music, therapy, and me

Today is the day. Today is the last Talent Show that I will run at my current facility. I have no idea if there will be a Talent Show next year, and I am okay with that thought - mostly. I have sixteen acts to coordinate and one of the students is coordinating a "surprise" for me that I will have to play guitar for... we'll see how it goes. I think I have run at least 29 of these shows. We even did virtual talent shows during COVID. It has been an interesting process of finding how I like to run things to provide my clients with opportunities to show off a bit. There is not one right way to run anything, and I've found that my attitude towards the talent show is that flexibility has to be the key. I've had students freak out about being looked at by everyone in the school and run out to pull the fire alarm. After that happened, the student sent someone to tell me that the student wanted another chance. I did not allow that. Sorry, but putting everyone in potential...

Complain, complain, complain. I am sitting here, trying to remember what day it is. I have this issue when I am on breaks because there are no outside pressures, but I REALLY have this issue when I find my typical daily schedule interrupted - like with a Monday at work without music therapy sessions. I am at odds with my expectations, mainly because I didn't have as many sessions as I have on my schedule. It is Thursday, right? This means that I have my Tuesday groups again and my Monday groups are finished for the week. Everything is a bit discombobulated in my brain, so I am having to remind myself over and over that this is the way it is this week, not next week, but will replicate the week after when we have Monday off for MLK, Jr. Day. I don't like having Mondays off or away from students. It just messes with my mind too much. Things are going well with other tasks. I have felt pretty good about my upcoming events as well as my own quests for musictherapyworks.com. I have ...

Here we go. It is the first day of the second semester of the 2025-2026 school year - AKA, my last semester as a school-based therapist (as far as I know right now). I have five groups today - none of which are the same as the groups that I had on Tuesdays just two weeks ago. I have a vague idea of what I want to do with them (I have to laminate some resources that one student in particular will wrinkle immediately), but nothing is set in stone. I was anything but efficient yesterday. I did put some stuff into my car, but it is still sitting there, waiting for my attention. I received my Christmas boxes yesterday, so all of that stuff is scattered around my living room where I am currently storing the stuff I am bringing home from work, so things are getting to my overload state. Once I am finished with this post, I am heading upstairs to take a shower, get some water, and try my best to figure out what I am going to do with almost all of my students this week. I know what I am doing n...

Okay. It is crunch time now. Fifteen days between us and winter break. Let me tell you, folks, working with children this time of year is not for the faint-hearted! There is just not enough time, energy, or words to explain what happens in schools between Thanksgiving and winter holidays. If you have never worked in a school during this time, then kindly just nod your head in sympathy when a school teacher or therapist expresses their levels of exhaustion and/or overwhelm. My week started with a horrible day - all of my clients were disgruntled and snarly. The week has progressed into more kind conversations and emotional expressions, but the noise level in the class next door is very loud - which is very unusual! We are having constant shifts in classroom composition both with students and with staff members, and we no longer communicate these changes with all school staff members. I have not had the expected staff members in most of my sessions this week. That changes how I do things...

There are nineteen days between now and the end of the work month for me. Fifteen of those days are work days, and I am getting ready for the last winter break of my career (probably). This is a year of lasts for me. I will be retiring from my current job and transitioning into another role as a music therapy professional at the end of my contract year. This is my last December as a school-based music therapist, and I am both happy and nostalgic about it all. If you know anyone who works in school settings, then you know that this is one of the most difficult times of the year - in ANY school. In my school, things are compounded by it being a residential and day setting for children, adolescents, and young adults who have significant developmental and psychiatric symptomology. Amplify the usual pre-holiday excitement with trauma backgrounds and the uncertainty of family involvement and you get the miasma that my students bring to their music therapy sessions this time of year. Meanwhil...

There are two good things about this Halloween - first, it falls on a Friday which means that I will be at home when my clients wake up from a fun-over. I do not have to wrangle them into post-holiday music therapy sessions after a break in their schedules. The second thing is that I live in a part of town that does not have many kids, so I do not have to buy any candy to hand out. In fact, my lights will be turned off this evening. I am not a fan of this holiday, so I am thankful it is almost over. My Halloween sessions have gone over with a resounding sigh this week. No one has been really interested except for the last two groups which means that I finally got into my groove during the last two groups. I have ideas for how to make my Halloween carols a bit more interactive for those with limited communication opportunities, and I will put them into place to release on TPT before Halloween next year. I love it when ideas pop into my head this way! I do not have a costume. I think I w...

Today is a 12 hour day for me, followed by an inservice day tomorrow. We have only one evening of parent-teacher conferences because the majority of our parents are not local, so we do most conferencing via telephone rather than face-to-face. We therapists are never involved in conferences, so it is an extra four hours of being at work but just because it is on the schedule - not because there is anything to do. I hate these days, but at least we are down to only four rather than the ten we had several years ago. We have to work an entire day with clients before we do these late nights and then we have to turn around and come in for training the next day. It's difficult to do such a turn around with my medication schedule, so I tend to be cranky and in lots of pain on these days. Tomorrow is another useless inservice day. I am not looking forward to it at all, but it seems that it is mandatory to attend - at least, we haven't been told otherwise. There is nothing more demoraliz...

Guess who had to miss the first two hours of work yesterday because she left the overhead lights on in her car and drained her battery? If you guessed me, then you are correct. I had all sorts of plans for those two hours, but I was not able to complete those plans. I started the first day with clients in a fog of frustration. The first session that actually happened (because I was five minutes late for a group that is almost ALWAYS 10 minutes late to the session but not yesterday!) was the one with "that client" and "that other client." They both made it through the session, doing the bare minimum, but NOT engaging in screaming, tantrums, or aggression. WIN!! I then finished the other three sessions on my schedule and poured myself into my car. The battery worked, so I went home. One of my specialists called last night and left a message. I have to call him today. That increases my stress level a bit, but I will do it so I know what is happening.  Anyway... I am go...

Oi. My return to work yesterday was frustrating from beginning to end.  The day started with a smooth trip to work. I traversed the 50 miles from my house to the facility parking lot without difficulty, and I entered the building to find my room pretty much the way I left it. For some reason, the stereo had been removed which negated about 50% of the sub plans that I had left. There were chairs everywhere, but no major holes in walls or things that looked too bad - at first glance. Later investigation revealed that someone had knocked over a soda or a cup of coffee on the top of one of my cabinets that was just left there, so there is now a thick residue there that I will have to figure out how to clean because I just cannot handle that sort of mess in my space. Okay, not a bad way to reenter the work space after a month being gone. I arrived 30 minutes early (of course) because I needed to go through my emails to see what we were going to be doing for the day. The calendar said th...

It is the first day of the "regular" school year, so this is my New Year. I tend to be a bit more likely to establish quests and the like at this time of year than I do in January. This may be my last school year start - I know it will be my last at this school - so my quests are a bit more nostalgic than anything else. Here are my quests for the 2025-2026 school year: Bring lunches to work Move more Enjoy the year Read 200 books Make 12 book units Bring my things home from work Rip CDs to the computer I have not counted any reading before this time, so the book I read yesterday does not count, but any other reading from now on does count. I have started the CD project already and have been through one large CD case for about 90+ CDs into my computer. I am using Windows Media Player because iTunes just stopped working. I really do not like iThings, and they do not like me, either. I will make a lunch today, and I intend on getting into a Sunday routine of making lunch parts f...

Monday has come around again, and it is the last Monday that I have off before the start of the 2025-2026 school year. Next Monday is my first day with kids after being off for over a month due to medical issues that are continuing even after surgery. We now know more about what is happening inside my body, and it doesn't seem all that great. I go to my primary person today to cover some things that are concerning me - high blood pressure, falling, etc., but that is a topic for another day. Today's topic is laminating. I am a big fan of lamination. My clients tend to be juicy, so it is a good idea to cover things in plastic that can withstand some Clorox wiping (or LOTS of Clorox wiping). So, I enjoy covering visual aids in plastic.  When I was an intern, it was often my job to cover visuals in clear Contact paper. Now, I HATE Contact paper because it was my job to cover visuals during my internship. I swear that stuff sees me coming and instantly starts to fold, wrinkle, and s...

It is time for a little bit of fun. This is the first day of the last break before the start of the 25-26 school year. I, of course, have been on break since the beginning of this contract year due to the surgery that I had at the start of the last official break. I am not really all that excited about the start of the last summer break, but I am looking forward to another two weeks of being here on my own. I feel kinda guilty about having five weeks off, but I am also aware that I am recovering from major surgery, so the guilt sort of sloughs off. Anyway, today is Friday, so I want to focus on some fun. Lately, my source of fun has been library books. Aw long-time readers know, I have recently gone back to the library to support my reading habit. I have been reading lots of things in the recent weeks. I also made a large order from Thriftbooks.com for books for me rather than for my music therapy practice. Tomorrow, I will be going to a local craft store for an "Introduction to A...

Three days and sixteen sessions left before the end of the contract year, the end of the first summer session, and before my surgery. "That client" had another perfect session yesterday - not even a whimper and allowed me and peers to use materials without protest. That means that Wednesday's session will probably be a doozy, but I'll take it! The problem with having highly reactive clients is that the entire session is a tenterhooks situation for me. I am on edge the entire time "that client" is present - I cannot relax or drop my attention towards "that client." It is exhausting. I do not feel like we talk about the unintended situations and trauma that can come with being around specific client populations. It is not something that we often speak about in courses - being hurt by clients, being around clients who display aggressive or self-injurious behavior, being yelled at by clients. All of these situations are things that I work through on a ...

Today is the last day of my workweek. Around work, some of us affectionately call this day "Thursday-Friday" because that encapsulates the feeling of what this day means to us all. I am more than ready for this. It has been a week of insomnia, red eyes, unpredictable students, and rising heat and humidity. Let's finish this week in a strong manner and then just go! "That client" spent three minutes in music therapy before escalating into a screaming tantrum that lasted the entire session. I was singing "that client's" verse of the opening song - which "that client" volunteered for, and I guess "that client" was upset that I dared to sing to them.  My other groups went well, I guess. No one else was incensed by my singing, so I guess that was a good thing. I have finished sixteen groups and have only five to go today. The last group includes another "that client," so it may be a rough afternoon. At my school job, studen...

There are three more weeks of our first summer session before the next break. Does this sound like I am complaining? I'm not - at least, not really. I have never had an entire summer off, and I bet I will not have summers off after I retire from my current job. I am going to take a couple of months off next summer right after I leave my current facility and before I start working again, but I bet I will not have the type of job where I can take summers off. Who knows, though. Maybe I will get that type of job. ANYWAY... Three weeks from today, I will preparing for surgery. I have to have a part of my large intestine removed due to a large polyp/tumor. I have been through this surgery before, but that doesn't really make it any less anxiety-producing for me. I am not very good with medical things and having to go into the hospital is full of complicated situations. My mother is coming out to drive me to and from. She didn't want to come visit this summer, but now has to be h...

My regular therapy year is now over. "That" client behaved wonderfully in music therapy yesterday, and today is graduation day at my school.  It is scheduled to storm, which is typical for graduation day, but we gave up on the idea of having an outdoor ceremony MANY years ago since it kept storming on graduation day.  Two principals ago, administration insisted that we go outside, but storms kept that from happening. The current administration is perfectly happy to have the ceremony inside which is more than fine with me. I cannot figure out how to run electrical lines across wet grass safely, and I don't really want to have to do so. That is neither here nor there since we have FINALLY come to a mutual understanding that outside is not the place for graduation. We will celebrate our students today. We have ten young adults who are either aging out of our services or are moving from children's services to transition services. Some will stay with us for the next severa...

Walter - just because I love him!! Well, that was a rough week - I had food poisoning last Sunday after eating something I made on both Saturday and Sunday - only got food poisoning on Sunday for some reason. I did not go to work on Monday - it is hard to sing when nauseous - I slept instead. Last week went slowly and culminated with my second-to-last Talent Show. Nothing happened at the show, thank all things good and wholesome, and now we are on the downward slope to next week when all the end of the school year stuff happens. This week has a field trip for one group of students this morning. As far as I know, there is nothing else happening. Next week is a different story. We have graduation and then the end of the school carnival. After that, we will be done for a week before coming back and doing things all over again. Since I work in a psychiatric residential treatment facility school, my students are in school year round. That means that I am working year round. I really don...

Today is the last 12 hour day of my school year. It is parent-teacher conference evening for my school, so I will be completely alone despite a recent curiosity about what students do during school from parents involved in a support group. No one will come to the music therapy room to discuss their students, and if they do, they will tell me what instruments they want their students to learn to play. I did hear our school social worker stating to a guest that "one of the differences between other public schools and our school is that our music and art programs are therapies. We have an art therapist and a music therapist instead of teachers." After 29 years, the school social worker FINALLY gets that my job is different from the local music educators! Hooray!! I got an "atta girl" in the hallway on Monday morning when the quality assurance person stopped me by the printer to tell me that he had recently heard that I do more than just play a guitar during music thera...

Our current round of inclement weather is over, so I will be returning to work for the first time this week. To a Friday schedule where I only see the adults who are transitioning from school work to work for a leisure session rather than a music therapy session. It feels silly to go for one session, but that's how I get paid, so off I go! Yesterday at this time, the temperature was -9 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chills that were dangerous. Today, the temperature is 4 degrees with no wind chill at all so it actually feels like it is 4 degrees outside. We will be experiencing spring temperatures by Monday - 60 degrees! I am hoping that we do not have any more snow days. We have had eight now which means that we will have to make up a work day at some point. This is the first time this has happened since I stopped going in for inclement weather days, so I am not exactly sure how it will happen for me. In the 29 years I've worked this arrangement, we have only had to make up time...