Young Men's Club - 2/26/08

Before today's club started, Nasir walked up to me with a big, two front teeth missing smile and said, "I'll bet you $5 that I'll be good today." Of course, I let him know that I don't bet children. I also let him know that if I DID bet children, he would lose that bet. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, he was running around the cafeteria and acting very silly and unruly. I walked up to him and told him that he owed me $5. (He knew I was kidding) Today also marked the return of Joseph. He had been missing for about a week or so and I thought that maybe he didn't want to be involved in the club anymore. It turned out he was in the hospital for asthma. I didn't get into the details, I just know that he's fine now and that his absence wasn't about me. Which is all that matters. In general, the kids had a lot of energy today. It took them a while to walk down to the auditiorium. I would simply wait until they settled down before I would allow them to walk any further. I just had to get all of that energy down. I managed to get them into the auditorium and we went right to work on rehearsing the show. It opens next Thursday. I was really trying to focus on tightening it up and making sure that everyone was working together. Joseph, despite the time off, was able to pick up the new drum beats rather quickly. Christian, despite being there since the beginning, was having trouble. His mind and his eyes would start to wander during the performance. At first, I was really upset by this. I thought maybe it was a sign of disrepect. But then I calmed down and realized that he just needed more attention and encouragement to get it right. And that the real reason he was tuning out was because he was lost. I mean, I don't want to sound cruel, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So the next few times through, I stood right in front of him and kept pointing to him when it was time to play. I also had to keep my energy really high in order to keep him engaged. The good news is that by the third time he really seemed to get it. So hopefully he will retain it for the next club. The boys did a really good job with the drumming and it was decided that they would close the show. Extra juices for everyone.