Ok, so, Ty and I both work with kids....I mean really work with kids. Ty teaches 5 days a week at a Special Needs school and once a week spends his evenings with a speech therapy group.
My schedule on the other hand is a little more erratic as my classes go in sessions. I have weeks where I am only directing kids once or twice a week to tech weeks where I will have one class and go straight into a tech rehearsal with another class...everyday. Lately I have taken on a little more at work. I recently taught 2 preschool classes (both culminated in a very cute musical performance involving a giant hand rainbow) and am currently in the middle of directing 2 productions of Oliver and teaching a middle school audition class. On top of all of that sometimes I teach all day workshops. Usually they are centered around a particular show or movie musical and the kids learn songs, dances and participate in related theatre games and crafts(that's a 7 hour day with no break...and I usually do a couple of hours of before and after care). I do not complain about any of this! I love my job. Are you kidding me? I actually get to make a living in theatre and while it is not always me performing I get to work every aspect. That being said a life in any kind of theatre is hard and sometimes the mixture of class, workshops, emails and not enough coffee creates the perfect storm.
Just the other day. I was asked to do a workshop. Knowing that I also teach a night class I said, "What the heck? I can sleep in tomorrow". By 4:30 I was hurting knowing I still had 30 kids that I had to corral and finish blocking the show. I got in my car with a coworker to pick up dinner, I pull out of the parking lot, who knows what happened...did a car pull out in front of me? Did a soccer mom not know how to back up her minivan correctly yet? Did I just spontaneously become afflicted with tourettes? I'll never know...doesn't really matter.
"What the fuck?" The words came flying out of my mouth. "Goddammit"! It felt so good! "Shit", cock sucking motha fucka!"
As I have stated many times in this blog. It's the little things that make me happy. And nothing made me happier yesterday, after spending 9 hours with kids and knowing I would spend another 2 1/2 with them, than to swear. Curse! Take the lord's name in vain! Profanity! Blasphemy! Cussing! Ooooh, I love it all!
In the right atmosphere of course.
I have never been afraid to swear or taken much offense by it. But dammit when you work with kids you really gotta check yourself before you wreck yourself! Sometimes it takes a lot, every fiber of my being in fact, to NOT scream out a profanity when a child accidently whacks you in the face with a prop. Or forgets his line after you've fed it to him 12 times, or is just being downright disrespectful.
It is hard teaching kids. Really hard. But when you've bottled it up all day it feels really good to get out a good curse word!