my life as pam beasley.

every now and then something so surreal happens that i have to remind you, my public, that what i'm about to share actually happened. no detail has been exaggerated.

today we had in-service seminars with the other preschools in the area. no children allowed. yesterday our directors passed out a sheet of info about it. when to arrive, directions, etc.

the top of this flier said something like "it's oscar time! expect celebrity experiences!" so i knew something horrible was going to happen. something cheesy and awkward.

when i arrived, all the directors from the different schools were dressed up as "celebrities." some of them grasped the concept better than others. there was britney spears and angelina jolie. and then...wilma flinstone and cruella deville.

?

if that wasn't weird enough, they stayed in these costumes all day. seven hours. but we still had to take them seriously.

we ate lunch with our directors. and that's when things really got weird.

each director had a pile of cheap, miniature oscars that they gave to each one of us. they used a label-maker to label each oscar with our individual awards.

so let me pause and take you back to season one of the office. are you with me? the dundee awards? this was that awkward, and that strange. unfortunately, we didn't have any champion-themed music playing in the background. just crickets chirping. i pointed out to the girl next to me that this was like the office, and her face changed as she realized i was right. "it IS like that..." we had another bonding moment later in the day, which i'll get to shortly.

so, what was my award? she said "and the always so happy award goes to...ALLISON!" no one has described me that way in my entire life, but that's ok. i'll accept the dundee. the best part is that the dundee doesn't even say "always so happy" it just says "happy."



then we went back to the seminars about why we shouldn't yell at children. this is when we tapped into some material "the office" has yet to explore.

group exercises.

oh yes. we went there. it happened. we did that.

we were learning about ways to get the wiggles out of children when it's a rainy day. next on our agenda?

a dance-off.

i'm not joking.

in some situations, certain people may find such a thing enjoyable. even those people may find it hard to let loose with their coworkers. but i'm a team player. i figured sitting down and looking like "this is sooo lame" would be way lamer than any dance move i could try to pull off. so i took hitch's advice:



the girl from earlier, who is new this school year, was standing next to me. she said something like "they're going to tell me to sit down really fast." so i said "yeah, i'm just going to dance like hitch says to for a song, and then i'm taking myself out of the game."

she's really nice, and her class is connected to mine. so when i'm not yelling at the children, maybe we can be friends.

this was my actual day. no embellishments.