just a little rant

Sometimes it is just so hard for me to be patient with people.

When I started taking Japanese dance, I was mostly in it for a chance to hang out with some of the other ALT girls and make friends with them. As time went on, though, I started to really like Japanese dance itself.

It's so difficult for me to enjoy things that have precise rules and details that have to be followed. Usually if I don't have a little room to make something a little more my own, I don't care for it.

But I like Japanese dance. I like it even though I am told exactly where to put my feet, exactly how high to lift my arms, etc. I am always told to relax my shoulders- which is something that the pilates instructor is always reminding me to do as well. I came to realize how much tension I put into my shoulders a lot of the time and I think these biweekly reminders to relax them are good for me.

But I have some stress associated with the dance classes and it just seems to increase. Being the member of the group that knows the most Japanese, I have become the translator. My status as the go-between has been slowly but surely wearing me out.

As the translator, I am the one that always has to tell the teacher why someone in the group can't make it to a lesson and, even worse, it is me to has to call and cancel lessons.

It's been increasingly hard for me to be cool about it when someone tells me that they can't come to the lesson. I understand it when it's a good reason (like traveling), but sometimes I feel like the reasons that they tell me can easily just be put aside or worked around.

Tomorrow is a rehearsal for the performance we're putting on in a few weeks and I am really hoping they all show up. During that last practice, our teacher seemed to really think it's important for us all to attend this one and I really don't want to let her down. She's been very kind and generous to us. Plus, this is the rehearsal for the whole show- including the elementary school students class and at least one another group. It's not all about us and we should try to do all that we can to not disrupt the entire rehearsal for everyone else. (The culture plays a big part in this, too. Our teacher is a very traditional old Japanese woman.)

One of the girls in the class actually lashed out at me because she had plans for the day of tomorrow's rehearsal and she said that I should have told her before. This was completely inappropriate because-

A) I told her via facebook chat that I would message her the rehearsal schedule a few days before when she got back into town, but she told me that there's no big difference between hearing the dates then and waiting a few days and finding out what they are at the lesson. So, because she said that, I didn't send them to her.

B1) I played no part whatsoever in the scheduling of said rehearsal. I was JUST translating.
B2) I don't have a copy of her social schedule. I'm sorry that it clashed with the rehearsal schedule, but it's really not my fault at all.

*****sigh*****

I understand that she could have just been irritable and took it out on me. I understand- people do that sometimes. And she apologized later (although she didn't mention whether she remembered TELLING me to not worry about messaging her or not, so I'm a little irked about that.)

What's driving me crazy is being blamed for what I was just translating on top of all of the practices I've had to go to without everyone else there.

And I know it's not always their fault. We had someone with swine flu, people traveling, etc. etc. etc. It's just that this has really made me so tired of being the person in between.

I just want to enjoy dancing and relish the fact that I finally get to perform something again for the first time since graduating high school.

It's so hard to be patient with people sometimes.

Dance class girls- sorry you guys end up reading this. I kind of felt the need to get this out somewhere.