Daylight Savings and NOOOOOOOOO!

Rant: Box with abstract background design and a white circle in the center. In small font, the top line states, www.musictherapyworks.com. In a fancy brush script, the main word is “Rant!!”
I hate this time of year. I hate it when we change our clocks yet again "to get an extra hour of sunlight" which is totally NOT true - we get the same amount of sunlight no matter what. We just artificially change when that sunlight happens. It is frustrating and is not something that I enjoy at all!

This time of year, I feel rushed because my time in the morning changes. While it is already 5:40am, it does not feel like it. This is the problem with this time change. I am just now getting my non-fuzzy brain going, and it is almost time to go to work. When I was living with my Bella-cat, she was not excited about changing our routine. The people that I know who farm find these time changes ridiculous since their animals do not recognize clocks and do not change their behaviors to suit us. I just wonder why we continue to do this. I wonder.

So, it is rapidly becoming time for me to go to work, but I really am not ready to go to work. I have to get my act together because it is Woodwind week, so I have to get my instruments together, work out a way to keep my overenthusiastic clients from putting their mouths on my instruments, and then keep working with the students that I have in front of me. I am really not enthusiastic about this week, but it's on the strategy, so here I go.

Sarcastic - yay!

Since this is the way things are done, I have no other choice but to get going. Now is the moment when working from home would be helpful. I could get behind a 30 second commute to get to work, but that is not my reality, so off I go!

I will put together my lunch of cheese, crackers, and mandarin oranges into my lunch box (that I uncovered when I picked up the kitchen floor) and then juggle my flute, clarinet, and saxophone to my car and to work. My reeds should be waiting for me in my mailbox - at least, that's what the order site says - so, I should be good to go into this week. I will also get some recorders and harmonicas ready for my students to play during our music therapy sessions. Lots of soap, water, and vinegar rinses in my near future...

I could skip all of this, of course, and do something else - and, I still might! We might end up doing something less music education focused and more leisure focused, but I will end up doing what I have strategized. My students will be just as crabby about having to get up and hour earlier than usual to go to school, so woodwinds might be exactly what we all need this week. A way to get rid of the crabbiness through making obnoxious sounds all together!

On second thought, I might shift my plans to make percussion the focus for March rather than for February - we could beat our frustration out on drums the week after the time change next year - that might help me, at least! No one else really seems to care what we do in music therapy, so I could change things without difficulty. Something to think about.

For the moment, I need to get going. It is 6am, and I am not really feeling like I am ready to head out the door. I have to, though, so it's off I go!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Songwriting Sunday: Client Goals First and Foremost

Image
When I am writing music, I tend to do one of two things. I either start with a specific client in mind and write for that client's goals and objectives, or I start with an idea and let the idea grow regardless of the clients that I am serving at the time. I spend time with lots of hypothetical clients - thinking about the vast number of clients and their unique goals as I develop songs and therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). Today, though, I would like to start with the first focus - that of a specific client and his or her or their goals. Currently, I am sharing a wall with a class of students who are experiencing lots of life and school changes. Two students have transferred from residential care to home care and are now day students. One student is brand new to the classroom. Another student recently left the class. All of these changes have shifted the dynamics in the classroom group, and old behaviors of concern have reemerged as well as finding new behaviors to contribute. ...
Read more

Being An Internship Director: On Hiatus

Image
It has been long enough since I have had an intern that I am seriously feeling like I have little to say on the subject. At the same time, I am currently writing Chapter 5 of my general internship handbook, so I am able to write about being an intern and what types of things to think about during this important time in our professional development. It is a strange place to be in, and it is one that is a bit challenging for me. Right now, I have had three vacant internship positions since the beginning of the calendar year. I will have a vacant position next month and that will be an entire year of rejected offers. In the past nine months, I have offered positions to three applicants who have declined. It is interesting how people complain that there aren't enough internship programs, but programs like mine are empty. I guess there aren't enough internship programs that pay large stipends (which mine cannot) out there. I get it. It is interesting to me how we have moved from an ...
Read more

Songwriting Sunday: Repetition

Image
One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...
Read more