Confessions of a Former Stalker

So, last week I happened to be present when one of my students (Awesome Girl) was discussing her "life issues" with one of my colleagues. This particular student is a smart, attractive, compassionate and hard working individual, and I will admit to something of a student crush. She's one of those kids who puts so much pressure on herself to perform that I worry about her from time to time. She's also one of my most trusted student leaders in the music department.

The colleague in question is one of the better teachers on campus - demanding, but caring. It is not the first time I have known students to confide in her with their personal issues. It just so happens that Awesome Girl and I have a habit of visiting her at the same time - right at the end of the day just minutes after the last bell. Fortunately, Awesome Girl is comfortable enough with me to discuss her problems with me in the room, an honor that I do not take lightly.

Without disclosing too many details (out of respect for Awseome Girl's privacy) I'll only say that the recent discussion centered around her relations with a young man who's interest in her far exceeds her interest in him. The basic story is as common to high school existence as gum under a desk: one poor adolescent with a low self-esteem desperately tries to process his/her feelings for another person - and utterly fails to the point of succumbing to feelings of rejection, depression, self loathing, confusion... and... oh you get the picture.

I listened, quietly on the side. Well, not so quietly at times. Actually, I had a lot to say... because you see... I used to be that guy. Yup. From high school all the way through college, I was the guy who would call a girl 10-15 times a day checking to see if she was there - and leaving my number with frustrated (and probably scared) parents or roommates. I knew the class schedules of the girls I had crushes on. I knew where they liked to eat lunch... and with whom. I was even known to hover around the places of residence now and then. And the few times that I mustered the courage to 'kind of' express my feelings... well, let's just say it didn't usually go well.

Captain Low-Self-Esteem... that was me. Maybe using the term 'stalker' is a bit of an overstatement, but I certainly understand the mindset. Simply put - you have so little confidence in your own worth, the only way you think you'll ever feel good about yourself is if someone else gives you their affection and approval. The problem, of course, is that when you rely heavily on other people for approval, things usually don't work out. To be sure - it scares potential dates / girlfriends away.

This isn't to say that I didn't have dates - or even a few girlfriends during that period, but I didn't have the maturity to handle them well and I usually found myself back to my basic "somebody please feel sorry for me" mode. Now... add a girl like Awesome Girl in the mix and problems kind of multiply. Aside from being attractive, smart and fun to be around, awesome girl is also nurturing... which usually draws low-self esteem cases like WBC protesters to a serviceman funeral. Girls with nurturing instincts actually are more sought after than the 'hot' girls, simply because they are approachable, and (more importantly) they cater directly to the emotional needs of the guy. And what makes it worse is that nurturing girls have a really hard time setting hard boundaries for guys, simply because.... you got it... they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Now this becomes a Catch 22 situation: If the girl doesn't lay down boundaries, then the LSE guy will hold onto whatever scrap of hope he perceives to exist, no matter how small or illogical. If she does manage to lay them down (sometimes late in the game) the LSE guy doesn't know how to take it well, and can feel offended, hurt.... betrayed even. That's where the more severe cases can become violent or suicidal.

Unfortunately there's nothing that the nurturing girl can do, other than try to explain that they value the friendship, but they just don't feel that way. At some point they have to walk away and let the LSE guy deal with his own feelings.

For myself, I can remember the moment where I finally slapped some reality back into my head. I had to force feed myself the following truths.

* It's not the girl's fault that she doesn't 'love' me. She never asked for me to obsess over her. Blaming my hurt feelings on her was totally unfair.

* I am responsible for my own happiness. Asking someone else to rescue me from my low-self esteem is unreasonable. I'll have to come up with my own reasons to feel good about myself.

* My life isn't that bad. In fact, it's not bad at all. My friends don't feel sorry for me, they think I'm being pathetic. Pretty soon, they will not want to hang around me any more.

* As long as this continues, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be my girlfriend.

Things didn't change overnight, but they did improve gradually. I finally entered into a relationship that stuck... and believe it or not, my decisions at that crossroad lead me down the path to becoming a music teacher. Twenty years later: wife, kid, house, career, masters degree.... life is good.

People like to say things like "If I were to go back, here's what I would change...." I'm not sure how much I would change. After all, everything we experience makes up who we are... and I like who I am today. I feel bad that getting here involved occasionally embarrassing myself, and sometimes hurting people that I actually cared about. At the same time, it might have been nice to have some assurance that I actually did have something to give to the world, and that yes - I could be loved.

Now I'm watching kids go down the same road, and I can only hope that they find their way... hopefully without doing anything stupid.

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" - Yes

Move yourself
You always live your life
Never thinking of the future
Prove yourself
You are the move you make
Take your chances win or loser
See yourself
You are the steps you take
You and you and that's the only way
Shake, shake yourself
You're every move you make
So the story goes

Owner of a lonely heart
Owner of a lonely heart
Much better than a
Owner of a broken heart
Owner of a lonely heart

Say you don't want to chance it
You've been hurt so before
Watch it now The eagle in the sky
How he dancin' one and only
You, lose yourself
No not for pity's sake
There's no real reason to be lonely
Be yourself Give your free will a chance
You've got to want to succeed

After my own decision
They confused me so
My love said never question your will at all
In the end you've got to go Look before you leap
Owner of a lonely heart
And don't you hesitate at all, no no

Owner of a lonely heart

Sooner or later each conclusion
Will decide the lonely heart
Owner of a lonely heart
It will excite it will delight
It will give a better start

Owner of a lonely heart
Don't deceive your free will at all
Don't deceive your free will at all
Owner of a lonely heart
Don't deceive your free will at all
Just receive it

Houston, We Have Lift Off!

The skill assessments are a go. They are slow going... I probably won't finnish up in all the classes until Wednesday of next week. It's okay, though - I am seeing and hearing a lot of things that I can't just pick out during rehearsal. I am finding that there is more strength individually than what I can hear from the whole group, and that is promising.

I had a thought today that scared me a little - once I get through these assessments, I still need to do goal setting and then a reevaluation at the end of the year. Given how long this is taking, I'm not sure I can do all that given the remaining time until the end of the year. Or.... maybe I need to remember what I told myself before I started testing: Just see where the cards fall - figure out the next step later.

One thing I have enjoyed about these last few days - I am finally seeing my students as individuals, not as blocks of instruments.

Spring Break 2011

Spring Break crept up on me sooner than I thought. I know, the thought of Spring Break 'creeping up' is unfathomable... most teachers and students have been tracking it on the radar since Winter Break. I have so many projects in the works, I actually find myself wishing for more time between now and the end of the year, and Spring Break is sort of the "two minute warning" of the academic world.

Despite my promises, I pushed my skill assessments to the week after break. I suppose I should feel crappy about it, but the truth is that I worked my ass off last week. I had a couple of other big projects going, and I decided rather than stress myself out to get everything done before break, I should focus myself on one thing at a time, and use the break to regroup. That turned out to be a wise choice.

I also didn't make any promises to do a lot of school-related work over break. Instead, I got tons of home projects done, including a full house cleaning, setting up shelves in the garage (including two sets of hanging storage units), re-taping speaker wires underneath the railing in the living room (away from Maestro Jr.'s reach), reorganizing the man-cave... and somewhere in there I managed to take a trip to see my family in South City.

Here I am on the last Friday of break, looking at Monday looming on the horizon. Given all the work I've done in the last two weeks, I don't feel particularly depressed - but I do feel increasing pressure to deliver on my promises. My plan is to devote all of tomorrow afternoon to preparing for the assessments this week. Hopefully, that will be enough time. Technically, I have until Wednesday of next week, since I'm not scheduled to start auditioning until then, but I'd rather not wait until the 11th hour. Besides, I have another joint-district project happening on Tuesday evening - I need to get the planning done before then so that I'm not trying to worry about two things at once (like last week).

Tomorrow I need to finalize my audition sheet. I plan on incorporating the standard categories that I usually employ in auditions: Basics (posture, hand position and embouchure), Rhythm, Tone and Nuance. Eventually I will incorporate scales, but for now, I'm just going to use a prepared selection (from the current repertoire) and two levels of sight-reading (which will probably take up the bulk of the preparation).

Tally-Ho!

You see me now, a veteran...

...of a thousand psychic wars
I've been living on the edge so long
Where the winds of limbo roar
And I'm young enough to look at
And far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside
I'm not sure that there's anything left of me

Veteran of Psychic Wars - Blue Öyster Cult

It's not that bad... I just feel like I've been getting my ass kicked lately. My "Great Reform" is in a constant state of near-stall, putzing along in small advances here and there, but no major breakthroughs. The only thing that saves me from full-on depression where that is concerned is the recognition of the fact that I have very little time to actually plan and develop. Most of my prep hour goes to tending to immediate classroom needs. It feels like I'm constantly working on the edges of the brush fire, but never the center.

A couple other things that made me feel like a total flake: Today, I had my fill of a couple of pumpkins who have been non-stop talkers in choir. They are decent singers, but constant distractions. I've talked with them both, and threatened them with detentions (of course, my lousy follow-through pretty much negated any effectiveness that might have had). But today I decided it was enough. I e-mailed both sets of parents, telling them that it had come to the point of requiring administrative attention. One parent responded within the hour, saying that she was sorry for her daughters behavior, but was dismayed that I hadn't contacted her sooner. Of course, she was right.

Why didn't I contact her? Because I was too busy? Because formal discipline requires effort and paperwork? Because deep down I dread calling parents because of the potential for backlash? All of the above. None of the above. I don't know. I just didn't.

The good news was that the tone of the parent was not particularly hostile. And when I responded, I tried to do so without being defensive, or making excuses. I simply acknowledged her concern and proceeded to suggest a way that we could work together.

Secondly, I got an e-mail from the facilities director of the church whose sanctuary we used for our December concert. She wanted to know the status of the tech invoice she sent us, and when they can expect to be paid. I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to meet with her over a month ago to deliver payment, and to set up the next concert. After our February break, I completely forgot to call her. I have the cash sitting in a lock-box, all neatly bundled up in an envelope with their name on it. I forgot to call. The e-mail ended with the statement "The fee for the coming concert will need to be payed before or on the day of the event."

Fuck.

I mean I know it isn't the end of the world, and it isn't like they are cutting us off completely, but I just hate having that kind of rep.

Oh... and the above e-mail reminded me of another individual who has been patiently waiting for payment - a piano tuner who did some work for us back in February.

Maybe I deserve the rep after all.

Lastly, I've been blowing off e-mails from the youth orchestra manager all week. Today she called and said that I needed to print and bring parts to the rehearsal tomorrow, since I never got back to her. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have a problem, except that one of the pieces is a string-only work, which means that I have to manufacture wind parts. That's when my grand plan of picking my son up early and taking him to the park were blown out of the water.

*Sigh*

You ask me why I'm weary
Why I can't speak to you
You blame me for my silence
Say it's time I changed and grew
But the war's still going on, dear
And there's no end that I know
And I can't say if we're ever
I can't say if we're ever gonna be free