Update

Life is interesting. So it's been a while since I've gotten on here, even though I have had MORE than enough material to add, most of which I've contemplated blogging. There have been so many changes and shifts in the paradigm of my life's fastly-held perceptions that I could quite easily spend a full-time job's worth of not just recounting the basic stories, but also the implications in them, the psychologies underneath them, and the utter fascination of it all.

But I've just decided that some of them are just too personal to share. Not for me, but for the respect of the people who are in the stories. What I can do, though, for my own selfish reasons, is list what I've been able to accomplish in my week off so far, something that was quite necessary (the time off, that is), and delve into why getting these things done this week were particularly important to me.

Getting the week off originated out of just simply not wanting to have to negotiate ducking out of work sporadically to go and support my piano students at the music festival. I had requested the time off before I knew none of the 8 piano students I have weren't going to participate, and I had prepared for the same with my flute student, in case she wanted me to be her accompanist. But I haven't heard from her in months. And because I would have had to use vacation time before year-end, anyway, I just decided to leave it. Lord knows I needed a break for a quick second because...

There had been a shift at work where the floor supervisor retired and her position made available for application. I never anticipated being a shoe-in, but I did get asked on multiple occasions if I would apply. To some people in the office, it only seemed logical that I would because out of all of the girls on our floor, I had been there, in that particular office, the longest, save for one (who wasn't particularly interested in applying) and so of course I would at least try. So I put my efforts into trying, and I became hopeful about it. I tweaked my resume, I made sure to collect all my thoughts into my memo ap on my phone so I could really sell myself as managerial, researched related interview skills, questioned my nurse manager mom (who would know ALL about hiring within and without a union), and delivered what I thought was a fantastic interview. But one of the newer girls on the floor who came to us from another branch legit had more seniority and got the position. It was one of my very first professional disappointments. And as such, I had to deal with it.

It wasn't easy because I had always tried to control or manipulate an unfavorable outcomes. All my life, up until that point, if something went janky in my job, I'd leave. Or I'd put up a stink bomb about it and then leave. This time it was completely different. I actually had to live with the news and work through it. Because I love my job and I wasn't going to leave. And this wasn't that janky. It was an honest-to-goodness legit 'defeat'.

But I had to deal with it. And it was kind of tough. I knew the girls at work around me could tell I wasn't myself. I didn't want that to show, but I couldn't help it. And it didn't help that the harder I tried to stay positive, both at work and at home, a number of little things kept poking at me from outside of me, like little sprites coming out of the bushes all around me at random to poke me even when I was trying to mind my own business. A comment here, a reaction there, a little tidbit of news there, whatever external extras, from completely random sources, acting like an 'ambush' and only serving to complicate the matter of me digesting my disappointment. I needed a reset.

And so the week off worked out exceptionally well as over the course of the last few months, I've taken on a play, grad committee chair (what American volunteers to head a Canadian graduation committee?? Idiot!), and the continued music lessons, all of which needed some quick and fierce permanence into my own schedule. Things were going to become quite hectic and complicated if I didn't get myself organized AND if I didn't have a chance to separate myself from work for a moment. So, in no predetermined order, I made a to-do list for my week off and have overloaded my cellphone calendar with dates so that I can start ticking off quite a number of items to help myself organize.

#1 Grad votes

They started coming in the mail by the hords. When T would open the tiny little mailbox, envelopes would fall out onto the floor, like a cascade of fan mail, after coming in home from a long day at work. I made as much as joke to Trev ("Hey babe, lookit all your fan mail!") but that fell as flat as the mess of envelopes on the floor. As the chair, the votes would be coming to my address, and my duty was to collect and count all of the information included in the vote package. The voting was for what kind of after-grad festivities students and parents preferred. There wasn't just the vote itself, but volunteer information. I purchased a small black bin for atop the fridge for any grad mail to go into. That way I wouldn't miss any votes coming in and "my" mail wouldn't get misplaced. After putting it off a week, I finally started counting votes and collecting data into a spreadsheet. It took me hours upon hours. I was easily at the comp for four-hour stretches. But I finally did it. I finally entered every piece of information from each piece of paper in every of the hundred-and-some envelopes to come in onto a spreadsheet. From that spreadsheet I was able to make other related data spreadsheets, including contact info, committee assortment, and the like. Praise to my family for having to suffer my momentary check-outs as I scrambled like a mad woman to get everything put together in one organized spot. I got it done and I felt good about getting it done.

#2 Lesson management

Lessons are still ongoing and therefore not in any way exchangeable with anything else going on. I value them above all other commitments outside of work because they were my first, and because music is my passion. Fortunately, all my students are grouped over the first three days of the week, so that as soon as Wednesday is over, I have the rest of the week and the weekend to recover. Not that I need to recover, per se, but time to regroup. In the process, I have also needed to readjust my angle and approach to lessons yet again. Anyone who has tutored or privately taught anything understands the need for this. Teachers know this. You go into it with all the knowledge in your arsenal, attempting to extract only the most necessary information to impart on your student(s) (so as not to overwhelm them), you find a method, a routine, your confidence grows, then it takes a hit. The kid starts acting up or disengaging. Or fidgeting or yawning or letting their eyes wonder. You're losing them. So you make the decision to try something new or risk losing their interest. You can't sing and dance for them and be a puppet, either. They're kids. But you try. The most critical piece of being a teacher that has worked for me is to work on my ability to understand how their minds work, specifically, each one, from one to another, even from sibling to sibling. And so, I have moved all of my students out of their method books and have given them pieces to work on with varying degrees of difficulty (tailored to their knowledge and ability) and am using the method books as supplements only. It has made all the difference. And while a teacher with more experience than me might look at that as a big old "duh", for me I was debating on how out of their comfort zones I wanted to push them. All but two sets of siblings have only been at it a year or less. The biggest stall, actually, was finding pieces that fit each one well, and with accordance to what I've been teaching them. And for one student in particular, I've moved her out of books and off paper completely and we're working on a more studio-esque-type approach. And every single one of my students were smiling this week! Accomplishment!

#4  Saying "yes" to being in a play (after volunteering to be grad committee chairperson. On accident.)

With working full-time and teaching students after work, I felt I was pretty much tapped out on what I could do and was content to not take on any other activity. I have three other people's schedules to think about at home, too, one of whom includes a teenager who can drive, so with my 9 students and a teen's schedule, I knew I was at my max. Therefore, you can imagine my panic when, in trying to be a good involved mom at the grad parent meeting, accidentally volunteered to be the committee chairperson. Like, of the whole thing. The whole thing. I whole-heartedly believed I was volunteering for head of one of the committees. Not for the whole thing. No one raised their hand. No one really moved. After the liaison down front went through her presentation of committees and started back at the top waiting for volunteers, a good, solid 40 seconds or more passed before the principal assured the crowd that volunteers would be supported through the whole process. Nothing. What was the big deal? I wondered. Why was no one raising their hand? Does no one want to volunteer that badly? Someone had to start the process. How hard could it be? I raised my hand. My hand went up slowly but steadily. From the back of the auditorium, where the principal had moved to, I hear him snap his fingers and shout, "We got one over here!" Still reeling in the "what's the big deal?" thoughts and being pointed out so fiercely, heads turn and the liaison on the stage cranes her neck to see who's got their hand up, and within the following seconds, as the meeting moves on and the liaison down front recaps the positions for volunteers, alarming realization washes over me that it was chair for the whole thing. What!? Oh. Oh, s***. I can't do this. I needed to focus on being smart about my involvement. This was not smart. At all. My brain floods with event conflicts galore. I pull out my phone to look at my calendar. I could work it. But no. Wait. Ugh! What did I just do? But wait. I don't back out of things. I don't shrink away at stuff. Fool or no, I would try. The worst that could happen was that I wouldn't be able to handle it and have to back out (although I would have had to decided that then and there that I wouldn't do it and back out by the end of the meeting so I wouldn't leave the grad parents hanging.) But as it stood, I would be getting the lowdown at the end of the meeting. Binders were passed out to all the volunteer heads. So, I held it. I figured if I simply made myself be organized "af", I could arrange what needed to be arranged. So I did that. I came home, cracked the binder open. Skimmed over timelines and critical dates. Entered it into my phone (my quintessential switchboard for the schedule of my life.) And have, to this date, called my first meeting, made my very own first agenda for that meeting, collected and sorted votes and committee volunteers. Big girl adulting! Yay! Score!

In between straining to stay on top of grad essentials, as per my binder and the content from previous years in that binder, I got a message from a lady I know (through C's friend at school and whose husband I work with in my office) asking me if I would be interested in playing a part in a play she was directing. Uh. Sure? No. No? No. I really couldn't commit to something like that, I tell her. It wouldn't be fair to any of the cast for me not to commit to any role, regardless of how small. Hell yes it would be fun! Heck yeah, I'd love to tell my daughter and my very BFF, who are both huge theatre people, hey, guess who took a role! I'd love to do something small and step out into that circuit. I've been intrigued by theatre people ever since my junior year in high school, where a boy I had a crush on was Freddy in our high school's production of "My Fair Lady" and, on the last night of performances, the whole cast came out and dog piled each other out of wild excitement that they had achieved multiple nights of performances. I could mildly relate being a musician. But it seemed ridiculous that I would dust off an old kid intrigue to give it a try. I made one hesitantly but concerted effort to be a family pet dinosaur for a May-term play my second year of university, which C coaxed me into, called "The Skin of our Teeth." I heavily joked with her after agreeing to being the nurse and Mexican woman in "A Streetcar Named Desire" that I could have a write-up that consisted of my extensive theatre experience having been a dinosaur and laughed hysterically at myself. But I consented to the roles. After all, I can speak Spanish. Who needs to audition when you can just be stereotyped after years of playing the "I'm a part-Mexican" card one's whole life, no one caring, and then me finally relenting to being myself, instead of a titled version of myself? It seems ironic. The director assured me that I only had to be a specific rehearsals. I've been to a read-through, a character analysis session, and one stage-blocking rehearsal. I love it. And I'm glad I said yes. And yes, rehearsal dates have all been entered into my phone. And guess what? Wouldn't you be surprised, none of them conflict with lessons or grad stuffs. At least for now. The week of dress rehearsals leading up to opening night is another story, but I can simply give my students a head's up. It's only one lesson per kid. Every kid loves a break. Lifelong intrigue employed!

#5 Translating a kid's book into Spanish (with my dad's help)

Almost quite literally two seconds into being involved in this play, another cast member, who doesn't know me from Eve, approached me with translating a kid's book he wrote into Spanish. JUST because I speak Spanish and was instantly regarded as having total expertise in the language. Or something. I guess. There really wasn't any pressure to do it. I just thought it would be cool to try. But to cut down on time spent translating every single word, I simply translated it online and then promptly read through the translation to correct everything I knew was wrong. As a precautionary measure, I asked my dad to review it after I had tweaked it and got the approval. It was just another thing in the wave of oh-my-goodness-I've-taken-on-way-too-much-what-the-hell-have-I-been-thinking things that ended up really good in the end. Accomplishment!

#6  Planning a trip to Brandon, MB

Long before all of the above and making sure to include dates, birthday surprises like Cirque du Soleil for Tia, Celia's musical production, for which she is tech crew, other massive dates, and grad meetings, was my A's news of being selected for one of the leads in her play Peter and Wendy. Having planned and canceled two trips to Brandon to see her, this one was particularly important. And I realized I could do it if I saved a certain amount of money from my lessons. Which, holding my breath, I did. Fortunately no one canceled for March. So I booked a hotel with a pool (VERY important to my step-daughter!) and free breakfast close to the university. And there's no backing out this time. Major road trip planning feat, check!