Wish Come True

Last Summer, right before leaving for Oxford

This blog might sound a little corny, but sometimes wishes do come true, even if it takes a while.  I was a romantic for a long time, yet never had a date on Valentine's Day or my birthday (today).  For a decade my birthday wish when I blew out candles was always the same.  As cliched as it sounds, I wished for true love.  Well, now it has finally come true, as I am with the love of my life Rachel.  It took a while, but in the end my dream was realized.

The End in Sight

Tintagel

With only two days left as a student teacher, finished work in my Education class, and the upcoming performance of Stuck, my MA thesis, the end is in sight.  It has been a long climb, both through undergrad and graduate school, but this will be the end of my degree-seeking schooling.  I am very excited.

Easter

Had a lovely Easter at my parent's house. Rachel is wonderful with my nephews, and my mom made a delicious (Italian) dinner. Overall a very nice day.

Remembering

I had a dentist appointment and he asked what I had been up to over the past few months.  I told him my time abroad was the best time of my life.  Sometimes it is simply nice to remember...

Glastonbury Tor

Idioms and Spring Break

Spring Break is finally here!

Idiomatic phrases are interesting.  My grandmother, for instance calls AAA, the "three A's" and not "Triple A". Rachel showed me an idiomatic phrase I hadn't really noticed when giving me directions.  All of her directions are to "red lights".  This is what she calls traffic lights (whether red, green, or yellow- they are always "red lights").  I find such things quirky but fun.

Thoughts

I apologize for not updating this more frequently, I have been far too busy.  Now it is almost Spring Break, and things are winding down.  Cabaret, which I designed, is over.  Learned Ladies, which I helped with, opens next weekend.  And I only have three weeks of student teaching (around two weeks off for spring break) left.  Things are looking up, and I am very happy.

Still, a couple of disappointing moments.  First, Cabaret.  This was the first time Rachel had seen one of my set designs.  It was also the first time I've been to a show I designed, which I hadn't been around at all during any of the building (usually shows I design that I see are built while I'm there).  Frankly, the set looked poor.  They used primary colors for spray paint that didn't work.  There was a mis-communication about the height of one major set piece, which ended up being built far too short.  And the performance I attended with Rachel was frankly a bit of a mess.  I am looking forward to bringing her to a show I am completely in charge of, and can really impress her with.

 
My second comment is on Hunger Games. I liked the trilogy a lot, so took Rachel to the movie as our date week for this week.  As I sat watching the movie, the man to my right had his phone out texting during the entire film.  The screen of this guy's phone was very bright, and very distracting.  Behind us were two babies, who added quite a bit of crying.  Meanwhile, in the film itself, there was a ton of hand-held camera use and fast cutting.  The first fifteen minutes of the film made me so dizzy that I had to look away every few minutes.  I know this was a choice to help the audience get into Katniss's head, but honestly the camerawork and editing were distracting, and I felt they took away more than they added.  Overall, very good film though.

It's hard to sound negative in a blog, when everything in my life is going so well.  Just got a summer job at Imagination Stage, student teaching's winding down, and my co-operating teacher's planning a trip to London.  She's asked for advice on where to go, which reminded me of my wonderful time abroad.  For that reason, I've decided to start adding some of my favorite pics to blog entries, just to remind me and my readers.  Here are two:

Not my favorite pic, but appropriate for this blog- a statue in Delft, which I thought was the Cornucopia from  Hunger Games

Almost time for the Olympics...

When it Rains...

It pours.

This week, I collected major assignments from all of my classes, and am working with an extra class for another teacher. On top of that, I received both of my comprehensive final essays (Comps) and a major Lit Review essay for the education classes. Feeling swamped... Stephen Colbert had a guest this week who discussed how all internships should be paid. He went on to explain that it was unfair to expect work from anyone without paying them. This is interesting. As a student teacher, I am working full time for a semester and am not paid. Instead, I had to pay for the opportunity to student teach, and paid my university over 30 thousand dollars for the "privilege" of student teaching. In other words, I paid more than I would have made for a semester's worth of work. This is a very strange system, and I personally have felt discouraged a number of times for doing all of this work without pay.

And back to the grindstone...