For No Mere Mortal Can Resist.

Today is going to be a long day.

After stacks of practice, the kidlets will finally be performing their long-anticipated dance routine in front of an audience. For those of you who missed the mention a few weeks ago, my class has joined with another class at school, and are going to be dancing to Thriller as zombies. Not only does it make for a pretty nifty end of year routine, but it was also on "The List". (Which I had almost forgotten about.)

The dance isn't exactly the same as the Michael Jackson filmclip. In fact, it's only loosely based on it. I'm open enought to admit that teaching six year olds how to grope their crotch and thrust their pelvis? Is not one of my teaching strong points. Plus, six minutes is a pretty long time for infants to dance independently. They've been doing really well (in my somewhat biased opinion) but there is always so much hype for the event that stage fright is inevitable.

Today the kidlets have a dress rehearsal in school hours, followed by the actual performance which begins in the late afternoon. As much as I love the end result, the whole process has been draining this year and I'll be very happy to have it all done with. Should be insanely cute. I'd take pictures, but wouldn't really be able to post them anyway due to confidentiality laws. Instead, just imagine if you will, about 40 youngsters dressed completely in black with white face paint, marching and wiggling around like zombies. Precious.

As for me? I'm all danced out, and the day hasn't even started yet. And as much as I love the song, I have a feeling I'll be skipping Thriller on my Ipod for a while. Hopefully things will all go smoothly. Keep your fingers crossed that nobody falls off the stage or is allergic to white face paint.

Edit: The long day is over (why thankyou, Norah Jones) and the performance went off without any real hitches. The kids looked awesome in their black outfits, white face and zombie makeup; the girls even went all out teasing their hair and making themselves look as scruffy as possible. Top that off with nearly all of them doing the moves on time, and it made for an awesome performance. Am a very proud teacher tonight. And tired. Very tired.

(Good news? No-one fell off the stage, lost control of their bladder, broke out in hives over face paint or cried. There was however, a split butt-seam and a whole lot of craziness.)