i_never_say_it_i_just_think_it cr0wl first day at ski school. the old boss was fired for being a ski nazi, although she was the one that turned the program into the number one children's school in the mid-atlantic. new boss, a dude in my high school class i never really knew is the new director and has completely changed how the school is run. smooth for now, only 12 kids today, but wait during christmas break and there are 200. when chaos reigns, nothing can stop it. ava and tj, 6 year-old girl and boy, were with me all day. first day is always difficult. trying to get back in the groove, recalling ways of instruction, remembering what works, all of it requires me to be a completely different person than i am the rest of the year amongst the trees, birds, and gardens. somehow i was stuck between the two. yet, children are so easy to talk with. they lack all the pretension and disguise of adults. they are who they are and don't even know how to pretend. when they compliment, they are sincere. if they don't like you, they'll just stay the fuck away from you. we worked on lifting the weak leg in the turn for parallel and took turns playing follow the leader. tj lost his goggles after attempting a jump, but we found them later when some nice soul turned them into the lift house. ava's eyes grew big when she told me she was doing turns like i taught her not like the ones she wanted to do. tj hit several more jumps successfully. ava asked me if hate was a swear word. so i paused and thought about it. i told her that it wasn't an official swear word but it was a bad word and shouldn't be said, just kept to one's self. she looked me in the eye and blinked her agreement. "i never say it," she said. "i just think it." 091212 ... unhinged aaaawwww i was a very quiet insular child. over the years i've learned to let out some of my inner dialogue. for a long time, only my closest friends knew what a smart ass i was. i also have that problem of not being who i really am when i teach, cause it's really not appropriate some of the time. but then i get so caught up in talking to my kids that sometimes i forget that they are only five or six. sometimes that gets me in trouble. i had a student named ava for a couple months. this past monday was her last lesson. she was bawling her eyes out. i was expecting it because the week before her father came to her lesson and lectured her the whole time about how she needs to practice more. neither of her parents helped her practice at home. she does have a little brother who just turned one, but i think it's supremely unfair for parents of my five and six year old students to expect them to practice without any reminding, prodding, or help. i do agree that she shouldn't be taking lessons if she's not practicing, but it's just as much her parents' responsibility to make sure she does that at her age. i felt bad. she always had such an adorable smile on her face to see me. 091212 ... cr0wl i agree with you about it being the parents' responsibility for having their children practice. they need to take an active role in their music lessons and make it something to encourage their kids to become passionate about. take them to concertos and ballets, buy them classical cds, and have them do family recitals. talk about violin in a way they can relate to and share their own particular interest. 091213 ... unhinged actually i'm getting better at saying it these days; the things i hold onto until i fester. i let it out now. at least some of it. 100921 what's it to you? who go blather from