Panic

I've sent emails to my committee and chair about setting a date for my qualifying examinations. I've also sent out several "would you be available to take the kids for me at random points when I'm going to break down during that WHOLE MONTH!" emails to friends and family.

This has made it real, and I'm starting to dream about things like cars with dials that measure pages read instead of miles per hour, outlines that reach out from the computer and wrap around my eyes so I can't read, and (of course) kids getting sick while I'm trying to take the exams.

This should be an interesting (and long) couple of weeks while I finish (or try to) reading!

My not-a-vacation

In a whole lot of ways, my trip to Texas this past weekend (that stretched into this week) was a vacation: I didn't have to clean my house, do laundry, teach, keep up with Bee, or cook. In many other ways, though, it was not a vacation at ALL: I didn't sleep a whole lot, I spent a ton of time rehearsing, presented parts of outreach to kids five times, did a longer presentation at a teacher workshop, and even mended the occasional costume.

Spanish Golden Age theater is very important to me. I feel like (even aside from its inherent value just as literature) teachers can use it in a number of ways to change their students' lives for the better. You can use it to teach grammar, verse, literary conventions of the day, to teach about theater, technique, presentation, performance. You can use it to show kids that their language (Spanish) has a tradition that has as much to offer as the dominant language tradition that they study in school (English), and has value. And much, much, much more. Who knew I loved it enough to get into costume and character to teach those things though? I didn't, until this last weekend.

Baby J was a trooper, and was so easy to travel with I can't believe it. But I couldn't have done my part of things without other people to help me! When they weren't in costume, AL and Kim and Sofi helped a ton, but I think Valerie and Melissa get most of the credit. We took a picture of him on the stage at El Paso High. The kids there did a great scene for us...I think it was the best one. Bee's favorite part of the whole thing was that I brought her back some converse. I'm glad that she did well while she was away from us. Before I left, she said "Mom, after you have your vacation in Texas, and I have my vacation at BaDa's, we will be nice to each other again." She's right so far!

And the whole experience was certainly not made any worse by the fact that I got to hang out with a whole bunch of my most favorite non-family people in the world. Everyone got along really well, had a positive attitude (or as much of one as can be expected at 3 in the morning before a 9 am performance, while you're still rehearsing!), and was just generally great to be around. I'm definitely grateful to Profs. Pratt and Hegstrom for the opportunity to go, and participate in some small way.
I decided I won't even try to narrate the whole experience (poor Mom had to listen to a rapid-fire ramble about it!), other than to say that we had a great time, the teachers evaluated us with high marks, the parks service folks were wonderful to work for and so accommodating, and I was more than impressed by everyone's presentations! I think that we did some good, and I'm hoping we've helped (in Jared's words) spread the gospel of Golden Age theater a little bit.