Christmas preparations

I can't remember the last time I was this tired. Our Christmas program is next week, on Monday. The administrators decided that for today and Friday we would leave school at noon to go practice in the auditorium where the show will be. They scheduled the practice to be from 1-4:30.

So allow me to paint a picture. A relatively small auditorium with fold-out chairs, and ten grades of children running around. The room is not ventilated whatsoever, so it's incredibly hot and smelly. There is nothing for the children to do when they're waiting for their turn to dance, and the administrators have been really vehement about telling us (the teachers) that the church didn't want to let us rent the space so we have to be really careful not to incur damages, etc etc. (As a side note, I brought coloring books and colored pencils for my children to play with while they were waiting, and the principals told me that the children weren't allowed to color because they might get colored pencils on the tiled floor.) So, the students are all expected to sit on the floor quietly and just wait for the other nine grades to finish dancing. Surprisingly, though, most students were willing to do that... for the first two hours. But three and a half hours of that? They and I were all almost crying by the end.

On top of that, my students were so unaccustomed to a big stage that they couldn't get the blocking right at all and they looked really silly. They also didn't look like they were having fun, because they weren't! They were hot and bored and wanting to go home.

Overall, it was a really unfortunate afternoon, and I am absolutely dreading Friday, when we have to do it again.

Right now I'm going to order a cafe con leche and then I'm going back up the mountain to sleep. I'm annoyed and really ready for a break.