Dear AMTA

I am really trying very hard to figure out an afternoon blogging routine. Yesterday, I got home with a wicked neck crick and headache so it was all I could do to eat some dinner before crawling into bed. I ended up being awake later than I expected, but blogging did not cross my mind at all. That's my problem with afternoon tasks - my body really dictates what happens in the afternoons. Yesterday was a pain day, so everything else was pushed to the side. Mornings are a better time for me to work against gravity for many reasons. The problem lately is that I don't want to get up when my light turns on. I just want to sleep in a bit. So, who knows when I will be blogging in the next several weeks...

I have been working on an intern-focused project this past week - something for my interns to work on to gain some extra hours and to prepare them for their desired futures. My next intern has expressed a desire to work as an employee of the juvenile judicial system, so I have selected a series of projects and assignments that I think will be relevant to that type of professional focus. I am working on two other tracts of study for my interns to do - all dependent on what they want to do after they finish their internships. I dream of the end product of all of this, and I got things going this week. This next intern (#36) will be my product tester - poor thing - because I am not sure if what I am pulling together will make sense. I am trying to give my interns some additional learning - things that they do not necessarily get when they are in their coursework - to better prepare for their desired futures.

I have long been a critic of our educational outcomes in the profession of music therapy, and I am a proponent of Master's entry-level for music therapists - with HUGE expectations of significant curriculum changes. I think that we should be including a basic business course in all entry-level programs - no exceptions! I think that we music therapists are woefully ignorant of business practices, and we are moving to a small business model for service provision as a profession.

I find that my interns have dreams about what they want to do and have no clue how to get to those dreams. So, my new assignments will (hopefully) bridge the gap between their dreams and their educations. Eventually, I would like to shrink the amount of time that interns stay at my facility to an actual six month period of time rather than the seven months that they have now due to our time off. I figure, if I can get them some relevant assignments and self-study courses, then they can work on those things during time away from the school program.

These are the types of things that I enjoy about being a music therapist. Developing new areas of study and assignments for my interns pulls in some of the information and knowledge that I have surrounding curriculum and instruction. I want all things that my interns do during their internships to be relevant to their lives as music therapists - no matter what those futures might be. So, three different study tracts and assignment lists...

I am almost finished with the first tract. I have to generate some decision trees and finish up the reflective journal questions that will be part of this study program, but the rest of the design process is finished. I just need my intern to go through the process and tell me how much time it all took. I also need to update my internship handbook to reflect these new expectations and assignments. I am enfolding the special project into these study tracts in order to decrease the amount of work that my interns have to do rather than pile something else onto the plate. The special project will still be part of the internship, but for this tract, it makes sense to make the special project something that goes along with the study focus rather than doing two special projects. It makes sense in my brain...

Once I have these tracts figured out, I want to make them available to other music therapy interns (and music therapists, for that matter), but I am going to keep the details of this project close until products are completely finished because when I announce my plans, others announce theirs almost immediately! I know that those folks aren't stealing my ideas, but I find that I have to keep my thoughts pretty quiet on my end. Nothing feels worse than announcing something in a blog post and seeing someone post your exact idea three days later. So, no details yet.

I have about an hour before I head outside to the car to clean it out before heading over to the tire place to get my oil changed and the tires rotated. That is the only thing that I have on my list for today that involves being around other people. Everything else that I want to do is here at home, in my solitary state of rest. That is a nice thing. My three-day weekends are coming up pretty soon. I intend on watching movies in the theater often this summer during those weekends.

My neck is starting to twinge, so I am going to go check my temperature and then head upstairs. It is supposed to be hot today, so I am turning on my air conditioner preemptively. I also will dress in appropriate clothing and then head out to the ATM to deposit my last church check for the school year before heading to the tire place. That should be about an hour, and then I can come home to sleep or craft or just plain old think about stuff.

Happy Saturday!