Performance Week!

Wellwellwell it's been a while!  

I'm not dead yet.... :D

College Algebra/trig has been going well....so far it's just been 'review'  :P   But it's a good class...very small actually. The teacher is INSANE but very awesome :) and I've got a whole page of quotes from algebra...some from students but mostly Ms. Kimes  :)  It tells you something that she's got a little note on her filing cabinet: 'C___ High School,  ___ Kimes   Evil Cackle'   :D

Rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet are also going...well...ish. INTENSE.  Things got fast and furious about Tuesday of last week, with long rehearsals and lack of sleep.   Wednesday night I came home from a late rehearsal, did math, and around 10 PM I came to the realization that 'Oh crud we really should have competed for the Woodie Flowers award.'  (Robotics stuff: in honor of one of FIRST's founders, Woodie Flowers, it celebrates the mentor [robotics coach-type] who best embodies the spirit of FIRST.)  Well as usual our whole team was too busy building the robot to write an essay, and nobody actually thought of it except ME the DAY BEFORE the essay was due.   And of course I was finishing up Chairman's Award essay and stuff. 

One of our mentors has worked harder than anyone for the past 8 years or so, the team wouldn't exist without him.   Nobody from our team has ever been nominated for WF. I decided that if he can give hours of time, work practically a second job (that's what robotics is :P ) I can stay up and write an essay....

Thankfully there was a word limit, so it only took me about two hours. Writing an essay at midnight is a really exhilarating experience, as was getting up for school next day, Thursday. Rehearsal as usual.

There was a happy moment when I was curled up on the floor backstage trying to catch 40 winks when somebody shouted onstage, and I panicked, thinking it might be me needed, and sat up and banged my head on this pile of heavy metal thingees. Promptly cracked up. Later I managed to stand up directly under another hard boxy thing....fun times :)

 Friday our rehearsal started as usual at 3:30 in the afternoon. Cue-to-cue: the tech people are working on lighting. Actors say a line, stop. Wait. Wait some more. Skip to the end of the scene and wait some more.  Took hours to get through the first act. We were there til 11 Pm.   

It was also the first time run crew (shlepping sets and props and furniture) was actually working with servants (moving more shtuffs for scenes). 

As a Capulet servant, I (with 4-ish other servants) move these four potted trees on and offstage a LOT. Like after every third scene. We only started doing this in the past few days. Oh, and we're still acting in a couple scenes.  

Those confounded trees haunt my every waking thought. Before Friday's rehearsal I had been on top of things, and printed out a list of every scene and what had to be moved on stage. (We are now on the third revision of this important list.)

Run crew and fellow servants love me. There are a total of three people on run crew which is NOT enough. It got really exciting when the four trees blossomed to six, spread amongst us four servants (has to be servants because it's in the scene). 

And there's this miserable bench that I and another girl have to get on and offstage. There was one time when she wasn't there and I raced out onstage to grab it, to cheers from the techies in the audience....a great moment :) 

There was an issue getting home, so I got to hang round the theatre later than almost anybody else. My dad was working late on the robot and did not get home til 1:30 that morning. 

I dreamed all night about rehearsal, and those bloody trees! XD

Saturday proved even more interesting, with a second revision of the master-list, which has made run crew adore me :P   

 This time it was my turn to miss my cue with that blasted bench. Twice. The first time because I thought I had more time than I did, and was marshalling the troops for the next tree-moving bit. ARGH. Then I was all primed to make sure I didn't miss the next bench-scene, and took a SECOND to try and find tree-people, and BAM missed the entrance. Apologies all round, franticness. 

After about 1 pm I rushed cross-town to robotics scrimmage; big pre-competition thingee before the robot is boxed up Tuesday night. We did pretty well, except for a tip-over which resulted in something coming loose, and also the treads came off one wheel....thank goodness for epoxy! 

Stayed there til 7 when my mom came and rescued me from the deadly-dullness of standing-around-not-being-able-to-help-much (as was most of the team, it was just programming issues at that point.) 

My dad was really suffering, he couldn't help much either and was holed up trying not to fall asleep....commented that it was almost like being stuck in an airport at 1 AM.   He got home pretty early thankfully: 9:30. 

I went to bed at 8:30 and got about 12 hours of sleep...off to rehearsal at 1 this afternoon to find it had been cancelled :( I was really wanting to run through again with crew, those trees....Director was beyond enthused about my scene list and general preparedness, commented on my responsible-ness =D  which made me happy.