Yes, we gon' fight, oh yes, we gon' fight

I just woke up from one of those nightmares that inevitably haunts you for the rest of the day, knot the reality of it (or the lack thereof) but what it means about you. In this particular case this was a dream that highlighted how needy, how completely dependent and at the mercy of my own expectations I am, day-in day-out. I suppose the dream itself wasn't all that important, but how it made me feel when I woke up was in such stark contrast to how I've felt the past couple of days. I've made some changes in my world that are attempts to be much more independent, looking what I got out of relationships and how I sought them out, and recognizing a few as band-aide relationships as opposed to actually enriching ones. The result being I've felt better about myself, more grounded and more capable of being my own manager rather than expecting anybody else to ameliorate my crazy. That's felt good. Solid. I've felt proud. And this morning after a dream that had to do with loss and abandonment, I was practically hyperventilating under the covers as I came to consciousness. I just...want to have a better day, or to react to things better in real life than I have in this dream. It's frightened me, realizing that perhaps I'm not as stable as I've come to think of myself.

***

Quick recap on the last few days:

I restraunted until late last night 22.30% tips total for the hole night! Woo woo! And had previously come from a teaching fellows meeting with the Children's Choir. I wasn't leading a rehearsal or a session that day, but Marta was, and because our meeting ran late her kids occasionally ran by and peeked in the window and scooted off once we saw them. The novelty never wears off that although they call me Ms. Birney and I'm the one in the conference room, I very much feel that I'm still peeking in the window. In the meeting we addressed some of the behavior issues I've been having with my concert choir (heh, not my behavior, theirs) in addition to some of the gaps I felt existed in their musical education, and ways in which I felt we could remedy them (I strongly feel that the kids would benefit from some piano exercises, or failing that, any exercise that would correlate the notes on the staff with the whole and half steps of the keys on the piano, band I feel that way because it's what made all the difference for me). What felt SO good, is to hear people nod along, agree with what I was saying, and write down some of my suggestions. It felt so validating to be told that my observations were seconded, and my opinions on how to address them were valued! I guess that sounds really basic, but I'm very much used to second-guessing what I'm bringing to the table, whether it's musical knowledge or child development, and tend to assume that because I'm the youngest person at the conference table, let alone the youngest teaching fellow they've had yet, that I'm a little behind the curve when it comes to these topics. It was such a surprise to feel confident in what I was saying AND be right about it...or even just feel right about it...or more importantly feel that other people, or dare I say my colleagues feel that I'm right about it.

So this morning, I'm making up a worksheet for Concert Choir to attack (they've lost their bathroom privilages during my session so I figure I'll need to have something for them to keep them focused and not talking to each other...I swear you can see the hormones flying about the room), and then I'm going to meet with Andy for my conducting lesson. I'll also get to see how my harmonic analysis went from last week when I turn in the Bach chorale...ugh...
And after that four hours at the BCC. Sometimes I can't believe they're paying me to be there...wild, right? Luckyfish.