I have enjoyed January this year, immensely. Pourquoi? Because almost every single school day, I’ve left at 3:15 to go home. It’s the only month of the year I will be able to do so, and as you surely know, January is coming to an end. I’m certain some of my colleagues have seen my skateboard exiting the parking lot post-haste and thought, “Where’s she going in such a hurry?” It’s just me, hittin’ the door runnin’ at quittin’ time, fiends. That’s all. Home to dinner, cooking, baking, blogging, reading, family, and bedtime at a decent hour.

But come the first of February and lasting right up until graduation, all that will be a distant memory, and it’s back to the Old Routine of living at school until 8:00 every night. It’s OK though. I enjoy it (most of the time), because the kids are fun to work with, and I’m not old enough yet to constantly think about getting home to relax and do my other life. I just think about it most of the time. 

There were some years in the not-so-distant past when all I thought about was doing what I needed to do in order to put in 100% at school. I sacrificed much in other areas, to my lasting regret. But recently (I’d say around this moment), all that changed. I’m a different person now. I care a bit less — not much, but some — about what others think of me. I’m having some success in that area. I’m saying “no” more. I’ve found more joy in small things. Does this mean I’ve finally grown up?

I hope not. 

Hey, it’s Tunesday, and I’m trying a new recipe (BoomR’s mom’s “Stay in Bed Stew”). Look for an update on TCF in the near future.

Last night’s concert went quite well, despite having a 6-foot 6-inch young man pass out on the top row (thank heavens for safety rails on the back of my riser sections). He’d just flown in from basketball practice, and was exhausted and probably dehydrated. The kids around him handled it well, as did the audience. And a great audience it was — polite, quiet and respectful of the kids. Thumbs way up.

Middle school concert tomorrow, then it’s smoooooth sailin’, cap’n. Bring on the Christmas music.

Ack, what am I saying?

Do. You. Have. Your. Shopping. Done. Fiends?

I know why. I always know why, right after Thanksgiving. Today marks the insane push to 23 December — the first day of Christmas break. I just need to keep calm and carry on. (I have to get that poster for my classroom.) I think I’m in good company with other secondary music teachers, as the month of December is historically stressful. While I only have three performances, the actual music (which is always a concern) takes a back seat to getting the concert space ready, hiring and writing music for rhythm section players, writing & copying the programs, dealing with other logistical problems, and finally, putting in some practice time myself on accompaniments. It’s a lot of self-imposed pressure, I admit. But there nonetheless. I get ooky in my stomach just thinking about it.

However, this too shall pass. It has passed for the last 18 years of my public school career; no reason why it shouldn’t this time. I just hate that uneven feeling, you know? Like the pieces aren’t falling into place. But fall they will, and I’ll survive yet another Christmas concert season. Eight more…

Now to get to the school house in my fancy rental car (a black Chevy HHR, which PK said looks like a hearse) without crashing into the thundering herds of deer fleeing from the camo people on the second day of gun season. Oi.

My retirement date: May, 2020. Eight and a half years from now. I could have done it September of 2019, but that would mean I’d have to report for the first week of classes, then exit stage left. Not doing that to the kids. But unless I get a wild hair and decide to stick it out to age 65, that’s when I’m calling it quits, and I feel good about it.

It’s not that I want to quit teaching so I can sit at home. I will still need to work, since it’ll be an “early” retirement (I didn’t start teaching until I was 34). But I can just about guarantee that “work” won’t involve 70-hour weeks of choreography, rehearsals, and two mainstage shows a year. Maybe I’ll sell cakes, write down those arrangements banging around in my head, and work part time in an office. The goal is to supplement my meager retirement income, but not buy the farm in the process. There’s Grammie-in’ to be done in those years, too. And traveling, and hanging out with friends and fam. The important stuff. I know I’ll never really stop working, but I don’t want to run myself into an early grave doing it.

So there it is. May 2020. We’re in the single digits, fiends. I plan to go out with a bang, so stay tuned.

FO

Dinner Theatre went quite well, and I’m so grateful to and proud of everyone — cast, crew, wait staff, parent volunteers, musicians, technical staff…it was a blast. And now it’s back to real life for awhile. And by “real life,” I mean Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Grease auditions.

But that’s all good stuff, too. Especially the family part. I just hope my grandchildren remember what I look like.

So, this morning (after swallowing a fistful of Aleve for every single one of my aching joints, oi) I’m having coffee at Bux with BFF Kay, then coming home to …well…relax until school starts up again tomorrow.

What is this relax of which I speak?

I think it’s important to point out at this juncture that there was not a single no-holds-barred, nuclear-disaster meltdown during this rehearsal run. Hmm. I wonder if that means something disastrous is on tap for tonight or tomorrow. I say no. I hope no. Heh.

Seriously, there were no ego issues, no petty crap between cast and crew, no immaturity problems (other than artistic), and no crummy attitudes (except for mine one night). It really was a pleasure to go to rehearsal and see how these young artists developed and improved. They even have a decent group time step. Seamus made a comment last night to the cast that he’s worked with a lot of high school productions, and he was impressed that my kids didn’t constantly rush on the tap number. Sometimes it helps to have others (like my pal Stoney) give feedback. They’re so used to me crushing their inner child, it is a good thing to hear something positive from somewhere else.

Not that I’m constantly smashing their hopes and dreams, mind. Let’s just say I do it on a somewhat regular basis.

Happy opening to my cast and crew — off we go!

FO – much to do this day

It’s not the “rehearsal” part I hate, it’s the fact that I have to yank everyone to school at 8:00 on a Saturday morning — especially when it’s the morning after the last football game of the season for the players in the cast, and the fact that the band/cheerleaders bus got stuck in the mud at New London for 50 minutes last night and had to be pulled out by a truck. Yipes!

For those not of the theater ilk, a tech rehearsal is a 4-hour marathon run-through, designed to work out bugs on the technical side (sound, lights, staging, props, etc.) of a production. It’s a necessary part of getting the singers used to functioning with body packs on, and bringing the tech staff up to speed on cues and mic assignments.

It can also be like herding cats or spooning up spilled mercury. I’ve had decent tech rehearsals, and I’ve had full-blown Barnum & Bailey experiences. What will today be? Tempus dicet.

Best part for the students: pastries from Hawkins Bakery, and an endless supply of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Am I good to them or what?

Have a great Saturnday, fiends. I’m nonstop to Monday here.

My 7th and 8th grade choir is singing “Perfect Christmas Night” from How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Jim Carrey version). Awesome tune; really swings. The second verse contains the phrase, I got Bing Crosby on, have all my troubles gone…

Minutes after the girls sang through that verse, a hand went up. “What’s Bing Crosby?” Oi. I didn’t even think of talking about him beforehand, and I am usually quite meticulous regarding my singers actually knowing what they’re singing about. So, today, I’m taking the White Christmas DVD to school (I have it on VHS only; thanks for letting me borrow yours, Mavis!), and we’re going to watch the part where Crosby is bunkered in with his platoon on Christmas Eve during WWII, and he sings “White Christmas” to his fellow soldiers, all of whom are silent and preoccupied with thoughts of home, as the bombs go off in the distance. I always bawl during that scene.

I’ll never forget sitting in my dorm room watching TV at Bowling Green State University, 34 years ago this month, and seeing a news bulletin interrupt programming to tell us that Crosby passed away. I was so sad. Of course, I didn’t know then what a dark side he had….but that’s a post for another day. He was still a positively iconic part of my growing-up years. Mother listened to him all the time.

Anyhow, this will give me a good “in” to discuss Irving Berlin with the kids as well. Love that man’s genius. He died too young at 101.

Did you know it’s Finkday? Saints be praised. Big weekend planned — birthday feast and a night out with son Seamus as he celebrates his 31st. Where have the years gone…

Aren’t we funny creatures? Change. Heh. The times, they are a changin’. A change will do you good. I’ve got to change my evil ways, baby. Time may change me, but I can’t trace time (I’ve never figured out what that meant – I think Bowie wrote it that way just to confuse folks). I thought I was dealing really well with the time change on Dinner Theatre (we moved it from March to November), but I think it’s taking a toll on me in the “unknown” department.

I know, I know. “Isn’t a 7-week rehearsal schedule a 7-week rehearsal schedule?” Yes, and no. Kids are involved in different sports and other activities, which means different schedules somewhat, and the overall vibe is different in the fall. That, and they’re a little greener in the fall. We have to get the mojo back on the dance floor faster, and the energy back in the voices sooner.

OK, stop whining. I have to believe in the kids’ resolve and talent. They’ve never let me down before. Mm-mm–mm.  Great, now that song’s stuck in my head all day.

Have I thanked you recently for suffering through my self-absorbed drivel? Let me do so right now if I haven’t. Feel free to leave advice; I will always read and heed. Well, unless you tell me to stop doing shows, seein’ as how they cause me such angst. Alas…like the Thriller told me once: “You can’t NOT do them.” He’s right. And so terribly cognizant of what makes me me. Gotta have that vicarious stage thrill.

Speaking of stage — there’s one leaving in 40 minutes, and I have to be on it. Make it a Tunesday for the record books. And congrats to BoomR, who had his first day on the new job yesterday. Wahoo!

~

How about yours?

First tap rehearsal this afternoon. ¡Bailamos!

FO

Today, 23 April, 376 years ago, school was officially in. In 1635, Boston Latin School became America’s first educational institution funded completely by local government.

• The first headmaster was paid “fifty pounds and a house” from the public treasury.
• Its students were taught to “dissent with responsibility.”
• Five signers of the Declaration of Independence (John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Robert Paine and William Hooper) received their boyhood training there.
• The main purpose was to teach Puritan values and bible reading.

Well, look at the school now. We’ve all come a long way, baby. But…

• School boards didn’t exist until 1837, so hiring practices were largely arbitrary (and often corrupt — *gasp*).
• School wasn’t compulsory until 1851, when Massachusetts voted to require all children to attend.
• High schools didn’t come about until 1820.

And schools, like countless other American institutions, changed with the times:

• African American children were allowed to attend segregated, “separate but equal” schools after the Civil War.
• The Smith-Hughes Act passed in 1917, and “tracking” was born. Students were pointed in vocational directions via “intelligence tests.”
• In 1954, Brown vs. Topeka precipitated the Supreme Court decision that “separate” was definitely not “equal,” and that segregation must be abolished. We all know how that went over in the South. Eisenhower had to call in the National Guard to keep the peace.
• In the 1980s, the first charter school popped up in Minnesota, and to some, signaled the renaissance of segregation.

And everything old is new again.

The agrarian school calendar has repeatedly come under fire. Personally, I think it would take a huge influx of cash and a systemic overhaul of union practices to pull off year-round schooling, so I don’t see it happening nationwide for a long time. And further, if you’re really a stickler for semantics, we don’t have a truly “agrarian” calendar. According to Dartmouth professor and researcher William Fischel:

The “agrarian calendar” was not the current calendar of fall-winter-spring. [C]ities in the late 19th century had school in the summer. Nobody had AC back then, so going to school or working in a hot factory was not a big deal. The real reason for the Sept to June calendar is the widespread adoption of age-graded schooling. Rural schools of the 19th century did not have age-specific grades, and so they could have a “term” of school whenever they wanted for as long as they wanted. But age-grading required coordination among different schools. You had to start and stop at the same time so the third graders could start fourth grade together with those from other schools.

Well isn’t that interesting. Teaching all these years, and never knew that. And if you’re still with me by now — did you enjoy this little Saturday lesson? Feels like school, no?

I think I’ll break with tradition and have some coffee this day. Resolutions, shmesolutions.

So if you’ll indulge me in some parent-like pride, I will unfurl the accordion picture holder and make you suffer through my family photos. All joking aside: these kids are exceptional.

Gee, Officer Krupke - they were quite funny

Seasons of Love - beautiful solos - that is Finkite Maelea on the right

My lovely girls channel the Lennon Sisters

Of course we had to do something from Forever Plaid

...and Grease

Check out the air on the time step in the finale

~
Many thanks to the Norwalk Reflector for the great photos. Even more thanks to a fine cast and crew for wowing the crowd and making an old lady feel terrific. On to closing night…

FO

I approach the coming week with a mixture of exhilaration, anxiety, anticipation and dread. Each state has its experiential component. But I guess I have to get through this morning first.

Off to the showers and the school house. Have a good weekend, fiends.

I plan to ask them questions, and talk briefly about getting a book published. Then I’m going to chat about my good fiend Ross, touch on the whole self-publishing thing, and do some Q & A. I saw the list of students coming to my session and it looks like it’s going to be fun. Nice kids all, and nary a scaredy cat in the bunch.

Of course, this also means I have to give up my 5th grade choir rehearsal today. *sniffy sniff*

What’s up for your Thurnsday, besides pining for tomorrow at 5 p.m.?? Tonight is dinner-and-movie night with Bob and BFF Kay. Pizza and Chamber of Secrets. Yummy x 2.

SOS