The Once and Future King

So here I am on the first "meaningful" day of Spring Break (ie. the day I could be in school, but aren't)... but, I am. True to my workaholic nature, I am here in my classroom doing all the things that I don't have the energy to do during the regular school week. Vacations usually give me an opportunity to really clean and organize the music rooms. As bad as that sounds it actually has a sort of Zen quality to it: cleaning a room is like ordering the mind. People who like to vacuum will tell you this.

Anyone who has seen my classrooms will also tell you that it's not the most painful place to be. My office has a 19" TV with DVD/VCR built in all hooked up to a surround-sound system. Abut a third of my DVD collection lives here too (funny thing, I don't actually show that many videos in class... mostly during lunch and during my prep and stuff.)

So days like today, I go through three or four movies... usually the ones I haven't seen in a while. I started the day right after a glorious breakfast at IHOP with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and currently find my self in the opening of I Robot.

For the last 2 hours I also had a little company... one of my students was passing through and stopped to help out. Next thing I know we had hung all of the plaques we'd aqcuired over the last couple years (but have been too lazy to hang) and even readjusted a lot of the posters that the summer construction workers had disrupted.

As soon as I get through this post (I'm taking a break) I'll give the office it's first sweeping/mopping since summer, and maybe even re-file all of my CDs that have been sitting in a big stack in my cabinet.

Workaholic? Perhaps... but this place is also the nexus through which I gather my spiritual power. And on days like today, when I clean and organize... it's my way of reclaiming this territory from the daily invasions. Not that my students are "invaders" per se... but they don't always claim ownership of the rooms as I do. They use the place, but do not always take care of it. Eh, they're teenagers. But then, I have people like E_____ , R______, and M______ who regularly give up their vacation time to help clean the place.

This year, it's been harder to keep the rooms clean. Back around 2000 - 2002 I used to keep it nearly spotless on a daily basis. The janitors used to joke that they didn't have to come in here at all, except maybe to empty trash cans. I couldn't go home unless the Feng Shui of the room was intact. You can probably thank my conducting teacher for that... the man was anal retentive to the point of near obsessive compulsion (did I mention that I have a degree in psychology?)

This year, the daily grind seems to drain the energy I used to reserve for that sort of thing. I'm not even talking about my ordeal with Palpatine... maybe it's the work load of the AP class, or the added stress of the CLAD classes. Maybe it's just because when I was studying with said teacher (in the thick of my masters) my nerves were sharp, as was the blade with which I shaped my daily musical product. Now, five years past my degree... I've gotten dull, soft.

Maybe that's the good that can come from my ordeal with Palpatine... to re-galvanize my fortitude, re-sharpen the blade. I have to admit, back in 2004 I thought I was invincible... the department enrollment was an all-time high, and things were generally good... very good. So I sat back and took my foot off the gas. Now, I'm looking at the systematic dimantling of my Shangri-La, wondering how something so right could have deteriorated so fast.

But the year is not through, and the schedule for the department is not yet set in stone. I have a few opportunities left, and I have the backing of a supportive community. I may yet find the Grail and revive the Kingdom. And it all starts with the re-ordering of my mind, and the cleaning of my place of power.