Running around like a crazy!
Okay, so you know how I was all, "OMG, I was busy like whoa, and that's why it took me over a week to post my billion-page long Canadians report?" Well, fear not, brej. I am back to tell you why, exactly, this month has been insane.
It started when I got back from Switzerland and had to go right back to work, like, a day later. *bloody thumbs down!* That week was a blur of meetings and starting new units. I was also running around getting costumes and sets in place for the junior school musical, Aladdin, which I wrote and was co-directing, and holding info meetings and audition sign-ups for the middle division spring play, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which I also wrote and will be single-handedly directing. Near the end of the week, I started feeling like death warmed over, but ignored it and continued to run around like a crazy.
Of course, this did not work out, because on Monday morning, I woke up and could not drag myself out of bed, although I made a valiant effort. I called in sick, but because I am crazy, I told them not to cancel the two hours of after-school auditions I had planned, because the auditions were booked solidly through the week and missing that night would've put me way off schedule. So I dragged myself out of bed and made the hour-long subway trek to work in the afternoon, sat through two hours of mostly bad auditions, and then made my way back home in the cold. By the time I got home, I had chills and felt like crap, but still convinced myself that I was going to teach the next day. Um, no. Woke up with a fever and was out for the day, and spent most of my time stressing over how behind schedule I was getting. Because of this, I pulled myself back to work for the rest of the week even though I was still running low-grade fevers, and spent each evening at work until past 7 p.m. in order to catch up on all my backlogged auditions and Aladdin rehearsals.
Casting the play gave me a headache of massive proportions. Usually I love casting, since I'm not the type of person to get all caught up in, "Oh, but she deserves a part even if she sucks, because she works so hard and she really wants a part!" - some kids can act, some can't, that's the way it is. I came from a competitive theatre background and have gotten used to being harsh about stuff like that. However, this time, I had over sixty girls audition, and only 22 parts. There were at least 30 girls that legitimately deserved parts. I sat there with a list with crossed-out names and names with stars beside them, and another list of the parts, and I hemmed and hawed and erased and crossed out and changed my mind a billion times before I finally came out with a final cast. I managed to turn the cast into a cast of 23 instead of 22, but that was as far as I could go. That Friday, as promised, I posted the cast list at lunch. Posting the list is always a dicey moment - it's a combination of wanting to lock yourself in your office and hide from the poor kids whose hearts you broke, and parading through the halls to see the looks on the faces of those who got big roles. By chance, I had a meeting that lunch hour, but when I returned to the middle school wing, the first sight I saw was the two Grade 7s who landed leads (most of them went to Grade 8s, obviously) on their cell phones, excitedly calling their parents. OMG SO CUTE! <3 And then I walked into the building and one of my quieter, more mature, non-in-crowd students who I love to pieces and probably wasn't expecting more than a bit part came up to me and thanked me a billion times for casting her as Narrator Carmen. The entire afternoon as all hugs and smiles, and I didn't get a single complaint call from parents whose daughters didn't get cast, which is extremely rare - drama teachers actually expect that kind of call after casting productions.
The next week was hectic, with several crucial Aladdin rehearsals, the first two read-throughs of Sisterhood, and me running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get everything in order before I took off for my "cousin's wedding" Canadians on Thursday morning. The week I got back was performance week for Aladdin. On Wednesday, the girls performed a dress rehearsal for an audience of the entire junior school (Gr. 1-6; the cast was Gr. 4-6). They did shockingly well and I was thrilled for them. Thursday and Friday nights they performed for sold-out audiences in the evenings, with tons of parents, siblings, and grandparents giving them the adoration they deserved. You can't imagine how cute these kids are. I don't actually teach them, but I'm glad I get to direct their musicals, because they're SO CUTE!! In their little costumes! Singing One Night in Agrabah (One Night in Bangkok, rewritten) and The Genie (Duran Duran's The Reflex, rewritten), and other fun songs and dancing really badly! CUUUUTE! <3<3<3!! I miss them already and have pictures of them pinned up all over my desk in my office.
Oh, did I forget to mention that in the midst of all the craziness, I had 120 report cards to write?! Aladdin ended on Friday, and then I went home and spent the entire weekend writing report cards, since I'd barely had a minute to start them while the show was still in rehearsals. That was the least fun weekend ever and I never want to do that again. Writing reports is seriously the most boring thing in the history of ever.
Oh! And the Tuesday before the Aladdin dress rehearsal performance, I went to the Broken Social Scene tsunami tribute show at Lee's Palace and OMG GREATEST SHOW EVAH!!!!1oneone!!! Every single member of BSS was there except two missing members of Stars who'd gotten stuck in the snowstorm in Halifax and, of course, Leslie. Jason Collett was the first opener and everyone, including Amy and Torq from Stars, Emily Haines from Metric and non-BSS-ers like Howie Beck and OMG KATE FENNER!!!1one! played along with him on I Bring the Sun. AND THEN OMG APOSTLE OF HUSTLE! They were brilliant, yo! BRILLIANT! And Torq is such a famewhore! And then Stars! And they sang an acoustic version of Sleep Tonight! And then they brought Gentleman Reg out to pay tribute to the absent Feist by singing Mushaboom!!! And Gentleman Reg should never be allowed to sing Mushaboom EVER again, but the crowd sang along and drowned him out, mostly, so it was good! LOVE TO LESLIE!!! AND THEN BSS THEMSELVES OMG LOUD AND AWESOME! And I had to leave early because I had to be at work at 7 a.m. for Aladdin the next day, and I missed Emily and Amy singing Anthems for a 17-year-old Girl and I am so mad about that! AND I NEARLY FROZE TO DEATH ON THE WAY HOME BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!
*calmly* I bought really cute pink tweed shoes the other day.
My Grade 8s played a really annoying/funny trick on me the other day. I teach that particular class in the PAC (performing arts centre, i.e., the auditorium), and so there are always microphones and stuff set up from assembly earlier in the day or special presentations for other grades, etc. So the other day, I go in to teach, and music is playing. And I'm all, "Turn the music off, time to start class." And the girls give me really, really innocent looks and tell me they aren't playing the music and that some Grade 11 girls forgot to turn the sound system off after their dance practice. Now, I didn't have my sound booth key with me, and that key was all the way in the other building, so I couldn't check. I gave the girls a deeply suspicious look and strongly suggested that if the music was actually being controlled by them, that they turn it off. I did a quick glance around the stage while I did this to see if I could locate the source of the music. They again insisted, completely straight-faced, that the music wasn't theirs. I was like, okay, whatevs, we can work over the music. Fifteen minutes later, the girls start giggling. Now I'm really suspicious and and give them a speech about how I trust them, but if I misplaced my trust, I would not be happy, and they still insist they know nothing about the music. Halfway through class, I notice a microphone set up on the side of the stage. GUESS WHAT THEY DID. OMG THE BRATS TAPED iPOD EARPHONES TO THE MIC AND THAT'S WHERE THE MUSIC WAS COMING FROM! They thought it was hilarious and I laughed it off, but the next class, I was the one laughing when they had to write me a letter about disrespect for learning and why blatantly lying to your teacher for forty minutes was never a good idea. HAHAHA!
Finally, on a totally unrelated note, Everwood was good this week. I love Hannah to bits - the moment when she pulled away from Bright's hug was one of the most realistic teenage moments I've ever seen on TV - and Bright needs to wake up and fall in lurve with her already. Jake is an entirely useless character, and if he has any purpose other than occupying Nina while Andy is being an adulterous idiot, then I wish the writers would tell us already. Also, could we please, please move on with the season by having a SHOCKING! episode in which everyone in Everwood finds out that Madison was hit by a bus, and left behind a Dear Ephram letter telling him that she LYED to his father about being pregnant and was really just a cheap hooker who can't act or sing? That would be so very beautiful!
Also, to all the people on the boards and LJ who keep insisting that Amy and Ephram are better off as friends because they have no chemistry, I think that's b.s. First people complain when teenagers on TV are over-sexed, and then they complain when a teenage couple on TV aren't all over each other 24-7?! I think there is more chemistry in a look between Ephram and Amy than there was between any hyped-up physicality between Ephram and (ew) Madison. Seriously, I found the whole, "Ephram and Madison can't keep their hands off each other" thing bogus, because I didn't think the two characters had any chemistry together at all. I mean, they barely knew each other, which is why sex was the only thing that could take their relationship to any kind of intimacy whatsoever. It was so... surface, so disposable. E/A have, already, so many things that are the foundations of a real, adult relationship - an underlying deep friendship, the ability to really talk to each other, the willingness to try and understand their differences and their different ways of responding to certain situations. They're comfortable with each other. Real couples aren't always slobbering over each other, and I'm glad Berlanti has chosen to push that side of the E/A relationship into the background and feature the really important things. I'm absolutely not looking forward to the return of Madison, both storyline-wise and because Sarah Lancaster's lack of acting skillz makes me rage-y and violent. UGH.
And that is all I have to ramble about today. The good part about all my insane busy-ness is that I NOW HAVE A FOUR-DAY WEEKEND FOR MID-TERM BREAK OMG THANK GOD! I am now off to meet fizzybottlecap and go on a Gloomy hunt. messynessy, we have to get in touch to figure out plans for the Kalan mockfest concert on Sunday. I'll email you later tonight!
It started when I got back from Switzerland and had to go right back to work, like, a day later. *bloody thumbs down!* That week was a blur of meetings and starting new units. I was also running around getting costumes and sets in place for the junior school musical, Aladdin, which I wrote and was co-directing, and holding info meetings and audition sign-ups for the middle division spring play, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which I also wrote and will be single-handedly directing. Near the end of the week, I started feeling like death warmed over, but ignored it and continued to run around like a crazy.
Of course, this did not work out, because on Monday morning, I woke up and could not drag myself out of bed, although I made a valiant effort. I called in sick, but because I am crazy, I told them not to cancel the two hours of after-school auditions I had planned, because the auditions were booked solidly through the week and missing that night would've put me way off schedule. So I dragged myself out of bed and made the hour-long subway trek to work in the afternoon, sat through two hours of mostly bad auditions, and then made my way back home in the cold. By the time I got home, I had chills and felt like crap, but still convinced myself that I was going to teach the next day. Um, no. Woke up with a fever and was out for the day, and spent most of my time stressing over how behind schedule I was getting. Because of this, I pulled myself back to work for the rest of the week even though I was still running low-grade fevers, and spent each evening at work until past 7 p.m. in order to catch up on all my backlogged auditions and Aladdin rehearsals.
Casting the play gave me a headache of massive proportions. Usually I love casting, since I'm not the type of person to get all caught up in, "Oh, but she deserves a part even if she sucks, because she works so hard and she really wants a part!" - some kids can act, some can't, that's the way it is. I came from a competitive theatre background and have gotten used to being harsh about stuff like that. However, this time, I had over sixty girls audition, and only 22 parts. There were at least 30 girls that legitimately deserved parts. I sat there with a list with crossed-out names and names with stars beside them, and another list of the parts, and I hemmed and hawed and erased and crossed out and changed my mind a billion times before I finally came out with a final cast. I managed to turn the cast into a cast of 23 instead of 22, but that was as far as I could go. That Friday, as promised, I posted the cast list at lunch. Posting the list is always a dicey moment - it's a combination of wanting to lock yourself in your office and hide from the poor kids whose hearts you broke, and parading through the halls to see the looks on the faces of those who got big roles. By chance, I had a meeting that lunch hour, but when I returned to the middle school wing, the first sight I saw was the two Grade 7s who landed leads (most of them went to Grade 8s, obviously) on their cell phones, excitedly calling their parents. OMG SO CUTE! <3 And then I walked into the building and one of my quieter, more mature, non-in-crowd students who I love to pieces and probably wasn't expecting more than a bit part came up to me and thanked me a billion times for casting her as Narrator Carmen. The entire afternoon as all hugs and smiles, and I didn't get a single complaint call from parents whose daughters didn't get cast, which is extremely rare - drama teachers actually expect that kind of call after casting productions.
The next week was hectic, with several crucial Aladdin rehearsals, the first two read-throughs of Sisterhood, and me running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get everything in order before I took off for my "cousin's wedding" Canadians on Thursday morning. The week I got back was performance week for Aladdin. On Wednesday, the girls performed a dress rehearsal for an audience of the entire junior school (Gr. 1-6; the cast was Gr. 4-6). They did shockingly well and I was thrilled for them. Thursday and Friday nights they performed for sold-out audiences in the evenings, with tons of parents, siblings, and grandparents giving them the adoration they deserved. You can't imagine how cute these kids are. I don't actually teach them, but I'm glad I get to direct their musicals, because they're SO CUTE!! In their little costumes! Singing One Night in Agrabah (One Night in Bangkok, rewritten) and The Genie (Duran Duran's The Reflex, rewritten), and other fun songs and dancing really badly! CUUUUTE! <3<3<3!! I miss them already and have pictures of them pinned up all over my desk in my office.
Oh, did I forget to mention that in the midst of all the craziness, I had 120 report cards to write?! Aladdin ended on Friday, and then I went home and spent the entire weekend writing report cards, since I'd barely had a minute to start them while the show was still in rehearsals. That was the least fun weekend ever and I never want to do that again. Writing reports is seriously the most boring thing in the history of ever.
Oh! And the Tuesday before the Aladdin dress rehearsal performance, I went to the Broken Social Scene tsunami tribute show at Lee's Palace and OMG GREATEST SHOW EVAH!!!!1oneone!!! Every single member of BSS was there except two missing members of Stars who'd gotten stuck in the snowstorm in Halifax and, of course, Leslie. Jason Collett was the first opener and everyone, including Amy and Torq from Stars, Emily Haines from Metric and non-BSS-ers like Howie Beck and OMG KATE FENNER!!!1one! played along with him on I Bring the Sun. AND THEN OMG APOSTLE OF HUSTLE! They were brilliant, yo! BRILLIANT! And Torq is such a famewhore! And then Stars! And they sang an acoustic version of Sleep Tonight! And then they brought Gentleman Reg out to pay tribute to the absent Feist by singing Mushaboom!!! And Gentleman Reg should never be allowed to sing Mushaboom EVER again, but the crowd sang along and drowned him out, mostly, so it was good! LOVE TO LESLIE!!! AND THEN BSS THEMSELVES OMG LOUD AND AWESOME! And I had to leave early because I had to be at work at 7 a.m. for Aladdin the next day, and I missed Emily and Amy singing Anthems for a 17-year-old Girl and I am so mad about that! AND I NEARLY FROZE TO DEATH ON THE WAY HOME BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!
*calmly* I bought really cute pink tweed shoes the other day.
My Grade 8s played a really annoying/funny trick on me the other day. I teach that particular class in the PAC (performing arts centre, i.e., the auditorium), and so there are always microphones and stuff set up from assembly earlier in the day or special presentations for other grades, etc. So the other day, I go in to teach, and music is playing. And I'm all, "Turn the music off, time to start class." And the girls give me really, really innocent looks and tell me they aren't playing the music and that some Grade 11 girls forgot to turn the sound system off after their dance practice. Now, I didn't have my sound booth key with me, and that key was all the way in the other building, so I couldn't check. I gave the girls a deeply suspicious look and strongly suggested that if the music was actually being controlled by them, that they turn it off. I did a quick glance around the stage while I did this to see if I could locate the source of the music. They again insisted, completely straight-faced, that the music wasn't theirs. I was like, okay, whatevs, we can work over the music. Fifteen minutes later, the girls start giggling. Now I'm really suspicious and and give them a speech about how I trust them, but if I misplaced my trust, I would not be happy, and they still insist they know nothing about the music. Halfway through class, I notice a microphone set up on the side of the stage. GUESS WHAT THEY DID. OMG THE BRATS TAPED iPOD EARPHONES TO THE MIC AND THAT'S WHERE THE MUSIC WAS COMING FROM! They thought it was hilarious and I laughed it off, but the next class, I was the one laughing when they had to write me a letter about disrespect for learning and why blatantly lying to your teacher for forty minutes was never a good idea. HAHAHA!
Finally, on a totally unrelated note, Everwood was good this week. I love Hannah to bits - the moment when she pulled away from Bright's hug was one of the most realistic teenage moments I've ever seen on TV - and Bright needs to wake up and fall in lurve with her already. Jake is an entirely useless character, and if he has any purpose other than occupying Nina while Andy is being an adulterous idiot, then I wish the writers would tell us already. Also, could we please, please move on with the season by having a SHOCKING! episode in which everyone in Everwood finds out that Madison was hit by a bus, and left behind a Dear Ephram letter telling him that she LYED to his father about being pregnant and was really just a cheap hooker who can't act or sing? That would be so very beautiful!
Also, to all the people on the boards and LJ who keep insisting that Amy and Ephram are better off as friends because they have no chemistry, I think that's b.s. First people complain when teenagers on TV are over-sexed, and then they complain when a teenage couple on TV aren't all over each other 24-7?! I think there is more chemistry in a look between Ephram and Amy than there was between any hyped-up physicality between Ephram and (ew) Madison. Seriously, I found the whole, "Ephram and Madison can't keep their hands off each other" thing bogus, because I didn't think the two characters had any chemistry together at all. I mean, they barely knew each other, which is why sex was the only thing that could take their relationship to any kind of intimacy whatsoever. It was so... surface, so disposable. E/A have, already, so many things that are the foundations of a real, adult relationship - an underlying deep friendship, the ability to really talk to each other, the willingness to try and understand their differences and their different ways of responding to certain situations. They're comfortable with each other. Real couples aren't always slobbering over each other, and I'm glad Berlanti has chosen to push that side of the E/A relationship into the background and feature the really important things. I'm absolutely not looking forward to the return of Madison, both storyline-wise and because Sarah Lancaster's lack of acting skillz makes me rage-y and violent. UGH.
And that is all I have to ramble about today. The good part about all my insane busy-ness is that I NOW HAVE A FOUR-DAY WEEKEND FOR MID-TERM BREAK OMG THANK GOD! I am now off to meet fizzybottlecap and go on a Gloomy hunt. messynessy, we have to get in touch to figure out plans for the Kalan mockfest concert on Sunday. I'll email you later tonight!