Thursday, May 10, 2007
Claire's Thoughts on the Weekend and Literature Fair Part 1
Claire's Thoughts on the Weekend at Home:
I LOVED being back in familiar territory! What's that saying about a candy store and a kid? Well, that's how I felt in Walmart! So much variety! So many familiar things! Everything in English! It was fabulous. I really loved being back and seeing family and friends. I certainly didn't see much of John, but he got his much needed guy time. My favorite things about being home over the weekend:
1. Love from family and friends
2. Driving a car
3. Coffee that is smooth and tasty (instead of so acidic that it gives me an upset tummy)
4. Hot showers
5. Staying clean after my hot shower
6. Not being sweaty
7. Mom Roth's chicken salad
8. Sleeping under a down comforter
9. Feeling cool breeze on my face
10. Not having to hide from the sun
I could go on, but I think you get the point. I'm ready to move back.
The Literature Fair:
The past three weeks in school have been spent gearing up for today and tomorrow. I'm actually surprised that I'm still alive right now after the day I had (John,too). The Literature Fair at St. Michael's is a great idea, like so many things that happen there, but... well, it never goes quite like it's supposed to.
The premise of the Literature Fair is that every class in the school puts together some presentation having to do anything they've done in Literature or Social Studies class recently. John and I are both doing plays with our students. John's doing a cute play called The Phantom Toll Booth, and I'm doing a patched-together and modernized version of Romeo and Juliet. Unlike Shakespeare's version, mine is a comedy. If Juliet is giggling when she is supposed to be stabbing herself to death, the audience isn't going to be wiping their eyes because of the the tragedy of it all...
I lived through three performances of 9th Grade's Romeo and Juliet the Comedy That's Not Quite Funny Enough to Make You Laugh Out Loud today, and I have to live through three tomorrow. I think I have about a 60% chance of survival (up from my 30% chance this morning). The first one was so bad that I apologized to the audience afterward and thanked them for being polite. The other two were livable, but most definitely not sad or moving in any way. That's not entirely true... I do have two or three students in each class who did some work on their lines and are almost convincing. I was almost convinced, for example, that, for five minutes during the balcony love scene, Romeo and Juliet were actually in love. Everything else is less than mediocre. In fact, once today, Tybalt didn't even attend the Capulet feast, so he had no chance to get angry with Romeo and want to kill him later, which made the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt later in the play a non-sequiter. Oh, dear. Also, during a performance today (the one that the Director and Sub-director decided to attend, of course), the audience could see most of one of Juliet's breasts after she had died because the poor girl's dress was too big on her. Oops. Of course, we never got to practice with costumes before today because on the dress rehearsal day, only four people had costumes.
If you are not in any way acquainted with or interested in the plot and characters of Romeo and Juliet, I heartily apologize for the above paragraph. You only need know that I came home today completely exhausted and discouraged as did John... only he spent the whole day out in the hot sun trying to keep control of his students who weren't acting at the time, trying to tell them when to make their entrances and exits. We'll be happy when 3:00 tomorrow rolls around.
One of the third grades chose to do their performance on Eskimos (yes, I realize that is not the most politically correct word to use, but that's the one they used), and John had the pleasure of taking his class to see it today. When he walked into the room, this is what he saw: "snow" scenery painted all over the room, "snow" flying off the ceiling fan as it whirred above the little Eskimos, all of the little kids dressed from head to toe in winter garb - puffy down-filled coats with hoods up, mittens, snow boots laced up to their knees... and here's the kicker: the air conditioner in that room broke this morning and never got fixed. John spotted a chubby little kid whose limp hair was sticking out from under his tied hood... his hair was dripping sweat, and his round cheeks were red and shiny from the heat. What we wonder is why the Dominican 9-year-olds have such comprehensive winter garb.
We'll update you on the goings on of the second half of the Literature Fair tomorrow (with pictures)... if we survive.
I LOVED being back in familiar territory! What's that saying about a candy store and a kid? Well, that's how I felt in Walmart! So much variety! So many familiar things! Everything in English! It was fabulous. I really loved being back and seeing family and friends. I certainly didn't see much of John, but he got his much needed guy time. My favorite things about being home over the weekend:
1. Love from family and friends
2. Driving a car
3. Coffee that is smooth and tasty (instead of so acidic that it gives me an upset tummy)
4. Hot showers
5. Staying clean after my hot shower
6. Not being sweaty
7. Mom Roth's chicken salad
8. Sleeping under a down comforter
9. Feeling cool breeze on my face
10. Not having to hide from the sun
I could go on, but I think you get the point. I'm ready to move back.
The Literature Fair:
The past three weeks in school have been spent gearing up for today and tomorrow. I'm actually surprised that I'm still alive right now after the day I had (John,too). The Literature Fair at St. Michael's is a great idea, like so many things that happen there, but... well, it never goes quite like it's supposed to.
The premise of the Literature Fair is that every class in the school puts together some presentation having to do anything they've done in Literature or Social Studies class recently. John and I are both doing plays with our students. John's doing a cute play called The Phantom Toll Booth, and I'm doing a patched-together and modernized version of Romeo and Juliet. Unlike Shakespeare's version, mine is a comedy. If Juliet is giggling when she is supposed to be stabbing herself to death, the audience isn't going to be wiping their eyes because of the the tragedy of it all...
I lived through three performances of 9th Grade's Romeo and Juliet the Comedy That's Not Quite Funny Enough to Make You Laugh Out Loud today, and I have to live through three tomorrow. I think I have about a 60% chance of survival (up from my 30% chance this morning). The first one was so bad that I apologized to the audience afterward and thanked them for being polite. The other two were livable, but most definitely not sad or moving in any way. That's not entirely true... I do have two or three students in each class who did some work on their lines and are almost convincing. I was almost convinced, for example, that, for five minutes during the balcony love scene, Romeo and Juliet were actually in love. Everything else is less than mediocre. In fact, once today, Tybalt didn't even attend the Capulet feast, so he had no chance to get angry with Romeo and want to kill him later, which made the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt later in the play a non-sequiter. Oh, dear. Also, during a performance today (the one that the Director and Sub-director decided to attend, of course), the audience could see most of one of Juliet's breasts after she had died because the poor girl's dress was too big on her. Oops. Of course, we never got to practice with costumes before today because on the dress rehearsal day, only four people had costumes.
If you are not in any way acquainted with or interested in the plot and characters of Romeo and Juliet, I heartily apologize for the above paragraph. You only need know that I came home today completely exhausted and discouraged as did John... only he spent the whole day out in the hot sun trying to keep control of his students who weren't acting at the time, trying to tell them when to make their entrances and exits. We'll be happy when 3:00 tomorrow rolls around.
One of the third grades chose to do their performance on Eskimos (yes, I realize that is not the most politically correct word to use, but that's the one they used), and John had the pleasure of taking his class to see it today. When he walked into the room, this is what he saw: "snow" scenery painted all over the room, "snow" flying off the ceiling fan as it whirred above the little Eskimos, all of the little kids dressed from head to toe in winter garb - puffy down-filled coats with hoods up, mittens, snow boots laced up to their knees... and here's the kicker: the air conditioner in that room broke this morning and never got fixed. John spotted a chubby little kid whose limp hair was sticking out from under his tied hood... his hair was dripping sweat, and his round cheeks were red and shiny from the heat. What we wonder is why the Dominican 9-year-olds have such comprehensive winter garb.
We'll update you on the goings on of the second half of the Literature Fair tomorrow (with pictures)... if we survive.
// posted by The Roths @ 6:48 PM 
