music, therapy, and me

It is 5:49am here in Vancouver, and I am showered and getting ready for the second full day of the World Congress for Music Therapy, the fourth full day of our visit here, and the third to the last day that I am going to be here. I am enjoying everything except for some hip pain which is exacerbated by sitting and then having to hike up some really mild hills and the VERY soft beds that are here at the hotel, but other than that, I am enjoying things. The first full day of the conference was my presentation day. I presented on thinking critically about the future of music therapy and clinical training. The presentation started off with two delegates but ended up with nine. We had some interesting discussions about possible futures that we might experience at some point. I am looking forward to writing up the comments and sharing them after the Congress is over.  Before my presentation, I attended the Spotlight session, saw some friends, and sat with John Lawrence who I know from th...

It is early on Saturday morning, and I am sitting at the computer, preparing to present on something that I absolutely love to talk about. You know it. Competency-Based Clinical Training! I am getting my Dropbox links ready and reviewing my Powerpoint and my reference list and coordinating my outline. I am looking forward to presenting and to watching the rest of the conference. This is the first hybrid conference that I have attended, so I am curious to see how it all works. The good news is that I can justify this time for CMTEs, if I need it. I am really looking forward to this opportunity to talk to music therapists. It's been a long time since I have spoken to new music therapists. At the moment, I am printing out the final presentation to use for my own discussion and practice in the next three hours and forty-five minutes. I will use some of that time to organize the view behind me as well as to declutter my desk a bit. Once I finish up here, I have to switch to another Goog...

In two weeks from today, I will be presenting to some Canadian music therapists about my ideas about competency-based clinical training and education. I got the acceptance letter last week, so here I am, sitting at my computer, getting my ideas together, and starting my presentation. I enjoy presenting ideas to people. I like sharing ideas and seeing what other people think of them. The best presentations, in my opinion, are those that challenge your ideas about what music therapy is and can be when observed through a different lens. Those are the presentations that energize me and make me think about what it means to be a music therapist. I hope that I can help attendees with their own ideas about music therapy and competency-based clinical training. EGAD! I just found a spelling error in my proposal. Ugh. It is a little thing, but it matters to me. Be mindful of the mistake, correct it on the page that I just printed out, go back and change it in the original document so it does not ...

After attending any sort of conference, it always takes me a couple of days to assimilate the information that I've learned into a semblance of order. I tend to try to soak in as much knowledge as possible, so I am constantly taking notes and scribbling in my notebooks, but I don't often take many mindful moments during the conference itself to reflect and think about what I am hearing. I have a fear of missing out on some tidbit of life-changing information so I go into sponge mode - you know, soaking in everything I can until I cannot soak in any more? Anyone else?? This is one of the reasons that you rarely see me at the more social gatherings of conference. I need time away from the need to soak up stuff to wring myself out and start the process of synthesizing information. I am also an introvert who gets completely and totally exhausted by the need to interact with people all day, every day. I tend to get more hugs during conferences than the rest of my year, and the p...

It is Sunday morning, the day after the concurrent sessions of the online version of the Midwestern Region conference, and I am sitting here (sometimes accompanied by my cat - hence the lapse into French in the title above) thinking about the things that I experienced yesterday. I acted as a moderator for two presenters - I'm not going to put their names here because I didn't ask permission - and was thankful for the opportunity to learn about things that I've forgotten about instruments, about attitudes, and about thinking way outside the box. All four of the presentations that I moderated were things that interested me (which is why I selected them to moderate to begin with), and I feel inspired to try some new old things. I am remembering things that I've put aside thanks to the two presenters. For me, remembering things long forgotten or finding one new idea is what makes going to conferences so valuable. I've started feeling like there really isn't an...

Today will be a day of conference preparation and continuing education thoughts and work. I had originally arranged for this day off significantly before all this happened, and I decided to continue to take this day as a preparation day yesterday when I realized that I had lots to do to get myself ready for conference. Most of what I will be doing on this day involves continuing education in one form or another, so I think it definitely falls under the category of professional development. If you haven't heard yet, the AMTA national conference is going to be online this year. I am actually pretty excited about this. Nothing will change the excitement of being completely surrounded by living, breathing music therapists, but AMTA is FINALLY joining The Online Conference for Music Therapy, inc. in the 21st century! Welcome!! I am going to spend some time sending in presentation proposals to AMTA today. I have a couple of ideas (finally) rattling around my brain that I can easily ...

My typical view of the Conference You may not know this, but I am one of the founding members of the Online Conference for Music Therapy, Inc . I am also the Continuing Education Coordinator and the Treasurer, so you can rest assured that this is a passion project of mine. I've been involved in this organization since its inception, and I've been part of eight wonderful, interesting, stimulating, and challenging conferences. The first weekend in February is one of the best and most grueling weekends of my year, but it is so worth it! I hope that this post will encourage you to do two things. (My business course is teaching me all about persuasive speech to close a deal - here's one of my first tries!) I hope that you will reserve the first full weekend of February (the conference starts on January 31 for us North American-types) to attend the conference. You can earn CMTEs for attending, and you do not have to attend the entire 24-hour conference on that day/night...

My "You SHOULD" goblin... I have a word for my year - Courage. I am striving to do things that make my stomach turn when I think of them. It has been amazing how much I avoid some things, and this outlook is making me focus on what I am avoiding and then doing something about it. My latest courageous step is something that I have never actually done before. I am NOT submitting a presentation proposal to the AMTA National Conference this year. Not a one. I have been struggling to come up with an idea that I want to talk about with other music therapists within this time frame, so I've decided not to pressure myself. Any ideas that I come up with will be offered here via my online platform rather than in the hustle and expensive bustle of conference. I'm feeling some peace about this decision. I was driving home yesterday, thinking about where to look for old ideas to resurrect and submit, and I just thought, "what if I don't submit?" All of a sud...

It is time to return to my regular routine of work, home, work. The Midwestern region conference is over, Holy week hasn't started yet, and it is time to move back into my every day schedule. We now have to spend time getting ready for the graduation ceremony happening at the end of this spring semester and that's about all I have to plan for at work. Home stuff, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated. I have lots of things that I have to do between now and May 24th (the last day of school for the regular school session). Since it is time to get back into my regular routine, I am going to start with my morning routine again. I've started leaving earlier than I need to leave so I am arriving at work way earlier than I want to be there. It is time to focus on what was working so well before our winter of snow days. I am going to track my leaving and arrival times again - that seemed to work well for making sure that I was on track and getting to work at my desired arr...

Yesterday's Presentation This is day two of the Midwestern Region conference , and I am about to stress the cat out more than usual because I am taking my suitcase with me. I'll be leading a 3-hour Make and Take continuing music therapy education this morning, and I have to have lots of stuff in order to get these projects going and done. LOTS...OF...STUFF. Conference time is different from regular time, and I think it truly exists out of the regular space-time continuum. I'm exhausted and only got about 3 hours of sleep last night - this is typical for me at conference time - nerves and lack of sleep tend to make me less effective or less coordinated or something. I'm currently feeling lots of self-imposed nerves because of this new adventure - sharing things that I love with people who have paid the region money to learn from me. (To be completely honest, these are the same types of twinges that I feel whenever I release any of my ideas into the wild - whether ...

On this day, all roads lead to conference! Today is the day that the Midwestern region conference begins, and I am sort of ready. I have all the pieces that I need to have in various places. I have about 8 hours until the conference officially starts, and I have a list of to-do's that's about 15 things long. All of these things are needed in order to get myself pulled together, but none of them are extremely difficult to do - they're things like take a shower, put on makeup, address the eyebrow situation which is out of hand, and move things from the living room to the car - stuff like that. There is more to conference than simply going to conference. I have lots of things to arrange - presentation materials up on my website and scrapbooking materials for my CMTE as well as for the presentation for this afternoon - that reminds me, I need to rearrange my materials so I can easily get what I want to get for this afternoon rather than having to sort through everything a...