They say that "time exists to keep everything from happening at once." Why doesn't it work?

How is it that I don't have a full time job and yet have trouble findng enough time to get everything done?

Today was full sing-through for Iolanthe. And I still haven't gotten all my parts down yet. Okay, I came into the process late; still, I'd hoped to be more caught up by now. And I had to leave early, because John decided that he needed me at 4 today to work the Grill Bar, which made it tough to attend all of a 2 to 5 rehersal session. I was able to attend Act I, but left before Act II.

I did make it to work on time, and found out that John had re-worked things so I wasn't working the 4-to-10 shift at the Grill bar, but was rather working a wedding shift. Which was a lot of fun, and I made good money in tips (although, because I kept the barbacks running pretty much constantly, I did a 2/3 - 1/3 split of the tip money, only keeping about $35, and dividing up about $65 to the barbacks). And I got to listen to music all night, and ogle drunk young women in short dresses, which is always nice. But I didn't get home until after 1.

And I still need to do class prep for tomorrow morning.

Just got back from Hebrew School

Very mixed day. Some things worked well, some things didn't. Tamara was out sick, so I had the class to myself. She'd also done, last week, most of what I'd been considering doing this week -- she phoned this morning to let me know she was sick and all, so I got a debrief of last week, and redid my class prep.

Since Tamara was sick, we started off making get well cards. I need to drop them off to her -- they're really nice cards. The kids are genuinely good and loving folks, one and all -- that worked well. But Julian made a comment that it was very quiet the past week, because more than half of the kids weren't there. Anessia took this personally, and felt that Julian was saying that class went better when she wasn't there. Which, I don't think, was anything like what he was intending to say. But Annessia kept acting up and seeming to be trying to get me to send her out of the room -- which WOULD have made things easier for me and for the rest of the class, but I didn't have anywhere to send her, and I didn't want to get rid of her, either.

Annessia is really having a tough time with Hebrew school, and I'm not sure why. It seems to be an identity thing for her. She feels overwhelmed by having to learn Spanish AND Hebrew, but I don't really think it's just the amount of work -- I think SHE thinks it's just the amount of work, but, to me, it feels more that she's not sure WHAT she is or where she fits in. I need to talk to Rafi about this -- I've got some ideas about talking about Jews around the world and bringing in Ladino and the great flowering of Spanish Judaism, but I don't want to overdo it or take time away from other kids.

Naturally, Julian and Anessia ended up setting each other off behavior-wise. Not in a hostile way -- instead, I really got the feeling that they were acting up almost as a bonding method -- Julian felt bad about making Annessia feel bad, so that naturally ended up with the two of them putting chairs on their backs and pretending to be turtles to cement their friendship. I can understand it, but it's really disruptive to the rest of the class, and I'm not sure how to deal with it. I can stop them from doing stuff for short periods of time, but it requires my direct attention. And Rafi, of course, was teaching Tamara's class so wasn't available.

Things were pretty muich rough all day. Hebrew actually went, in some ways, a little smoother, and in others, much, much rougher. Annessia has REALLY been fighting the Hebrew part of class a LOT. We tend to do three things in the Hebrew section -- copying words into notebooks (writing practice), reading stuff out loud (decodng practice), and games (speaking practice). Annessia and Julian both really hate writing, and Shayna claims to, but I notice that pretty much everyone else either doesn't mind, or actually likes it. Max, for instance, likes it because it's got defined goals and he knows what to do, and does it well. He's not the fastest at writing, but he can do it, and it looks good, so he feels comfortable with it. Eli is good at writing, if very sloppy, and so enjoys it. Emma and Ella both appear not to mind it.

Decoding practice, on the other hand, Max hates, because he has a lot of trouble with it. Ella does well with it if she's given a chance, but she's quiet so it's easy for people to step on her. Annessia pretty much refuses to participate, as does Julian, and, well, when they decide to refuse to participate in concert, that's when you get turtles playing Go Fish.

We did a couple fun things with the mah zeh game -- I actually passed around one of the smaller chairs which everyone thought was funny, and then Shayna asked, "How do you say 'hat' in Hebrew?" I told her, then she put the chair on her head and said, "zeh kovah." That was pretty funny.

I love my class. I want them all to be happy and to feel safe and enjoy being there. And to learn a lot. And it's not always easy to get all those to happen at once.