Can I get a witness?

Maddeningly, I managed to catch a cold the minute I returned to work. Well, I suppose it has to happen once in a while. As such, I've spent the last two days mostly napping and reading (and, of course, feeling guilty about missing work) (so much for my "perfect music therapist" fantasy) (ahem).


So, while I'm sneezing away here, I figure it's a good a time as any to post an update.


Update #1: The two taboo topics presentations seemed to go fairly well. There was a lot of dialogue, and a couple of people came up to me afterward and told me they had continued the conversation (some from last year) at their workplaces (which is very cool). 


Update #2: I submitted a proposal to do the CMTE (the one I just did at the Mid-Atlantic Regional conference) at the national conference (that would be for the American Music Therapy Association). I changed the title though (just the title). I proposed it as "Developing the Art of Self-Reflection: Exploring the Relationship Between Therapists and Clients". We shall see what happens. 


Update #3: I'm in the process of organizing myself (a task, I admit) so I can put a goodly portion of the work I did on the CMTE into a book (or a monograph of some sort).  Why am I telling you this (you may well be asking)? Because now that I've put it out into the blogosphere, I'll be forced to get on with it and do it! 


Update #4: I had a very touching experience (when I got back to work) with a small group of women who usually react to my absences by being quite challenging and doing a lot of testing and such. This time around, when I showed up on Monday, they all gathered closely around me while I sang "hello" to them. It was so sweet! And...


Update #5: ...the whole session was made even more phenomenal by the fact that their staff person (when approached by a client from another group who wanted to come and sing with us) very beautifully and kindly explained to her, "It's really nice that you want to come and sing, but this is a music therapy group, and Roia is working specifically with the ladies in this group on goals and stuff. She'll be here on Thursday to do the singing group, and you can go join her then." Sproing!!! Somebody shout "amen!" because that was probably one of the most respectful moments I've had in my career as a music therapist! I am so sending her boss a  happy note of "check out what your cool staff person said!"


I think that's pretty much the story so far. It was a good conference, I must say. It was particularly lovely to put some faces to names I know via Twitter and the music therapy list serv. And there were some really excellent and thought-provoking presentations. Another delight was gathering with music therapy colleagues and students to just play music togehter. Of course, staying up way too late probably contributed to my ending up catching a cold, but it was worth it.