Thursday night was the Parents’ Night Performace for two of our four Treehouse classes. For all the frustrations, it went really well once it started. The kids did their silly little plays and sang songs and then the managers said lots of stuff in Chinese, then told us to come up front and say a few words (um, hello? Heads up on that next time, please?), then I guess they took the parents on a tour of the new building while the kids stayed down in the stage area and got some candy.
It’s funny, really - it’s the same sort of thing as the musical programs we always put on in elementary school, but somehow, the post-performance mingling was less awkward, I think, because we don’t speak Chinese and the parents either don’t speak English or don’t feel comfortable enough to use the English they do know. So we just goofed around with the kids until everyone began to trickle out. At one point, while people were still working their way slowy to the door, Chelsea (one of my Treehouse 3 kids, who had the title role in our little play) grabed my hand and started pulling me upstairs, without giving me any hint as to where she was taking me. We went from the basement up to the second floor and then down to the first, back the area behind the office, and then returned to the stairwell, where finally she found her dad and jumped up and down a little, very pleased to have me meet him. I thought it was pretty funny.
This is Chelsea and me, just after the wordless introduction in the stairwell:
We did more of the same on Friday night for the other classes. Woo.
I don’t know - I really like the kids, but the job is such crap. For reasons I’m not ready to go into here, work/my manager managed to royally piss me off today, and I had today off! I’m not sure who I’m more pissed at, really - my manager for enforcing such needlessly frustrating rules and regulations or myself for still not having done anything to change my situation despite repeated declarations to do so. I spent so much of today in a blue funk, and I think maybe it’s because I’m avoiding the change I know needs to happen. So, yeah. I guess I’m telling you all that I need to kick my butt into high gear and get the ball rolling. And then, I’m going to step up to the plate, stand and deliver, and think outside the box.
Did I forget any pep-talk clichés in that last sentence? I don’t think so - which means the ball’s in my court now, huh?