First Rehearsal

Today was my first rehearsal for the one-act I'm directing. It went alright, though I think I freaked the students out a bit. : ) I came in and was all business, talking about schedule and got right to the blocking. I'm not as warm and fuzzy/touchy feally as the other lady doing the Tuesday rehearsals. Ah well, I was actually able to accomplish stuff, so that's good.

As far as the cast, I've got the full spectrum. Only 5 students, but in those I have: the no-show lead, the prima donna (who, ironically, plays a prima donna), the inexperienced steriotypical JH "actor," the on par good natured fits the part actor, plus a wonderfully willing to help stage manager without any acting experience.

I was able to block about half the play today, which is good, since I want to get the whole thing blocked in 2 rehearsals. It was tricky and there will definatly be things I go back and change later, but it was decent for the first go at it. Part of what made it hard was that I was not only creating the blocking, but also had to write all of it down myself, so I really spent most of the time looking at the script and not as much looking at the actors.

Ok, I got distracted by something else, that's going to have to be it for this post.

Return of the Thespian

You know how God has funny ways of doing thing? Little sense of humor things that He does that remind us He's around, watching, and involved in our lives? He's being doing those fairly frequently in the last few weeks.

The most recent comes in the form of an old love: drama. I was just remarking to Mark (no pun intended) the other night after youth group that I miss doing drama. I miss the acting and all the fun of performing. I get pseudo-outlets in the JH group in the form of improv games at camps, so that's better than nothing.

Fast-forward to this past Wednesday. I saw a sign up at Skyview talking about auditions for one-act plays. "Cool," I thought, "Maybe I could help out w/ those or something. That would be fun." I discovered who was doing the one-acts and commented that it was cool that she was doing them. That was all. Next thing I know I get a call and she wants me to direct on of the one-acts! I told her I'd think about it, she gave me a copy of the script, I read it. As I read, all these ideas came flooding back from my theatre backrgound in HS and I remembered how much fun it all is!

Needless to say, I agreed to help direct one, so there I go! Since I'm just para-subbing right now, I've got the time after school: no lesson prep. We'll see how it goes. I'm probably a bit rusty, but hopefully it'll still be fun for me and the students!

PS Here's the play I'm probably doing: The Actor's Nightmare.

Paid to do homework

Yes, it's true, I have gotten paid to do my homework this week. In fact, I'm getting paid to write this blog entry right now as well. A bit of background: For the last 3 days I've been para-educator subing at the school I student taught at, which has been cool. The para I'm subbing for does the student/teacher assisting for 3 periods and runs the computer lab the other 3. But when there's no one in the lab, like now, I don't have anything to do, so I get to spend the time doing what I want (like this blog entry or doing HW).

So things are going well so far. I'm getting frustrated w/ the portfolio at the U, but I keep telling myself that it's just the last hoop I have to jump thru for the U and then I'm done. The fact that I only have to go once a week helps alot too. : )

I don't think I mentioned anything about how the WEST-E went last Saturday. Well, not as well as I would have liked. It was 150 questions in 120 minutes. All the Qs are multiple choice, but often have data, graphs, and/or decriptive paragraphs to read before being able to answer the questions. Needless to say, I barely got an answer for ever question, let alone the right answer. There were things on the test I had never learned before, and there were things that I remember learning but not really retaining (like most of the stuff from my genetics class). So I'm not feeling super confident in my passing of the test, but I'm hopefull. Either way I won't get the added Biology endrosement until after I've been teaching 90 days (dumb UW reqs).

Looking forward to this Sunday evening where I'll be getting together w/ some friends for something we've been trying to schedule/plan since early December. I'm looking forward to it, and since the following Monday is MLK Jr. Day, most of us don't work or have class, so we could potentially stay up to all hours partying! (note word choice: potentially) : )

Yea Jobs!

It's taken longer that I'd have liked, but I think I've got the employment thing worked out for the quarter. Two days ago I got a call from BCS. They took some specific information from me and told me that I'm now in the sub pool. I don't know how frequently I'll get called, but its good to know that they do have my info and I could get a call any day.

This morning I met one of my fellow MIT students at the district office for Northshore SD and talked to the sub office about being a substitute para-educator. I thought I'd have to beg and plead, but instead the sub lady seemed as excited as I was to make it happen! For those of you who don't know, para-educators are like teacher's aids and don't require state certification to be employed, so I don't have to wait to do it, I can start tomorrow!

I won't have "regular" hours that I can count on, but hopefully between the two I should be able to keep busy enough to not have to look for anything else. The advantage to these two jobs, besides them not being retail, is that they are both in schools, where I want to be anyway. Yea God!