Watch Who You Talk To

Thanks for all the advice and comments on the last post. I have gotten two small translations since and the rest has been sorting out invoices and the like. Looking back on my log from last month though this week was probably going to be slow so I guess the proof will be in whether work comes in next week. I wrote an email once and deleted it and thought fuck it, I’ll leave it for the moment and if work really slows when it should be coming thick and fast then I’ll write a proper letter to the boss. Definitely not fair letting my lady get the brunt of my pissed-offness when she is just the go-between so to speak. She did however inform me this week that they will be getting a native speaker, which will mean English will be getting checked and edited – like what would normally happen. One person would translate and a separate person would check or edit it.

Which would mean that if work got the green light from the checker then it would be a lot easier to pack a fuss saying the person wanting the translation was just being a finicky fuck when if fact they didn’t give enough instruction in the first place. I am totally for the supervisor wanting something written in a certain way – that is my job – but expecting the translator to have ESP and then ditching them without payment after insufficient editing opportunities sucks monkey nuts.

Meh, nevermind. Kind of over it to be honest.

BUT, in fabulous dance juiciness….

We all got an email saying had to congress at 4pm on May 31st as teacher had something to say. I presumed it would be something about the fact that  that day was last day for Marina and another girl – who has been going for 7 years but who would like some time now to go to the beach and get a tan (banned by dance teacher as tanned girls don’t look as nice as white girls and need too much white foundation) etc and just be a teenager.

Today I took Marina to hip hop and the head teacher asked if I was staying the whole lesson. I said no had to go shopping for stuff for tomorrow’s kinder excursion to aquarium. She said she needed to talk to me.

So I went to the supermarket, spent five minutes shopping and twenty minutes in the car sweating over what she wanted to talk about and playing cards on the i-pad. I then pulled up my big girl undies and headed back to the hall and inside.

Where the teacher launched straight into a rant about the whole ‘why we weren’t in that dance because we missed the choreography because we went to CATS a day early’ thing. She is in charge and the dance school gets money from places for performing so if the girls fuck up its on her and because Marina missed the choreography she might have fucked up with only three practices (instead of 3 practices and ten minutes ya know) yaddah yaddah and she hoped I understood. Actually it wasn’t a rant, she was very nice about how she said it.

I said I did understand, perfectly in fact, but didn’t think telling Marina right before dancing was necessary when she SHOULD have a) either told me when I asked to say we would be going a day early and she responded with hey, thats fine’, or b) sometime over the three days after we missed the fuckin class and before the ‘special’ lesson.

I get that girls should/could get dropped from a dance for missing lessons. Totally accept that. I don’t get you (what seemed like) purposefully making my 7 year old upset just to prove a fuckin point, you bitch (said in head).

Bear in mind I was being as Japanese as possible whilst actually still stating my case. Which I guess just means I put ‘masu’ on the ends of all my verbs :p

Anyway, we both said our bits calmly and shook hands and she nearly started to cry because she bloody loves Marina and it would just be all too much if I went back to NZ upset with her and her daughter.

I’m not upset anymore and am actually pleased had wee chat but still not putting them on nengajo list.

And by ‘wee chat’ – I mean in front of five other mothers she brought this up.

And the reason?

Turns out she was really upset that I had been talking about it and was still upset to another couple of mothers. When she said ‘mimi ni haita’ (I heard that you …. )  I said ‘eeeee, honto desuka’ (really?) – hopefully in a way that conveyed shock that a private conversation I had had with two other mothers had found its way back into her professional dance ears, which are obviously always on ‘point’ and ready to pick up anything. The five other mothers all started twidling their thumbs and counting the non existent dust particles on their shoes.

I DID apologize for talking about it but topped off the sentence with a ‘I’ll remember to discuss dance stuff with people completely non related to dance next time’. I mean FFS – don’t think you can tell me not to talk about shit that bothers me! I wasn’t making up lies behind your back or anything.

I know I say things that they don’t expect and I know I feel a different way towards the whole thing. She brought up that she used to be a lot stricter – when her daughter was in the class and Marina’s age and thats why her daughter gets fucked off when she sees her mum being a ‘softy’.

Apparently she stayed up all night worrying over how to tell me all this shit – before waking her daughter and asking her for a sleeping pill so she could finally sleep (daughter was in hospital and had some left over it seems).

To which I said, Wow, thats terrible, sorry to be the cause of a sleepless night. Do get a better sleep tonight won’t you. (as in, now that we’ve all made up and are ‘friends’ again).

I told her that when I did dance back in ‘my country’ it was a lot more relaxed and I had ‘that’ vision in mind when Marina said she wanted to start. Also said Marina showed interest in doing tennis and gymnastics back in NZ 🙂

Stick that in ya pipe and smoke it.

As my mum would have said.

(3 year anniversary just been and her birthday in four days 😦 -always a hard time).

 

So am somewhat relieved we had the chat. And have learnt never to talk to the other mums again – although I doubt very very much it was one of the mums from here. They never hang round long enough after class either – to join in the little huddle…. FFS.

SDGH&QL

PS – one other mum came in nearer the end (total 6 of us) and the sensei immediately told her that her and I had sorted it out. She then said to me she had already spoken to this particular mum about the problem she had with ME because said mum wouldn’t be at class on 31st. Sensei wondered out loud if she still needed to talk about it in front of all the moms, especially the new ones. I said I didn’t really think it was necessary was it? But that informing the new mums of what shit goes down if you stay in a nice hotel and miss ten minutes of choreography might be a good idea, and perhaps reiterate to the old mums that the newer mums (self included) don’t know the fuckin ‘rules’ so if the teacher says in class that Marina probably won’t be dancing the dance cause she isn’t there then someone could give her mother the bloody heads up – you pack of retards. Please note here that none of the mums from this town were present at said class. Its the group of ‘dance is my life’ moms from the other town.

I predict that at our last class on the 31st Sensei will pretty much tell everyone exactly what she told me about standards and fucking up by missing the lesson and the pride she had and expectations of all the girls yaddah yaddah. And that Katy and herself had spoken after a sleepless and restless night on her part and sorted it out and how disappointed she had been in me for talking to some of you other mums after the teacher had sent the email to apologize – which wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t sent first email saying how shocked I was at the way they handled things.

I then envision a short speech on the importance of all the mums getting along and the older mums helping the new ones out and not causing factions amongst the group yaddah yaddah.

PPS – if she fuckin mentions the words ‘nice hotel’ again (as the reason for Marina not being able to dance) I am going to stand up and walk out whist saying something along the lines of ‘where we stayed has nothing the FUCK to do with it’ followed by a lot of fast English to get my point across as I scoop my 6 year old up and storm out.