Nothing For Now

Dancing in the Dark

This morning campus security decided to test the fire alarm while I was in the shower. I thought that would be the most unusual part of my day. Ha.

So tonight I was in the concert hall with a couple of other techs, sitting in the booth while recording a jazz concert going on down on the stage. Suddenly, the recorder turned off.

"M, did you push a button?" the other tech asked the one closest to the device.

"No, I didn't do anything," he replied.

"Seriously, what did you do?"

He turned it back on. Five seconds later the power went off.

Now, you have to understand that the booth is quite small, and the only window looks out onto the performance space, which is very large but has no windows. So everything was completely pitch black until M found an LED light he had and I found my reading lamp, which is never quite bright enough to read by but was the best light source by far in this situation.

We couldn't find a flashlight. After a bit of fumbling around we realized that the musicians were still going at it- the amplified instruments weren't working anymore, but a concert grand can project pretty well on its own, and nothing was stopping people from clapping or singing to the light of a few cell phones. In addition to being inspirational, this bought those of us in the booth some time to figure out what was going on.

We called campus security. No answer. We called again, several times. Finally an answer came- the power outage had affected all of campus, but the generators should be providing some light. Lucky us; our whole building didn't have a single emergency light.

The band played on, but they had to stop eventually, and when they did, it was up to us to make sure everyone got up the steps to the exit safely. Especially one wheelchair-bound spectator, who ended up being carried all the way up. The spirit of camraderie really was heartening.

So once the audience was gone, it was just us, the crew, and the ushers, trying our best to be of some use- using our cell phones to illuminate the deconstruction of the drum set, getting the precious microphones back to the booth, trying our best not to trip on the innumerable wires on the floor. We ended up leaving the snake box and a few mike stands and SLR cables behind. We'll come back for them in the morning and log more work hours. Can I get paid extra for this?

Anyway, I made my way back to my dorm by the light of more stars than the norm. At least there the staircases and halls were still lit. So the kids of our hall sat on the floor and had White Russians, trying to drink some milk before it went bad. I insulated my refrigerator, hoping that the 2 cartons of milk I'd bought today wouldn't grow sour before I could even use them.

Then the lights came back on. My printer, being the idiot it is, promptly woke up and printed a test page. My hallmates left for a party. And I'm sitting here with a the slightest aftertaste of alcohol in my mouth.

Too Tired For Titles

I'm being more picky about my work calls now. No more manual labor for me; I'm signing up for stuff like light focusing and board operation.

For 6-8 hour shifts.

Okay, I'm a masochist. A greedy masochist.

Today I pretty much had an hour of class, half an hour of lunch, 4.5 more hours of class, and an hour for dinner, then went to Philadelphia with a couple of friends for a performance of Tony Kushner's Bright Room Called Day. We missed our train back to school by about 30 seconds, and so went and got smoothies and chocolate cake while we waited for the next one. It was very yummy, but we got back at 12:45am, which pretty much meant I blew my entire Friday without checking on my feeds. So I took care of those, checked my e-mail, signed up for those work calls, and now I'm really ready to sleep, even if I have about a pound of sugar in me from that smoothie and cake.

I have 2 papers due on Friday! (Masochist, masochist, masochist.) At least spring break comes right afterwards, and not a moment too soon.

But All That Morgan Davis Wants Is Cream of Wheat

Sorry, that title is totally random. This is actually a "what I did today" entry.

Today I went through political science class with the solemn duty of poking the girl next to me awake whenever she dozed off. She'd stayed up late writing a paper the night before. Afterwards, I had half an hour of lunch before my crew shift.

I started out by stripping a snake cable, which is basically an audio cable with lots of smaller, insulated cables inside it. This isn't a very good picture, but once I screwed with the levels it became clearer:

Basically I had to strip the first few inches of foil off each of these cables, thread insulation onto each grounding wire, and put shrink onto the place where the foil ended so everything was insulated and firmly in place. I got to use a heat gun! Yay. :P Since I hadn't been below stage in this performance hall before, I noted with interest that the snake box was permanently attached to the ceiling. At my usual hall we have a much smaller snake box that we have to take down to the performance space and plug in every time, probably because we have much less cause to use amplification or any elaborate effects over there.

Anyway, since tech and grunt work are sadly conflated at the place I was working in today, after all the wires were done I had the joy and privilege of carrying heavy objects for the rest of the 4-hour shift, basically. Marleys were rolled, curtains folded, and scaffolding shifted. In the end I got to top it all off by sweeping the stage and washing my hands for several minutes before the dirt came out.

After work, I had a bit over an hour for dinner with a friend. She's also on the crew, so we gossiped viciously about the next act coming to our school. Suffice to say that the head of the crew called him "that crazy Scottish guy". I'm going try to catch a Tony Kushner play with her this Friday instead.

After dinner came chorus rehearsal, all 2.5 hours of it. I guess it's a good thing I'm building up my endurance, because the performance will be over an hour long with almost no rest. Oh, Brahms. Anyway, I'm proud to say I was hitting the high E even at the very end of rehearsal, and for an untrained mezzo that's not bad at all. :) I am, nevertheless, filled with admiration and a bit of fear of the sopranos, who were hitting the B flat above high E at the end of the night. Ouch.

So all I have left for the rest of the night is more poli sci reading and another stab at North and South. After Dickens and Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell doesn't quite come off as great literature. Ah, well.

The Big Difference

The moves that saved the Yankees from oblivion last year were the acquisitions of Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon. Forgotten by the rest of the game, those two managed to shore up a devastated rotation for just long enough to make it into the playoffs.

Of the two, Chacon is the most likely to replicate his success last year, which is a bit of a shame for Small. A marginal journeyman for 16 years, he only got called up to the big team last season because of all the injuries and ineffectiveness that plagued it. But he took full advantage of that opportunity, somehow pitching well enough for 10 wins and a 3.20 ERA. The New York Times has a sweet human-interest column on him today.

Drama in the Outfield

In lieu of Veronica Mars, I'll take my soap opera plots in pinstriped form.

Jorge Posada and Randy Johnson are starting an awkward courtship in camp, after Johnson demanded to work only with with backup John Flaherty last year.

Posada said that before the season begins, he is going to try to talk to Johnson whenever possible, hopefully connecting in ways that the two couldn't in Johnson's first year in pinstripes.

"We've just got to be there for each other. That's the main thing," Posada said. "I am going to be there for him, and I expect that he's going to be there for me."

Aaaaw.

In other news, poor Derek Jeter tried to defend the World Baseball Classic and his decision to play in it only one day after The Boss expressed his doubts about the whole thing.

Would Steinbrenner ever recover after a WBC-related injury to a Yankee? Will new pitching coach Ron Guidry be okay with Mel Stottlemeyer acting as a Spring Training instructor? And what the hell is Scott Erickson doing here? Tune in next time to As the Glove Turns...

Spring at last

Big Unit Starts Camp With Big Smile...

...Small children run away in fear.

Okay, that's not very nice. Randy Johnson may not be pretty, but he was the Yankees' best pitcher last year. And heck, it's Spring Training! Pitchers and catchers have reported, and all is fresh and new again. Well, except for Carl Pavano's back. But I'll ignore that for now and choose to believe, as I do every year, that this has the potential to be a great season. Those 162 games are stretched out ahead like a great green carpet, with the postseason an impossible distance ahead. Last year, it looked like the Yankees were out of it by the end of April, but they somehow scrambled back. I have a hard time calling that team "scrappy", but they sure were...something. Anyway, the winter this time around was a calmer, more pleasant one than last year's, and I'm hoping the team's performance reflects it.

So to Jorge and Bernie and A-Rod and the rest, good luck this year. May youngsters like Wang and Cano live up to their promise, and the wrinkled veterans squeeze one more solid season out of their aging bodies. May the front office be clever and sensible, and the management hold on to some semblance of sanity. As a Yankee fan, there's not much more I can hope for.

Falling Down

Pennsylvania, thankfully, didn't get hit that hard by the Blizzrd Of Doom. (Seriously, is there any other name for a snowstorm that causes record accumulations in Central Park and actually includes lightning?) Anyway, where I am we got between 8 inches and a foot of accumulation- enough to make campus look gorgeous, but not so much that the drifts became unmanagable. So I decided to hike around and take photos. And, you know, not do my homework.

I started in the tamer parts of campus.

Then I decided to go into the woods to get some wilder shots. :)

Then I started to walk back home.

Sadly, it seemed that others were limited to using their feet as well. Unless they wanted wet pants.

And that was how I spent my afternoon. Photographer by day, Lexis addict by night. The life of a college student is varied indeed.

Remains of the Day

I just realized that I haven't made an entry this month,, which is a little sad. School has been a bit hellish this week, even by its usual standards. It might let up a little in the next few weeks, but it's not going to get significantly better. And writing about what essay I wrote today doesn't seem like the most scintillating way to go. Though I guess I could give it a go, just for the hell of it.

Today I wrote a short paper on Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights for my literature seminar. The book, various critical readings, and the paper were assigned on Friday, so I wasn't exactly long on time to complete them all. My really foolish mistake, though, was actually bothering with my readings for my other classes. Silly me. Everyone knows that seminars eat your brain for breakfast. Who am I to resist?

In other thrilling news, my wonderful parents got me an electric kettle, and I've developed a fondness for just-add-hot-water cups of soup. Now I have one less reason to ever leave my room. Hm, what else? I'm planning on begging my adviser to get out of one of my major requirements, because it's a) redundant, b) stuck in when my major was already underway, and c) guaranteed to be a class with 40-odd underclassmen and a few fellow seniors who are trying to stuff this last-minute addition into their schedules somewhere before graduation. If I can somehow escape it, I'm going to take dramaturgy instead, because dammit, I'm not going to have another chance to study theater unless some foolish soul decides to give me a fellowship so I can go for my second BA.