It's not a Broadway Production!

Although one might assume that it is with all the ridiculous, excessive amount of non organisation going on. Be warned, this post is likely to turn into a bit of a rant... I am talking about yochien (kindergarten), it is coming to the end of the school year here and so there is a lot of things going on, for starters there is the play, each class has two plays (dances) to perform, Ebi-kuns class is doing Yuki no ko san (snow children) and Kamo tori Gonbei (the duck catcher) and Ebi-kun has landed himself the lead role as the duck catcher.

For the last 4 weeks I have had to go into the yochien at least once a week, OK to be honest, I was supposed to go in more than once but put my foot down and only went in once a week at most. Not only is there the play things to organise there is also the graduation party but lets starts with me moaning about the play..... The yochien has been going for a long time, they have a hall with a proper stage and all the props and costumes are made, last week we went for costume fitting and instructions to adjust/repair anything that needed it and we were also told that we need to sew two cloth bags with their names and name of the act on it plus 2 coat hangers with names. The mom that translated this for me told me to give in in this Friday, when we are at the yochien for the dress rehearsal, I find out 10pm last night that he was supposed to take them today agghhhhh not only that, he is to have EVERYTHING he uses in the plays labelled with sewn in name tags.

Ebi-kun on the left with two of his 'posse' and a rogue sister

 That is... head scarf, jacket, top, pants, socks, straw boots, duck hat, duck body, snow hat, snow top, snow bloomers, tights, pom-poms x 2.

I have worked in a theatre and it was much easier than all this!

After watching the plays in the class we have to go to the stage and watch them again and then go to one of the classrooms to make 300 paper flowers.

performing for the moms in the classroom

So, back to the graduation ceremony and party, for that I was put in the party committee - not sure how but that doesn't matter. The first meeting, we sat around doing nothing for the first hour then made about 300 origami fish for a game where they will be ripped off a pole, just cutting 300 fish from paper would have been SO much quicker. Before we leave the committee chairperson asks if I am any good artistically (knowing that I am) then asks if I can make the front cover for the end of year album, I say yes, at least I can contribute that way. The next meeting starts at 9.30am and I decided that if they spend the first hour arsing around then I am out of there. We need to pick some photos, cut them out and stick them to 3 pieces of paper, simple huh. Aghhhhh I left early, otherwise there might have been a massacre, no one was prepared to make a decision, it needs to be a group decision or we might upset the 'waa'. A number of photos had been put in the 'well we may use these if everyone agrees' pile so I just picked them up and started cutting, gasp, shock, wait for the ground to swallow me up. Pah!

They liked my album cover, so much that I get a text asking me to design the back too, sure! and then I accidentally booked my dentist appointment on the same day as a 'go to yochien and waste the whole morning meeting' oops, silly me. I don't mind helping out now and then and I don't mind going it to the yochien to organise things, I do mind wasting my time and being surrounded by a bunch of faffers who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. If they had given me all the stuff to do for the album I could have easily got it all finished in a couple of hours. I am sure I am not the only teacher who has pulled off 15 parties in a week including preparing all the games and decorations by myself, seriously, it drives my crazy, I dread to think what would happen if these people actually had jobs! The word delegation means nothing here!

Just to add to the stress of it all, I need to get the next Sew Hip sample in the mail today, just waiting for some paperwork info and I have a pile of things to organise for the art show.

I have to go again to yochien on Friday, hubby has translated 7 pages of stuff all to do with how the graduation ceremony/play has to run, I don't understand most of it, so I will poddle along and play the stupid foreigner, a part I play quite well, even if I do say so myself. If you have made it this far to the end of my rant then you obviously have the stamina to make it as a yochien mom! Good luck with that :o)