lowquality.net

One of my students cancelled for tomorrow’s lesson so that he can participate in a Battle of the Bands. It’s 3AM and I should be in bed, but the gentle pang of “your students have more successful music careers than you” is on undulating on my brain.

Because I have said it to at least three people in the last week, I will say it here: Having two seperate career tracks that don’t always seem to line up with one another (being a musician and being an IT professional) is giving me this kind of weird Spider-Man/Peter Parker complex. The problem of course is that I can’t figure out which path is more akin to swinging from roof to roof and popping Mysterio and Scorpion in their domepieces. I suppose most people would think being a musician is more like being a super hero than fixing computers and configuring routers. While this line of conversation could be fun, it is, most certainly, very nerdy, and not at all the point that I am trying to make. …So stop it.

My point is that Peter Parker has obligations that Spider-Man does not.. and vice versa. If they were two seperate people they would have nothing in common with one another and would no doubt continue their lives blissfully ignorant of the other’s actions. This is, of course, not the case. Peter Parker and Spider-Man are the same person, share double the concerns and anxieties of a normal person and have to walk a very, very fine thread between the two identities. This is how I feel about my life as a musician / music teacher and my chosen career path as a student in the IT field. It seems totally impossible to make time for all of the things I want to be working on (studying for CCNA and practicing bass can not be performaed simultaneously, by the way). The worst part is often feeling very much like I am half-assing both of my responsibilities. It sucks. If by some slim twist of fate I am ever able to negotiate my time as IT guy and music guy, I wonder how much time will be left for me just to be me.

The original goal of going to ECPI, and getting serious about IT, was so that I could afford to pay my student loans and be a musician at the same time. Also the thought of affording the possibility of moving out of the area was appealing. Admittedly, I was using the few people I already knew in the field as a model for this daydream, knowing how flexible their schedules often were and so on. I know now that this flexibility isn’t always the case and it might not completely work out the way that I want it to, but even working a 9 to 5 and playing music isn’t the end of the world.

I don’t know how this all will pan out, which is fine, I’m not supposed to know. Now that I am in the middle of the fray I just want to learn what I can and then move on. I am thankful for the on-campus job with MIS because I feel like I have learned more in the realm of PC hardware than I would have learned in my particular major’s curriculum. Ironically enough, taking the job with the Governor’s School again this year has forced me to compromise some of my schedule with MIS so that I can teach a small band ensemble. Sure, the money is a little better but its wasn’t really a decision I wanted to make, I just had to make room for it. The struggle continues. So, yeah, I don’t know what’s going to happen and I am fine with just being in “learn mode” right now. But keeping all of my interests (and they all are equally important) above the water line is really, really difficult right now.

my Spider Sense is tingling.. I’m tired and not making sense anymore.

Goodnight.