A pause (soon)

Oh my, it has been the week.

Opened and closed the winter play--the doing of which is the main reason I haven't checked in for a week. Which meant that we had to set up, cued, teach the tech how to run, and then strike, the show. And the show, by the way, was an overwhelming success. But getting it to that point was very, very draining.

In the same fell swoop as we struck the last show, we set up for the winter concert that'll happen this week. For which I have to rig (and run) the lights, coordinate with our contracted sound man, and oh yeah also perform with the orchestra, on three different instruments. I was just going to play percussion, but the brass players were completely toast and completely clueless about playing their parts (and their instruments), so I had to bring out the baritone and leap into the fray with that, too... fortunately, it did indeed help them, big time, and now they'll survive at least the first piece. Fun, but because everything takes so long to get going, and it's at the end of an already over-long school day, very, very draining.

OH! Yeah... just remembered... I (or someone) will have to drive to Sunland to pick up light bulbs for the boards, without which we can't run the show. More work. More draining.

Thursday is the last "real" day of teaching for 2009, for what little actual teaching will get done that day. Kids and adults both have had way more than "enough" and are very, very ready to go on break. A very long day at school--at least this time I'll get to take a little break in the afternoon--and then handbell rehearsal, for a piece that's premiering this Sunday at church, followed by choir rehearsal. More draining.

Friday we take the last of the lights back to the rental place. Only a little draining, I think. And then it's all over for a couple of weeks--at least, at the school.

Good thing I got a couple real zinger energy points this week: the Pillar, and the Great Hammer. With luck, those'll hold me for a while.

Had a chat with the boss this week (part of the yearly review). One of the things he wants in writing, kinda to help with the ADA thing, is whether I can tolerate 40-hour work weeks. Well, let's see, given that last week I ran several days in a row starting at 7:30AM and getting home by 10PM, including working through the weekend... I think a 40-hour week would be less of an challenge than my current schedule. Yes, thank you, I'll be happy to take a week with only 40 hours of work. But such is not the teacher's load, alas.

But as we remind ourselves in the theater (especially during the hell of tech week), we do this because it's fun.

And it is!

But, y'know--and oh GOD this is true of MS as well--sometimes, enough is enough, thank you very much. This stuff is hard enough without an uncooperative nervous system (and whatever else comes with the package).