meep_launcher

I don't mean to bring politics into this space, but as I've been coming to terms with a second Trump administration, a part of me looked back at his first term and remembered who I became. I was a very, very angry and anxious person. It came out in bursts on Facebook and on people I love who were less concerned about the issues that were the main focus at the time.

I really do not like that version of me.

When the dust settled a bit under Biden, I learned how to cool down and be more gracious (I think to myself, "what would Mr. Rogers do?"). My relationships are much better now and I'm more levelheaded in my conversations.

I still want to be able to do my part in helping my community and to have brave conversations, but as I'm seeing his cabinet picks it has become clear that this will be an administration of rage.

He has been choosing every personality from Congress to television to twitter to lead the country, and he has been picking the most vocal and unhinged personalities.

With that as the backdrop, I want to still maintain some semblance of who I am and not fall into the pit of rage.

Has anyone else been thinking about this?

Maybe I'm just exhausted from getting little sleep last night and feeling really sad, but I could use some support.

I've [30m] started dating again since my last break up. For context, I've had a pattern of meeting people, looking for the best in them, get kinda excited although realistically I have reservations, and then within 4 months the whole thing blows up.

I'm off the dating apps because they get me down, and I've only dated friends a few times because I get huge anxiety about potentially losing a friendship if a relationship goes south. I get huge anxiety about relationships in general just because of a long string of heartbreak.

It's happening again- I met someone who came to an event I host, and she was so wonderful. Just a beam of light- her optimism matched mine, she is into many of the things I'm into like biking and climbing, and she even led a jam on piano at my event (I'm a musician and it's a jam based on a principle of musical humanism). At the end of the night, we even got to dancing in the middle of the room. That night I asked her to go swing dancing and if she'd want to see a show I was music directing before. She said yes to both and I felt so excited, but also knowing it was just as friends. I wanted to see if we would be compatible before asking any bigger questions.

The next day I sent a message and a meme, but got no response. My thoughts went to "I'm putting too much pressure on this and she's reacting" or "she's not interested" and it made me pretty blue. The next day I messaged her telling her that the place we were dancing is going to be 20s themed just so she knew what to wear if she wanted, and she texted back like normal- all was good again.

That night she came to my show and we both biked up to the Green Mill (the jazz club in Chicago) and we had a great time. In the middle when we went back for a drink, we kissed and I was so excited. We talked and found we had so much in common- our thoughts on the importance of family, community, and how we can lift eachother up to be better than the sum of our parts. We both are active and extroverted, and felt the same how often times we feel like society wants us to shut up and not be extra. We both love the same kinds of beer. We both had struggled with weed- she put it well that her favorite thing about herself is her social skills, but when she's high it all goes away, just like me. She works for a bike company, I used to work for a bike company. She wants to start a hot dog stand, I want to write a coffee table book about city flags. We even planned to go climbing together for a second date.

I honestly felt like I found my one.

But then she dropped that she had a long distance relationship with a guy in Amsterdam, and that they agreed that it's okay to be open in their relationship. She said she wasn't polyamorous, but it was a way that she felt they could be there for each other while allowing their needs to be met. I told her I'm definitely monogamous and had an open relationship before but it wasn't fun for me. That said she said she was reconsidering her current relationship, but I've also been in similar situations where I've waited for someone to leave their situation to be with them and those also didn't go anywhere.

We biked back that night, and we still had a great time, and she messaged me when she got home. I sent her my number over Instagram, but that was the last message I got. I guess id expect a "hey Meep this is __!" Text so I had her number, but I still haven't heard back. I'm trying not to push it so I'm going to let her be the one to initiate the next conversation.

In the meantime I feel like I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. I mean granted I just met her and I shouldn't be so heavily invested or excited. I should be taking it slow but I don't know how. Hell I barely understand what taking it slow means. I should be perfectly fine being alone in my apartment with my cat. I've done so much work on myself to try and be in a place where I can feel again, but now I feel like I'm going back into another heartbreak.

I know a lot of this is also because I live alone and my family is 2000 miles away. I wrote a song that paints the picture- "oh, I'm floating away/ oh, I'm floating away/ the spacewalk went wrong/ I clipped into the other side/ of the moon/ just to know what distance feels like". I want to feel secure. I want to feel at home. But these relationships I find myself in tend to do the exact opposite. I'm back on the high seas and it's a stormy night.

I just wish I could be like a normal person and not feel. Or at least not feel like this.

Hi all,

I'm looking to make a positive change in my life by quitting weed. I can't find any Lemmy communities though- does anyone know if one exists?

Thanks!

Hey all,

I couldn't find a community for helping quit weed but I thought this place might be close for it.

I've quit so, so many times before and I'm tired of the rollercoaster I'm on. I quit, my life gets better, I smoke, my life gets worse. I feel like every time I quit, it just takes one lapse in judgement to go back into it, and it can happen anywhere any time. I need help and I don't know who to talk to.

I saw that N-acetylcysteine can help quit, and I'm wondering if anyone else knows about this or has experience with this supplement?

Charlotte was given to me as a 6 pound 6 year old lady, and I've had a wild ride with her health.

At first things were good, but then she started getting diarrhea, vomiting, losing weight, not eating, and peeing outside the litter box. I took her to the vet where I spent $2000 on tests to no avail, so we went with a prescription food.

Even then, she wouldn't touch the prescription food that was to help her sensitive stomach. She kept meowing for food, but wouldn't touch what I gave her. She went down to 4 lbs, which was really concerning.

I tried so many things, until recently I decided to just put some canned chicken breast under her prescription food- my god it's working. She doesn't pee outside the litter box anymore (unless I forget to scoop it), and her weight is back up.

Honestly I just think she hated the food I gave her so much that she would rather die than eat it. I also noted she likes diversity in her food, so I swap between canned tuna and canned chicken mixed with her normal prescription food. She also is much, much happier.

At the end of his life, my grandpa subsisted on 2 pints of strawberry banana yoplait yogurt and a pack of Coors light a day. What dietary hell will you fall into?

Hey I don't know where to post so I just have my darling Charlotte to trojan horse my bs into a community.

I feel like the skills I have are useless. After years unable to hold down a job, I decided to go all in and follow my dream. My problem was that I was $10k in debt after a temp job ended unexpectedly sooner than promised. I've been able to get to a point where I'm set to make $60k on my own, which may not seem like much but as an artist that's huge, but not enough to help me dig out of my debt.

I'm looking at moving back from Chicago to Seattle to get a higher paying job, but none of the skills I have seem to be wanted. I'm a music director at theaters, a multi-instrumentalist, and I'm putting together a non-profit for musicians to connect with values based organizations, but when I look to the world of tech, or at least where the money is, none of that seems to matter. I'm told I have skills, but I just don't think there's a place for me in this world. I just don't think what I bring is valuable enough for someone to say "hey, you should be able to eat". Frankly, today I've had that old voice come back telling me I shouldn't be here anymore. Charlotte is a needy girl and is making sure I don't leave, but man it's hard.

It's like... I want to give up on the dream, but like... Where would I go? Who would I be? I have done this before when I left comedy- I don't have the constitution for that world, but at least music was something I'm good at. I can play 22 instruments. I write songs. Improv. Jazz. I teach. I conduct. But none of that matters now. None of it is wanted. Especially with this new world and AI stealing our work, artists just aren't valued. I grew up in Seattle, the arts capital of the US from 1990-2010, but tech came in and napalmed it. I thought maybe I could join the "evil empire" but sure enough they don't want me.

I just don't feel like I belong here. I'm even thinking of giving Charlotte to a more capable human. Idk. Sorry.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/26157267

4 October 2024

Hey all!

Not sure if this is the right community since it's geared towards private lessons, but I thought in my experience it's helpful to have resources of different exercises you can give to a student when learning an instrument.

Some walk aways I've had-

Direct the lesson towards a practice plan. A student's progress does not happen in the lesson, it happens when they practice. My job as a teacher is to make practicing as easy, accessible, and fun as possible. Always begin the lesson asking "how was practice this week?" and if they say "I didn't practice", do not shame them. I start with "Hey, that's okay, it happens. What do you think made it difficult to get practice in?" Sometimes it's lack of motivation, sometimes they have competing schedules like school and math homework, sometimes it's something else altogether. I had a 6 year old ukulele student who said she didn't practice and when I asked why not, she pointed to the wall where her ukulele was hanging on a hanger 8 feet in the air. Sometimes it really isn't their fault for being unable to practice. Understanding why can open doors for solutions.

When developing a practice plan, I use this 4 point strategy that we create during the lesson.

• Set an intention for their practice. What do they want to walk away with that they didn't have going into it?

• A technical exercise. These should be geared to making the instrument more physically accessible to the student. These could be scales, long tones for horn players, stretch exercises, even simple hand workouts for guitarists.

• Something to perform. Give your student a goal, and see if you can create a date for a performance. I've had my students hold a small concert at a cafe, and it really gave them the push to be better players.

• Something they love. Ask what their favorite thing to do on their instrument is. This may also unearth some issues if motivation is the problem. They should play their instrument, not work it. This should be fun.

I also make sure to send follow up texts to the parents. This is a good way to keep them in the loop, and make sure they are able to be part of keeping your student accountable to practice. Parents have a huge influence over a child's schedule and are also the ones with the pocket book, so it's important they understand the value of the lessons so they keep scheduling you for more. If you are private practice, this is also a good opportunity to remind them to pay you.

If you are going private practice and need some help with the business side of things, here are some things I've found.

I have set my prices in a two tier system. I have a price for one off lessons, and then a reduced price for bundle purchases. This means I give a good 20% off if they book 4 lessons at a time. Even though this may seem like a hit, I've found the biggest hole in my bucket are cancelations. For me, my one off lessons are $100 for an hour, but with the bundle it drops to $80.

If I am offering lessons to someone who is lower income, I have also figured out other ways to help lower the cost on them without reducing my rates. I travel to my students, so if they come to me, I may give an additional discount. Another one would be to offer a group lesson with multiple students with another discount.

For Marketing, Facebook is a great place to post advertisements. Join a neighborhood group and make a post ~once a week depending on the activity of the group. You don't want to spam them, but you also want to make sure you don't fall off the algorithm. If you add in a video of you giving a 60 second taste of what you teach, that also can get you some interest.

In a lesson, I make sure to have improvisation games as it can take the pressure off the student to read music. I reserve the last 5 minutes to cool down where I will lay down a bass line or chord progression, and give the student a few keys they can play to make a solo. As they progress I give them more and more freedom. It's amazing what they can do!

There are some games for technique- I created a little game called "pianist's-monte" where the student has to conceal a small paper ball in a hand and then start playing the piano. I then have to decide what hand is holding the ball. It does exaggerate the "claw" needed to have good technique, but it can really help undo the spread fingers that a kid could develop.

For horns, I play mouthpiece games where we imitate different animals. Reed's can be geese and brass can be ducks. We then have a conversation as a geese or ducks. It's hilarious and it can help with some embouchure practice.

That's all I can think of now! Hope this helps someone!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/23106804

A side-cut of what the deepest cave in the world looks like rule

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19456618

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