和 敬 西 洋

Hm. After a 3-day weekend spent mostly in bed (and not entirely of my own volition), I'm TIRED.

Tea tonight...

I was reading a post over on Ursula Vernon's journal, and it seems to apply in some ways - the reading the riot act part, at least. [I would love to get a 'yes, ma'am' in response, instead of something like 'jeez, you're overreacting.' There's a certain appeal to being taken seriously.]

I think, what I need to do primarily, is wrangle this Tea thing into a business relationship category, and keep it there. I'm paying for lessons. While the contract on the matter is vague and entirely at Sensei's discretion (a disturbing trend that leads to tangents I'm not going to get into about ethical business practices), I do know that said implied contract in no way obligates me to run errands or sit house for her. At all. It does not obligate me to loan her my personal belongings, or loan out my belongings to other students. It does not obligate me to spend hours on sewing projects I have declined repeatedly, but have been bullied into because she either refused to hear the answer 'no' or refused to provide full disclosure from the first (I will refer to Exhibit A on this one, the felt slipcover that was originally supposed to 'drape' over a bench, a feat which required no sewing whatsoever). That I have told her REPEATEDLY that I don't have the sewing skills to be comfortable with the idea of charging for things I might make (nevermind that no one would be willing to pay the exhorbitant price once I factored in minimum-wage hours of labor and materials) has fallen on purposefully deaf ears. Which means that I really need to either ignore the request or stop trying to be polite and wordy and just say 'no' and nothing else.

And tonight, I need to tell her I'm not okay with being the Token White Girl at the ochakai next weekend. Because I KNOW I won't be last seating, and I KNOW FOR SURE I will hear about it later, and all the little things I did wrong. [I always do.] Because the Tea community, like any grouping of mostly older women with copious amounts of time for their hobbies, is full of gossips and harpies. So it's NO to the Kitayama performance (and if she REALLY whines about it after I stick firm, I'm just not going to go. I will be sad about this, as I enjoy the food and it is a fundraiser, but I have not paid for my ticket yet, so it's no skin off my nose to save that $40 for something like BPAL, instead). It is also NO to dressing students unless they can show up before the event begins, and bring EVERYTHING they need for their kits - cords, padding, all of it. I will not be bringing any of my own supplies.  And if, after all of that, things still don't improve, I'm going to seriously consider that riot act thing. I'm not willing just yet to call it quits entirely. Not just yet - the options once I leave this relationship behind are slim to none of continuing Tea in Orange County. (Gossips and harpies, remember? I'd never live it down, because in Japanese relationships, it's never the teacher's fault, it's the student's for not being able to learn from the copious amounts of bullshit thrown their way.)

Now, I just need to find a small pair of brass balls I can stick on my keychain or rearview, as a visual reminder to keep up this resolve. It shouldn't take a few hours of mental preparation to go to once-weekly lessons, yanno?

I'm also thinking I may just not go in March (save myself another $150 in tuition and gas), and regroup before trying again in April.