End of Internship :(

So it has ended. And I cried a little, because I'm going to miss it. Yesterday was my final day and it was only a half day. We ran Tommy and I took some photos. Some of them turned out really nice, which makes me happy. We did some clean-up afterwards and then it opened last night. I said goodbye to everyone and thanked them for the awesome time and how great they've been. I'm going to write thank-you cards after I finish this blog and get them mailed out by tomorrow. There is a possibility that they'll hire me in January to work as the ALD for Babe (http://www.childrenstheatre.org/2011/babe.html). Again, it's just a possibility that I'll be hired, but it makes me really happy that they want me back. I'd love to work there again! And this time I'd get to work in their other space, which would be a great experience for me.

But I'm pretty sad to be leaving. I met a lot of great people and have no other plans for the summer. I'll probably camp with my family and hopefully make it back up here for Trevor's birthday party next weekend.

In other news, I hung out with my bff from high school, Jackie. She is a CA at the U of M and just moved in on Wednesday. I helped her unpack and we went to Mesa Pizza, where I had a slice of chicken cordon bleu pizza. It was delicious, like every other slice of pizza I've ever had there. Then we visited with one of her friends whom I've met before. She left yesterday to study abroad for the semester, so I guess I won't see her again for a while, which is too bad but I'm sure she'll have a phenomenal time. I left my friend to make her door decs and headed back to the apartment before my final day, which didn't start until 11:30. I had to park on the top of the parking ramp yesterday, which totally sucks because then your car is REALLY hot instead of just pretty hot from being in the covered ramp. Thus is life.

Last night I tried to drive to Trevor's to celebrate his birthday with him, but it was raining really hard and I had to turn around because my wipers don't work right. However, I do have an appointment for my car on Tuesday, so hopefully it will be fixed then. The rain did let up after about an hour or so and I made it safely to Trevor's where I spent the night. One of his friends came over as well and we talked until we were all too lame and tired to talk anymore. Trevor and I slept in, ate some eggs and toast, and then bummed until he had to get ready for work. It's been a pretty uneventful day, but definitely relaxing. I've looked up what I might get my friends for their wedding and am going to put together a resume to apply for some extra work this fall. I'm trying to decide which jobs to apply for right now. One has a higher level of commitment, but thus a higher wage. I need to really sit down and figure out how many hours a week I can work on top of my work study before I apply to anything.

I guess that's all the excitement in my life. I'm going to pick up my aunt from the airport today. She's been gone since Sunday, so I've had the place to myself. It's been quiet and kind of boring. I'll be glad to have her back.

You guys should definitely let me know what's been going on in your lives. The thing about blogging is that not only do I now know who is reading it, but I never get to hear from anyone else who doesn't blog or call me. So keep in touch, because I miss that! And don't with the words suck too!

Love,

Kiki

Yay Trevor!

I'm sitting here with Trevor waiting for Fox to tell us about the deal with the flight attendant. We've been waiting for about an hour. It's pretty lame. He's waiting out the rain by chillin' with me. :D He came to visit me so we could hang out. We watched the finale of Hell's Kitchen and then watched Masterchef. That was okay, but not great. Hell's Kitchen is a better show.

Today at work was great. We did a combo between dry tech and Q-2-Q, which went quite smoothly. The kids were really patient, which was great. I felt pretty on top of things, despite the large number of cues that involved moving lights which I needed to track in both the Q list and the Moving Light Palette list. Switching around between these lists and the lightwright file makes it a bit crazy, but the LD told me that I was incredibly helpful today and that I was very on top of things. That made me super happy and quite proud of myself. So yay! I'm a bit stiff from sitting all day, but I've been trying to stretch and move a little. I should probably try harder, but I'm tired so I'm mostly just bumming. Otherwise, I had an uneventful day. Hanging with Trevor is awesome (of course!) and I'm glad I have awesome friends. I should call Matt back and see how Cali is doing at some point tonight, but I'm going to wait and see if Fox tells me about the airline attendant instead of the primaries. Not that they don't matter, but they can take 2 minutes out to talk about it instead of talking to politicians at their parties and asking them if they think they're going to win and what they're going to do. Tom Emmer has been especially intriguing. He's going to introduce himself. That's all I got out of the 5 minute conversation he had with Fox on their Fox Box Live Stream with the incredible lag.

Anyway, I'm glad that you still read my blog and know that even if you with the words suck too, you can always talk to a politician. They with the words suck more.

I leave you with this: "We're the kind of guy..." -Tom Emmer

Because they're just that kind of guy. I don't even remember the point of that sentence. I'm sure it was inspiring.

Changeover

Today was changeover from Suessical to The Who's Tommy. We focused a few more lights today and changed a few gobos. We also pulled some colors and set footlights and striplights. It went pretty smoothly and I felt in control of the paperwork, which was a good feeling. I didn't feel panicky about how much I had to do and I understood what was going on, so that made me happy.

On a less than great note, I didn't feel very good when I was leaving work today. I still feel a bit off (I had some pretty strong stomach pains that are much less now) but I know that I will be going to work tomorrow morning unless they are as bad as they were this afternoon. I definitely don't want to miss tomorrow because I have so much to do and I don't want that to fall on anyone else. Tomorrow is when I do most of the work that needs to be done by an assistant. Actually, I'd probably still go to work anyway unless I thought I was going to throw up on the drive there. I was a bit worried that I might either throw up or pass out this afternoon. I felt a little dizzy for a while, but just made sure to drink some water and move slowly. I took a 2-hour nap and some ibprofen. That seemed to help enough. I made cheesy chicken for dinner, which still sounded good enough to eat. After eating that, I felt quite a bit better. I'm planning on drinking a lot of water and just making sure to take things slow. Luckily, I'll be stuck sitting all day tomorrow and won't have an issue with feeling light-headed. They're all very nice at work, so I know that if I am feeling really off, I can step out for a minute and breathe. Not that I'd want to go outside because it is far warmer out there than it is inside the theatre. In fact, it's usually freezing inside and I plan on bringing a sweatshirt to work tomorrow despite the predicted 87% humidity and high of 90 degrees. It's really cold in there!

The last exciting thing I did today was watch Hell's Kitchen. Tomorrow night is the finale. I'm very happy with the 2 finalists. I don't want to put their names in here because my lazy boyfriend hasn't watched it in awhile and may want to watch the last few episodes instead of reading what I wrote here. Also, most of you don't give a shit and would probably watch it yourselves if you did.

That's all I got. I'm in a little bit of a sour mood having spent most of my afternoon laying down (I hate sitting still when I have other things to be doing), so I apologize for that. But I hope you will still read my lovely blog and that you with the words won't suck as much as I do.

Love,

Kiki

Warning: Spider photos below!

Friday

Friday was the last day of tech for Suessical the Musical. I enjoyed watching the kids one last time at the invite-a-dress that started at 2pm. Several of the kids had friends and family there because the show had sold out over a week ago and many parents did not get tickets. They didn't have the ability to add a show because the lobby space was being used for a wedding reception Saturday evening, which is when the added show would have taken place. I really like the soundtrack for the show and the kids did an amazing job with it too. The lights were splendid, of course! In all seriousness, I think Becky did a great job with the lights, especially considering how little time we had to get everything done. I was impressed. My only jobs were to keep track of the cue lists, moving lights palettes, and update the lightwright file. It was a lot of work, but after having done my own design in entirety, it didn't really seem that bad. All in all, I really enjoyed the experience and am looking forward to working on Tommy next week with the teenage group. They are alloted more tech time, so it could be more complicated and thus a more meaningful experience for my future lighting career. :D Again, really excited.

Friday night I came home and my aunt and I went shopping. She is leaving for a seminar this week, so we went and picked up a few things she needed for her trip. Then she decided that we should go shopping for me, so she bought me a few back-to-school tops and an adorable jacket. I wore one of them yesterday when I went to MOA with Matt and his family and even wore the jacket when we were inside the mall (it's cold in there!). So my aunt again spent too much money on me, but I really appreciate it and had a great time shopping with her. A good time was had by all!

Saturday morning my aunt had to leave for work at 6:30. I know she was talking to me while I was asleep, but I definitely did not remember most of what she said. She did tell me that I could park in her garage stall if there was hail, but when I woke up at 10, it was sunny. If there was hail, I missed it and my car was outside. I didn't see any damage though, so it all turned out okay. Anyway, I woke up and saw a spider in the bathtub! I've hidden the picture off the screen so people who hate spiders don't have to look at it. I'm nice like that.

So I was about to take a shower and there was a spider in the tub! I immediately ran to get my camera because he (or she) looked cool.

It's probably the largest spider I've seen indoors. I think it crawled up out of the drain, which is a little creepy, but he's dead now. I tried to wash him down the drain (which is why he is sitting on the wet drain in the second picture) after I photographed him, but he just clung onto it and wouldn't go down. I took a few more photos and then killed him with a paper towel and threw him away. I have a policy that spiders can live until they are in my way. He was definitely in my way.

Anyway, I managed to shower without any further incidences and met up with Matt and his family at the Mall of America. It took me a little while to park, but I ended up with a rockin' spot. I then helped Matt find some shorts for himself and his brother and then waited while they took a while to try things on. Matt's mother and I talked about his butt while he was changing and then both had to approve of it before he could buy the shorts. I think we were looking for slightly different things, but we both approved. :D Anyway, his brother took a long time because he was trying on shirts and shorts and we approved 2/3 shirts and a few pairs of shorts for him too. Pretty exciting!

Then we went to pick up Matt's cello, which had been repaired after the neck broke off. He was incredibly happy to get his cello back, which I definitely understand. So then we went back to the mall to meet up with his family. They decided to head home after a while and we went out to dinner at a restaurant in Woodbury that I don't remember the name of. Something with the word Sun in it. Anyway, I had a fantastic calzone and Matt had the city burger, both of which I highly recommend. I probably liked the city burger a little bit better, but I definitely couldn't complain about the calzone. We enjoyed dinner and drove back to MOA where my car was parked. We wandered around the mall a bit more until everything was starting to close. Then we sat in my overly hot car and talked for a bit more before we both headed home. I probably won't see him again until either Trevor's birthday celebration in 2 weeks or maybe the state fair. He'll be away for a while :( so I definitely won't see him until Trevor's party.

In the meantime, I'm working on my honors project today and will be hanging out with both Trevor and Jackie this week. :D It should be a great time. I only have 4 days left of my internship :( but it should really be awesome. I can't believe it's almost over and that I'll be going back home to get ready for school! One last semester. That will probably fly by too. I'll be blogging and no one will be reading unless they're procrastinating like me. Okay, so a lot of you will still be reading. Anyway, I should get going because I have a lot of things I want to accomplish today. Have a fantastic day and don't with the words suck too much.

Love,

Kiki

I'm a bad blogger

Sorry guys, I haven't been on all week! I'm back to work this week, but it's been a much shorter week. Having not worked Monday, I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday. I went in on Tuesday and recorded lights on the focus charts. It was a little crazy because I usually don't have that many people asking me to write down so much. I've got most of it entered into the computer, but somehow I accidentally deleted 2 lights. Oops. I'm going to fix it tomorrow morning. Wednesday I spent the entire day entering that information into the Lightwright file. I did go pick up my little brother, who came to visit me and my aunt. They went fishing on Tuesday, but he watched a run of the show with me yesterday. He went back home this morning while I was at work. Today we did dry tech with the director, Q2Q, and 1st run. It was crazy because in a "higher" level show (technically speaking) that takes 3 days. I know that they move this fast in summer stock theatre too, but it's sort of crazy to think that we did dry tech less than 12 hours ago and 24 hours from now it will have already opened. I've never done summer stock theatre. That's my goal for next summer. In the meantime, I'm trying to make sure that I know what my goals are for this project coming up in the fall. I also need to create some goals for our student chapter of USITT and write my thank you cards for this internship. I'm hoping to get some of that done this weekend. I also hope to see Matt this weekend before he goes on a family vacation for 11 days. By the time he gets back, I'll be back in k-town. I may see him on the 21st for Trevor's birthday, but if I can't make it up for that I won't see him until school starts the day after labor day. In the meantime, I'm going to play a few games of sudoku online before settling in with my script. I can stay up late tonight because tech doesn't start until 11:30am. I might go see the run through of Tommy, which opens next week. That's at 10:30. Before that though, I need to make those 2 lights magically reappear in the paperwork. Hopefully it won't take more than a half hour because then I can just get there at 10 and get all my shit done before the run. I still get to sleep in until 8! Hooray!

The highlight of my week was celebrating my roommate's 21st birthday with her and all of our friends who could make it. We had a fantastic time and I was way too tired at work today. But she was worth it, because she's awesome. Love you, Homes!

That's all of the excitement in my life for now. There are some changes going on with the honors project, but I'll keep you posted on that as things get finalized. We're in a state of flux at the moment, but I have absolute faith this will still all work out for the best. I love the people I'm working with and can't wait to really get started in the rehearsal process!

In the meantime, I've not sucked with words too much, but have no fear: I with the words, suck too.

In Fargo

So much has happened since I last posted! I'm currently in Fargo on my aunt's super comfortable love seat (dubbed the Love Seat of Doom for it's sneaky way of making you fall asleep on it. There is also a Couch of Death which takes far less time to create the same effect). I have a lot to catch up on, so I'll divide it nicely into days for those of you who don't care what I do on weekends and only want to read about my internship.

Friday

Friday morning I learned how to solder! It was pretty cool because it is something I've wanted to learn how to do for a while now but haven't really had the chance. After I learned all there was to learn about soldering, I completed the strings of Christmas lights that we were putting on the shopping cart. I of course got to finish decorating afterwards. We then went out to lunch as a group to Green Mill. That was a lot of fun. It was the entire lighting crew plus the fantastic woman from props. She's a lot of fun to talk to and is very good at what she does.

After Lunch, I talked to my supervisor about my responsibilities for next week (this week, I guess. Yikes!) and I organized the binder full of focus charts that we will be using on Tuesday. By "we" I mean that everyone will be shouting information at me from the ceiling while I write down the focus notes as efficiently and clearly as possible. It should be interesting. Luckily, there is a lot of "circle A or B" type things so that I can keep moving quickly. I learned their standard abbreviations, which is definitely helpful. I'm excited for Tuesday and am trying to figure out what parts of this tech process that I want to integrate into my own this fall. I'll definitely keep you up to date on any further decisions with that. I'm leaning towards a full cue list, but the focus charts may be difficult without an assistant and are generally used for rep plots and remounting shows. It could be a good thing for my portfolio though.

After work, I drove to my grandmother's house and spent the night (in a real bed!) before heading off to Fargo!

Saturday

The reason that we decided to drive to Fargo was to see play and to visit my aunt whom I stayed with last summer. We left at 7am and arrived around noon. The construction wasn't bad, but we did run into some fog for nearly the first two hours. Other than that, I slept quite a bit and then helped direct my grandmother through the construction near the end.

After arriving, we hauled our overly large amount of stuff up to the 3rd floor and got settled in. We just hung out for a while and then decided to head out and look at the area. My grandmother hasn't been here in 4 years. She hadn't seen much of the recent development so my aunt drove us through it all. I saw most of it last year, but there has been a great deal of construction even since last year. The biggest changes here have been the addition of the entrance to the interstate they were working on last summer and the new Wal-Mart. The funniest things about the new Wal-Mart was that my aunt referred to it as the "rich people's Wal-Mart." I thought this seemed like quite the oxymoron. It is a brick building and it is laid out similar to every other Wal-Mart I've ever been in except that the aisles are wider. She says that they don't have as good of a selection as other Wal-Marts, but it's nicer because it is quieter. We went in there for some stuff to put on our freakin' bug bites and at 11:30 pm on Saturday I saw a teenage girl wearing a red tube top that showed her mid-driff. I didn't know what anyone still did that. I thought that was a stupid 90's thing that Brittany Spears carried over into the 2000s before it's deserved death. She looked like a skanky 13-year-old. I guess I just don't see even that grade of white-trash at our Wal-Mart, so I was fairly appalled.

Anyway, I skipped a bit ahead. We drove by the "rich people's Wal-Mart" and then drove around the construction towards the gated community. There are $500k+ houses in that area and they are ridiculously tall. It's crazy. We talked about how the Fargo-Moorhead area is developing only large, expensive houses so that only the elite can own property. Over half of Fargo rents because of this. It's interesting, but certainly not encouraging as we watched the national salary gap widen.

Anyway, we picked up our tickets at the Hornbachers next to the gated community and headed home. Luckily we had an early dinner when we got there or we would have had to figure something else out for dinner because we lost power for 2 hours. We got it back in time to get ready to go, but we got fairly warm without A/C. However, we managed to pass the time by looking at my aunt's drafting of her dream home. It's out of her budget, but very beautiful and large. Lots of closet space and bedrooms. And large TVs for my uncle. It's for a 100 ft. lot and has a 1st floor and a basement. It also has a beautiful porch and a formal dining room. Anyway, we critiqued it and tried to find ways to make it better. She has an optional addition that allows room for a sitting room at the front of the house and would offer a great space to put the Christmas tree so that you could see it from the road. It also has a 3 stall garage, which also appeals to my uncle.

Anyway, the power came back on and we got ready to go. We decided to only put buy spray on our ankles because we didn't have any problems with bugs last year. Unfortunately, the bugs were super horrible and the 1st act of the show was miserable for us. It must have been bad for everyone because they made an announcement at intermission that there was bug spray available for anyone who needed it. We took full advantage of that and the 2nd act was better, though not perfect. (That's why we had to go to Wal-Mart at 11:30 last night.)

As far as the play itself went, I think I enjoyed last year's show better. The show was Anything Goes. They did a fairly nice job with it and there were some very talented students. It was certainly impressive once you realize that it is all high school students, but I expected a bit more after last year. The thing that probably bugged me the most was that the follow-spot operators (who were quite young) did not have steady hands. One for sure was very shaky and there were times when the actors' faces were dark for a second or two. I'm sure it didn't bother others as much as it bothered me, but I found it very distracting.

Also, during intermission I saw 3 people that I couldn't tell if they were men or women. I know it's an odd human fascination to know which gender people are, but I did wonder about it nonetheless. I also know that I don't get out to large crowds like that very often, but I certainly haven't seen that many people of questionable gender in one place ever. Silly Moorhead.

After getting home from the play around midnight, we pumped up the aerobed and my grandmother and I settled in for the night. I had a dream that one of my co-workers was my brother and I was glad that we had a good relationship. It was like with my actual brother, whom I don't talk to very often, but when we do we talk for quite a while and always get along well. I enjoy spending time with him. So I guess it's cool that I get along with my co-worker well enough that I feel like we're pretty close. That's my odd comment of the day. Tuesday will be my last day working with him, which will make me really sad. I'll certainly miss working with him. :(

Sunday

So after I woke up from that dream, I rolled out of bed at 9:00. It was pretty sweet. Then I ate a few mini-muffins and took a shower before we went to church. I like my aunt's church. It's very pretty and kid-friendly. The adorable little Asian boy in front of us took most of my attention so I didn't pay much attention, but I enjoyed the service today. They do a lot of singing, which is better than just listening to lectures, so it's fun.

We came home and relaxed for a while, ate a small lunch and headed out to the mall. It's not a huge mall, but we had fun. I tried on one pair of pants, but I hated them. I did buy a much-needed belt and my grandmother bought 2 shirts and a new piece for her mixer that scrapes the sides of the bowl so that it mixes everything without having to stop and mix the crap that gets stuck to the sides. I think it's pretty neat. Also, I had a Snickers Blizzard from DQ, which was tasty.

We came home and made a steak dinner and checked the twins score (we won!). We then watched Big Brother (more lame drama), Ice Road Truckers, and I'm currently settling in for Design Star.

I'm sure you're glad I finally reached the end of my weekend, so I'll stop writing now. Enjoy your evening and look for an update Tuesday (tomorrow is just driving) unless I feel super motivated tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday, so let's just say that you'll with the words suck too!

Resume workshop and a shopping cart

So today I did a few exciting things. It started off with fetching a few things from upstairs (yippee, stair-climbing!) and then cleaning strip lights. I bruised my shin pretty good when I picked one up and it swung into my leg because the tilt wasn't tight. That was pretty cool. Then I helped focus a few lights and then it was break time! Woo! I'm in a silly mood tonight, I apologize. Anyway, after break I helped haul truss up to the mezzanine level using the chain motors, which is always exciting. We then cleaned some scrollers. I watched my coworker lose her cleaning paper towel (which she had just minutes before told me to hold onto tightly when doing this) lose her pape rtowel in the scroller roll as she lost her grip and it rolled up. It was kind of funny because it moves really fast and there is nothing you can do once you lose it but turn it off and move the scrollers back manually. She lost it at the beginning of the scroll, so it took a while to get it back. Their scrollers are really cool because they have 2 color scrolls so you can mix to create colors. I throughly enjoyed playing with the handy little color wheel that it comes with. Color mixing never ceases to amaze me.

After lunch I returned to the shop and started wrapping LED christmas lights around a shopping cart, or as it may happen to be, the "pinball machine" in Tommy. I felt pretty awesome, lol. That took me quite some time so I ended up spending most of my post-lunch/pre-2nd break time working on that. I returned briefly after 2nd break to staple some lights to the empty picture frame before bustin' out the portfolio. I showed it to my supervisors, which turned out to be both good practice and very helpful. We also looked over my resume before I headed to the intern resume workshop at 5:15. It was supposed to end around 7, but I ended up staying almost 45 minutes late because I wanted to share my portfolio with the woman running the session, who happens to be the one who does almost all of the hiring at CTC. It was great and I took notes, even on stuff I thought I should already know but just really wanted to remember.

I'm currently waiting for my aunt to get home. I called her at 7:45 and she said she'd be home in a half hour. I'm not surprised that it is already 9:00 and she isn't here. She's usually late for most things (though not work, I would imagine. I don't really know). My plans for the evening are to watch Big Brother (again, because I'm cool like that) and then to focus on sound research for my honors project because I have a hard time focusing on that, unlike with lighting research. I tend to get carried away with lighting research and end up doing it for hours at a time. Sound research ends up boring me or I forget to pay attention to the music I have playing in the background (I've got some Debussy playing right now, but I don't think it is what I'm looking for. Too mellow thus far). Otherwise I've just been chillin', drinking some blue moon and eating the nasty Subway I got from one connected to a gas station at 8:00. I know, terrible idea. But it sounded good until I saw the lettuce and tomatoes. I dubbed them too nasty to eat and settled for the hard cucumbers and dried out green peppers. The spinach was the only thing that tasted okay, other than the chicken. I don't really want to talk about it any more.

So that was my overly exciting day. I'm not certain yet if I'm going to bring my laptop to my other aunt's apartment in Fargo this weekend. If I don't, I probably won't blog until Monday when I return. After tomorrow, I don't work again until Tuesday.

Good Changes

So I changed my background today! I'm sure you all noticed right away. It's definitely different and I like it. :D Anyway, today I got to work with the board operator and we were huge geeks and talked about the differences between the boards that we've worked with. I learned the board language for the Congo Jr. today. The Ion board is a command line board that takes commands like we say them: (channel) X @ (level) XX% Enter. No buttons need be pushed to imply channel or level, as the board understands that this is what you mean (unless you want to specify an address instead, but we won't go into that). Congo and Congo Jr are completely different: XX Chan XX Level @. The first X is the channel, then you need to specify it as a channel. Same with the level. the @ serves as the "Enter" that is required for the Ion. To choose multiple channels on the Ion, we type XX "thru" XX @. We can also capture non-sequential channels by using the "+" symbol. The Congo reads as such: XX Chan XX Thru XX Level @ (or replace the thru with an "+" to select non sequential numbers). Patrick, you're probably the only one still reading this, but I wanted to record this for my own records so I can remember this. If you have any other more specific questions, feel free to ask me and I'll try to remember or I'll go ask or figure it out at work. One co-worker said that this is how most boards work and the Ion and other "more user friendly" boards are taking an extra step to make it work that way. It makes me feel good that I have the knowledge to use both types of boards. :D

The Congo Jr not only needs a different order, but needs you to choose a level that is between 0 and 255. She explained it to me as a part of the pixels or something, but I don't quite remember. It's a bit confusing. The board language requires me to think a bit, but isn't too terribly hard to understand. It's really just the habit that's holding me back.

Also, my co-worker and I had a lengthy discussion about the difference between follow times and wait times (they're the same thing with a completely different way of thinking and programming. A follow cue goes into the first cue of the 2 that are linked and requires the addition of the cue time to the amount you would like to follow, while the wait time is in the second cue and needs only the amount of time you intend to wait. Neither action requires the operator to hit Go for the 2nd cue to take place.

Other nerdy conversations included the board language involving "cues," "parts," and that one that basically means cues in their board but is called something else. I think it started with a P but wasn't part. Palettes maybe? Anyway, it was a cool conversation and I'm glad I had that opportunity today.

My favorite button on the Ion is the Undo button. This button does not exist on a non-command line board, which is a tad scary to me. She said she cannot undo something once it has been recorded and can only do the equivalent of our "Go To Cue" button of restoring to the latest recorded cue. Any other changes made since the last record cannot be undone without undoing everything that has been undone since the last record. It's definitely something most designers don't want to hear ("I can't restore that without undoing everything we've just done."), but I think it makes the designers more responsible for keeping track of the changes they are making. The board ops need to be very attentive because recording into the wrong cue could be disastrous. All we have to do is hit "undo" and rerecord the cue as the cue # we wanted.

Anyway, the other things I did today were hang lights on the truss, helped with some uprigging of safety equipment, put to use my new rigging knowledge, and saved 4 things from being raised up on the truss, not to be seen again until focus next Tuesday. I also ran some cables (100' socapex multicables are incredibly heavy!) and tied them up so that they were out of the way. I also saw intern Kevin today in passing and am looking forward to sharing my portfolio with Becky tomorrow. It's been something I've wanted to do and I'm glad that she is able to do this. I will be attending a resume workshop tomorrow after work with the production manager, which I hope is very helpful. I'll keep you up to date.

Tonight when I got home I did some more image researching that I think will help me determine the quality and levels of light I would like to use in our play this fall. It also helped me look at the use of texture and how the subtle color shifts in old photographs affect our interpretation of the mood and atmosphere. If I can combine this with the right music for either complementary or ironic combinations to create the right mood. I think this has been a very helpful step in the process.

Last night's grad school search has left me thinking more seriously about two schools (but I'm certainly not done exploring yet!) : Northwestern University in Chicago and Tulane University in New Orleans. I'm very excited to learn more about other programs, but these are ones that have peaked my interest for various reasons. I'm learning more about what I'm looking for and am trying to do the same for jobs by sorting through job descriptions posted online. Whether or not I'm qualified for the job isn't what I'm looking for so much as whether or not I could see myself doing the job. If I could, I think about why I'm not qualified (as is usually the case) and how I could work on those skills. I've also been looking at what grad schools are looking for for portfolio requirements so I can keep those things in mind as I create my production book for this project. I've been trying to keep a very strict handle on my work and want to document all parts of this process. Paperwork is definitely a high priority for me right now.

Learning how the paperwork is used at CTC has helped me realize what role my paperwork will have in my project and how others want to see it organized. The organization at CTC has taught me a lot because it just isn't practical in an educational setting. There aren't enough people invested in keeping the equipment in good shape, let alone the space tidy. That isn't why they are there though, so I get it. It will just be sort of hard to go back, knowing that I'm going to be that annoyingly compulsive one telling people how to perfect it. I'll probably spend more time than I need to in the theatre trying to get all of my shit organized, but I'm definitely willing to do it in order to pull off two very successful designs. I'm overly excited, really.

Anyway, I've been writing for far too long and would like to get back to my research. I'll let you know what I'm thinking when I get some real thoughts formulated. Have a fantastic evening and try to not let the words suck as you're sayin' them!

Love you!

Tuesday Trussing

Today we put together the truss structure for the fall rep plot. It is for the shows Suessical, Tommy, and Robin Hood. For short, we call it Robin hears the The Who. We all get a kick out of it. I spent several hours hauling and putting together 15' trusses and then spent a good hour labeling cables. After an hour with a fresh role of gaff tape, it hurts to pull it off the roll because it starts peeling off all of the layers of your skin where you're grabbing it and it hurts once you've gotten rid of the dead skin (about 15 minutes in). So I'm a tad sore today (both my back/arm/leg muscles and the skin on my fingers), but tomorrow we're hanging lights. My shoulders will be sore tomorrow, though we can lower the truss to a comfortable level instead of holding lights above our heads like we had to do yesterday when hanging from the bottom of the cats. It should be fun. I'm bringing my super awesome speed wrench that Matt gave me. It should be a good time.

Tonight I came home, cooked a pizza and watched Hell's Kitchen. Then I remembered that I was supposed to call Trevor back, so I finally did that and we talked for a while and worked some stuff out. Namely, the money I owe him from the roadtrip. It turned out to be less than $40, so I'm a happy camper. I also did some grad school research tonight. I have found a few schools that excite me and a few that I know I don't want to attend. I'm still planning on getting some professional experience before applying to schools, but this internship has really helped me figure out what I want to do with my life and the direction I would like to go.

Also today, I had someone check out my portfolio. She told me that I did a really great job with it and that I presented it well. That made me pretty happy and I look forward to presenting it to my supervisor on Thursday.

That's about all of the excitement in my life. I'm tired and going to bed, so suck less with the words, k? Love you all!

Monday

So today was Monday. We hung and cabled lights all day today. It was enjoyable because I obviously love doing it and I felt good because it was something that I knew how to do. It's fun learning the configuration of their stage and just learning all of the little hints and tricks that they use to make things work smoother. They have obviously been doing this for quite some time and have a really good system worked out to make things very smooth. The only thing I don't like as much is that their catwalks aren't very comfortable to work in. I did a lot of crouching today and had to sit down a lot. It surprised me that it was that uncomfortable because our catwalks are fairly easy to sit down and work in. Obviously bending over all day is out of the question, but kneeling is also unbearably awful after a while.

So that was my day at work. I stopped at Walgreens on the way home because I needed milk and cereal, so I thought I'd look for a thank you card while I was there. I happened to find a thank you card with the Cat in the Hat on it, which is perfect for the wonderful people at CTC because we are working on Suessical.

Speaking of which, I'm going to read the script tonight and then (seriously) work on my honors project. I have no other real plans for this evening, so feel free to call me if you want to talk. My bed time is 11pm, so try not to call after that. If you do, I'll probably forgive you. Probably. But that's about it. Don't suck with the words too hard. Have a great night!

A fantastic weekend!

I had the most amazing weekend! It started out with a great day of work (finishing up the moving lights) and talking to Steve. I enjoyed working with him because we actually got to a point where I feel like I could call him a friend. I hope he feels the same way. But on Friday, I just really got a sense of belonging with everyone. I feel like I could easily continue working there because I fit in quite well. I don't feel that anyone talks condescendingly to me. They do treat me like an intern, but only in the nicest way possible. They are very good about making sure that I'm learning, understanding, and trying new things. I've sincerely been enjoying the entire experience.

Anyway, Friday night my aunt and I went to see Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. It was a pretty interesting movie (in French with subtitles) and I'm definitely glad I went to see it.

Saturday morning I woke up and got ready to go to the Flugtag! We watched one team break the world record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Im8VtLQgh4 It was very exciting to see and I'm definitely glad I went. Going to see it was Trevor's idea. We got there at 10:40 and the gates opened up at 11. We claimed a space and saved it for Matt and his family. We were hoping to see Patrick and Patty, but they didn't make it until later. At that point, we had already left in hopes of beating the traffic. It wasn't too bad to drive in, despite my lack of city driving experience. Then we came back to my aunt's apartment where we watched "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (well, almost all of it) until Matt & I had to start getting ready for the aquentennial fireworks party that I had been invited to by my supervisor. We went and got a tour of his apartment. It is super green-friendly and there is a computer control system for all of the LEDs in his place. It was really great! My supervisor also really knows his history of this area so it was great to hear what he had to say about the surrounding area. I especially enjoyed the beautiful view he had from his patio. He played his own music for the fireworks show, which matched up surprisingly well. I also had a fantastic conversation with a wonderful woman named Christine (spelling?) whom I also found very inspiring and encouraging. It was great to talk to her about what the real world of theatre is like and how it is different from the educational setting. It gave me the confidence that I needed when she told me that I have been doing a lot of the things I need to do in order to prepare for life after graduation.

Anyway, it was fantastic. Matt spent the night with me and then we woke up and ate the waffles my aunt had made for us. We then watched an entire disk of Friends (Season 5) and then ate a fantastic lunch. My aunt made 3 dishes: one from Laos, one from India, and one from Malaysia. Because she has actually visited each of these countries, she has learned how to make the food authentic. It's really great, though one of the dishes (the one from Laos) was a bit too spicy for me. I don't really know the names of any of the dishes, but I can ask her later and get those for you if you would like to know. After lunch, I drove Matt home and we joined his family on a trip to a beautiful park where we walked around for about an hour. After a quick dinner at Culver's, I decided it was time to head home. Now here I sit, writing out my blog and wondering what I'll be doing at work tomorrow. I'm excited for my final week of maintenance and am looking forward to tech as well. It's all just been overwhelmingly amazing and I'm sure you're sick of hearing me say how much I love it. But think of it this way: It's better than listening to me bitch about it. Be glad I didn't start a blog last summer. If you don't know that story, call me and I'll tell you about the exciting adventures of my last summer internship.

In the meantime, I'll be working on a few things and heading to bed here soon. Have a fantastic evening and don't let the sucky words make you.

Inspiration

I went to a session today with the Production Stage Manager at CTC, Jenny Friend. She inspired me to just be courageous and to work hard. Those of you who know me know that I actually enjoy working hard (even though I also enjoy bitching about it), so it's pretty cool to meet others who have and do work hard and lead very enjoyable lives. Tonight I'm going to look up some more things about graduate school and write her a thank you note. I want to have a more in-depth discussion with her that focuses more on what I would like to do, because I feel that she would be willing to help walk me through that. Also, I want to talk to the Technical Director. She (that's right, it's a woman!) is also a very hard worker and I feel that she would have a lot to offer in a conversation. I am going to try to set up times to talk to them and I would love to find time to talk to my lighting supervisor as well, though she has seemed overwhelmingly busy getting ready for all of the shows that are getting ready to open in a few weeks. I'll definitely make sure to ask her though, because at the very least, she should be able to find a time for me after the shows open and my internship has finished. At that point, I will be able to meet with her at any point in the day while I'm still here in the cities. In the meantime, my goal is to do some research on what I would like to do with my life and come up with some really concise questions for them.

As for the rest of the day, it was spent fixing moving lights with Steve. It was cool, but not exciting enough to write about tonight. The only other exciting thing is that Matt will be back in the cities tomorrow (yay!) and I'm spending time with him and Trevor on Saturday. I'm going to stop there because my carpal tunnel syndrome is massively irritated from the work we've been doing. Have a great night and try not to let the sucky words you say get you down!

Moving Lights!

Today I got to clean moving lights. It was pretty cool getting to see the inside of the lights before I had to figure out how to track them during tech. Having never actually worked them before, I'm pretty clueless as to what the various instruments can do. My favorite part was the itty bitty gobos that they put in there. I don't know a lot about how computer chips work, so I found it overly fascinating to look at the inside of the instruments. I even got to help replace one of the computer boards that we thought wasn't working, but as it turned out, it was actually the little 'dmx'er that wasn't working properly. Either way, it was cool to get to open it all the way up like that and get to play in it. Unfortunately, it took a while so we didn't finish cleaning up all of the T-beams. I'm sure we're going to finish them tomorrow though.

I felt pretty proud today though because they told me that I'm not as needy as an intern that they've had in the past. They credited me with being the reason that they are ahead of schedule for maintenance. It's not so much that I'm just that helpful, but that I don't take away someone from other work in order to help me. I think they appreciate that I like to try things on my own and just ask questions when I'm not certain I understand instead of trying to make everyone constantly watch or just needing supervision because I suck. I'm glad I'm not sucking, lol. I do feel that I'm learning a lot and I'm definitely appreciative. I try to make sure everyone who is helping me is aware of the fact that I am in fact learning and that I am very glad that they are helpful. I make sure to thank each person after they give me little hints and tips so that they know that I am not mad that they are criticizing me, which I know some people would do if you tried to give them advice. I really do appreciate it, so just saying "thanks" each time they give me advice is how I'm trying to show it. I'm also planning on sending thank you cards to each person because they are definitely all very helpful. I have worked with almost everyone one-on-one which has given me the chance to ask them about their experiences and their advice. People like to give advice and expertise, but they don't always like to do it in front of others, so I try to ask personal opinions when we're working one-on-one. I've heard a lot about the union, jobs to take and what to watch out for, how the interns have been helpful (or not), and just got to hear a lot of their stories. It's really been very exciting for me and I'm of course learning a lot of technical skills, some of which I didn't even know I needed. It really hasn't gotten too boring, though the days occasionally feel long, but I think the fact that I'm not getting paid and that I should really work on my honors project are weighing on me and making me wish I had more time in the day, or at lease more energy when I get home at night. I do get quite tired. Tonight, I'm quite exhausted. This is probably because I did a lot of lifting today when we shuffled lights around, but I certainly don't mind the muscle definition I've been getting.

Sorry this is just a long stream of conscious blog. I guess this is just what has been on my mind today. I'm not even going to pretend that work is going to get done for my project tonight because I'm going to bed in about 20 minutes. The words aren't really even coming anymore at this point, so just try not to suck in the ways with the words that I do. Good night!

Tuesday

Yes, it's Tuesday! I didn't write in my blog yesterday because I was a lazy bum. I didn't really do much that was exciting at work yesterday. I cleaned some instruments and learned about gel condoms. Don't worry, they're only for light bulbs. Today, I cleaned truss and moved a few lights. It was exciting. Not really, it was pretty much how it it would if i were actually working, except that I'm not getting paid. However, it wasn't bad. Just unexciting. I also attended a production meeting today, which was more exciting because I got to meet people and see how the give-and-take works for a a low-budget, minimal support show for children works. It sounds like a great show and I hope the kids have as much fun as it sounds. They were just cast today and the show is in less than 3 weeks. Some of those kids are pretty young, so I hope that they enjoy the process. I don't have a lot to say today, so I apologize for the unexciting-ness of this blog, but I did promise people that I would keep them up-to-date. So if this blog sucks, blame them for wanting to know what's going on in my life.

In other news, I will be watching the aquentenial fireworks this weekend from my supervisor's condo. He has graciously invited the entire crew over to his place because he has a great view from his patio. I'm excited to get to hang out with my co-workers in a casual environment and really get to know them better.

Last night I made a depressingly long list of everything I need to accomplish in the near future. It makes me slightly unmotivated because it's so long, but at the same time it's a kick in the butt to get me moving. Yay for long lists of things to accomplish! Anyway, I'm going to go reread the script for my honors project and make sure I'm still going in the same direction with the music so I can change my mind about mood or add/remove cues that I had looked at before. I should also call Trevor, because I promised him I would. So have a great night and try not to let the words make you suck too.

Christmas in July!

Merry Christmas in July!

So I spent the weekend with my parents at our camper. We celebrated Christmas in July there because we're cool like that. If I don't get the pictures to upload tonight, I'll be sure and get them on by tomorrow. I'm waiting for them to upload to Walgreens so my mom can pick them up and have hard copies to show to everyone since we won first place in the outdoor decorating contest. We go a little nuts, in case you haven't seen my house at Christmas. It's a lot of work, but fun. Like my internship!

Speaking of, I didn't do any real hard work on Friday. We had a rigging seminar on Friday from Bill Sapsis Rigging Inc. The actual Bill Sapsis came and lead our session, and it was both interesting and humbling to learn about the safety of rigging. However, the information he told us over an 8 hour period got a tad long and I may have drifted off during some of his personal stories and some of the more dry, detailed technical information. It's mostly because I don't understand everything that he was saying because I've done essentially no work with rigging unless you count using our two janky fly pipes at GAC. Either way, I took 3 pages of notes on rigging and received a packet to help me remember it all, so I should be good should I ever get the chance to work in rigging. However, I decided that being a stagehand and working in rigging in particular is probably not a life path I would like to take. This is partly because the average life span of riggers is shorter than that of non-riggers. Blame the careless of the injured individual or of any of the dozens of people who touch the rigging and safety equipment that s/he is relying on. I just don't trust anyone enough to put myself into such dangerous positions and trust that everyone else has done their job to perfection so as to ensure my safety. Basically, I just assume that people like shortcuts and being lazy, which means that things don't always get done up to par. That means safety is not always first. I know it sounds overly cliche, but when your life is on the line, safety matters. I don't feel that I can really share much more about the rigging online, but if you want to talk to me about it, I would love to have a conversation with you. Call me!

This weekend also included a meeting for a group senior honors project that my classmates and I are doing. I'm very excited about the project myself and am hoping that everyone stays as dedicated to it this fall as they are now. We're busy, but we're trying to make time for it anyway. I've been mostly listening to music, which is helpful for me, but I really need to get more organized and start selecting pieces for others to listen to. I shared a few things with the group, which got mostly positive responses. I still need to send the directors my links so they can listen more in their leisure time (if they can find the time) because I want them to form real opinions and give me honest feedback. This is my first sound design and I will not be offended if they don't think my music choice matches what they are thinking for the scenes. I want to stimulate conversation, not force musical choices on them. I need a mood from them to get me started, but since I haven't gotten that from everyone, I've just started making a few selections on my own. I'm certainly not married to them and in fact don't even like all of them. It's very hard to get started on a project on your own without knowing what the others are thinking, so I'm hoping that we can really get some good information out of the next meeting. I should have some more music by then and hopefully some light renderings (if I can find the motivation after work some night) after I get a rough sketch from our scenic designer. Other than that, I think things are moving along nicely and most of what we need for this point in the process has been figured out. I might just crack down on each director's scenes for the next few nights and come up with ideas for each one, then call each director and ask them to listen to a few clips. That way I can talk directly to them and see if I'm anywhere near what they are thinking and make sure that there is a cohesive whole for the design process. Again, this depends entirely on my summer motivation and how much energy I have left at the end of the day.

I had a great weekend and got to see Denise, Matt, Dan (and his brother and sister-in-law!), Noah, and much of my family. I'm back here at my aunt's getting ready for tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I should get to bed so I can get up bright and early for work. I'll try to get on again tomorrow night with any exciting new things that I know. In the meantime, remember that if words begin to fail when coming out of the mouth on your face, just know that you with the words, suck too.

Less exciting day

Today I cleaned fixtures until around 11am. Then I went on another tour-filled adventure with Dave, who is just great. He tells me all about the building architecture and loves to say what went wrong with the construction and all of the surprises they encountered. It makes me wary to ever build a home, truth be told. Anyway, my brag of the day is probably that my boyfriend is the model for the corpse flower for July 14th, 2010. Just kidding, that's his brag. Mine is actually that I sorted through over 1200 gel frames today. Then I had to pull staples from the paper frames before removing over half of those gels (all frost gels stay in the paper frames, for those of you who are wondering what happened to the rest). I spent from 12-12:30 and 1:30-3:30 pulling staples and finishing the gel sorting. I then put away the gel frames and spent the remaining time wiping off each individual gel and inspecting it for dust and fingerprints.

As you can probably tell, it was a less exciting day than I've previously been having, but that was all made up for when I met up with Trevor for dinner at Chipotle. I got lost on the way there, but I figured it out eventually. We ate (I had a carnitas fajita) and then walked over to half-price books where I bought a $5 book about wiring. We then parted ways and I came home and watched the episode of Big Brother that I recorded on my aunt's DVR. Yes, I know, it's pathetic, but it's funny. They're all so stupid. Tonight was especially a showcase of stupidity. I then decided that I would be productive, so I am listening to classical music and organizing my thoughts for a meeting I will be attending for my senior honors project on Saturday.

I'm going to keep this short tonight because I have to get up early tomorrow (6 instead of 6:30) to be at work early for a rigging seminar. It should be fun (and especially in comparison to today, should have a bit more to learn). I'll probably not post again until Sunday or Monday because I have iffy internet signals at our campground where I will be this weekend, but I will have my computer for the meeting.

Anyway, have a great night and I hope to hear from more of you! :D

Day 3 of my amazing internship!

So today was pretty exciting. I went to a production meeting (where they talked about curtains for a great deal of the time), completed the remainder of the tour of the building (I think), cleaned and bench-focused some lights, and met some new people! Here's the in-depth version:

The allocation of resources is something that we've talked about at work before. No matter how much shit you have, you're going to want more than you can have. Of course, someone has to say no and then you need to cut back. Or sometimes you say no as a designer for a variety of reasons. At dear old GAC we tend to say no because of a lack of resources or simply because we no longer have that sort of time and energy to give to that particular project. However, today I heard the lighting designer say no because she only has 2 electricians to complete the changeover in the alloted time frame. I know that changeovers can be stressful, but it was a reality check that I would be a part of this frenzy in a few weeks after hearing her say that we just couldn't do it. Afterwards, I talked to her later and found out that I would be giving focus notes to the staff electrician and master electrician while they climbed around on the trusses supported by a harness or hung lights from the genie. It's pretty cool, actually. I'll be in charge of the paperwork in a very fast-moving environment, which I hope will give me the professional experience of fast-moving theatre that we just don't get in Gustavus's cushy educational setting. Don't get me wrong, we get shit done fast, but usually just because we want to go home. Here, it will be do or die. I hope I don't screw up because I'm trying to keep up, but I think I have a fairly good handle on the things I need to accomplish. As it is an internship, she expects to take the time to go through how to do focus charts, track moving light palettes, and use Lightwright. I'll gain all of those skills and be able to use them while I'm working on my senior project.

At the meeting I also met the sound intern, Kevin. He'll be around for the TAT show (which stands for Theatre Arts Training, as I read on the sign I've walked by everyday this week without realizing it) so I should be getting to know him better then. He seems pretty cool, so I have high hopes that it will be a fun working environment (despite the fast pace!)

Anyway, I toured the remainder of the theatre today with Dave, who is super awesome. He pointed out all of the features that make their lives easier or more difficult, talked about the history of the architecture, fixtures, dimmer system, and staff as well as the stages of building that they underwent during the construction of the Cargil Theatre. Dave showed me each lobby and the various areas of the grid and catwalks, talking about the initial plans, where they got cut or messed up, and how that's affected what they do. It's pretty interesting to hear about what they wanted and how they had to cut back in some places and also just the few mis-communications that ended up changing a few things. For example, they didn't know that the building company was going to put the remainder of the AC vents on the top of the old theatre and got an unexpected surprise when there was a giant section of their dimmer room that was suddenly walled off. It meant that they couldn't install as many dimmer racks, which was sort of a bummer, as you could imagine.

Also, yesterday I wrote about climbing up to the mainstage grid. I wanted to clarify that the floor I was standing on was 73' feet above the stage height. It was sweet, but climbing the straight ladder was freaky. I still feel cool that I did that.

Also, I cleaned some fixtures today and realized that it is very easy to put a source four together "upside down." If you don't know what I mean, come visit me at school and I will show you how some of our instruments look and how they need to be put together correctly. Or take my word for it.

I also learned a lot while bench focusing today, which basically means putting the hotspot of the light in the center and making sure that it isn't too hot or too flat. It's a bit tricky, but definitely worth fixing. I would love to bench focus the source fours at GAC before I'm forced to use them for my lighting design. There have been a lot of times when we need to have the lights fixed, but we're not supposed to touch the bench-focusing knobs (because we could make it way worse if we don't know what we're doing, so I get it), but my supervisor who happens to do five million things, doesn't exactly have time to sit and bench focus lights during tech. That's why I would want to do it before hand. I'll let you know how ambitious I feel later and we'll see if that gets done.

While bench focusing, I learned about the various instruments. There were some pretty cool innovations that were made along the way, so it was fun to see the progression throughout the history of just the lights that they have at CTC. I can write more tomorrow or you could ask me any questions you have, but in short, it was absolutely fascinating.

I didn't work on my sound design project last night. I talked to my aunt in Fargo on the phone for 45 min about the storms that hit there last night and all the exciting reality tv shows that we watch. I will shamelessly admit I watch Hell's Kitchen. It's fantastic. I even got my boyfriend Matt hooked on it. Speaking of him, you may want to check out his brand-spanking new blog: http://chembromance.blogspot.com

Now that I've bored/entertained you for the evening, I hope you have a lovely Thursday tomorrow. I certainly will, as I'm meeting my awesome friend Trevor for dinner. And wouldn't you know it, he has a blog too! So in case you want to read that one (Cuz his is by far the least nerdy of the three of ours), his is here: http://theorangesplotch.blogspot.com/

Have a great night and I'll hopefully be back tomorrow to tell you about my sweet internship. Remember, when the words fail you, you'll probably still sound cooler than me.

Internship!

Writing a blog...I never thought I'd do it. I'm usually fairly far behind on the technology (unless it's for the theatre), as is proved by my basic model cell phone with no texting or internet access and 1st generation nano. That being said, I thought I'd start a blog to keep you all updated on my internship and, after graduation, the job I hope to get. I'm terrible at writing letters and remembering to call people back before obscene hours of the night, so now you can stay updated without trying to get ahold of me. It's both convenient and creepy! And now, for the post!

I started my internship at Children's Theatre Company yesterday. I am the electrics intern and will be serving as the Assistant Lighting Designer for the TAT show in a few weeks. What does TAT stand for? I don't remember. Teaching Arts something, I think. I'll let you know when I remember, but I've been told so many things in these last two days I can hardly remember acronyms. It's been really exciting though, to see a different theatre and how they do things. I definitely have learned some things I want to take back to Gustavus, like a more efficient way to coil cable, hang it on the electrics, and more about different lighting technology. If you want to know more, talk to me. I won't bore the non-theatre people in my life with the details, but CTC has some pretty sweet technology, especially in caparison to what little I've been exposed to at Gustavus. I've also learned a great deal about the history of CTC, like how they've adapted the lighting and how the architecture of the building affects the productions.

I had the opportunity to climb the straight ladder up to the very top of the theatre today, which admittedly freaked me out a bit, but I certainly didn't want to pass up the chance to see what it was like up there. It's totally safe once you've reached the top, but climbing that ladder is just a tad scary. I also pulled up a socapex cable (which can handle 6 lights, so you can imagine how heavy that is) from the floor all the way up to the top grid, which I believe is 80 feet in the air. It got considerably lighter as it neared the top and I had less to pull, but it was ridiculously hard at first. I'll be pretty ripped by the time I'm done working there! I plan on keeping in shape after it ends by belly dancing since I'm already gaining the arm, leg, and back definition I need. I've been feeling ridiculously energized by the endorphins because I'm not used to doing heavy lifting for 8 hours a day, especially in the summer. I usually just kick ass for a day to hang lights or again to take them down, but this has been 2 days of striking lights in 2 theatres, which is both awesome and a lot of work, but I knew it would be.

Anyway, I shouldn't make this too long or no one will actually read it. My goals for tonight include working on my sound design project for the fall and possibly going for a jog. Again, after sitting for a bit when I get home, I get restless and want to move again. Or maybe that was just the ice cream I had yesterday...you know, the one with all the sugar.

Anyway, you all may certainly comment on this blog and tell me about your summers (or link me to your blogs) or you could just be a creeper and read about me without telling me anything about you. That would be disappointing for me though, so maybe make an effort to comment every now and then, okay? Until next time, remember that when words fail you, they've probably already failed me too.