Mirrored from Marsha Sisolak.
I can tell it’s summer vacation: I’m exhausted and I’ve had two great weekend nights already.
Friday, we met a subset of the Freeway Dragons (Jenn, Chris, Rachel, Mike–the Freeway Musical Dragons?) in Little Tokyo to see Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.
I love Sondheim. I love his lyrics. I love his ability to take three separate melodies (Later, Now, and Soon) and weave them into one. But Friday night was my first Sondheim musical. Overall, I found the venue intimate and the cast talented, but not consistently up to the level of a traveling company. Not even, actually, consistently up to the level of the Cabrillo Theater company we have here in town. Still, there were lovely moments, wonderful voices, and interesting staging with that bamboo forest and Shanghai at the turn of the century setting.
Last night was the end of the year party for one of my choirs–peace, love, and potluck. Most everyone showed up appropriately dressed for the 70s, including a couple of people in wigs. My favorite was the wild afro, and I could not identify the guy for a while under all that hair.
How far will this choir go? A few of us were singing Aquarius and Let the Sun Shine In at one point. Rather than have the director use a keyboard, a couple of the guys rented a truck with a lift gate and transported a piano to the house a few miles away. The piano made all the difference rhythmically, along with the bass.
So much fun.
Somewhere there are videos, however. :P
And now there’s today. I debated about working in the classroom today, but I think I’m going to stay home and focus on the house. It’s been sadly neglected. Although I think the daughter and boyfriend will be working to install two fans and one light fixture today. Do I really need to be in all that plaster dust? I’m not going to vacuum or dust until that mess is over. And I’m draping most everything in sheets. Because I remember the last time there was drilling through walls.
Next week is all school. Right now, I’ve got three days of cleaning and reorganizing of closets planned and then two days of testing incoming kinders. (The remaining incoming kinders–because we only tested the July-November birthdays so that we would match all the other sites, but to make up balanced classes, we need to test the rest, dagnabit.)
By Friday I will be done. Except for all the stuff I’m bringing home to finish up here. It’s time to get my files back under control, deal with all the stuff I have for beginning of the year anyway, and try to figure out a way to eke out more time for small groups. Without, say, doing that last rotation sans parents.
Sadly, I am banging my head against the wall with that one.
And I’m really going to have to think about buying more stuff. In addition to the larger rug ($500!) I’ve got to order more books for the listening centers, buy more magnetic boards and accompanying magnets, etc. Group numbers (if I can’t figure out a way to get a fifth group in) are going to jump from five or six to eight and nine.
That’s a LOT of kids in a group, I just want to say.
So yeah. Everything’s tumbling around in my head, and I’ve got to get my shit together so I can focus on training and supporting a new-to-K teacher next year. She’s going to be torqued with the whole mindset alone of non-readers.
Writing and the Clarion Write-a-Thon? I’ll get there. Maybe by Wednesday.