Monday, February 6, 2012

Monday has spent much of her recent time reading...

Hello, girls! It's Monday!

So, I spent a lot of last week's post talking about the things I would normally talk about in a JAB post, in terms of my stress levels, but that doesn't mean I don't have things to talk about this week, too!

Thankfully, my stress levels have decreased noticeably since a week ago. This is due to many small changes -- my classes are now closed, so my rosters have settled; one class is at least two weeks ahead of schedule; we had one very successful afternoon of one act auditions, which provides good hope for tomorrow; and I got my first paycheck from the new job, so was able to do the grocery shopping I'd been putting off for about a week. And there's something about full cupboards that helps put minds at ease.

My classes and Horizon projects are my life at the moment, so I hope you won't mind if I go on about them. Who knows? Some of it might be interesting to you.

I am teaching two Story Theatre classes, whose objective is to adapt part of a work of children's literature for the stage. One class has nothing to report but a list of books still forty titles long. The other, though, is miles ahead of schedule and has their top five selections already in place, ready to choose their selection next meeting. They have a tough choice, between The World's Worst Fairy Godmother by Bruce Coville, The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forrester, Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer, "The Lost Girls" by Jane Yolen, and any of the Harry Potter books. Which means I have five books to read this week and find possible scenes from!

My original story class is formulating an interesting world. I was fearful for the first few moments of discussion that they were headed down the same path as every group of twelve year olds seems to come up with -- secret super powers and conspiracies. But after some gentle steering away from that, they've created a world that is actually very interesting to me. They've imagined a United States 600 years in the future, after we have reached the pinnacle of technological advancement and realized that all quality of life had subsequently disappeared. So society destroyed itself and built a new world out of the rubble, returning to pre-industrial society, where use of technology is taboo. The rest of it is too complicated and unsettled to get into, but the core idea is very interesting to me.

And, as I said, we had our first day of auditions for one acts today, and 20 students showed up! We'd like to get about 35-40 altogether, so if tomorrow pans out and is equally successful, we'll meet out goal! Which is very encouraging, especially since this project is brand new and my baby, and things like this are always a crapshoot in terms of how many students and what ages will show up.

And that's pretty much my life at the moment. Casting and scheduling and reading recommended children's books and typing up script selections. But the balls in the air are now at a manageable level. Also, I've started watching Downton Abbey, and I love it, which is bad, because I only have one episode left in season one, and that's as much as they have on Netflix. Why does British TV have to be so good???

The boyfriend has also been reading The Hunger Games. He's about 3/4 of the way through Catching Fire, and it's been immensely amusing to hear his commentary as he goes along. I can't wait for the movie!

I hope life around the globe is going well for all of you!

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