The Concert

From the title you’re probably thinking about Beyonce or something bootylicious, right? Nah, nothing so fancy but it was to me, just as exciting and entertaining. The performers were none other than my little girl’s pre-school students.

I must say that I was not really expecting much since the last time I went to a kiddie concert was close to 17 years ago when my twin nephews had their first concert. I must say that times have changed…for the better. No to take away anything from their performances but it was more so the sophistication of the teachers and performances that they choreographed. Wait wait wait…back up a minute…did I just say sophistication and pre-school concert in the same breath. Well yes I did. I was pretty much impressed with most of the performances and apart from one where the teacher took center stage (not going to comment on this….maybe the kids were having an off day…yeah sure) everything was very well coordinated. Believe me I’m a complainer and will complain about everything but this time I found little to complain about and a lot of kudos to be given to the teachers who managed to turn a bunch of noisy kids into pretty well oiled machines.

We’ve known about the concert fro sometime now and have been asking the little one what she would be doing but she would say “nothing”. We of course assumed that for four year old kids they would be doing some jumping and singing at the top of their voices or something along those lines. As the day to the concert drew closer we probed even more but all we could get out of her was that she had to shout the word “batik”. Not much to go on was it?

So we resigned ourselves to an average show at most. With the little ones just having a small role to play. After all the school had said when we enrolled her that there might not even be a concert for kids her age as they had to wait for a long time. Even her costume, while it was nicely colored was just a pair or pajamas. Our expectations were low although we were still pretty excited to see her in her first concert. Actually that alone was enough to make us happy.

On the day of the concert we were pretty much in a hurry. I didn’t read the notice properly and thought that the concert started at 9.00 am so I was rushing everyone and being a real pain. Finally we left and reached the place in fifteen minutes although I allocated 30 minutes since it was pretty far and in unfamiliar surroundings. (Note: I tend to get lost a lot and must get a GPS system because I’m hopeless when it comes to directions). Well I didn’t miss the road and found the place easily this time. So we were really early. Fortunately the concert was in a nice auditorium and waiting was not that stressful plus we also got pretty good seats. After passing off our little one to the teachers we settled down to wait. Fortunately there was some refreshments and drinks provided which helped a little.

After about an hour and a half (yes we were very early okay) the usual speeches and pleasantries started and it was followed by the graduation ceremony for the older kids…yes folks you do get to graduate from pre-school too. So trooped in a bunch of kids in their tiny graduation gowns and mortarboard’s. They looked adorable to say the least. Everyone received a scroll.

It was then that the concert commenced. We were really impressed by some of the performances and were really entertained. We had to wait patiently for our little girl as her groups turn was close to the end. One by one the shows went on and apart from that teacher who stole the limelight it were so entertaining. Son it came to our little ones group. The program said that they would be doing a Samoan themed performance in a Malaysian style.

The lights came on and we looked for her high and low and finally spotted her at the anchor position on the far left which was close to were we were sitting. She seemed to be looking for us in the crowd but could not see us as the lights around the audience were out of course. The performance started and…I started recording. The quality of the recording is pretty bad as I was more interested in watching her rather than recording but I wanted to save this moment for eternity even if was just to hear her say one word. This is what we saw…