i have two sets of keys. i keep my home/car keys in my right pocket. i keep my school keys in my left pocket. i keep my phone in my left pocket. if i'm carrying my ipod, i keep it in my right pocket. i keep my wallet in my back right pocket. i usually carry a pen in my back right pocket. i don't usually carry anything in my back left pocket. if i'm wearing a shirt with a breast pocket, i sometimes keep my pen there.
sometimes i back up into my parking space, sometimes i just pull in forward, it depends on how tired i am and what activities i'm looking forward to the next day.
when i get home i put my keys, wallet, glasses, watch and phone down on the little counter next to the door and i put my bag on the dining room chair. i say hi to my cat. i kick my shoes off. i keep three pairs of shoes, the most commonly used ones, in my living room at the base of the shelving where the TV is. those three pairs are my black sneakers, my black 'nice' shoes, and my flip-flops. sometimes when i wear other shoes i kick them there too, but i always eventually clear them back to the closet.
when i get to school i open the outside door and unlock it with a little allen wrench on my keychain. then i open the other outside door with the same allen wrench. then i open the classroom with the MKAB key, and the black box with the same key. then i open my office with the AC11 key. i prop my office door open with a little wooden frog doorstop from sam. i turn on two lamps, one by my desk and one in the corner, and turn on the computer. i put on some music. i usually have about an hour in my office and the vicinity before school starts. i check email, talk to students, check my mailbox in the main building, make a list of things to do for the day.
i like the little routines, the little consistencies in the midst of unpredictable life.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
process and product: a colon-infested run-down of the UIL OAP
i hate to give in to hackneyed catchphrases, but on some level most of them are true; otherwise why would they be hackneyed?
the catchphrase of the day is "the journey is more important than the destination."
the phrase directly applies to my experience at the state UIL one-act play competition in austin. from 5 am saturday morning until 4 am sunday morning, the one-act party raged on.
5 am: wake up, shower, dress
5:30 am: with robin, our parent representative and truck driver, i go get truck full of furniture and props for our play, which is parked at our bus driver's motel somewhere north on I-35
6:00 am: take truck to the back of bass concert hall in order to load our stuff into the theatre; when we get there, four other schools are already lined up with their big trucks, waiting
6:45 am: meet a small group of our students and load our stuff into the theatre, hand it over to student stagehands who put it on rolling carts and take it away
7:30 am: meeting of all schools in the theatre to hear congratulations, warnings, guidelines and sales pitches (a representative of UT did a little recruiting)
8:30 am: load the bus and go get breakfast at IHOP
10:30 am: return to theatre to meet our runner, tammy, and be shown our dressing room, in the basement washroom of the concert hall
11:15 am: our 50-minute rehearsal commences on the stage, in which we spike the set, run sound cues, run light cues, problem-shoot, get special items approved (ostensibly)...
and here i should launch into a brief parenthetical foray in order to tell you that the vines i wanted to use (and had used in the previous four competitions) were rejected because they were real vines, and in the UIL rule book it is stated "cloth vines may be used." even though there is no only in that sentence, the technical director deemed my vines unconstitutional, and though they weren't integral to the show, it was irritating to have them rejected when
there was clearly nothing written condemning them in the rules...
12:05 pm: our 50-minute rehearsal concludes, having gone quite well, smoothly, and with an incredible amount of energy and a heightened sense of the stakes, which makes it all quite sparkling and fun, and in that huge concert hall... i think it was my favorite part of the whole day. at any rate, we load back onto the bus and head back to the hotel
12:15 pm - 3:15 pm: break for naps, lunch, swimming and rejuvenation. i take a nap and don't eat, not hungry
3:15 pm: group warm-up in small conference room, fourth floor
4:15 pm: bus picks us up to take us back to the theatre, side door entrance
4:30 pm: arrival at theatre, tammy isn't there but another runner takes us to our room in the basement and we immediately start putting on makeup and costumes. over the intercom system we can hear the first play of the afternoon, DANCING AT LUGHNASA, already in performance. before we go on, THE LITTLE FOXES and ROSENCRANZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD still have to perform. disgruntled, i snip off pieces of my condemned ivy and am determined to let our masha and medvedyenko use them for the opening of the play, as incidental gazing-pieces; my hopes are quickly quashed, however, by my colleague, who is paranoid about the rules and is looking at me with a ridiculous intensity that makes my stomach hurt, so i throw all the ivy away in the trash can. then i help students with their makeup, wigs, and costumes. sorin has left one of his costumes behind. pants and shirt are substituted. we're all ready by
6:00 pm: the characters circle up to do vocal warm-ups, with less spirit than in the past, maybe because of nerves, and the other director and i say a few words to the actors; a few tears drop, a few laughs are uttered, we hold hands in a circle and are ready to go
6:15 pm: we're taken upstairs to wait for our time to go
6:25 pm: we're taken onstage to set up for our show. they tell us go, and we go. we use the seven-minute set-up period and get everything placed, with a few hesitations, a few near-miss accidents, a few questions, and a few "don't worry about it"s
6:33 pm: our play begins
this is where the hackneyed catchphrase comes in. the play wasn't stunning, had a lot of little glitches, the audience was loud (coughing, whispering, shuffling, giggling), and i can't even remember certain moments of it. it was nice to have CY sitting next to me, chuckling at
small idiosynchracies of character that chekhov so perceptively included in his play. yet i was sort of detached for the moment of truth, the moment to which everything had been leading. it wasn't glorious. and i'm not complaining-- the students did a wonderful job; besides,
i'm learning as i get older that it's actually much nicer to enjoy the process more than the product: it lasts longer!
7:12 pm: the curtain falls. i say a few (regrettably) rushed words to CY, and run backstage for our seven-minute strike. a beer bottle shatters backstage. as we load the truck, a glass decanter (masha took swigs of vodka from it) also meets its demise. robin has brought the truck back around during our show, and while some of us get out of costume and makeup, others of us load the truck during the next play, a brecht piece about ARTURO UI, and finally make it out to the house by
8:15 pm: to see PAGANINI, to meet friend beth and sit in the theatre with her, and after that, at
9:15 pm: RUTHLESS!, a well-done over-the-top comedy in the vein of the bad seed and all about eve.
10:15 pm: the final play, ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN, we've all seen before, so we exit the theatre to get some fresh air during that one, socialize, talk about our show, talk about the two we saw, and generally enjoy each other's company
11:15 pm: we re-enter the theatre for the SCO-SHOW (sp?), in which the theatre staff has put together a slide-show satirizing the plays of the day, followed by a sluggish yet brightly-colored awards ceremony. our students receive an honorable mention award (for masha) and two all-star cast awards (for konstantine and arkadina). our play receives third place in the contest, which i am personally quite happy with. not bad for first-timers
12:30 am: we receive a sensitive but too-short critique from our adjudicator. he says we "did chekhov right." he means the comedy, melodrama and moment-to-moment-ness of it all
1:00 am: we get back in our bus and head to kerbey lane cafe on south lamar. we wait forever, are finally seated (there are 21 of us, including the adults and my friend ben mcdonald who has joined us for post-show festivities), and we eat. we don't get out of there till
3:45 am: and get to bed at
4:00 am.
it was really fun. i'd say it was a blast. but the most-fun part wasn't watching the performance, which was good but not the best it had ever been. the most-fun part is, after all, the process leading up to the product... and i feel fine.
(first place went to RUTHLESS! and second place to ROSENCRANZ & GUILDENSTERN.)
the catchphrase of the day is "the journey is more important than the destination."
the phrase directly applies to my experience at the state UIL one-act play competition in austin. from 5 am saturday morning until 4 am sunday morning, the one-act party raged on.
5 am: wake up, shower, dress
5:30 am: with robin, our parent representative and truck driver, i go get truck full of furniture and props for our play, which is parked at our bus driver's motel somewhere north on I-35
6:00 am: take truck to the back of bass concert hall in order to load our stuff into the theatre; when we get there, four other schools are already lined up with their big trucks, waiting
6:45 am: meet a small group of our students and load our stuff into the theatre, hand it over to student stagehands who put it on rolling carts and take it away
7:30 am: meeting of all schools in the theatre to hear congratulations, warnings, guidelines and sales pitches (a representative of UT did a little recruiting)
8:30 am: load the bus and go get breakfast at IHOP
10:30 am: return to theatre to meet our runner, tammy, and be shown our dressing room, in the basement washroom of the concert hall
11:15 am: our 50-minute rehearsal commences on the stage, in which we spike the set, run sound cues, run light cues, problem-shoot, get special items approved (ostensibly)...
and here i should launch into a brief parenthetical foray in order to tell you that the vines i wanted to use (and had used in the previous four competitions) were rejected because they were real vines, and in the UIL rule book it is stated "cloth vines may be used." even though there is no only in that sentence, the technical director deemed my vines unconstitutional, and though they weren't integral to the show, it was irritating to have them rejected when
there was clearly nothing written condemning them in the rules...
12:05 pm: our 50-minute rehearsal concludes, having gone quite well, smoothly, and with an incredible amount of energy and a heightened sense of the stakes, which makes it all quite sparkling and fun, and in that huge concert hall... i think it was my favorite part of the whole day. at any rate, we load back onto the bus and head back to the hotel
12:15 pm - 3:15 pm: break for naps, lunch, swimming and rejuvenation. i take a nap and don't eat, not hungry
3:15 pm: group warm-up in small conference room, fourth floor
4:15 pm: bus picks us up to take us back to the theatre, side door entrance
4:30 pm: arrival at theatre, tammy isn't there but another runner takes us to our room in the basement and we immediately start putting on makeup and costumes. over the intercom system we can hear the first play of the afternoon, DANCING AT LUGHNASA, already in performance. before we go on, THE LITTLE FOXES and ROSENCRANZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD still have to perform. disgruntled, i snip off pieces of my condemned ivy and am determined to let our masha and medvedyenko use them for the opening of the play, as incidental gazing-pieces; my hopes are quickly quashed, however, by my colleague, who is paranoid about the rules and is looking at me with a ridiculous intensity that makes my stomach hurt, so i throw all the ivy away in the trash can. then i help students with their makeup, wigs, and costumes. sorin has left one of his costumes behind. pants and shirt are substituted. we're all ready by
6:00 pm: the characters circle up to do vocal warm-ups, with less spirit than in the past, maybe because of nerves, and the other director and i say a few words to the actors; a few tears drop, a few laughs are uttered, we hold hands in a circle and are ready to go
6:15 pm: we're taken upstairs to wait for our time to go
6:25 pm: we're taken onstage to set up for our show. they tell us go, and we go. we use the seven-minute set-up period and get everything placed, with a few hesitations, a few near-miss accidents, a few questions, and a few "don't worry about it"s
6:33 pm: our play begins
this is where the hackneyed catchphrase comes in. the play wasn't stunning, had a lot of little glitches, the audience was loud (coughing, whispering, shuffling, giggling), and i can't even remember certain moments of it. it was nice to have CY sitting next to me, chuckling at
small idiosynchracies of character that chekhov so perceptively included in his play. yet i was sort of detached for the moment of truth, the moment to which everything had been leading. it wasn't glorious. and i'm not complaining-- the students did a wonderful job; besides,
i'm learning as i get older that it's actually much nicer to enjoy the process more than the product: it lasts longer!
7:12 pm: the curtain falls. i say a few (regrettably) rushed words to CY, and run backstage for our seven-minute strike. a beer bottle shatters backstage. as we load the truck, a glass decanter (masha took swigs of vodka from it) also meets its demise. robin has brought the truck back around during our show, and while some of us get out of costume and makeup, others of us load the truck during the next play, a brecht piece about ARTURO UI, and finally make it out to the house by
8:15 pm: to see PAGANINI, to meet friend beth and sit in the theatre with her, and after that, at
9:15 pm: RUTHLESS!, a well-done over-the-top comedy in the vein of the bad seed and all about eve.
10:15 pm: the final play, ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN, we've all seen before, so we exit the theatre to get some fresh air during that one, socialize, talk about our show, talk about the two we saw, and generally enjoy each other's company
11:15 pm: we re-enter the theatre for the SCO-SHOW (sp?), in which the theatre staff has put together a slide-show satirizing the plays of the day, followed by a sluggish yet brightly-colored awards ceremony. our students receive an honorable mention award (for masha) and two all-star cast awards (for konstantine and arkadina). our play receives third place in the contest, which i am personally quite happy with. not bad for first-timers
12:30 am: we receive a sensitive but too-short critique from our adjudicator. he says we "did chekhov right." he means the comedy, melodrama and moment-to-moment-ness of it all
1:00 am: we get back in our bus and head to kerbey lane cafe on south lamar. we wait forever, are finally seated (there are 21 of us, including the adults and my friend ben mcdonald who has joined us for post-show festivities), and we eat. we don't get out of there till
3:45 am: and get to bed at
4:00 am.
it was really fun. i'd say it was a blast. but the most-fun part wasn't watching the performance, which was good but not the best it had ever been. the most-fun part is, after all, the process leading up to the product... and i feel fine.
(first place went to RUTHLESS! and second place to ROSENCRANZ & GUILDENSTERN.)
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