I finally finished my horrible preschool job a few weeks ago, and jesus christ I didn't realize what a number that job had been doing on my body/psyche until I was out of it. It's nice not being on edge and full of tension all day, or collapsing into a ball and sleeping for 12 hours every night. Barring an act of god, I'm never teaching preschool again. I love teaching, and I love kids, but it just isn't worth it.

I have a job teaching music over the summer, which I'm really excited about, and I hope it'll pave the way for future jobs. And I have a month or so of downtime before then, which I am using to actually deal with a lot of the problems which have been accumulating the past year. Found a therapist, started meditating every day, and I'm making time for music again. I spend an hour a day practicing piano, and another hour practicing improvising and songwriting. I'm hoping to put together some videos on the games / techniques I use to get me out of my creative blocks, because I think they might be really useful to other people who are stuck. I also realized how much of my creative block was rooted in a more general emotional block - it's kind of incredible how much easier it is to make music you like when you are actually able to emotionally connect to it again. Music is just flowing out of me naturally again, and it feels great.

Here's a couple tracks I put together this past week to submit to a little beatmaking contest:

Especially pleased with the first one. I think I am going to try and record an EP or Album of summery, funky tunes to release by around June.