Note: I ramble on a lot in this update, but I’m getting a lot off of my chest. I need to vent for a while.
In 2006, I graduated from the University of South Carolina with a major in Music, and an emphasis in Education. My life up until then, and the 4 years I spent teaching music were dedicated to music in every aspect. It all started when I was very young—as young as I can remember. I was always running around my house with a toy keyboard, or banging on things with drumsticks. I joined the band in middle school, and it consumed my life. I became, in all sense of the words, a band nerd. In high school, I knew I wanted to be a band director. My band-nerdness (yes, it’s a word now,) had grown to an all new level. I was drum major my senior year of high school. Literally the day I graduated high school, I went straight to spring training with, and then go on tour with Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps during the summer of 2000. Then came college.
Throughout college, I was even more consumed with music than I was in high school. I lived in the school of music building. From daily music theory classes, ear training, master-classes, seminar, and all of the other music classes I took, I was around music, and was honing my craft on a daily basis. I played my trumpet daily, I played a piano daily, and I was composing, even it was just a musical doodle, on a daily basis. In college, I made tons of friends, went to concerts, was exposed to some sort of a performance on a near daily basis, and performed in all types of ensembles. I was in the USC marching band, the basketball pep band, University band, USC concert band, Camden Community Concert Band, and performed in numerous small ensembles throughout my time there. Between practices and performances, I was playing with a group in one form or another numerous times per week. This was fun and very intellectually stimulating. In 2004, I even went back and aged out with Carolina Crown.
In 2006, I began my teaching career by student teaching a great group of kids from a local Columbia area high school. This was a very rewarding experience. I learned a lot about teaching through hard work, but most importantly trial and error. I knew I was good at this whole teaching thing. That next year, my first year actually teaching and getting paid for it, I was an assistant director at a very poor school district. It was a completely different experience than student teaching, and required a whole different mindset, as well as an augmented direction of my teaching. I couldn’t really do what I wanted with the program, as I didn’t have the resources, as well as administrative support to do what I really wanted to do with a band program. The administration saw me more of a babysitter than a band director. So I left the district.
That next year, I got a job as the assistant director at the high school from which I graduated. Ever since high school, I had dreamed of becoming the band director of my local high school band. I had a great group of kids, and a semi-supportive administration, but the band director, in charge of both the middle and high school, made my life a living hell. She was the reason that all of the directors before me had left, but I naively thought that I could work with her. It’s a long story, but it involves borderline personality disorder. I had the support of the community, students, and parents however, and they all understood and backed my decision to leave, despite the fact that I had always wanted this job, and they wanted me there. They all knew what it was like to work with her.
The next year I went back to teaching middle school in a small school district outside of Charlotte. I had a great little program that was growing. I wouldn’t say that I was happy in this school district, but I knew there I could make a difference from the bottom up, and I already saw a huge difference in the program from the beginning of the year, to the first concert. The school administration and community could see the change and see that I was making a difference as well. Overall it was a good year there. The band program was growing, and I was finally making a difference in a program. I ended up losing one of my 8th grade trumpet players however, due to a heart attack. The community, kids, parents, and administration liked me, and the direction I was taking the program in.
Despite all of that, I still wasn’t happy. This was still a school district that was performing poorly within the state, and many of my classes were still babysitting classes. I still wasn’t motivated, since teaching here was still more about just getting the kids to shut the hell up most of the time, rather than making music. It was a struggle. To my surprise, although not really, the high school director went to another district suddenly at the end of the year, and I moved up to the position of high school director. I finally had my own program. I set out with a plan, and envisioned things to go one way. They went the other. I always wanted my own program—to do things my way—and my expectations couldn’t have been more wrong. I had to abandon every philosophy on how to do things, and run a band program—run it in a way that made me absolutely miserable, and was against all of the values I had crafted over the years. I hated getting up in the morning and coming to work. I had absolutely no motivation for this job. The administration, kids, and community all wanted a show band (shake your ass at halftime, be unprofessional, and walk down the street high stepping,) and I didn’t. They were not going to budge on this, and the problem is that neither would I. I did end up having a few semi-decent concert band classes (with very low numbers however,) that I could run well, and that actually ended up sounding quite good by the end of the year. I still had babysitting classes, a piano class (that actually turned out to be quite talented and was the highlight of this school year,) but my colorguard class with 4 kids, and chorus with 4 tone-deaf kids—both 90 minutes a day, were a joke. The only band class I had that semester consisted of 13 students—12 of them freshmen. All of the pieces I dreamed about conducting while I was in high school and college couldn’t be performed by 13 kids.
So all of my dreams of running a program the way I wanted to, with my set of values, rules, regulations, idiosyncrasies—using my warm-ups I’ve written over the years, as well as pieces I’ve written for band over the years, which couldn’t be performed by a high school band that sight-reads at a 7th grade level—another thing I didn’t have the patience for, were shattered by a band and community where all they wanted to do were shake their asses at a football game, and play rap music. I don’t even feel like going back and editing that previous train wreck of a sentence. The highlight of that year was telling that band parent who got in my face at a football game to go fuck himself—and the week of paid administrative leave that resulted thereafter (I went on vacation.) As much as I didn’t like teaching there, I did enjoy the rapport I had with my students, and influencing them in a positive way. The teaching aspect of teaching was fun, but with an unsupportive administration, I didn’t get to do very much actual teaching.
Through years of teacher training, classroom experience, musical training, and self discovery, I was exposed to, performed, and surrounded myself to music on a daily basis. My creative side was stimulated. The year I had my own program, I wrote the marching band show, and came up with the idea from scratch—something I always wanted to. I was able to craft that marching band, but poor attendance kept that band from reaching its true potential—and kept me from getting done with the show what needed to be done. Every week was a giant step backward. It was all of the other bullshit that I had to deal with that held us back, and what made me really dislike it. Despite all of that, I still had my music to fall back on. I still composed a lot, and had access to a piano to perform on, which was very therapeutic for me. I could sit in front of one for hours and experiment, improvise, and learn a lot of the staples of piano literature. I also played my trumpet daily. Although I didn’t perform as much as I used to, I was around music enough, and went to enough clinics and band related functions to feel musically and creatively stimulated. I felt in the loop, so to speak, in the band world, which was something, since middle school, I’ve been involved in.
And now all of that is fading away. All of the knowledge gained in classes, all of the skill on all of the instruments I’ve learned over the years, and played on a daily basis, are fading, much like atrophy on muscles that are rarely used when an astronaut goes into space for an extended period of time. I feel my creativity stifled and my creative side as a whole under-stimulated. Despite carrying my trumpet mouthpiece in my flight bag, the last time I played my trumpet was several months ago for a gig (I play the bugle call for the Carolina Cup steeplechase races.) I haven’t played a piano, aside from once, in over a year, or my guitar, or composed anything. I feel that this isn’t like riding a bicycle, and that the time I’ve spent away from music has been wasted, and will take years to get back. I miss being in the loop with the SCBDA, and colleagues that I used to associate with, many of whom were college buddies.
Which leads me to where I am today. I live in an airport—literally. Since the last time I wrote in this blog, which was a while ago due to general blasé, I’ve transferred domiciles to Phoenix. Now I absolutely love it out here, the lack of humidity, the great hiking, the Tempe nightlife, the proximity for a quick flight to Vegas, L.A., the Pacific Ocean, Grand Canyon, etc., but I feel very empty. My first year teaching I felt like an adult. I rented a house that year, bought a brand new car, and did all of the things an adult could do. I paid bills, had a yard, and had a normal adult life. Fast forward to the last two years. I bought my own two bedroom house. I was an adult. I had a cat that I came home to daily (that is now my dad’s best buddy,) went to Lowes and Home Depot, I had a yard of my own, and was excited to do landscaping projects. I had my own furniture, a fireplace that I used daily during the winter, cooked daily in my own kitchen, and was big on the interior design of the place. I went to iKea (which is like Ikea, but more pretentious,) and had my own little inside and outside house projects. I got excited about actually being an adult. While I didn’t enjoy mopping, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the toilet, and doing all of the other chores that came with owning a house, I felt like I accomplished something because I actually had to do them. It was responsibility. I had a house that I had to take care of, a yard, a car, a cat, neighbors, a mailbox, and an adult life.
Having been a teacher for four years, and having been so unhappy, I knew it was time for a change. Knowing this meant I had to give this all up. Becoming a flight attendant seemed like a logical choice. I was working on my PPL at the time, but ironically, can no longer afford the flight lessons now that I work for an airline. I’ve always enjoyed aviation, and have taught myself a lot over the years. I was obsessed with traveling, and any job where I got paid to travel, and could fly for free on my days off seemed great. Now don’t get me wrong—I really enjoy this job. I enjoy dealing with the general public (for the most part,) being the center of attention on the airplane, and having a great view on a daily basis. I just don’t feel fulfilled intellectually and creatively. I have a college degree, and a talent in another field, and I serve drinks for a living now. With this job, I do get to travel, but most of my time is spent sitting reserve in the airport. At first, not knowing which city I would spend the night in was exciting, but now all I need is a little stability, so I can at least plan an evening. I travel on my days off, but all I can afford to see are airports. My travel benefits are great, but useless if I can’t afford a hotel room for a night in a city, or go out for a nice steak dinner somewhere once I’m there.
So it feels like I’m reverting back to high school, with adult responsibilities. I had worked so hard to make a living, with my own house and car. I’m in high school, without all of the daily social interaction with friends, but in the aspect where I’m not able to support myself financially, and have somewhere to call my own. In looking at things from that perspective, I don’t feel like an adult anymore. Despite being around people 24 hours a day, I’ve never felt more alone. After a long day of work, I don’t have somewhere to go back to and relax, I just stay at the airport and find a couch to fall asleep on. When I taught, despite being miserable with my job, I made $41,000 a year. My house payments, car payments, and bills weren’t an issue. I could live comfortably. I did the math recently, and with this job, I make roughly $13,000 a year. After my monthly car payment, student loan payment, and credit card bill, I’ve got a little money left over to eat with. If I want to go out and enjoy myself, I can forget it, despite mountain climbing and biking here in the city which are free, for the most part. If I have a medial issue, or another unexpected expense, my bills don’t get paid for the month. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not careless with my expenses, and I do save what I can, I just don’t make enough with this job to support myself. I can’t afford to rent an apartment, or even a room. I get this crashpad for $17 a night on occasion, but even that becomes expensive after a while, and even then I don’t have a room to myself. I get paid in four days, and I currently have $12 in my banking account due to being screwed over by Enterprise Rent a Car recently, and an unexpected medical bill this month. Today I got a cheeseburger from a fast food place, something I never do, and that was all I ate for today. I really love my job, but I’m almost 29 years old, and never thought I’d be unable to pay for food, and wonder if I’ll eat today. I’ve got the evenings off the next few days, as well as a training event, but I won’t be going out with my colleagues. I’ll be sitting here at the airport. I pay my car payments, student loan bill, and credit card bills when I can, but if I run out of money until the next payday, those bills don’t get paid, or partially paid, until the next payday, and even then they are consistently behind. I had to foreclose on my house because it wouldn’t sell, and I get over 10 calls a day from creditors. I’ve even stopped listening to voice mails from numbers I don’t recognize because they’re too depressing. I don’t even want to begin to think about how low my credit score is, which is something I used to be proud of. Paying my bills on time, and being financially responsible was something I used to be proud of. As long as I can keep my car payment up enough to keep my car from being repossessed, I’ll be good to go, but an adult with a college education shouldn’t live like this. I’ve paid my dues.
It’s been over a month since I’ve been home. I miss everyone back home, my cat, and the East coast in general. I’ve tried all month to get back, but all the flights back east are oversold. I tried for two whole days the past few days, but couldn’t get on any flight.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a great job, but I can’t keep this lifestyle up. I need stability, and a place to sleep at night, other than an airport or crashpad on occasion. I need to occasionally not have to get up at 2AM, and work until 2AM the next night, and constantly adjust my sleep schedule. I do get overnights occasionally, but more often than not they’re taken away from me. The past few weeks, I was given 4 very long overnights, enough to where I have a hotel room anywhere from 20 to 30 hours, only to have them taken away from me, one by one, and given an overnight where I can get 5 hours of sleep at the max. Day after day this happens. It’s emotionally and physically draining, especially when I’ve prepared myself to have some time to myself and get caught up on sleep. Watching NetFlix for hours on end isn’t stimulation. I never thought a good night’s sleep, or even a good 8 hours of sleep would be so difficult to come by. I’m writing this from the airport, which is where I will sleep tonight. I get a couch, and have a blanket, but there is a guy painting the wall about 10 feet away, so I won’t get much sleep tonight, especially when the stream of pilots and flight attendants start to come in the next morning. EDIT: The fire alarm went off for about an hour last night. Something that happens quite frequently.
Don’t think that this blog entry means that I want to quit this job—I don’t. I just am having trouble adjusting to this lifestyle, and lack of income, which made my previous lifestyle possible. I don’t think that this is a permanent livable lifestyle.
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| The movie "The Terminal" parallels my life in my ways than I can imagine. When I was based in Dulles, I made more money returning carts for quarters per hour than I did with my actual job. This is me when the couches in the crew room are full. |
