opportunities in yahda-yahdaing

the fabretto bigwig in DC who's organizing our trip in june writes that i should "let the kids know this trip is about work and not all about play". i feel cut to the core by this comment... does she have any idea what this means? or how it feels like a personal cut at me? of course i'm not expecting to be galavanting around the city skipping along without a care in the world when i'm responsible for taking care of 30 kids! of COURSE i realize that i'll have to be doing a bit of puckering up to appease the other rich folks who've provided us with this opportunity. but my question is this: what kind of OPPORTUNITY are they "PROVIDING" for us if the kids are going to DC just to be schlepped around from one venue to another singing for private parties with hors d'ouvres and sparkling wine and marble floors and hand-shaking and name-dropping and all the bullshit things that go along with the public relations and business world?

my next question is how the heck i ended up being a public relations major in college? (though i have known the irony of this for some time- ever since i showed up at a "shadow-a-professional day" in my normal clothes and everyone else there was wearing four inch tall stiletto heels and a business suit... talk about being a sore thumb! i probably stuck out more in that room than i ever will being a gringa in nicaragua).

i refuse to tell my kids that this trip's not about FUN because that's ridiculous. another thing that's just eating away slowly at my choir director's SOUL is that the same bigwig also wrote to me that "it's OK if there's 5-6 kids that can't go. and it's OK if at our international choir festival concert we don't have enough kids to really sound good because THAT'S THE LEAST IMPORTANT CONCERT PR-WISE". are you KIDDING me LADY? what's that supposed to mean? just because we're not being PAID to be at this festival makes it UNIMPORTANT?! for me, this concert is the REASON we are going to the US in the first place- so that my choir kids will have the OPPORTUNITY to interact with kids from all over the world, and will get to experience the marvelous harmonies found in creating art with other children. HOWEVER according to the money money money worldview, of course this would be the least important part of our trip.

ironic and sad that she's using the festival as an excuse to get the choir to the US to use us for a PR campaign, that the festival seems to be pretty important when donors are considered yet loses it's importance somehow in the mix of things. what it really comes down to is i am so frustrated that these kids are looking forward to having time to spend in museums, and experiencing the festival and the city... and instead we'll be running around DC like mad with our instruments going from private concert to private concert... selling our musical souls to make a buck. i suppose i should be grateful for the free trip, and fabretto is paying for everything for these kids to get the trip to DC (which for most of them will be their only trip to the states in a lifetime). but just don't tell me flat out that the trip's going to be about WORK when i'm already fully aware of it.

i figured i knew how things worked in the world of tax-refundable donations but now i'm certain.
all work and no play means a world filled with dischord and unhappiness.

so i'll work on my yahda-yahda-yahda skills, suck it up, put my PR smile on (didn't pay for 4 years at GU for nothing!), and trudge to the capital with a twinkle in my eye.
and i'll find a way to work in a bit of my own magic in the meantime,
little does she know that even when i'm working i'm still playing in my own mind!