complaints

A quote from a wise person: "It's hard to know what to do, when you know more about what you don't want, than what you DO want".

Please allow me a quick whine.

So I'm looking for a job in Iowa. Jobs in Iowa are a lot less plentiful than they are in the dc area. A LOT less plentiful. On the American Guild of Organists' website, there are 17 church positions posted in the "mid-atlantic" region. Of those, 12 are within 1 hr driving distance from my current apartment. In the "north central" region (encompassing much of the midwest and the mountain states), there are eight positions. Of these, NONE are within SIX hours driving distance from where I'll be living in Iowa. None are even in the state.

After much diligent searching on other sites, I have discovered two open positions near my new home. One is an organist position at a UM church I wouldn't mind attending. There are a couple of problems with this:

1) I hate the fucking organ
2) The organ hates me

The other position is working with youth choirs at a large Presbyterian church in Cedar Rapids (about 1/2 an hour away). There are problem with this too:

1) I'm scared of children
2) children think I'm crazy
3) Presbyterians are annoying

Am I too picky? I really NEED a music-related job, or I will go nuts. And all I'm trained for is church music, which is a complicated field to get into because:

1) It doesn't pay shit and you have to find a day job that doesn't conflict

2) You have to find a place where your musical skills fit their needs (contemporary service music director is NOT happening. )

3) You have to find a place where you can stomach their theology. (Otherwise your choir wants to sing anthems like, "Jesus wants you to tell everyone else they're wrong" and other favorites) One problem with smaller churches, where learning directors (read: not very good yet) can learn their stuff, is that those churches are often not very sophisticated in their philosophy.

So that's my rant. Adding onto this problem is that my MAIN thing is supposed to be composition, and working a day job, church job, and having a life doesn't really allow me any time to devote to that. I'm supposed to be done with the "working in the trenches for a few years" stage, by now, aren't I??

Luckily, I seem to get more optimistic when I'm in Iowa.