Well, it's after midterms. Even though I didn't have any in any of my classes this semester. But that's okay...I really don't object. What I do object to is that I have let my adding entries onto this blog lapse a bit. So this entry may be a bit scattered and semi-random (as well as having some kvetching in it) since it will be a "catch up entry" for all that has happened during the last month or so. So be warned.
Let's start with Starvation Gulch. It's an annual event here at UAF that involves bonfires (plural). It was pretty interesting....And I took a bunch of pictures. In fact, there was a photo contest on the UAF Facebook page with some prizes for selected photos and one of my photos was selected as one of the winners. It got me a zip front hooded sweatshirt...and a couple of compliments from the folks at the media office on my images. Which made me feel pretty good.....
And, in the realm of things that made me feel good, I was offered the chance to be involved in designing the Fall mainstage show(s). It's three one acts as an evenings presentation so I am never sure if I should refer to it as singular or plural...But it was cool to think that I was going to get the chance to do a mainstage design gig my first semester here...as well as it being my first semester in school since 1983.
Of course, you may have noticed the "past tenses" in the prior sentences. That is due to the next major event so far this Fall: my spending several days (about a week) dealing with what was diagnosed as a probable kidney stone. I use the word probable because I never "caught it" nor did a stone show up when I finally got a CT done at the ER near the end of the whole situation. But based on all my symptoms, the student health center treated it as a stone: with antibiotics for what seemed signs of infection, pain meds, pushing fluids and with strong recommendations for going to the ER if the pain got beyond a certain point. Being stubborn I lived through most of the discomfort (with some help from the Hydrocodone). Then finally went to the ER. The implication was that I had passed whatever it was by the time of the CT. And I am feeling way better. However, with everything going on I felt that I was not doing a proper service to the production(s) and so I stepped down from the design slot. I am still, however, considered Assistant Scenic Designer and the design will, as far as I have been currently told, be building on what I had accomplished prior to having to deal with the illness. Frustrating. To say the least.
All that not withstanding I am also pleased to report that I was hired into the scene shop as a student worker. And I made a contact with the supervisor at a local off campus venue and was placed on the call list for gigs there. Thankfully my being sick has not (so far as I can determine) affected those positions. Yea! And I have been told that I have a chance for designing the Student Drama Association one acts that will be coming up in February. Which, if I am selected, will give me a thing or two for my portfolio from this academic year...
In other "good news": going by the online grade estimates that I have access to, my current academic progress is pretty good. I am pulling down mid level A and mid level B grades in all four classes. My anxiety about the grade I got for my first theatre history essay has pretty well passed. Since then I have been getting better results on the weekly essays. Significantly better in fact. Hurray!
I have to say that I am pleased by my current grades for a variety of reasons. One of them is that it gives me a bit of hope that a current "wild idea" that keeps going through my mind might not be an impossibility after all. The "wild idea?" Me going on to seek my MFA after graduation here. You might be thinking, Why? Why go for the advanced degree? Well, if I do end up attempting to teach it would be better to have an MFA than just a BA. And depending on what all I get to design while in school here having the chances for design slots that would be part of grad school could be a definite help finding design gigs in the "real world". I will say that, when I threw the idea out as a "passing comment" to my academic adviser his reaction seemed one of surprise. Still have to find out why....Sigh.
Well, I guess that just about covers all the major happenings over the last month. There might be a point or two I've missed but then that is what new entries are for, isn't it?
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