Making New Intern Traditions

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 start one up again. I could call it, "Wisdom for the junior intern" and make it something that each junior intern gives to the next junior intern. Hmmm. I have plenty of blank books that could become just such a journal. Thoughts...

So, my senior intern had been randomly saying, "Science" during the day. This has come from her work on her special project and was a mind reframing prompt for her. It made me think of several songs from my youth like Weird Science by Oingo Boingo and She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby. We listened to Weird Science during the day. At the end of the day, I was on the floor and unwilling to move from that location in the music therapy room, and it was pretty clear that we were all just finished with thinking about music therapy. I am not exactly sure how we ended up watching YouTube, but we used the 70 inch Promethean Board to stream videos from the 1980's.

We started with Weird Science and then ended up moving into Peter Gabriel, Wham!, The Police, A-Ha, Thomas Dolby, Nelson, Genesis, and the Muppets. We took turns selecting music and just sat and enjoyed some music together. My senior intern suggested that we do this every week - with a theme for our watching. I think we are going to do Women Rockers next Friday.

At one point, one of our suite mates entered the room, was interested in what was going on and sat and watched several videos with us. We may share this tradition with other people, if we decide that this would be something that we could share, but I also kinda like having it just be us on Friday afternoons or the last day of the work week (we are getting ready for our summer session and will have Fridays off completely). We can share the experience of music without having any sort of requirement involved (though I CAN justify this through the AMTA Professional Competency 1.1 as part of essential skill development for music therapists!! - I can justify ANYTHING under the competencies!). I want this to be a no-stress situation. I want us to wander through YouTube suggestions and share music that we know or are intrigued by with one another. I don't do that often, and I left work feeling relaxed and yet, energized as well. It was a great way to relax at the end of a very disappointing week for me, and that is why I hope we can do it again next Friday.

What types of things did you do when you were an intern that you really enjoyed? Did your internship have any traditions? Put a comment below letting us know!! 

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