Midweek and holding

It is now Wednesday of play week and I have gotten the two initial long days under my belt.  I am not quite so desperately tired as I was yesterday.  I woke up at 4:15 and knew that if I went back to sleep, it would not be for 15 min, it would be for 1.5 hours.....  and that would have sucked.  Well, that would have been a really good thing for me, but you know what I mean.  But I feel pretty awake, and Wednesday is generally a good day.

I do have to work on grades though, as I WILL be done with them by Friday!!!  I will not be doing my quarter grades over the spring break, no sirree Bob!  That will not be happening, so I have my work cut out for me today and Friday.  Thursday is off the table, as that is the day I am involved in the play from 7 am until 3:30- 3 performances of the first act, and the second act once.  But I can't get ahead of myself, tonight is a dress rehearsal, no makeup, which reminds me, I have to go clean the greater village of Park Falls out of #105 Covergirl makeup- those little munchkins are all so light, they need this color. Well, not all are super light, but the majority of them are.

Anywho, the scenes have all been taped, and tonight, if the stage crew manages to all show up, they will have a pretty easy go of it.  My impatience for a couple of those young people is growing daily, as I do not want to be waiting to change out these scenes because they are holed up somewhere playing a video game or texting or what have you..... I mean if I have my phone on silent, they certainly can too.  Oy.  And JUST when I get them trained, they go and graduate on me.  But that is the nature of High School!

Yesterday's events went fairly smoothly, even though there were some crazy delays.  But those can't be helped, and for some unknown reason, a usually dependable person was not there to be my door guard, which I had some stand-ins, but much of the time I was doing double duty.  We have a large auditorium and I covered a lot of ground between opening the top door, letting groups in the bottom door, talking to the judge as needed and then going back and closing the bottom door, and then the top door as the groups started performing.  You get the idea. Heard a huge variety of things- but super enjoyed hearing the jazz bands and the woodwind and brass choirs.  Awesome stuff, and our school should be very proud.  They rocked the house!  I was also very impressed that our superintendent was there to watch solo and ensemble!!  Granted he is a "band guy", but I don't think I have EVER seen a Sup't at one of these in the MANY years I have been participating in them as organizer/mom/worker.  And trust me, I've been to a lot of them.  YAY Mr. Anderson!

Yesterday was also pretty epic in terms of what a progressive school we do have, especially when you compare to others of similar size around the state.  Let us just say, we are not rolling in dough at this point in time. I try to avoid, like the plague, ANY knowledge of the school's financial situation as I get too stressed out by it.  I can't even.  But virtually NO school in the state is "comfy" shall we say.  But we have managed- possibly through a little grant money, idk, I stay willfully ignorant- to become a school that is using one to one computing now.  We have enough small laptops for each student to use in the HS every day.  This is pretty cool, really, and yesterday was rollout day.  I really don't want to have this turn into a debate about anything, so if you have something negative to say, keep your mind OPEN for crying out loud, and know that I will delete your comment if you bum me out.  I know that this is an awesome thing, and we all know that computers are not "the wave of the future" or the "up  and coming new thing" but a fact of life.  And we are pulling our students, who traditionally are insulated from the rest of the world by virtue of our isolated geographical location, right up into a modern mode of learning that will involve more fluid ways of working instead of the regimented and rigid system of bells, clocks and separation of school from all other aspects of their life.  whew, not sure where all that came from.  But it is the truth!!  This is a good thing, even though we actually have some pretty close minded kiddos who think this is "stupid".  But fortunately, they will benefit from this, they just don't know it yet.  :)

So the next few days we will have a huge learning curve and things may not go smoothly all the time, but it will be a good thing in the end.  And like most things, in a year this big move will be a matter of fact and not at all a big deal.

Fortunately there will be things at school that do not happen virtually, things like, oh I don't know, the PLAY and ART on a canvas and MUSIC in an auditorium and SPORTS and RECESS and other group and individual physical activities.  Things that make a person complete, things that stretch the mind and enhance your creativity and ability to solve problems and work well with others, which is what we all need as we grow up and move on....  And remember this is a techie chick talking.....

Onto Wednesday, I hope to get home to rest for a while tonight, and I tell you people, this second week of no TV is killing me.  I want to sit and listen to the news and have something funny to relax me and take my mind off of whatever is bothering me.  Which I have a few things of this sort, but won't go into it now.....

Make sure to find the time to spread some joy!!!!  Avoid those joy stealers.

Play week, on it goes

Today is a weird day, as even though it is play week, a pause in the action is in place.  Today is one of those early dismiss days that we are cursed with occasionally have, where we as teachers get to have our homeroom kids for a couple hours and they get to look properly grumpy and we get to try to teach them something that they don't want to know about.  But sometimes they have to just suck it up and hear about some of the necessary evils in life, in this case- internet safety.  Yeah, they will love that.

But part 2 to this pause in the action is that usually we would have an equally compelling inservice afternoon full of fun and delight (you do know sarcasm when you hear it, right?) but INSTEAD, many of us are working at the District level Solo and Ensemble for band and choir that our school is hosting this afternoon.  What a cool way to spend the time from 2 - 8.....  Because I am like this, a former band mom and choir fan and generally bossy helpful person, I invited myself to work in the auditorium where I will have the SERIOUS PLEASURE of listening to the jazz band among other things! With any luck at all, I will be able to hear a bunch of brass music as well.  I know our kids will be well prepared, I hope the other schools are as well.  Whatever it is, the venue is a big room, so the big ensembles will be playing.  I miss those days of running all over the schools, listening to my boys and being all nervous about how they are going to do.....  it was fun and I got to go all over the state because of it.  So this is cool!

ANYWAY, I get to listen to music this afternoon and make sure the judge is happy and my partner gets to beat the people back who are trying to get into the room before the groups are done playing....  Good luck with that Tom.  Been there and done that!

So how did the dress rehearsal go?? REALLY well!!  I had a GOOD time putting makeup on the leads, I rocked the Lion's look and will be finessing the heck out of it as the days go on here.  We are pretty much ready to go, of course there are a few last minute things that keep my from putting my paint away yet.  But we have today!!

I want to be a makeup artist when I grow up!

Wicked Witches of the West!

I am feeling pretty optimistic right now, I know that I won't be home until later tonight, but that is fine.  Tomorrow it turns out Mr. Donner has to play at lenten services, so I will be done at 6!!!!!! I will definitely be spending some quality time at home after we get done with practice, or maybe I should post some grades at school.... oy.

Hope tomorrow will bring me the same sort of optimism!  And an outlook of joy!