Restarting

I spent my time in tech today teaching people how to flush up the various pieces of a platform.  One person stand here, one person stand there, hold the wood in place like this, push down so that the under side aligns.  I haven't done that in more than a year.  We built lots of platforms last year, but I was not the one to do it.  My seniors constructed most of it, with the assistance of the new people.  Those new people can now build platforms themselves.  It was nice when I was not the only source of knowledge in the shop. 

I'm attempting a huge build this year, the largest I've ever done.  We have two shows going up at once: our one act for District Competition and the fall show.  The fall show has ten platforms, the one act has four.  Everything rolls.  I am confident that I have the ability to do it, but it will take a long time without the student leadership I had last year.  My seniors knew how to do almost everything.  One of them designed, focused and programed the lights by herself.  Another built the complicated bookcases for our one act.  I gave them drawings and said go.  I helped solve the problems that arose.  They bounced ideas off of me.  And I hardly ever picked up a drill or saw.

I have great kids this year.  Some of them are born leaders and will be amazing techs in six months, but I wish they were amazing now.

Conquering Mount Tetris

I changed schools this year, and in so doing, left the shop that I spent the last 5 years cleaning, organizing,  and updating.  Year one, basic tools.  Year two, a fresh coat of paint.  Year three, order.  Year four, new storage spaces.  Year five, more organization.  This year, I stepped into a shop and theatre that is much younger, much smaller, and also in a sad, sad state.  Four years of a technical theatre program run by students and a few parent volunteers left the shop with vice grips that won't grip, a table saw covered in paint, and a teetering mountain of platforms and flats.  It loomed over the stage left wing, daring anyone to climb its craggy sides, taunting me with it's poorly constructed stairs and over-built platforms.  Its creators dubbed it Mount Tetris.

In the months since I took this job, I had successfully pushed the mound of lumber and screws out of my mind.  Until last week, I could work around it, but with the fall show looming on the horizon, I knew that Mount Tetris had to come down.

It took 25 students 3 days to go from top to bottom.  We saved what we could reuse and threw away the rest.  The pile has now dwindled to a few flats and a seemingly endless pile of 2x8s.

With the demise of Mount Tetris comes a new era: The Flat Storage Space.

Fleeing from Hypocrisy

Mashing the "on" button on the projector, I glance up and see a raised hand.  A look and a nod gives the student permission to speak.

"Miss, how come we have to write every day?"

"Well, it's Creative Writing.  It kind of says it in the name of the course.  And it's good for you.  It helps get the juices flowing, gets your mind in the right place."

That is why I make them write every day, to get their minds in the right place.  But I feel like quite the hypocrite requiring them to write regularly even though I haven't set pen to paper--or finger to keyboard as the case may be--in months.  So, after more than a year of ignoring this blog, I've come back, if only to feel like less of a fraud when I tell my kids to write because it's good for them. Time will tell if I have the discipline to stay with it.

Have I Mentioned I Have A Ukulele?

One of my kids came back from Christmas vacation toting a cheap ukulele he got for under $30 at Sam Ash.  It came with a book and CD.  The package deal should tell you something about the quality of this ukulele.  So he was learning a few songs, slogging through the process of training his fingers to switch from chord to chord, getting frustrated because it wouldn't stay in tune.  So I tuned it for him.  And then I played it too.  And then I wanted one.  Well, actually, I'd wanted one for a while.  In my travels through the eclectic corners of YouTube, I'd stumbled on a few ukulele gems that made me want to do what they do.  This video was probably the one that I found most amusing and first piqued my interest in the little instrument:

A week later, I had one.  Ordered off of eBay from some guy in Hawaii (where else), it arrived in a fun shaped box.  I could play it immediately, since I learned to play guitar during my freshman year of college.  From the first strum I was hooked.  It's a happy instrument.  It's too light and cute for anything too serious.  You can't play death metal on a ukulele.  Jake Shimabukuro, a ukulele master, made especially famous by this YouTube video, is oft heard saying, "if everyone played the ukulele, the world would be a better place.”  And I think he's right.  You just can't be sad playing the ukulele.  It's not that kind of instrument. 

This summer, along with the other projects I'm working on, I'm working on my ukulele skills.  I'm even practicing *gasp* SCALES.  I'm still slogging through Toxic (see above), and I'm also determined to learn this:

I have a lot of work fun ahead of me.

Summertime and the Living is Easy

I spend the majority of my year looking forward to the eight weeks from June to August when I don't have to see teenagers. Not that I don't like my teenagers, I'd just rather not see them every day.  Well, most of them.  Regardless, I start the school year ready for the school year to be over, but when summer comes I find myself bored and wishing there was something to do.  I sleep a lot (because that's something I don't do much of for the rest of the year), I read (see previous parenthetical statement), I watch a lot of movies, spend too much time on YouTube.  Nothing beneficial, except maybe the sleep. 

So this summer, I'm trying to be a little more productive.  I'm working on a sewing project, because I find it a little sad that I can build a huge set out of wood without much difficulty, but have never made a garment of any kind.  I went in to work to day to do get some stuff done.  Nothing important, and nothing that would be done in the course of the year because of it's lack of urgency, but something that I hope will make life a little easier next year. 

But I'm worried that despite my good intentions, I will keep staying up way too late (it's only 2 AM, this is not late!) and spending way too much time lying in bed doing, well, nothing.  So I figured, maybe I should blog about it.  Because nothing sucks more than getting to August and realizing I haven't really done anything with my summer other than play video games and sleep. 

Here's to a productive summer.

Every so often, as I pick up my pen and paper journal, I ask myself, "why don't you blog anymore?"

This is why.

Not that I would be as foolish as this particular teacher; I know better than to insult students in a public forum. But as a result of the caution that will keep me gainfully employed, most topics of discussion are removed from the table. I can't talk about my students, thus, I have nothing to talk about. It makes me sad. On some level, writing to someone other than my future self in an overpriced notebook that I bought a Barnes & Noble is very gratifying. So, I don't blog anymore.

Sadness.

In Defense of Refs

In case you've been living in a hole for the last two weeks, it's World Cup time. In the US, it seems like the most watched sporting event in the world has finally come to our shores, or maybe it's just that my family has cable now so I can actually watch it. Along with the fervor of the Cup has come controversy surrounding the refs, and the US National Team was right in the thick of it (that is, up until yesterday, when we were once again bested by Ghana). It seems like every time there is a major competition for international soccer bragging rights, there is controversy over a referee's call. Just today, England was shorted a goal when the ref failed to see that the ball crossed the goal line. And don't even get me started on Koman Coulibaly. Right now, there is much debate over whether to use technology to assist the referee in making the correct call. FIFA seems firmly against it, but the cry for change grows louder with each missed call, each wrongly disallowed goal (or two). My opinion on that debate can wait for another time.

Today, I would like to speak as a former youth soccer ref and lover of the game:

Lay off the refs.

Yeah, I said it.

It's easy for us in our comfortable lounge chairs to deem something a terrible call. Ask anyone in my family, I did my fair share--more than my fair share--of complaining about the calls last Friday (and Saturday...and Sunday...and...). But coming from someone who has made a terrible call, had perfectly correct calls criticized, been called names and cursed at, I can say with full conviction that being the person with the whistle is not easy. And that was with 14 year olds. Imagine trying to make accurate calls at the speed of play at the World Cup, where the difference between a clean challenge and a hard dangerous tackle is inches. In addition we expect the ref to read the mind of the player rolling on the pitch while dealing with the sheer noise of 40,000+ screaming, vuvuzela playing fans who think they know the game better and can see events more clearly from their nose bleed seats. While we're at it, let's not forget that the ref is running just as much as the players, at least 3 miles and probably more, while expected to make perfect decisions every single time. It is not an easy job.

Compare the job of the three referees on the field in soccer (four, if you count the fourth official, but he doesn't really do much) to that of the seven on the field in American football (plus the guy in the replay booth in the college game). Granted, the sport is a bit different, and there is much more contact. But I would wager that it is just as difficult to sort out the scrum in the goal box on a corner kick or set play as it is to untangle the line of scrimmage. And refs in American football have the advantage of the replay and the flag system. They have the opportunity to take back their mistakes. It's not so with soccer. Once the whistle is blown, it's blown and it can't be taken back.

So, I say it again. Lay off the refs. They are human and make mistakes. Does FIFA need to change the way they handle the missed calls and unsavory situations? Yes. But leave the refs alone, at least during the match. They can't be blamed for FIFA's refusal to step into the 21st Century and embrace technology. Oh, and a little ref accountability wouldn't hurt.

5:40

Is it strange that my favorite sleep comes between 5:40 and 6:10 on weekday mornings? This is the 30 minutes before I force myself to get out of bed (or start beating myself up for not being out of bed)after my alarm clock has gone off . For some reason, I love it. It's still dim, my room is fairly cool, and sometimes I'm still dreaming but I'm just conscious enough to be aware that it's a dream, which makes it all the more sweet. I wish Saturday mornings were like that. But on Saturdays, I know that I don't have to get up. So I slip back into a deep sleep for a few more hours, and the dreams that I was having aren't as sweet, spoiled by length and depth.

Strangely enough, I like getting up in the morning, at least when there's something to do. I like the stillness of the earth before the sun comes out and starts cooking the magic out of the air. In the morning, the day is full of possibilities.

New Glass

I got a new camera lens on eBay today. I'm really excited about it. Enough so that I'm writing a blog post about it. I've always had a thing for photography. As I kid I dreamed about becoming a photographer and traveling the world taking pictures of things. But somewhere around my sophomore year in high school, I earned a 'B' in photography and decided that it was something at which I would never excel. That's what a 'B' meant to me. Because I'm Asian. Sort of. Anyway, it was the only time I received anything less than an A+ in an elective, so I figured I must be pretty awful. I don't really know why I got a 'B' in photography. I do remember opening one of the school cameras in a dark bag that wasn't zipped all the way and ruining a whole roll of film. I suspect it was too technical for my brain to handle at the time. Also, developing film is really difficult.

Fast forward seven years and I've graduated from college, have a job and some steady income. I buy a digital point and shoot. And over time, the pictures I take become better. I can see results immediately. This is what I was missing in high school photography! Immediate feedback. I finally was able to compare results right then and there and try to fix them. So a few years later I had the opportunity to buy a DSLR and I took it. I'm so glad I did. Every time I take it out, I get a little bit better. I'm learning a new art form and documenting life as I do.

So, three years after getting my digital point and shoot, I've taken almost 4,000 pictures. Most of them are of my cat. Who could resist that face?

More Reactions to NPR

I've been listening to NPR a lot lately. It's a nice break from the inane conversations I have every day at work. There's lots to like about NPR. No, not the pledge drives, although I think I would be ecstatic if Ira Glass of This American Life called me and shamed me into pledging. But I like hearing the stories. I like that the news comes in narrative form, with real people telling the stories. And I like that more often then not, it makes me think about the world outside of my microcosm.

So I was listening to an All Things Considered* story about soda in America. The story posits that children today drink too many sugary drinks, largely due to a lack of education about what those beverages do to the human body. There was even mention of children who drink soda in the morning to "get them woke up." Kind of appalling, right? When asked about water, the kid says he can't drink water, he has to have something with flavor or his digestive system acts up. Really appalling, right? So all of this I agree with. Something should be done. I'm not opposed to taking soda out of schools, it's a small step, easy to make, and would probably do a world of good (although they tried to do that when I was in high school, and if memory serves me correctly it lasted less than a year). Then the reporter asked whose responsibility it is to educate children about good eating habits. Parents? Teachers? The guy at the Quik-E-Mart? "We all bear responsibility," the interviewee said. Again, I don't necessarily disagree with this. As a teacher, it's my job to help mold my students into happy, healthy, productive young adults, whatever that entails. The problem is, how do I teach them something if they go home and their parents teach and model the exact opposite?

This highlights a more widespread problem with education today, something that I've observed by interacting with parents. Lack of parental support and involvement. The principles, concepts, and behaviors that we try to instill in students at school are undermined when they go home. The problem isn't always with teachers or the public school system, although we tend to take the blame. It starts at home. That goes for learning and nutrition.

*Question: do you italicize radio program titles, or put it in quotes? Standby for MLA check--my handbook is still within arms reach of my desk, even though I haven't written a paper in years. Indeed, you do italicize. The episode title goes in quotes. I WIN!

She Supposably Won a Pulitzer

I'm a bit of a grammar snob. That's not to say that I have perfect grammar, know how to use a comma properly, or know when to use whom. But I do my best. So, imagine my indignation when I heard a Pulitzer Prize winner say the word supposably on NPR. Supposably. Really? I thought to myself, supposably? I can understand when my high school students mispronounce supposedly, they are neither educated, nor do they care. But a Pulitzer Prize winner?

So, in the midst of judging her for her use of supposably, I got to thinking, I must sound like an idiot with some of the slip ups I make. Glad I'm not on NPR.

If you're interested in the story, you can find it here. It's actually quite good, despite the early slip up. The supposably [tsk, tsk] is in the first four minutes.

Ugh

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't been writing that much lately. This is not limited to the electronic pages of this blog, but to everything in general. Yet for once, it's not because I've been busy, but more because I haven't really had anything to write about that didn't involve school. I have this hesitance to write about school (and probably justly so). Privacy laws and everything. But the rhythms of my life are dictated by the ring of an electronic bell, and there is sadly little else. So, I don't write. Because there's nothing to write about. I prefer silence to pointless drivel. You're welcome.

Group Singing Usually Sucks...

You know how a large group of people singing usually sounds pretty terrible? There are lots of people singing who really shouldn't so it all ends up sounding like a convoluted mess vaguely resembling a popular song. That is, of course, unless the large group of people singing are all theatre people, and therefore sing all the time. I was fortunate enough to witness this a couple of weeks ago at Districts. Owl City came on before Closing Ceremonies, and the room burst into song. Actually, we'd already been singing, because they played Lady GaGa right before that, but I digress. We'd gotten through the first stanza when the music cut out. But to room kept singing...on key, and in perfect time. Some were even singing the harmony. It sounded great.

Just one reason why theatre people are awesome.

Anyway, I haven't been writing much of anything lately. I tend to shy away from this blog when things get busy out of a sense of guilt. Why should I spend any amount of time on blogging when there is work to be done? But I've just spent the last couple of hours wasting time, so why not spend a little more, eh? I felt like I should post something, if only to remind the internet that I exist.

Laundry

I finally folded my laundry. I had started it some time last week, maybe Monday or Tuesday, or maybe even Wednesday, heck, I don't remember, but it got so late that I didn't feel like waiting up for the drier to buzz to fold it. When I woke up the next morning, my clothes were already wrinkled and still the slightest bit damp, so there was no point in folding them at that moment. I was running late anyway. So the drier's contents were emptied into my basket and trudged up the stairs, then riffled through for a pair of jeans and the least wrinkly shirt. And then they sat. I had intended to fold them when I got home, but that didn't happen for whatever reason; laziness, most likely. Several mornings of dodging laundry baskets on my way to the door has finally prompted me to fold my clothes. It took half an hour. I didn't know I had so many. I hate laundry.

The Last Hurdle

Today, November 12, 2009, I jumped the final hurdle into adulthood with the addition of a single card to my wallet: a Sam's Club Advantage Membership card. Not only am I old enough to have one, I'm old enough to care about the price difference when you buy bulk. Sure, there are other things in my wallet that say, "Look at me, I'm not a little girl anymore," credit cards, proof of insurance, money...but there is something distinctly grown up about a Sam's card. Probably the fact that it's not something I will brag about to my friends. Oh, I'll tell them, as I'm telling you, but I won't brag, I'll bemoan its presence in my wallet, adding a fraction of an inch to the thickness and a decade of age to its owner. It's the only card that does that (except for maybe an AARP card, but ignore that, I'm being melodramatic). A credit card says, look at me, I don't even need money! A driver's license says, why yes, I can give you a ride! A learner's permit says, why yes, I can make the car stall in the middle of the road! But a Sam's Card...it says, yes, I can purchase 36 Cup o' Noodles in the same package!

So, if you see me around and I'm leaning on a large mountain of Cup o' Noodles, you know why. Give me a nod, and welcome me to grown-up-hood.

Another One Bites the Dust

This weekend was a serious fail as far as NaBloPoMo is concerned, however, I blame it on The Foreigner and am resolved to try to continue for the rest of the month (until I get busy again).


Speaking of Foreigner, it's over. Two months of hard work has come to an end, and the only thing that remains are memories and dried droplets of paint on the black stage from careless brushes. And maybe some stickiness from spilled Coke. That reality is one of the hardest things about theatre in my opinion. It's so temporary. You work on it for a set amount of time, then you do it, then it's over. I don't think I would want it to keep going much longer, but I still miss it when its gone. For me, taking down the set is the hardest part. We spent weeks putting it up, getting it to where it needed to be, painting, building, taping, painting some more, hour after hour; the whole thing came down in three.


The only thing that makes it easier for me is knowing that there is another show coming in a few months. There are already things I'm working on and planning for December and January. I have not one, but TWO one acts in the works, one with 6th period as an in-school performance, one with 4th period for Districts. I'm only sort of directing them, acting more as a consultant/producer for student directors. I wanted to put it in my student's hands and see what happens. Hopefully they will rise to the occasion.

21 Hours and Counting

"The Foreigner" goes up tomorrow night, yet I'm strangely calm. Maybe it's because I've done this before. Maybe it's because I fell strangely detached because I've had to be at ESOL class two nights a week rather than at rehearsal. Maybe it's because I'm just having a hard time caring this year. Maybe it's because I've lowered my expectations. Regardless, I'm calm, and I'm trying to decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I've realized that regardless of my mental/emotional state, the show will go on, and it will probably be relatively good. Sure, the run time might be a little long, but that's okay I guess. There's nothing I can do about it at this point, so why should I worry?

In fact, I think this is the most comfortable I've felt about the technical side of things. We actually programmed light cues this year. I have three reliable people running the boards. I think I can actually sit and watch without having to worry about the house lights not coming up. Or maybe I do. Maybe I'm being foolhardy.
Anyway. There's that.

Baby Steps

Someone asked me in the first few months of teaching what my goals were for my Drama program. I didn't really know how to answer; my best response was basically that I wanted it to be like the drama program when I was in high school. That was my goal two years ago, and still is, to a certain extent. But now I approach the question with a slightly more educated and realistic eye (is that the best way to say that? I don't know). My ultimate goal is to be able to put on excellent productions that are primarily student run. I want to be able to sit in the front row and watch, without having to worry that there will be some disaster backstage that will require my immediate attention.

That is a pretty lofty goal, especially from where I'm standing. But I think it's doable. Here are a few steps we need to take towards excellence:

1. Establish a sense of pride in the program as a whole and in the quality of work. At this point, we don't know what a really excellent program or even an excellent production looks like, nor do we know what it takes to get there. I need to start showing my students what excellence looks like. We need to go watch other people who are being excellent. This has its pitfalls. The tendency might be for them to compare themselves, rather than take it as inspiration to do better.

2. Get out of the mindset that we can wait until the last minute to pull it off "because we always do." I think this is what has killed us with "The Foreigner." A few strategic people have established the attitude among the cast that later is okay, so we've taken far too long to get off book, and find costumes, know our cues. In today's rehearsal, we were where we needed to be about two weeks ago because two weeks ago, I was still yelling at people to be off book, and they were still making excuses. This is a great segue into my final point.

3. I need to be a jerk about things like missed rehearsal/tardiness, and missed deadlines. I don't know how to do it. I don't have the heart to tell someone who has been in rehearsal for a month that they won't be in the show because they aren't off book, or because they missed 3 rehearsals, or because they were late a few times. How do I tell a parent that their kid is out of the play because they had some kind of obligation and didn't tell me in advance? In reality, I HAVE to if I want the program to succeed. Teaching them that being there sometimes is not okay. Aside from the difficulties of trying to rehearse or block a scene without a character, it also destroys a sense of trust among the cast. How can I expect one person to rely on the other to make an entrance or know a cue if they aren't even at rehearsal?

Why I Wanted to Do NaBloPoMo

I used to write a lot. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. Papers for various classes were always on the horizon, so I frequently got to stretch my writing muscles. Now that I'm an adult I hardly ever have to write. Ever. And I've begun to feel my writing skills atrophy. Here's a quick example: I was in ESOL class the other day (its a requirement for all teachers in OCPS to take ESOL), and the instructor was talking about dual something-or-the-other (see how much I was paying attention?), and I thought, "Duel? Like they fight each other?" I also lost any spelling ability I had.

Anyway, I've become increasingly aware of the decline of my writing skills, and I didn't want that to continue, or at least to slow the process. NaBloPoMo seemed like a good way to do it.

Side note: it was a REALLY long day for me, I was at work from 7:10 AM until 11:30 PM. I actually am retro posting this, because well, it's still the November 2nd in my mind. Anyway, if it seems like I'm a little delirious, it's okay, I probably am.

NaBloPoMo

I'm an avid reader of blogs. By 'avid,' I mean that I read 6 or 7 every day via Google Reader (yay Google Reader), and one of the things that starts popping up this time of year is NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month. It's a challenge to write 30 posts in 30 days throughout the month of November. That's one a day. So, when the blogs I read started talking about them (okay, I think there was really only one that mentioned it, but that was enough), I began thinking about participating. I've never posted more than 9 times in a month, so this is going to be a challenge, especially since I've almost failed before even starting (it's currently 11:53 PM, not getting started on the best foot).

Anyway, I have no idea what I'm going to post for the next 30 days, but I'm going to try to do it. Care to join me?