Anniversary, Dance Show, a Light at the End of the Tunnel
I was so busy this week with graduation that I didn't get to post about last weekend. Friday was Bobby's and my seventeenth anniversary. (We celebrate in years together, not in years married; I was fourteen and he'd just turned fifteen when we started dating!)
Unfortunately, the date of our anniversary, we barely got to spend any time together. We had work during the day, of course, and in the evening, I had my dance show, and he had his Outdoor Emergency Management class for ski patrol. We both got home late and went right to bed. We did get to have a romantic lunch together at Quizno's! When I went out to the car, he'd left a dozen red roses on the seat. Awwww ... :)
Preparing for the dance show started on Thursday. We had our dress rehearsal that night. It's been a mild-verging-on-cold spring, but of course, it got hot just in time for the show last week so that we were all suitably miserable in the hot backstage area and under those hot lights in our velvet dance costumes! Dress rehearsal, my group sat out in the audience until it was almost time to go on so that we could see the other acts. We went downstairs to store our stuff just long enough to go on stage; we'd arrived in costume and with makeup done. The stage manager directed us to the room with the other adult classes and ...
... the teacher for those classes completely bitched us out! I mean completely bitched us out, just for walking into the room. We were not assigned to be in there, she said, and we could not leave our stuff in there. The room was small and already had ten dancers assigned to it, but her attitude was completely inappropriate, when we were just following instructions that the stage manager, our teacher, and the studio owner had given us at various points, i.e., that our group would be in with the other adult groups and not with the kids' groups. We had to get the stage manager to help us resolve it, and as we walked out of the room, the bitchy teacher sneered, "They started it." What the fuck are we five years old??
My groupmates were getting irate. I just walked away. As I told them later, 1) I have a job that requires patience I didn't know that I had on a daily basis, so my tolerance of adults who decide to act less civilized than my mentally ill and emotionally disabled students don't suffer my patience for long and 2) if my students have taught me anything, it's how to throw down with the best of them. ;) I did not need to curse this woman out. That would have solved nothing. I tell my students all the time to just pretend someone is invisible and walk away, and I took my own advice on that one.
Our teacher couldn't be there for dress rehearsal because her daughter was graduating eighth grade that night, but when we told her about it the next day? She was not happy.
But, in the meantime, we'd been relegated to the big room with all of the younger dancers. As it turned out, this was probably for the best, as the stage manager explained, because we had air conditioning in that room, and the adult room did not. Did I gloat over that a bit? Maybe. (The other adult dancers that we met were all very nice and supportive, so I felt a little bad about them being without AC, but that other one? Heh.)
Anyway, the show went well. It was great to be back on stage again. I've heard said that introverts tend to enjoy performing, and that has always been true of me. In my skating days, I was generally assigned the solos that were the most melodramatic and hammy. My dance teacher, Jess, told us one evening that we each have a very unique style. Of course, I am the sultry, dramatic, hammy one. The first show, on Friday night, the audience clearly didn't know how to react to us while we were dancing, but they cheered madly once we were done, so I guess they liked us. The Saturday afternoon show, they reacted a little more warmly while we were performing, which always makes it easier. (This was the first year for bellydance in the show, and we live in the most conservative county in central Maryland!)
Me and my group on-stage after Saturday's show, taken by Jess, our teacher:
And backstage in the kids' room:
Being in the kids' room was annoying only because of the presence of little kids. Sorry, I am not a fan! Too many of these were tearing around the room and constantly thundering up and down the steps I was sitting on. They have "class moms," and I'm not sure why they weren't doing more to keep them settled. Alas. In one of my creaky-old-lady moments (that I increasingly catch myself having now that I'm a teacher), I found myself saying, "Back in my day, the younger skating classes brought something to do and were required to stay in their seats through the whole show." But we had air-conditioning!
Jess is hosting a summer class that I'm signed up for, and we'll be dancing next at the All Seasons Hafla in September, so there's more to look forward to.
I have exactly two weeks left in my grad-school classes. I still have over a 98% in both classes. I have two more papers to write, one for each class, plus a few more discussions to do. Friday and yesterday, I worked on and almost finished my annotated bibliography for the paper for my Renaissance class. I discovered that Tumblr is a great motivator when working on annotated bibliographies. In the time it takes to write one entry, generally a few new things have been posted on my Tumblr. That's my little reward. Write and entry, check Tumblr, which takes about 30 seconds to do but tricks my brain into thinking it's getting to do something fun in reward for the rather dull task of writing an annotated bibliography.
I took off from work tomorrow. Bobby had taken off to give himself a full weekend because he was in CPR class all day yesterday. I wasn't going to take off--I tend to be rather obsessive about saving up leave--but decided midweek that I would after all, and take the day to get schoolwork done. As it stands now, I could finish my papers a week before they're due and start my summer a week early. \0/
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/317113.html
Unfortunately, the date of our anniversary, we barely got to spend any time together. We had work during the day, of course, and in the evening, I had my dance show, and he had his Outdoor Emergency Management class for ski patrol. We both got home late and went right to bed. We did get to have a romantic lunch together at Quizno's! When I went out to the car, he'd left a dozen red roses on the seat. Awwww ... :)
Preparing for the dance show started on Thursday. We had our dress rehearsal that night. It's been a mild-verging-on-cold spring, but of course, it got hot just in time for the show last week so that we were all suitably miserable in the hot backstage area and under those hot lights in our velvet dance costumes! Dress rehearsal, my group sat out in the audience until it was almost time to go on so that we could see the other acts. We went downstairs to store our stuff just long enough to go on stage; we'd arrived in costume and with makeup done. The stage manager directed us to the room with the other adult classes and ...
... the teacher for those classes completely bitched us out! I mean completely bitched us out, just for walking into the room. We were not assigned to be in there, she said, and we could not leave our stuff in there. The room was small and already had ten dancers assigned to it, but her attitude was completely inappropriate, when we were just following instructions that the stage manager, our teacher, and the studio owner had given us at various points, i.e., that our group would be in with the other adult groups and not with the kids' groups. We had to get the stage manager to help us resolve it, and as we walked out of the room, the bitchy teacher sneered, "They started it." What the fuck are we five years old??
My groupmates were getting irate. I just walked away. As I told them later, 1) I have a job that requires patience I didn't know that I had on a daily basis, so my tolerance of adults who decide to act less civilized than my mentally ill and emotionally disabled students don't suffer my patience for long and 2) if my students have taught me anything, it's how to throw down with the best of them. ;) I did not need to curse this woman out. That would have solved nothing. I tell my students all the time to just pretend someone is invisible and walk away, and I took my own advice on that one.
Our teacher couldn't be there for dress rehearsal because her daughter was graduating eighth grade that night, but when we told her about it the next day? She was not happy.
But, in the meantime, we'd been relegated to the big room with all of the younger dancers. As it turned out, this was probably for the best, as the stage manager explained, because we had air conditioning in that room, and the adult room did not. Did I gloat over that a bit? Maybe. (The other adult dancers that we met were all very nice and supportive, so I felt a little bad about them being without AC, but that other one? Heh.)
Anyway, the show went well. It was great to be back on stage again. I've heard said that introverts tend to enjoy performing, and that has always been true of me. In my skating days, I was generally assigned the solos that were the most melodramatic and hammy. My dance teacher, Jess, told us one evening that we each have a very unique style. Of course, I am the sultry, dramatic, hammy one. The first show, on Friday night, the audience clearly didn't know how to react to us while we were dancing, but they cheered madly once we were done, so I guess they liked us. The Saturday afternoon show, they reacted a little more warmly while we were performing, which always makes it easier. (This was the first year for bellydance in the show, and we live in the most conservative county in central Maryland!)
Me and my group on-stage after Saturday's show, taken by Jess, our teacher:
And backstage in the kids' room:
Being in the kids' room was annoying only because of the presence of little kids. Sorry, I am not a fan! Too many of these were tearing around the room and constantly thundering up and down the steps I was sitting on. They have "class moms," and I'm not sure why they weren't doing more to keep them settled. Alas. In one of my creaky-old-lady moments (that I increasingly catch myself having now that I'm a teacher), I found myself saying, "Back in my day, the younger skating classes brought something to do and were required to stay in their seats through the whole show." But we had air-conditioning!
Jess is hosting a summer class that I'm signed up for, and we'll be dancing next at the All Seasons Hafla in September, so there's more to look forward to.
I have exactly two weeks left in my grad-school classes. I still have over a 98% in both classes. I have two more papers to write, one for each class, plus a few more discussions to do. Friday and yesterday, I worked on and almost finished my annotated bibliography for the paper for my Renaissance class. I discovered that Tumblr is a great motivator when working on annotated bibliographies. In the time it takes to write one entry, generally a few new things have been posted on my Tumblr. That's my little reward. Write and entry, check Tumblr, which takes about 30 seconds to do but tricks my brain into thinking it's getting to do something fun in reward for the rather dull task of writing an annotated bibliography.
I took off from work tomorrow. Bobby had taken off to give himself a full weekend because he was in CPR class all day yesterday. I wasn't going to take off--I tend to be rather obsessive about saving up leave--but decided midweek that I would after all, and take the day to get schoolwork done. As it stands now, I could finish my papers a week before they're due and start my summer a week early. \0/
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/317113.html