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!