Future...where do I go from here?!

I spend a lot of time thinking about the many interests that I have and about my lack of expertise in any of them because they are so varied. As I near 40, I feel like I should be making a plan for the next 40 years of my life. If I'm going to work for another 25 or 30 years, I need to make sure I'm doing something that won't drive me crazy! I can't see being an English teacher for that length of time. Most kids don't enjoy English and society in general seems to be moving away from reading for pleasure. Even business communications seem more tolerant of language inaccuracies. With whole generations being raised in chat rooms and on IMing, I don't hold out a lot of hope for the progression of the English language. I'm tired of seeing chat room abbreviations in homework assignments! Needless to say, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. So, I look at my options and wonder where I should go from here.

• Obviously, I can always leave education. I would love to work for a magazine, but that would most likely involve relocation. Thinking about where I live now, I don't really see anything that is better than education.
• All of my dream jobs require relocation or extensive travel. For instance, I've always loved the idea of being an educational director for a theatre company, preferably a Shakespeare company.
• Another dream job would be as a Shakespeare consultant where I would travel to conferences or school districts to teach teachers how to teach Shakespeare through performance. I would also do residencies and help students mount Shakespeare productions.
• If I'm being more realistic, my two main interests are becoming vocationally certified as a CTE teacher and obtaining my National Board Certification. I want to gain my CTE certification as soon as possible, because we have a teacher retiring in the next couple of years. I would love to step into his position. It would also give my video production class state funding immediately, and THAT is a HUGE plus! Once I start teaching CTE, I may decide that I don't want to get my NBC. Of course, the down side to all of this is that I would no longer be teaching Shakespeare, so what would that do to my dream of being a Shakespeare consultant?
• Conversely, if I pursue my Shakespearean interests, will I miss my opportunity to become CTE certified? For instance, I REALLY want to apply for the Shakespeare: Enacting the Text seminar this summer. Although they only choose 15 participants from over 100 applicants, I feel fairly confident that I would be accepted since one of my referees worked with the seminar director last summer! If I do this, that means I can't take summer school for my CTE certification. It's such a conundrum...I really don't want to have to choose between the two.

With all this being said, I haven't even discussed my varied interests outside of school. I want to spend more time on my website, scrapbooking, photography, podcasting, reading, writing...heck, I would even like to strap on a pair of rollerblades once in awhile. Then there are all the things I NEED to do (in addition to grading papers...yuck!): exercise, clean my house, do laundry. Then there are things I SHOULD do: help Neal with weeding, cooking, paying bills. But, when it comes right down to it, I don't get everything done because I'm lazy, spend too much time on the Internet, and watch too many TV shows. At least I don't play WoW anymore!

Well, I'm sure I'll write more about this in the weeks to come, because I need to make a decision soon.

Call backs

I went into call backs with a strong opinion about who I wanted to play Romeo and Juliet. Both of the kids are seniors and strong actors. I was sure they would bring their A-game to the call back, but I was wrong. We called back 18 kids and had the stage manager start them off with theatre games to warm up. I walked into the PAC as the warm ups were underway and made a really interesting observation. The younger kids (primarily sophomores) and kids with very little theatre experience were going full out on the games and having a really good time. My R&J "shoe-ins" were barely participating. I asked the SM to have them do something where they would go full out...again...nothing from the so-called thespians in the group. I was disappointed. The disappointment continued throughout the audition. I will say that they gave us an incredibly passionate kiss during one of the scenes, but the rest of the scene lacked any kind of emotional connection. It's too bad, because I always thought they were strong actors. I guess they entered the audition process with too much confidence. Well, I guess this will be a lesson learned...hopefully.


On a completely unrelated side note--

My friend who shot and is editing ST:OGAM sent me a link of some asshats on a Mac board dissing the movie. I've been avoiding all the message boards lately--primarily because I don't have time with the play starting and grades due next week. I'm sick of negative people who are so quick to judge the creativity of others. It simply amazes me that they complain about the acting, script, and special F/X from a 6 minute trailer. Some of them said that they only watched half the trailer...WTF! Yeah, I'm sure their lives are so important that they can't spare a few minutes to watch the entire thing. People like that make me sick! And they wonder why the majority of the computing world thinks Mac users are idiots...excluding the creative individuals who use it to make awesome fan films! LOL! I still want to bust out MACO-style on all the idiots who complain about things they know nothing about. ARGH!!!

It has begun!

On the opening night of Grease 4 years ago, I had a panic attack. It was one of the most frightening experiences I have ever had. The only other things that come close are the car accident I was in with my Dad when I was in high school and the fever I had last winter. Although those experiences were bad, they truly don't compare to the fear I felt that night. In fact, I think I had less intense fear when I got news that I had cancer. The cancer fear lasted longer--to this day as a matter of fact--but that night was something I can't really explain. I called Neal for comfort, and that really helped, but I wasn't myself until the next morning.

I recall swearing that I was done with theatre forever. The panic attack was my wake up call to quit...at all costs. I was ready to lose my job if they wouldn't let me out of my contract. I had tried to quit for a year and a half to no avail, but this time was different. My principal could tell, and he didn't argue with me. Well, it didn't take long--only 3 years--for me to break down and direct again. LOL!

I held the first set of auditions for Romeo and Juliet this afternoon. My co-director and I went out to dinner afterwards and determined who was on our call-back list for tomorrow. I just finished finding the scenes for the second round of auditions, and I must admit that I'm excited! Unfortunately, a Romeo and Juliet didn't pop out at me, so the selection will be tough. I'm disappointed that we didn't have a better pool of performers, but I guess that just makes me all the more important! I am the Queen ShakeGeek after all!

Breaking My Rule

Yeah...so...my head is killing me. I'm exhausted. And, frankly, I need to pee. I know I should spend a 1/2 an hour in word vomit mode, but I just can't bring myself to do it right now. I will make a couple of comments:

• I will never get my grades done on time if I don't start kicking kids out of my room during lunch. I don't want to hurt their feelings, but enough is enough.
• R and J auditions begin tomorrow...I hope that I just know when Romeo and Juliet take the stage. They hold the entire show together. The line load is incredible. I know these kids can handle it, I just want to make sure that I choose the right ones. The sucking up is going to end on Friday...I need to start milking it! LOL!
• I'm pissed that I have to wait for over a MONTH for Heroes to start again. Argh! Well, at least that will give me time to focus on R&J, Sci-Fi, scrapbooking, and...dare I say...exercise!
• I feel feverish. I need to go to bed.

Word Vomit

I swear that being an English teacher has ruined me as a writer. I don't have the time to write...or read for that matter...because I have to grade papers or plan lessons or veg out so I don't kill myself or my students. I've been doing a lot of the latter over the past few years. What I should be doing is the former. How am I supposed to teach writing if I don't do it myself? It is a ridiculous paradox that makes me angry.

Another problem with being an English teacher is that I'm in "perfection" mode all the time. I can't seem to take off my editor's hat when doing the most mundane things such as typing an e-mail or posting a bulletin on MySpace! I here vow to knock it off!!!! This blog...journal...whatever I want to call it...is my space to vomit words. I'm not going to stop and ponder; hell, I'm not even going to re-read. I just need to work on speed and getting it out. I hope that I will soon have something interesting to say.

I've been spending the day reading a memoir project my students completed earlier in the year. Most of them have come up with some great stories! I'm going to keep the assignment handy and work on it when I don't have anything interesting to say.

For now, my word vomit is over. I need to get back to grading. Argh...why didn't I become a math teacher?! Or PE? Yes, PE would be better, because then I wouldn't be fat. Blah.

Random Moment at Quiznos

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't want kids. I joke about my list of 9, 683 reasons why I'm not having children. One of those reasons--and one very near the top of the list--is that I see too many ill behaved children in the world. Now, don't get me wrong, I love kids; I'm a teacher for goodness sake. Yet, the beauty of my life is that I can enjoy them at school and then send them home at the end of the day! If they are bratty...no big deal...55 minutes later they are out the door. Yet, when we go into public and want to have a nice lunch, there is nothing more annoying than loud, misbehaving children. No...their irresponsible parents are far more annoying.

For instance, Neal and I were in Quizons a couple of weeks ago (this is a bit of a Sunday routine for us), and a dad comes in with a 10 year-old(ish) boy. The kid starts flipping all the chip signs up and one falls on the floor. He looks at it. Looks at his dad who is oblivious. Shrugs and leaves it on the floor. The dad eventually told the kid to knock it off, but he didn't have the kid fix the signs. They left and I was disgusted. A few minutes later, my faith in humanity was restored when a mom came in with two kids (both elementary age), and they promptly started fixing the signs. The mom bent down and helped her daughter fix the sign that had fallen on the floor.

Today was another good day at Quiznos. Neal and I broke routine and did our Sunday errands on Saturday. We also ate a late lunch. All of these factors led to seeing an extremely cute moment between two brothers. When we arrived at the restaurant, a dad and his two boys (approximately 8 and 4) were eating lunch. I didn't really pay much attention to them until I got up to wash my hands. The youngest boy was giving his dad and brother high-fives. He was so cute that I wanted to join in! I figured 1) his father had taught him not to talk to--or high-five--strangers, and 2) my hands were sticky from the BBQ sauce on my sandwich. A little later, after the boys finished eating, they got up and started playing with each other. I know...this had the potential to be really annoying, but it wasn't. In fact, I turned to Neal and said, "If I was their mom, I would be taking photos of this moment...it would make a great scrapbook page!"

The boys were facing each other and seeing how far they could spread their legs while maintaining their balance. The older boy--with longer legs--had a much easier time of it, but his brother was still trying to spread his legs as far as his brother. The older boy helped his brother keep his balance. They repeated this game three times before they had to go. The boys held hands as they left, but the littlest of the two, not wanting the game to end, waddled out with his legs spread as far as possible. His brother and I made eye contact and shared a laugh as they left. It was such a precious moment; it's still making me smile! I hope those boys are always able to maintain the love they have for one another right now, and I hope they repeat the game at home so mom can get some good photos!

Dare I Blog?

Neal and I made a deal to write every day during the month of December. I was originally planning on keeping a Word file and sharing it with him at the end of each week. He, on the other hand, jumped right in and started a blog. I really enjoy reading his blog and that of other bloggers, but I look at this screen and am reminded of my very long summer running the Planet Xpo Star Trek 40th Anniversary blog. I was immersed in Star Trek for over 40 days--it was my choice, but by the end of those 40 days, I was spent. I created a scrapbook page saying I would never do that again...yet, here I am!

A couple of years ago, I started to notice that blogging was taking over the scrapbooking world. I kept asking myself how these people had time to blog. It wasn't until I took Shimelle's "Learn Something New Every Day" class in September that I got it. Blogging allows scrapbookers to organize their thoughts about life as it happens instead of waiting for months...or years...to scrapbook the events. Many of the scrappers (including one of my crop buddies) simply print out their blog for inclusion on the scrapbook page. It is a brilliant way to save time while journaling about life in the moment. Many of us tend to leave journaling until the end, but it makes so much more sense to begin with it.

Well, it looks like I've talked myself into becoming a blogger!