Conspiracy theory
10:50 p.m.
While I sat waiting for my soup, I scribbled the following on the back of a placemat:
“I feel like I’m the victim of a conspiracy. Again. Am I a bad singing teacher? Are people telling each other: Don’t study with Elgan, she’s not good. She’ll try to “change” you. You want to work with GD. She’ll teach you lots of repertoire and will encourage you to blossom naturally. Are they actually turning potential students away from me? Is there a campaign going on behind my back? WTF is going on?
“I feel so persecuted. No one has said anything to me, but then the last time this happened, no one let on either. I would never have found about it at all if Vlad hadn’t felt she needed to apologize to me to alleviate her Christian conscience. Now I feel as though this new conspiracy is again something she is involved in.
“I feel like all of GD’s students are a party to it, encouraging new singers to request her as a teacher so I won’t get them. I don’t get it. I feel like a freak of nature.
“What is wrong with the way I teach singing? Is there a problem with trying to get students to play their instrument better by understanding how it works? Am I supposed to just let them sing and have fun? Is this not a university? When did I go from being the senior voice teacher? How did this happen? There has to be a conspiracy.”
This is what happened. Vlad is ill. She is taking the rest of the term off and possibly the next. I have not actually spoken to her, which just goes to show what a great friend I am, but the last time I spoke to her husband, she was going in for tests to determine whether or not she had ovarian cancer. They were pretty certain she did. That was a couple of weeks ago. I’m just really bad at picking up a telephone. It has nothing to do with her. I even find it difficult to call my own mother.
Anyway, when it became evident that she would not be returning, the department chair emailed me asking me if I would take her two non-music students. He said that she had requested that her one music student be taught by the woman who had been her instructor at the college. I wrote him back, and c.c.’d the union rep, that this woman, for whom I had great respect, is not a member of the collective agreement, and there have been situations in the past where students were taught by people outside the union and special permission had to be sought. I also asked if he had reconvened the committee as these things should be done by the book. I also went to the music student and told her that she was about to be shunted about and should at least be informed so that perhaps she could exercise some control over who was going to be her teacher. I never suggested that she should request me, I just wanted her to know what was going on.
I got another email from my chair saying that he had been in touch with the union people and I would be receiving one of the non-music students, the other going to GD as per the rotation, but the music student had asked for GD to teach her, and would be joining her studio.
It is at this point that I start to feel as though I am being conspired against, again. At the beginning of the year, this particular student, an alto, was more or less coerced into studying with Vlad. Her friend (a fine-arts student who sings with her in the choir) had been telling her how fantastic I was and that she should study with me. Even after I advised her that she should take charge of her life, she “requested” the other teacher. I know that this girl is very easily intimidated. Was she again coerced into making that choice? Had she heard through the grapevine, possibly from students I have taught who switched to GD, that I am not a good teacher? Why did she make that decision? Is it possible that I really am not a good singing teacher? Why do my students seem to improve then? I just don’t get it.
So, that was that. Then after Hubby got home, he was depressed because some of his students skipped his counterpoint class, and he puts a lot of work into preparing lessons and marking assignments. He was feeling rather maltreated in that respect. So the two of us together were not very uplifting.
Belly dancing did help a bit. Any kind of physical exercise helps, I guess. My instructor is getting bigger week by week as her pregnancy progresses. There are a lot of body waves and belly rolls in this choreography we’re learning, and she’s still incredibly adept at them. When I came out of the studio it was raining. Talk about pathetic fallacy.
Anyway, what Hubby and I decided is that we have to stop taking all this so personally. We have to do our jobs, teach our students, and at the end of the day, just come home and forget about it. We just get so involved, and especially for me, teaching one on one as I do (actually, he does too with his guitar students), it’s difficult not to. We’ll see. In the meantime, maybe there really is a conspiracy against me.
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