For those who do not know I am a school administrator and I work in an old building (100+ years). Weird stuff happens sometimes, but Monday's was a doozy. I guess I should start with last year during our state testing. We had a teacher, Sherri, who kept calling the office asking us to tell whoever was playing the music to stop. So I went to Heather’s classroom which was below Sherri’s room and told her that they were doing the state test upstairs and asked if she could stop playing music. Heather said she wasn’t, nor had she been, playing music. I went upstairs to Sherri to see if the music had stopped. The kids were silent, taking their test, and sure enough, very softly, I could hear jazz music. It seemed to be emanating from the vents. Sherri told me that it started when they began their test. I told her it wasn’t the teacher in the room below her, but I would check to see who was playing music. We sent out an email to all of our staff asking whoever to stop playing the music. I looked all over the building and couldn’t find anyone playing any music, let alone jazz. Fast forward to this last summer break, we were in the same room the jazz music incident happened before, prepping the room for summer school when the music started again. This time there were three of us in the room when it started playing. We looked all over again and nothing. There was a radio in the room. We turned it on and tried to see if we could find the station that was playing jazz, we couldn’t find anything even close. We were able to 100% tell that the music was coming from the vents. In our looking around the building for the source, another teacher at the other end of the hall said that she sometimes hears music as well. She never had thought about it and just assumed someone was playing music in their room. Fast forward to yesterday, I was covering music class for the day and we are currently without a teacher. While I was there I thought I would start to tidy the room up and organize it a bit better than it was. During the planning period I decided that I was going to move the desk, rather spin the desk so that it was just on the other wall. I didn’t need to unplug anything because it was just moving to another wall. As I started to rotate the desk, jazz music started playing through the external computer speakers. I instantly knew what it was. I stood and listened to the music playing through the speakers. I decided to begin the “I’m not crazy this must have a reason” process and looked at the computer. There weren’t any programs open, except my work email. I closed that and it still was playing. It was louder than it had been when hearing it in the rooms. I then adjusted the volume knob on the speaker up and down, which had no effect on the volume of the jazz music playing. At this point I was starting to get a little uncomfortable and just wanted it to stop, so I pulled the speaker plug out of the back of the computer…and the music was still playing. Instant goosebumps. As I am holding the 3.5mm jack in my hand I realize that the music is getting louder if I touch the end of it and softer when I stop. I decide to plug it back into the computer to see if I can get it to stop. It doesn’t. I then roll the volume knob to the off position and it still plays. At this point I get at very uneasy feeling and become hyper aware of my surroundings. I turn the speakers back on and leave the room. I went into the closed room which was the cafeteria and Dan, our lunch coordinator, was there. I asked him to come with me to make sure I “wasn’t going crazy”. He asked what asked what was going on, but I said nothing until we got into the room. When we stepped in the music room I didn’t hear it and thought, “Oh great, I am crazy”. So I started to tell Dan about what had happened. As we approached the desk we heard the jazz again. I went through the whole process of unplugging and adjusting the volume with the same results. Then all of a sudden it just stopped. This isn’t the first time things like this have happened in our building and it probably won’t be the last. The Dan and I swapped a few stories about “oddities” that have happened. He always says, “Hi Ralph” when things like this happen. Our school is named after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Later in the day I was telling my principal about what happened and told him that the Dan always says, “Hi Ralph”. He didn’t get it at first then I said, “You know Ralph Waldo Emerson?” He laughed and said, “I wouldn’t worry it is probably Ms. Carl saying hello.” Ms. Carl was our music teacher my first year, who tragically died in a car accident on Monday December 1, 2008. This incident happened on Monday December 3rd, the 1st was a Saturday. Just wanted to share.
