lesson mobile

Despite my best efforts to avoid it, I make housecalls to teach many (most) of my students. Their mothers just can't muster driving their child to one more activity, I suppose. Since I'm just starting out, and since most of the students are located in the same general vicinity, I agreed to do housecalls. Once I build up my studio, however, I'm hoping I can let people know I won't be making housecalls anymore and they will have to come to my studio (which is at the church where I work, who lets me teach there for free), and hopefully by that point people will want to keep studying with me enough that they'll be willing to make the short drive. But until then, I am the lesson lady, driving around in her lesson mobile. The backseat has become a library of vocal and piano music, as most of my music ends up tossed back there as I travel from home to home. I stock plenty of healthy snacks and most days you can find a Big Gulp of Diet Coke in the driver's cup holder and the radio tuned to NPR. One of my friends (jokingly) suggested that I might like to paint a logo on the side of the car as an advertisement. I'm the lesson lady! It's a good life though, and I'm certainly not complaining. My day generally goes something like this:

9:00 am - wake up (on my own, without alarm)
9:15 am - make coffee, eat breakfast, watch morning shows, catch up on emails, check YAP tracker
10:00 am - gym
10:45 am - shower, make phone calls, work on YAP applications
12 pm - vocalize, practice audition pieces (this doesn't always happen every day as sometimes I am lazy or voice is tired)
1:30 or 2 pm - head out to teach
6:30 or 7 - finish teaching
8 pm - home, try to get dinner on table by now, eat with Nick
9 pm - watch shows, catch up on blogs (reading and writing), cuddle and chat with Nick
11:30 pm - bed (Nick has usually been asleep for over an hour by this point)

It's a pretty good schedule. I'm hoping to start teaching a bit earlier in the day with some of my NU undergrad non-majors, and will possibly be extending my schedule in Palatine until 9 pm one day per week, which would be nice, since money is certianly not flowing as I'd hoped it would. Unfortunately, the job at the high school in Waukegan fell through, due to lack of interest on the students' part. The choir teacher was really upset and surprised, but it is a blue collar area, and I guess their choir is going on a big trip this year that is costing a lot, and people just didn't think they could afford lessons. I guess I'm going to have to stick to the North Shore, where the parents don't bat an eye at my rates. In fact, one woman was like, "that's all you charge?" Which of course made me irritated that I hadn't charged more. Next year I'll raise my rates, I think. In the meantime, I need to find a job for Wednesdays. Every other day is pretty much booked, but I had kept my Wednesdays open for Waukegan, and now that that isn't happening, I need to find something else. I'm hoping to schedule some more students, but in the meantime...who will hire me to work one day a week? I'd love to work at the hipster coffee shop around the corner from my apartment, but I'm not sure they'd have me. I'd probably just consume my profits in the form of vegan cinnamon chip scones and lattes, but wouldn't it be fun to commune with the hipsters in a chill coffee shop all day? Plus, I'm starting to miss adult company...I spend most of my days alone or with children ages 5 to 13. I made a lunch date tomorrow with my friend Mark, because I was starting to feel a little crazy.

So there you go, a day in the life of the lesson lady! Maybe you'd like to spend a day riding around in the lesson mobile with me?