Welp, we’re as ready as we’re going to be. Nine weeks of …

Can we please sing in tune?
TEETH!
You cannot look like corpses on that entrance.
George, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Cory, please don’t look like a scared rabbit up there.
Step-hop-fa-lap-fa-lap-ball-change
Can we please do ball-changes instead of flams?
HEEL DROPS HOLY CRAP!
The point of tap dancing is everyone’s feet have to hit the floor at the same time.
STOP!!! You’re rushing again.
All phones in the Easter basket.
This show is sucking the life out of me.

Thing is, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. (And I will, Lawd.) Let the good times roll.

FO

To my everlasting chagrin, many students at my school think that the only way to solve a problem is to throw a fist or slap a face or push someone up against a locker. Admittedly, the latter has sounded strangely appealing to my own rat self on occasion…but of course, I’d never follow through. That’s the thing — some people can’t stop themselves in between the two (the wanting to and the doing).

There was another near-brawl yesterday, all because someone “talked trash” about someone else on MySpace. Bigtime important stuff, I’m sure. Besides, getting suspended for fighting just gives you extra time to work on your homework.

*blink*

Sometimes I wax philosophic to my high school choir (aka a captive audience of 89). As I look at them staring blankly back at me, surely asking themselves, “Will she never shut up?”, I’m not sure they ever agree with anything I say. Kinda reminds me of the seventies…heh. Been there, ja? Anyway, I told them the other day, “Y’all are one angry bunch.” I actually saw heads nod in agreement. Don’t get me wrong: there are great kids at my school. It’s just that sometimes they get lost in the cacophony of disrespectful, loud, undisciplined, mad-at-the-world-and-the-world’s-gonna-pay malcontents whose sole purpose is to appear as big and bad (and downright mean) as possible, cuz, you know, that’s what gets you somewhere in life.

I don’t frown on rebels, or on people who hear and follow a different drummer. On the contrary, I celebrate them. We probably wouldn’t enjoy half the wonderful things we have today in our culture (literature, music, art, scientific advancements) if there weren’t people who went against the grain. It’s the people who do so for the singular purpose of making others miserable that get on my Everlast nerve. Honestly, it would be a field research project for Helen and the Thriller (social work and counseling majors, respectively).

I know this is a hot-button topic in education, and I’m no Pollyanna, suggesting that we all just join hands and sing our way through life. I suppose that as the years go by, I’m just getting less tolerant of the less tolerant among us. Cantankerous old hag anyhow. Be careful around me; I might hafta knock you out.

*kA-BLaM*

…cue the Grieg.

Last night’s rehearsal wasn’t all that bad. I told a friend in email this morning that at least it didn’t make me want to jump off the nearest bridge. Could the morning be breaking?

I go through this every year. There’s a definite order of things. First, teach the music. That’s fun. The singers are learning new stuff, and they immediately decide what they really dig, and which songs are not their favorites — but the learning is kind of fun. You know, like a discovery thing.

Then choreography rehearsals start, and some of the happy-happy falls away — especially for the kids who are not natural dancers (and they outnumber those who are). Frustration takes over almost immediately; they can’t do a fa-lap, the time step is out of the question, they can’t get the kicks high enough. I keep telling them that it’s a lot to learn at one time, and that they will get it eventually. It’s a long wait.

Next step: putting the stuff onstage with the singing and choreo. Train wreck. Lots of hair-pulling, and a small number of frustrated comments from the piano. All given in love, of course.

Penultimate phase: things actually look like they might someday, possibly, with an insane amount of luck, come together. That’s where we are right now, 24 days till opening.

We might make it.

FO

…at the end of the tunnel is, for once, not a train.

What will I do with a Christmas break not filled with reading, research and writing papers? A lot of fun stuff. OK, well there’s that Dinner Theatre thing and building the new Joomla website for the school district, but outside of that, it’s grandsons, girl talk, good times, and Greektown. Now whaddya thinka that.

Last night was my high school choir Christmas concert. I have been doing these for many, many, mazenny years, and I must say that this one could have topped most for overall sound, smooth operation (except for the 2nd number when I apparently motioned Travis down to do his solo and we weren’t to his tune on the program yet) and general comments from the audience on the atmosphere and programming. I was delighted.

Most of my students know I do not specifically adore Christmas music. I guess the rules change when you have to sing it. And singing it for 3.5 months nonstop (and in my case, multiple times in several rehearsals a day) can be downright brutal. But listen — I ain’t grindin’ no ax. I love my job and my students too, though I’m sure they might very much like me to slip and fall off a pier some days. But he who say there is no fun to be had in public school, and that the youth of America have gone sour need only come out to my 30-by-60-foot cage next to the football stadium.

All right, enough of this happy carp. Time to gear up to do it all again tomorrow night for the middle school. Same circus, smaller clowns.

How’s yer Tuesday so far?

Fink out.