Friday - Getting Ready to Go Back to Work

Today is the last official day of break. On Monday, I will be heading back into my regular music therapy routine with the addition of a music therapy intern and the changes in the schedule between the regular school day and the summer session. We go to a four-day work week during the summer, so the five-day schedule has to be squished into four days. I end up moving from having prep and planning time to having very little during the summer hours. The benefit is that I get three-day weekends during the summer because I am not working at the church. I get lots of time to myself during the summers.

I was gone the last week of school due to an upper respiratory infection that came along with a fever that I could not shake. Our rule is that you cannot come back until you have been fever-free without medication for 24 hours. I went to work for about an hour and a half on Tuesday, but my boss kicked me out and made me go home. I missed the first graduation in my time at the facility. I missed field day. I missed the school district breakfast. I missed all the stuff at the end of the school year, but our school year never really ends.

Things will get back to regular routines on Monday. I will go to work and get things set up for intern #36. I want to have something unique for this intern - something that I make. That's my focus for this weekend - making something for this intern. I'm thinking I might make a full-sized notebook cover for a spiral notebook. Who knows?

When we get back to work, the focus will be on our country of the month. I try to follow a set pattern of loose themes for my music therapy sessions. As I have written about in the past, I tend to do a combination of music education topics as well as non-music education topics as part of our session strategies. I have never made my interns follow this pattern, but I may ask #36 to do this as it offers some structure to an otherwise wide open type of planning. I know that the cultural reveal will be a requirement for my intern to complete as that is something that I am part of planning each month. The other parts will be up to the intern whether or not to take on.

I have always found that there is lots of flexibility in how I do my session strategies. While I have a country reveal as part of my session strategy for this next week, I will also have the ability to change my session strategy at any time to accommodate my clients' emotional and clinical needs. For me, client needs are more important than anything else - so session strategies go out the window if my clients need them to go. No session strategy is EVER set in stone!

EVER!

So, on this day, I am planning on getting my craft space cleared off a bit. I have lots of things that have piled up. My computer desk is less cluttered, but there are things to clear there as well. I have a broken chair that I need to take out to the trash. I also need some alternative seating for the craft area since I only have one chair down here right now. It is difficult to do my style of crafting without a chair, but I am also a bit picky about what sort of chair I want down here. I could go to church to the rummage sale that is going on right now to see what I can find there, but that sounds like too much work for today.

Plans for today include clearing off spaces and enjoying the last day of break before heading into the weekend. I am not sure what will happen today, but that's okay. I went to the grocery store and the movies yesterday, so I am not feeling the need to be around other people today. I might make something to eat. I might not.

I also have to complete an ethics course before I can recertify for the next five years through CBMT. I have to search through some of the information included in the course that I've selected to see what the answers are to the test. After I get that done, all I have to do is put in all the presentations and trainings that I have done in the past five years, and I should be recertified without any sort of problem. That's the goal for this weekend - get that finished!!

I also have to figure out my video presentation for the World Congress - this will be a bit different from the workshop that I will be leading at the Congress because it is virtual rather than live, but I can figure it out. In fact, I have to figure it out before next Saturday. I am finally to a point in my recovery where I can talk without coughing too much... I hope.

Happy Friday.