Round Two

aaah, excitement, anxiety, and exhaustion are all warring within me. Excitement and anxiety because yesterday, Tuesday, I was invited to sit in and teach a small portion of 2 different classes at the Theatre on Thursday. Yes, I am thrilled that I pulled off the interview and now they want to see how I behave with the kids and what my "teaching style" is, but I am also petrified. I have today to come up with focused theatre games appropriate for kids ages 4-6 and ages 7-9! Yikes, that's not much time and my mind seems to have gone blank.
I can't believe that I have loads of theatre games and teaching information stashed away at my parents house back in New York. I never really thought that I would need them here, possibly never need them at all. Thank god for the internet. I stayed up till nearly midnight last night searching for games I could play with the kids. Luckily, many of the games I found mentioned were ones I've played myself or played while working with kids (you know summer camps, theatre workshops, etc). So, I feel fairly confidant about having some games I can play with the 7-9 year olds, but I'm still kind of freaking out about what to do with the younger kids.
Funnily (is that even a word?) enough I vaguely recall talking about how much I would enjoy working with the 4-6 year olds! What was I thinking? Actually, I do think that it would be fun and rewarding. Kids that young are so eager and so ready to give their all. They adore you and think that you are a star, my experiences with that age range have been very satisfying, if on occasion trying. I mean, let's face it, 5 year olds are not the most focused kids in the world. When I used to give workshops for Kindergarteners on the play Peter and the Wolf the kids would just blurt out all sorts of things in the middle of my session with them. One little girl confidently raised her hand to answer a question and when I called on her she promptly stated, "I'm wearing Winnie the Pooh underwear!" This caused about 10 more hands to immediately shoot up into the air and wave around to get my attention. They all had something to share about Winnie the Pooh be it clothing items they owned, toys, movies, you get the picture. Eventually, I just had to tell everyone to put their hands down and get them focused back on Peter and the Wolf. So, I am aware that there are many pitfalls when working with kids that young, the problem is I don't feel I know enough about that age group to come up with an activity that they can all do, stay focused on, and I can somehow relate back to theatre. It's rather a tall order. At least I have the day to search through the internet for some guidance.

As for the feeling exhausted part, I' m either psychologically avoiding my upcoming teaching interview, losing my battle against my cold, or my DH gave me whatever he was suffering from yesterday. It's very odd, I don't feel bad. Yes, my nose is a bit stuffy, but my cold is much better than it was a couple days ago. I've gotten my cough and throat clearing under control - can you imagine going in to teach an exercise and sniffling, hacking, and coughing all over those poor kids. Now, that would be a disaster. Maybe it's just that I didn't start off my day with my ritual cup of coffee. It's 1030 a.m. and I'm just drinking it now. Can coffee really have that big of an effect on ones morning? Sad if that is true. After I walked Ally this morning and had a bowl of cereal I fell asleep on the couch. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Even when my DH awoke and was puttering around in the kitchen I just couldn't keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds. I would wake up and say, "I'm getting up." or "Oh, I can't believe I fell back to sleep!" and then my head would fall back onto the couch and I was out again. It wasn't until after 10 a.m. that I managed to struggle awake and stay awake! This post if probably terrible because all I want to do is close my eyes. It's strange, my body doesn't feel tired or achy, but my eyes feel heavy and itchy as if I hadn't slept in days. Yeah, I know, my bet is on avoidance too. but if all I do is sleep the day away I'm really going to be screwed tomorrow.
So, I'm going to get myself up and moving about. If I continue to sit here typing my head is going to start nodding - you know what I'm talking about. You've done it or seen people in theatres, classrooms, lectures. The head starts falling forward, the eyes roll up and eventually close, the chin hits the chest, the head jerks up, eyes wide as if to say, "Who me? I wasn't sleeping. No, not me." A few quick shakes of the head as if to clear the cobwebs and rid oneself of the desire to close ones eyes again. The shoulders straighten, the spine is stiff and erect. The thought flits through the mind, "sit up straight, look ahead, stare at the speaker, no one will have notices I nodded off", the eyes start blinking rapidly to keep the sleep at bay. But, alas, it never works, moments later it starts all over again as your head drops inevitably downward, or falls to the side. I always feel relieved to find I haven't drooled all over myself in this public instances of sleepiness. Thankfully, I am home alone so I can let my head loll around and I can drool on anything I want, because no one is here to see me. But, I think I'll try to avoid it anyways. Besides, I've got way to much to do there are other ways to avoid doing what's necessary than sleeping! I think I've proven that often enough!

p.s. sorry for the lack of posts lately. My computer has acquired some bugs and is undergoing a massive debugging process. I have DH's laptop today so that I can work on preparing for tomorrows dreaded adventures in teaching. You can see how that's working out, here I am typing in my blog totally ignoring the reason DH left me the laptop in the first place - I am the WORST!
Until my computer is back to a happy place there probably won't be too many posts. I know, I know, how can you survive without a daily update of all the exciting happenings in our Sergy household. I hate to deprive you of such tantalizing tales, but I'm sure you shall survive! Maybe once my computer is fixed I really will have something tantalizing, exciting, and adventurous to tell...but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you!

p.p.s. My spell checker isn't working for some strange reason, so no doubt I have misspelled many a word, sorry 'bout that!