with differing ability levels. I have a bit of a different perspective since I meet kids but not music educators. For this course, I am completing two projects. The first is a communication binder for my clients to use during group and individual music therapy sessions. It will include some activity choices, instrument choices, general communication tools (BIG yes/no), and some music therapy specific choice cards. I am getting ready to do the line drawings for the activity choices and the inst...

Oh me, oh my. At the start of this calendar year, I decided that I needed to get a grip on my visual aids. I have an extensive collection of things that I use with my clients to increase the possibility of understanding and communication within the music therapy session. This collection has come about due to love for teacher supplies (can't walk past a bulletin board display without taking a long, close look), my love for papercrafting (also really love drawing and making things), and my tendency to be a pack rat (love me some paper, markers, tools, and visuals for songs - what can I say?). I have so many visuals that I was really unable to keep track of them all, so it was way past time to find some sort of organizational system. My first step was to establish a place to store things. In my office, I have a series of built-in shelves that are awkward for instrument storage. They are just not the right size for many of the instruments that I need to use. They reach from floor to ce...

Yesterday, I sat down at my computer and wrote a post that will never be published on this page. This happens sometimes, and I allow myself to write and then decide whether the topic is something that other people need to know about. Usually, the posts that are not published but still live on in my drafts folder fall into two categories - whinging about things that other people just don't want to read about or rants that are so over the top and full of strong emotion that they present a picture of me that I am not proud to share with others. I keep those posts to myself. Today is not one of those days. I want to acknowledge that the world of being a music therapist is not all beautiful singing and major breakthroughs. There are times when being a music therapist is just plain old hard.  One of my friends posted a comment on facebook yesterday that there are times when administrators just do not understand what we do. The comment was centered around exposure to bodily fluids when wo...

Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs) are my foundation for everything that I do in my music therapy sessions. I do not make formal session plans. I haven't really done that since I had to as a practicum student way, WAY back, so I have to have something to organize my thoughts and experiences for my clients. My TME plans do that for me - they organize me and allow me to provide robust treatment for my clients in sessions. (As I am writing this, I am hoping that the recent font issues that I have had have been rectified.) I have kept the basic format of writing the things that I do in sessions that I learned way, WAY back. I start off with a purpose statement - this is where I brainstorm all of the goals that will be addressed by the TME. I rarely write clinical objectives in this area because I believe that objectives have to come with the client - it is my job as the therapist to make the TME match what the client needs. Instead of trying to anticipate future objectives, I look at...

I am a bit overly medicated at the moment, so I have to delay my commute for another hour. I am not accustomed to being late to work, but I do have a dispensation from my principal due to my current medical issues, so I am going to take advantage of that dispensation and not leave until the sun has risen completely. I am hoping that my side effects will be gone by that time so I can drive myself the hour to work safely. We shall see... I am tired today, but I am ready to get the last month of school for the 21-22 school year going. We have 32 days left (including weekends) until we have two weeks - TWO WEEKS - off for our first summer break. My facility has an extended school year, so we will work four days a week for most of the month of June and then the same schedule for three weeks of July before our last summer break. The 22-23 school year starts up in August, and my school calendar is finally starting to mirror the school district calendar. We will have less 12-hour days and more...

I am not enjoying the current season of my life. My physical therapist has told me to decrease stress and increase my meditation practices to help with my slipped disc and sciatica. I told my physical therapist that the major cause of my stress is my slipped disc and sciatica. I do not really meditate. I find it difficult to empty my mind and not think about other things I could be doing. I do better with journaling and mindfulness practices than meditation. Most of my time is spent trying to figure out how I am going to move from one place to another, and I am anticipating pain each time, so I think I am a bit more tense than I need to be. It's quite a mess right now, but I am trying to find ways to alleviate the physical pain and get the mental processes to work past that pain barrier. Blogging is one of the ways that I try to do this. At the moment, I am sitting at my computer, watching the western sky lighten as the sun tries to come up on this cold Easter morning. Yesterday, I...

Hello, all. It has been quite a bit of time since I have blogged, and I am happy to be able to be back at the computer and writing something. I threw my back out and have not been able to sit, stand, walk, or lie down without extreme pain for the past two weeks...or is it three weeks? I am not really all that sure what the timing is, but it has been a long time. I have tried to blog, but I have not been able to sit for long enough to do anything. I have also been saving as much energy as possible for work - I spent an entire week at home because I couldn't drive. It has been quite the adventure in pain and inability to do things - all sorts of things. I now go to physical therapy for my back, and I am waiting for my insurance to deny the ordered lumbar MRI to see what is going on in my lower back. I assume that they will deny it since they have denied every other diagnostic test that my doctors have ordered over the past three years. That, however, is another story. I am getting re...