Workshop Day 4 (final day)
I feel really used. I was told to expect a couple hundred dollars for the 4-day workshop. That's not exactly unreasonable and I expected it, since I was told to expect it. When I first heard the workshop mentioned to me I didn't expect any money; so it's not that I'm upset because of money. I went up to the office after we finished today and felt really awkward and unable to ask for money, but I walked in and the teacher who organized this happened to walk in from another door just after me and I said something like, "I was wondering what's happening with the pay?" And he pokes his head in the principal's office and kind of yells, "Did the kids give you the money?" and then she yells back, "Yes, and I gave it to Erik." And then the teacher says, "Well there you go -- that's your pay." And I just kind of stood there with nothing to say and he said, "Did you have enough to cover your expenses?" And I said, "Yes". And then he said, "and there was enough of a stipend remaining?" And I said, "There is about $60 left over." (forgetting to take into account the extra shipping charges, making it more like $40) and then the principal said, "Is that enough of a stipend for you?" I'm really bad at standing up for myself, and worse about standing up about money, because I really hate taking money from people (but this time I really seriously need the money for school!). I said, "Well if that's what you're offering..." and then a whole bunch of stuff was said and they ended up giving me another $40 to add up to a round $100. I shouldn't be so upset, because I should have reminded them that they told me to expect a lot more. I was expecting $200-$300 ("at least a couple hundred dollars"...) So I don't know, but I feel really crappy about this and it kind of actually hurts in my stomach, like I feel really let down and my feelings are hurt. The one teacher acted really condescending to me too. I told them to call me if they wanted me to do it again next year, because I really did love this, but if I ever do something like this again I will make sure that the money issue is cleared up ahead of time. Now about student loans...
ANYWAY. I still feel REALLY crappy about that, but I think before I went and spoke with adults in authority I was having a blast. It will probably affect how I write about today, but I will try briefly anyway:
We started with a game of foursquare. Actually two and then a game to 11, I think. It was fun. We had some even BETTER rules today! Here:
---Only the second square is allowed to pick up the bag. If anyone else picks up the bag they are out. So the second square has to give the bag to the server every round. (We referred to this as the "Alec rule", because he made it up and we ended up using it in almost every game of the day!!)
---An additional rule to that, we called the "Shane rule", and states that if the bag lands in another's square and that player is out he can remain in and get the second square player out if he picks up the bag from his square before square 2. This only works if you are out, so if the bag is spiked into your square it doesn't work, because it's not in the spiker's square and you're not potentially out. Most of us voted against this rule after the first game (it came back a couple times within the game, though)
---I had a little line of tape in the first square, as a "1", to indicate server's square. If the bag lands on that tape everyone is out.
---We established "standard rules" (which we later dubbed "Westgate rules"), which includes some rules from yesterday: landing on the line gets both players out, or everyone if landing in the centre; no stalling and dropping the fifth square; server only gets one vote and everyone outside can vote too -- if even number of players last player in line gets 2 votes. We set these as standard rules which were always used unless a rule was made against them (but we never really made a vote against it).
---If the bag flies outside of the court and a player in the line has to avoid the bag from hitting him, or if he just doesn't kick it when he can, he goes to the back of the line
---Likewise if you're in the linup and you kick the bag back into the court in a manner that is accessable to the active players, you move to the fourth square, no matter where you are in the line. I made up these rules and used them together almost every time I was in the server's square -- nobody argued.
Those were basically our most used and funnest rules. One of the kids suggested the we should write down all our rules or something-something, and I suggested he look at Flipsider for some neat rules (I think there's a bunch on foursquare there, hey?).
Then we did a couple competitions. I basically offered some possibilities and got them to agree on or suggest something. First we had a foursquare comp. Shane won and got a DVD. Then we did a consecutives comp, this one was tricky because one kid had, like, 70 and could basically hit any number, and the nearest to him was 28 which wasn't too consistant. HOWEVER, I realized that the 70 kid, Jake, only kicked with one leg while almost everyone else was really bothsided. SO I proposed a consecutives comp where you have to alternate legs. If you kick twice in a row on one side the second doesn't count, if you do more than two you're out. You get three tries in total. This was really fun. So they took turns in front of the rest of us. I think the other Jacob won.
We had another comp after lunch, which Jacob proposed during the others, which was a "numbers elimination" comp. So basically the game numbers, where one person hits one, then passes to the next person in the circle who has to hit 2, etc. I should have applied the bothsided rule to this too. I really wanted one of the more eager kids, Daniel, to win, especially since Jake, the 70-kicker was probably the LEAST enthusiastic of the lot. We went around and made it up to 18, which I had to hit before (obviously) Jake had to hit 19. He hit it and I gave him the DVD.
After the comps, I also announced the winner of the "testing" that I did, who was Alec. It ended up that I wanted to reward the most enthusiastic -- basically the one who tried the hardest, and I think it was a super good choice and I was really happy. Alec got frustrated with almost everything we did, he had the lowest and least consistant consecutives record, and he could stall a little and hit ATW once. The point was that he was eager and tried hard and so I was super happy to give him his prize
After lunch we watched Vasek's Prague routine, and then the opening Winnipeg section of VOTDS2. Again I think it was too much of straight shred, but there was some neat non-footbag stuff in therer too, which is why I chose to show it, in addition to that it was Winnipeg. Alec commented at the end that he really liked the music.
After the videos we played some more foursquare (two more games, I think..no three -- and the third one took a long time!) Then we just kicked, had that numbers comp and then just kicked in a circle. It was fun and they thanked me and said they had a lot of fun. So now I'm free for a week (after a weekend of work, although work is fine, and I don't have to wake up too early, so I can relax) and I'm hopfully going to draw a lot and film the crew shredding
I'm really hungry.
