Hark, thy fate sucketh?

I think I'm developing Keel-them-all-ded Syndrome... It's a mental disorder where you desperately want to keel people ded, even if only for your own stress relief and/or amusement.

Ya know, the day started out great... and then I came home from work. For most people, it's the other way around, but no. Work was great. In fact, for possibly the first time ever, I hardly got picked on, and when God and Spawn did pick on me and I pouted, they would give me a pat on the head. In fact, at one point, they even cheered, "Yay Lint Monkey!" Yeah, that made my day. Yay!

No, today's temptation to keel people ded started with the piano lessons after work. I will now proceed to gripe about my failure piano lessons. Feel free to skip down to the "*****" if you want.

Kwangsook, my 20-something-year-old Korean student, had the first lesson. She was the first person I agreed to give lessons to and doesn't understand the concept of "half-hour lesson" at all. Last week, for example, after almost an hour and a half, I left, giving her the excuse that I had to go to Kamryn's house for FHE.

"Oh, what time is your appointment?"

"Um... pretty soon... About 15 minutes..."

"Oh... Okay..." Well, then she proceeded to call up Kamryn's parents and today informed me that they had been sick Monday. Yes, I knew that. Cindy had called and canceled the appointment even before the lesson, but it was the only thing I could think of to say that would give me an excuse to leave without being utterly rude.

Well, today, I set my alarm, and when it beeped, I told her that was my cue that it was time to leave. She only kept me for another fifteen or twenty minutes after that, to her credit. As I was putting my shoes on and trying to leave, she said that she had another Korean friend who wanted lessons. Oh, and Minnie's husband, Scott, also wanted lessons. Oh, and she also had another friend who wants to sign her son up for lessons. Oh, and by the way, if it wasn't too trouble, could I give her (Kwangsook) two lessons a week instead of one? I told her flat-out no on the last one, saying that I need at least some time to get my schoolwork done. For the love of all that is unholy, if it were up to her, I would quit my job, cancel my classes, and spend all my time teaching every frikking person in this town how to play the piano!

So I was a bit frustrated. For one thing, Kwangsook doesn't seem to practice for the lessons I give her. For another, I can't understand a word she says. For another, I feel bad talking about cost of lessons because I'm well aware that she's not really doing well financially: she's fairly newly married, just had a baby, doesn't have a job, her husband works at the jail, and she and her husband live with her husband's parents. I think he just got out of school, too. So I know they don't really have money to throw around, but come on, I can't give two hour-long lessons a week to someone I can hardly communicate with!

And then I feel bad because I'm not charitable enough or something. It's not like I don't have time; it's that I spend my time badly.

Then there's the fact that I feel like a failure as a teacher. For Kwangsook, basically, her lesson is just supervised practicing. I'm beginning to doubt she practices during the week, so I sit behind her and watch while she goes through the book, one song at a time, and plays the song about a dozen times till she gets it decently or until I say, "Okay, that's enough, practice that one this week." What drives me crazy is when she repeats a measure over and over and over and over and I can't figure out why. She was playing a song to the tune of "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" today, and when she got to the measure where she played four quarter-note Fs in a row, she played the measure, stopped, shook her head, played it again, stopped, shook her head, played it again... and again... and again... and I wanted to cry, "FOR THE LOVE OF MAXXY, PLAY THE NEXT MEASURE ALREADY!!!" and then fall on the floor and cry and twitch convulsively. Except that would make the baby scream and the dog bark, heaven forbid.

Kwangsook's a sweet lady, and she's ripping through those books quickly... but her lessons make me want to stab myself in the throat with a fish hook.

Then after that was Madison's lesson. She's pretty bright, but she really likes to say "I can't do it, it's too hard." Then when I say, "What do you mean, you can't? Okay, then you can give me five push-ups and then do it!" she says, "No no no, I'll do it!" But her parents stay for her lesson and watch and do almost as much talking and teaching as I do, which makes me wonder why they're not teaching her themselves. I'm just reading straight out of the book, for crying out loud....

And for some reason, I act like a total idiot in front of kids' parents. Today, for example, I was teasing Madison, saying, "Before too long, you're going to be begging your parents for a grand piano!"

"No, not a grand piano!" objected Chip. "You've seen our house--we couldn't fit a grand in there!"

I dismissed that. "You could get rid of Madison's bed and she could sleep on top of it." I turned to Madison. "That would be great, because then you could also practice lying on top of it and pretending to be..." I was going to say, "pretending to be sexy like those sluts in old movies who lie on the pianos," but then I remembered I was talking to a six-year-old... in front of her parents, no less.... So instead, I said, "pretending to be pretty." And then I kicked myself and added, "I mean, not that you're not pretty. I mean, you are pretty. You're very pretty. But what I meant was... I mean you could pretend to be... um... I mean... actually, it's a word I probably shouldn't say... in front of... well... um... anyway, let's play this song now!" and I turned so red, I was surprised the fire department didn't come right over to investigate the glow. At least Madison's parents laughed instead of being mad that I accidentally implied their daughter isn't pretty. I mean, she is... really... for a six-year-old... I mean... not that her being six has anything to do with it... well... I mean....

Oy....

Have I ever mentioned that I also hate human interaction in general because I suck at it? I'm always saying or doing something so entirely stupid that I want to just dig a hole and never come out of it again ever. It's fine when I'm acting like an idiot on purpose and people think I'm being funny or cute... but when I'm supposed to be teaching or having a serious conversation with someone, it makes me want to kick myself in the kneecaps. And that doesn't work.

*****

Speaking of kicking myself in the kneecaps, when a doctor hits you in the knee with his little hammer thing, are you supposed to try to kick your feet, or is it supposed to happen whether you try or not? Because as near as I can tell, when doctors tap my knee with that little hammer, my big feet just kind of hang like normal. When I was little, I always kicked just because I thought I was supposed to, but now I'm wondering if I should have... well... not. Or at least kicked the doctor in the nose. That would have been epic!

PS - The complaining is over for now, but if you skipped it, you may want to read the last few paragraphs starting with "and for some reason" because that part is actually funny.

Hm... other than that... heh, I was talking to Rob Pack the other day and asked him about the drive from Alaska to Utah. He said, "Oh yeah! The drive is gorgeous! If you ever get the chance, definitely definitely drive it, and take a few extra days, if you can, to stop and see some of the sites on the way! Hey, get an atlas and I'll show you the best route and some of the places you'll want to stop."

"You mean you're not going to try and talk me out of driving it and tell me that it's a terrible drive and I'd be crazy to even consider trying it without at least one or two big strong guys I really trust coming with me?"

"Not at all. I mean, unless you normally have a problem falling asleep while driving... but it's such a pretty drive I doubt you'll have that problem. But if you really want someone to go with you, I really don't think you'll have a problem finding someone who will want to go. There's a lot of young people who work up here in the summer and then go back south for school."

Rob is officially my best friend.

Hm... what else? Oh, I would like to reiterate something I've said before, but not for a while: Macaroni and cheese is awesome with hot sauce. The realization that hot sauce can be added to just about anything really changed my world. (I was going to say "spiced up my world" but that's cheesy. Heh... heh... macaroni and cheesy.... Okay okay, lame, I know.)

And now that I'm down to talking about hot sauce again, I'm going to shut up. Anyway, it's about bedtime. Big conference this weekend. Yaaaaay! (Conference = biscuits and gravy for breakfast! :D)