antsy

So Joe has made me all itchy and nervous about a comment he made when reading some of my past blog entries. Apparently I sound mean and embittered about recital. So I want to clarify that I do, in fact, really enjoy recital. As a performer as well as a teacher, I love being backstage and feeling the excitement of my students as they prepare for their huge and supportive audience. I love the faces of their parents as they come backstage looking for them (while we frantically try to get them to follow a very confusing map of arrows to get out of the downstairs labyrinth where we keep their little superstars). I even love the rush of adrenaline that accompanies the pre-show craziness, where the other teachers, the office manager and I try to put up enough signs that no parent could possibly get confused. When I refer to recital as a "monstrosity", I am referring solely to the fact that it is a HUGE endeavor. With literally hundreds of kids, plus parent volunteers, plus teachers, plus Classic Center staff, it gets a little crowded even in such a large and beautiful venue. It's like a feat of engineering for Lucy (office manager extraordinaire) to figure out where each class will stay during the show without having 50 kids to a room. So it is very stressful to make sure everyone gets where they are supposed to be, stays where they're supposed to be, and knows how to get where they are supposed to go. BUT, it is of course worth it. It is the culmination of all of the hard work my students did throughout the year and nothing makes me more proud than to see them up on that big stage, smiling and beautiful.

So basically... yeah... I like recital.