music, therapy, and me

So, when we last visited Fiction Friday, we read the second chapter in the Heretic story. Today, let's catch up with our D-Flat story theme. Welcome to chapter three. ( If you want to read chapter two, click on this lin k.) If you are a first time reader, know that I am writing several different music therapy based stories - just for fun - that are set in the near future. This is one of the three storylines that I have going. The other two are the Heretic and my Persephone story. If you search for "Fiction Friday" in the labels function, you will find the other chapters. I hope you enjoy. CHAPTER THREE I found myself on a boarding landing surrounded by my bags and my instruments. I was assigned to my new apprenticeship on Station 37. This was my second move between stations. I had left Station 88 when I was accepted into the Academy, but that move to Station 21 was all I had experienced before. Heading off on a shuttle from a place with only a couple of layers between...

It is 6:10 am, and I am sitting in my office area, listening to Ms. Marvel on the television, and writing something on this blog. It is a bit later than I usually leave, mainly because I am not able to take my medication at 5 pm on Wednesdays because of my choir job. As a result, I have some side effects for a bit longer on Thursday mornings that make it difficult to drive. I go into work an hour later on Thursdays. This is the last day of the work week, so tonight's late dose (after my job as worship leader for Maundy Thursday) will not affect my Friday arrival. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow to get the second half of my teeth scraped and treated, so there's that. One of the things that happens with my medication is that my brain takes some time to wake up. I can feel when I am starting to come out of it. There is just a shift in my consciousness - almost a click - that happens when I am ready to wake up. This morning, my eyes opened (initially) at 5 am. My brain click ...

It is a bit early this morning, but not as early as I would like it to be. I am in the season of asthma and goopy sinuses due to the blooming of trees and the growth of grasses, so I am simultaneously not getting enough sleep and sleeping way too deep. We had severe winds from the southeast yesterday, and it is below freezing now. Welcome to the middle part of the nation! I am not in a good sleep pattern at the moment. I am about ready to move downstairs to my summer bedroom already because it has been humid and warm upstairs while it is cool downstairs in my dugout-style home. I prefer a cool sleeping state so I can bundle up the quilts and afghans and still be a bit cool when I am sleeping. I might do better in the next couple of days if I am sleeping where it is colder. We will see. Of course, I am also exhausted every single day, so the thought of taking pillows, quilts, and all the fol-de-rol of being me downstairs is a bit daunting. Tomorrow is also trash day, so I also have to d...

Let's face it. There are times when clients are not interested in what we have to offer to them. They are not interested in engaging in the lyric analysis and songwriting therapeutic music experience (TME) that we have carefully crafted and curated. They just don't want to participate, and we cannot force them to do so.  So, what do you do in those moments? Those moments are happening often in my music therapy room at the moment. To be fair to me, they are happening all over the facility - not just in music therapy - but it feels like I am failing at being a music therapist at the moment. At least, my emotional brain is going straight into "goblin mode" where my thoughts are primarily based in the "I should," "I could," and "If only I would" format. It was nice to hear the group that is struggling so much in music therapy having difficulties on a day where they do not come to music therapy. It reinforced the idea that their struggles have...

In the National Roster Internship world, there are two roles - that of internship supervisor and internship director. In many programs, such as my own, there is only one music therapist, so that person is responsible for both roles. The first role, that of supervisor, is mostly concerned with the teaching and mentoring part of the internship. The second role, internship director, takes care of the administrative parts of the internship - the communication, the acceptances and rejections, the day-to-day monitoring of the entire program. Today's post is about some of the things that I don't enjoy about being an internship director. I hate making decisions when there are more than one applicants for an internship position. Waiting for the annual report to come from AMTA so I am sure that I have finished all of my duties as a National Roster ID. Waiting for competency-based internship agreements to come from different university programs - I hate to be a nag, but there is one progr...

Hello, from the year 2023 - I am feeling a bit disgruntled and upset about my tax situation - things did not go the way I expected, and many things will have to be postponed due to the status of my taxes, so it was nice to head back into the archives. I am thinking that this randomly selected post was meant to give me a message for today because it was a discussion about inclement weather days. To set the scene here, February 2019 was full of snow and ice for us here in my state. Since I work at a residential treatment facility, I have the option of going in on snow days to work with the benefit of another day off when I choose it. This year, we have only had one snow day, and I opted NOT to go in, so no extra days off for me. February 2019, though, included many inclement weather days - and many of them in a row. So, here is the link to the post I wrote on February 11, 2019 - please read to get some context for the rest of the discussion. One of my common themes in this writing proce...

I haven't posted anything since Tuesday - mainly because I haven't been waking up early and when I do wake up early, I can't think of anything to write. I haven't done anything - no art cards, no cleaning, nothing but sleeping and trying to get my body to work without pain. I am not in any sort of crucial or critical situation, but I had behavior management testing this week and a double ear infection as well as music therapy things to do. At the end of each day, I am just wiped out - physically, mentally, emotionally. I got home yesterday to find a floral delivery notice on my door. I had forgotten that my parents' anniversary is today - 56 years since Mom married Dad, and even though he is not physically with us now, we still celebrate the start of our family. I am going to get my taxes started today. I am hoping that I have some money coming back this year for the first time in a long time. We will see later. This is the first tax year that I have had my own hous...