Hallelujah
The drought is officially over!
I am finally employed....albeit, it's a very, very part time job and the job relies on me to push my services but it's doing what I LOVE.
I'm officially on the adjunct faculty for West Sound Academy! I'm going to teach music (choir) and also teach private lessons there. Seriously..... this is what I've been dreaming of but never thought I could get after such a long wait. I know that it'll start out small but I'm doing what I love which is teaching music on a smaller scale. I was never meant to be in the public school system and a long time ago I realized that teaching music 5 days a week in a school setting wasn't my thing. I knew I had to be involved with music and with kids but it was hard to figure out how to get this to happen without being poor, LOL.
Well, my dear friend Gretchen (we go all the way back to high school) convinced me almost 20 years ago to start teaching privately. Her daughter Siri was my first student and that little career blossomed into a neat side job while I was managing music stores for 15 years and then when I worked for the theatre as an artistic director. After being laid off, my pipeline started drying up plus the caliber of students was diminishing. I am one of those weirdos who won't take any student just for the money. I really need to see dedication and a desire for it to work so I chose to stop teaching (even though I continued to coach students by request). It's been depressing to see people come to auditions so ill prepared but my heart wasn't there to reach out to them OR they were already taking lessons elsewhere and not getting what they needed. Politically, it was a death sentence for me if I criticized someone who was taking lessons. Ugh....
So my friend Gretchen just moved back here to the PNW after many years on the East coast. She asked if I was interesting in teaching at a private school and I casually said sure. This week, I get an email and then a call and after a brief conversation I am offered a position as a choir director and given a studio from which to offer private lessons. This comes at such a wonderful time.... I'm trying to shed a lot of things out of my life (literally and figuratively) and it just seems like it's a 'God's plan' kind of thing.
To have this dear friend come back into my life geographically again and to have spent the summer starting this change in my diet I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude. I weigh 24 lbs less than I did at the start of summer but am even lighter in my emotional being. I feel like I've been given a wonderful opportunity to grow and change and to help share my love of music and the arts to a whole new generation of kids and families.
If I've learned anything this summer, it's to trust your inner voice and to have patience. Some voice, or some power has been telling me that something would happen in mid to late September and I would find a career that I loved. I'm not joking here... I am a very spiritual person and I pray daily. In fact, my prayer is more of a conversation with my God and I'm not typically on my knees. I kept asking for guidance and help and trying to be grateful throughout. I have such a problem with patience though and I kept on asking for help. That little voice kept saying "September." I don't understand but maybe it was my mother or father or another loved one reaching out just giving me hope. I do believe in an afterlife and truly think we have angels among us whether we see them or not so someone has been here, right by my side just telling me to wait.
I am truly blessed.... despite a rough weekend and a couple of really disappointing bits of information given to me. I realize that I cannot control what people think or say but I can control my actions. I choose to not be around one of these people for now. Everything he touches is poisoned by his ignorance and fear. The other person is my mother in law and I'm stuck with her. I don't hate either of these people, in fact I love them even more. I have to be merciful toward both of these people because they need all the mercy we can muster. They are both miserable, not necessarily toward others but in their own private moments. They must be torturing themselves and feeling awful in their loneliness. I am sad for them but I pray that they will find a path toward some kind of enlightenment. Running away from our problems just makes them worse.
I am finally employed....albeit, it's a very, very part time job and the job relies on me to push my services but it's doing what I LOVE.
I'm officially on the adjunct faculty for West Sound Academy! I'm going to teach music (choir) and also teach private lessons there. Seriously..... this is what I've been dreaming of but never thought I could get after such a long wait. I know that it'll start out small but I'm doing what I love which is teaching music on a smaller scale. I was never meant to be in the public school system and a long time ago I realized that teaching music 5 days a week in a school setting wasn't my thing. I knew I had to be involved with music and with kids but it was hard to figure out how to get this to happen without being poor, LOL.
Well, my dear friend Gretchen (we go all the way back to high school) convinced me almost 20 years ago to start teaching privately. Her daughter Siri was my first student and that little career blossomed into a neat side job while I was managing music stores for 15 years and then when I worked for the theatre as an artistic director. After being laid off, my pipeline started drying up plus the caliber of students was diminishing. I am one of those weirdos who won't take any student just for the money. I really need to see dedication and a desire for it to work so I chose to stop teaching (even though I continued to coach students by request). It's been depressing to see people come to auditions so ill prepared but my heart wasn't there to reach out to them OR they were already taking lessons elsewhere and not getting what they needed. Politically, it was a death sentence for me if I criticized someone who was taking lessons. Ugh....
So my friend Gretchen just moved back here to the PNW after many years on the East coast. She asked if I was interesting in teaching at a private school and I casually said sure. This week, I get an email and then a call and after a brief conversation I am offered a position as a choir director and given a studio from which to offer private lessons. This comes at such a wonderful time.... I'm trying to shed a lot of things out of my life (literally and figuratively) and it just seems like it's a 'God's plan' kind of thing.
To have this dear friend come back into my life geographically again and to have spent the summer starting this change in my diet I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude. I weigh 24 lbs less than I did at the start of summer but am even lighter in my emotional being. I feel like I've been given a wonderful opportunity to grow and change and to help share my love of music and the arts to a whole new generation of kids and families.
If I've learned anything this summer, it's to trust your inner voice and to have patience. Some voice, or some power has been telling me that something would happen in mid to late September and I would find a career that I loved. I'm not joking here... I am a very spiritual person and I pray daily. In fact, my prayer is more of a conversation with my God and I'm not typically on my knees. I kept asking for guidance and help and trying to be grateful throughout. I have such a problem with patience though and I kept on asking for help. That little voice kept saying "September." I don't understand but maybe it was my mother or father or another loved one reaching out just giving me hope. I do believe in an afterlife and truly think we have angels among us whether we see them or not so someone has been here, right by my side just telling me to wait.
I am truly blessed.... despite a rough weekend and a couple of really disappointing bits of information given to me. I realize that I cannot control what people think or say but I can control my actions. I choose to not be around one of these people for now. Everything he touches is poisoned by his ignorance and fear. The other person is my mother in law and I'm stuck with her. I don't hate either of these people, in fact I love them even more. I have to be merciful toward both of these people because they need all the mercy we can muster. They are both miserable, not necessarily toward others but in their own private moments. They must be torturing themselves and feeling awful in their loneliness. I am sad for them but I pray that they will find a path toward some kind of enlightenment. Running away from our problems just makes them worse.
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