mwooster

I find it really hard to work ahead. Of course my life is crazy (I'm a second year graduate student), but actually right now, aside from Cassie being in tech. my life is a little less busy than usual. But I can look ahead and see the storm rolling in. But for some reason, when tasks aren't due the next day. I have real difficulty accomplishing them in a timely manner. I just can't seem to make myself work ahead. Tonight however I made baby steps. After I finished my reading for my classes tomorrow. I read a play I don't have to teach about until Friday. I entered quiz grades which never has a deadline and that's why it hasn't been done for 6 weeks. I started sketches for renderings due on Monday and I started one of my portions of a group project due on Tuesday. The problem of course is started... Not completed or accomplished, just started. But I guess it's a small victory. A few hours of work I don't have to do tomorrow or this weekend. When I started this blog, I was excited about my progress, and now I see just how pitiful it really is... Oh well. Back to work I suppose.

I've been having lots of conversations lately about teaching. Well partly because I am teaching again and trying to get better at it and partly because I have a few teachers who should be better at teaching... I want to thank all the good teachers out there! Thank-you for thinking about objectives, for knowing why your teaching what! Thank-you for engaging high level thinking such as synthesis, analysis, and application. Thank-you for never uttering the phrase, well when I was in grad. school they made me do it/read it/ die, so that's a sufficient excuse for why you have to as well.
I will do the best of my ability whenever and wherever I teach to know the purpose in everything I'm teaching, to ask my students everyday to synthesize and apply. I will never make someone do something, solely because I had to. There will be reasons and thoughts.
It's not easy people... Thank-you to all the good teachers out there, someday maybe your students will look back (as I have been lately) and appreciate your thought and work in a new and profound way.

So the reading I’m supposed to do over lunch isn’t posted on my teachers website yet, so instead of grading or doing any of the other 1,000 things on my to do list, I decided to blog. I just completed my 3rd show of graduate school as the Lighting Designer. I’m hear to learn right? Yes. So I’ve decided to try to write about what I learned this time around the block.

Fundamentally, I learned lessons about respect. Well mostly I’ve formed questions about respect. Let me list them and if you have answers or more questions please do share.

Is respect something that should be inherent or earned? Particularly in the case of theater, should I as a designer respect a director, because they are a director or should they first show me that they know what they’re talking about?

What is the best way to react when one is treated with disrespect? Humility and passiveness? Confidence and aggressiveness?

Is there a difference in how one should react to spoken disrespect and acted disrespect? Is spoken disrespect worse than acted or vice versa. For example would you rather have a person snap some hurtful words at you or intrude upon a work space during designated work hours and therefore disrespect the work being done?

Is disrespect ever excusable?

Are there ways a person can ask to be disrespected or open themselves up for disrespect? Are there paths a person can take to discourage disrespect?

More personal questions I’ve asked. Not things you need to answer for me?

Am I a disrespectful person? Do I subconsciously make my work more important than someone else’s, or my time more valuable?

If I reacted to disrespect with an immediate statement of “I will not accept being treated with such disrespect, Please apologize.” Would it ever do me any good?

Why do we ever claim in theater to value process over product when the reality is that good shows make money and the people seeing them don’t care if the team was made up of assholes? Why do we teach process if it just doesn’t matter? Why don’t we focus on teaching product! Continuing that rant, why do I teach my Experiencing Theater class that one of the biggest fundamentals about theater is that it’s collaborative, when sometimes it’s just not!

Do I really need to fight to say my work is important, or do I just need to sit in my little corner at my little light board and say, Yes that’s beautiful; Yes, I’m telling that story; Yes, I can do this.

What can I do about any of it?

So one of my very best friends is getting married on Saturday. Once again (just like last summer for a different friends wedding) it will be a gigantic gathering of most of the people I love from my years at college. Also just a few weeks ago in a small courthouse in Iowa surrounded by family my brother married his long time fiance Lesa. I'm sad I couldn't be there, but I'm so happy for them starting their new life and family!

All this being said has made me think more and more about marriage. Unless your living under a rock, or don't keep track of the news you know that in April, Iowa (my home state), legalized gay marriage. The love of my life and I have been together for a little over 3 years now. We're seriously committed to each other and I think people can tell that. For instance we got accepted to graduate school together as a couple, as a package, we've worked for the same theater for 3 summers coming together as a couple. Both of these organizations and the people within them consider us a package, a pair, a permanent entity.

I love that, I think it's great. I also think it's strange. I'm not sure that I would do the same thing. To me people who aren't married, well to be blunt can't be trusted to stay together. In today's world even people who are married don't stay together 1/2 the time. So what is it about us that makes people so sure we won't break up and make gigantic scenes and horrible working environments. I'm not saying we will that's definitely not in the future, but I certainly do wonder what it is about the way we love each other that makes us come off as permanent.

I also wonder how much of me cares about the piece of paper and the pictures that say we're permanent... We've certainly made a commitment to each other. For 3 years we've spent the majority of our money, time, and energy maintaining this relationship. We've made it our priority and in various environments where that was really hard to do we've stuck it out. We profess our love for each other everyday both privately and publicly. Because of our upbringing and real struggle to be faithful we've asked for God's blessing and guidance in our relationship from the beginning. What more are weddings about? making a commitment, asking for God's blessing, publicly professing your love. So why is a wedding something that I want? When I can honestly say I've got what is supposed to come after a wedding right now?

I think there's something about a covenant... Here's that 4 years of Christian college coming out again but here it is, a public promise between 3 entities. A time for my friends and family to witness a promise made before God. And on a more shallow note having that love that we've made so important for so long be important enough for people to travel long distance and spend time, money, and energy to affirm and celebrate with us...

I don't know if it will ever happen. There are lots of reasons, being graduates students with very full plates is on the top of that list, but I can't say I don't want it to. I used to be able to say it didn't matter, but now I can finally admit that it does...

Hmmm... I wonder why it is that I like to read blogs so much more than I like to write on mine? I also wonder why when I know that I love it when people comment here I so rarely comment on other peoples writings? Mysteries...

I texted a good friend from grad. school a few days ago with this sentiment. Do you think it's possible for something to go by too quickly and too slowly at the same time? I feel that way about my summer. It's going to be over before I know it 4 weeks from today I will be back at grad. school... Those 4 weeks are filled with stuff, but at the same time everyday is the same kind of empty.
It's been challenging this summer to get our friends to come do stuff with us. This is something I should totally understand because I frequently just need a night at home to chill. But it's become increasingly upsetting as I know my time with these people is dwindling and I want to spend time with them, and while they might just need to chill, what it feels like to me is that they don't want to spend what little precious time we have left together. This is one of the reasons the summer feels like it's moving too slow.
Also there are many things I am excited to get back too. I'll be working under a new professor this year teaching my intro to theater class so I'm excited to get to understand his curriculum and make a new syllabus. Plus I've formulated a new organizational system for my office that I really want to implement!
But at the same time, it's all going to come to fast, and so instead of enjoying organizing and formulating I'll be busy worry about something else. As much as I tell myself to enjoy the moment and to let myself be excited about the little things, I know that joy will get lost in the chaos...
That's the reason I want to cling to the summer. To the lazy mornings and days with nothing to do until a 7pm call. To the weekends without plans. To these wonderful people (who frustrate me) who are so great to spend time with...

I had so many goals for the summer. So many tasks I wanted to accomplish. So much I wanted to have done when I got back to school. Just to give you an example: create a digital portfolio and website, create a 3-D model of the set for A Perfect Wedding, design a class about architectural lighting to take in my 3rd year, try new restaurants, exercise daily, figure out what I actually want to do with my life (not just what I say I want to do). This is not the complete list and yet yesterday I realized that exactly 2 months from today I will be starting classes again! That means in just 7 and 1/2 weeks I will be done with summer and heading back to the crazy life...
Now what I'm trying to decided is if the relaxation and doing nothing (except reading Breaking Dawn for the 5th or 6th time) is perhaps as important as all of those other tasks. Life at school is so hectic that maybe this time to just sit and watch tv or just sit is trying to teach me something. Maybe this has a place in teaching me what I actually want to do with my life, because I can tell you with certainty that I like this pace a whole lot more than that other pace...

Yesterday as Cassie and I were driving into Boise (yes, I'm back for my third summer as an electrician for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival) I was told her I was surprised. I expected to be nervous, I was last summer before the first day of work, what if I didn't remember something of couldn't do something. I was nervous, but I told Cassie yesterday I didn't feel nervous. After a year of graduate school and basically 8 months of telling people how to do the work I knew I was going to do today I wasn't nervous.
Well, after we got into town, Cassie and I had dinner with our hosts John and Jeannette and I told Jeanette about not being nervous about work and how different that was for me. A few minutes later Jeanette said one of her favorite things about having us back was getting to watch us come into our own. She described seeing us really become sure of our abilities and of our place here in the company, but also in the rest of our lives. Her comments made me realize that that's what I was feeling: sure of myself!
I think one of the great things about grad. school is that I'm being challenged to test everything I thought I knew, to do it differently and better every time. I have to constantly improve, the pressure to improve is always there, if I don't improve I'm gone. And somehow that environment that seems to me to breed insecurity has left me the most secure I've been.

I've been doing a lot of leaving lately. And it's made me think about how compartmentalized my life is, but also how similar all the compartments are. I have several groups of people that I love dearly, and in the last week I have left almost everyone of them. First there was the leaving of my new Illinois State University family, I can't believe in 9 months I've created something I am happy to call a family and a home. I miss them everyday. Then I left my real blood family, this leaving made cry, it came to soon, it was too sudden, I hadn't been prepared. I know this is a sentimental and over used analogy but here it works, my love for my family is like breathing, it's easy, natural, something I don't have to try to do, something I rarely think about, but when I left them this last time it was like I had the wind knocked out of me. The ache of longing was more acute, more of a pang and less of a soreness. I also saw three of my dearest and closest friends, each meeting was brief, but so good, it filled my heart up, and somehow when they were gone remembering that happiness left me empty.
All of these experiences made me wonder if heartache in general is more about the leaving than it is about the losing. I often think of heartache in terms of lose, the grieving that happens when you lose a loved one, when a relationships ends, even when some kind of illusion is shattered and that ideal world is lost. I'm not sure I've really wrapped my brain around this one, but I'm trying to work it out here. I'm wondering if most of our loses upset us most because we're somehow doing the leaving. I haven't experienced the death of any humans I was close to, but when I've read about grieving I so often read about how people are upset because they can no longer remember the exact shape of their loved ones eyes, or the sound of their voice, they're upset because some how in some small way, they are doing the leaving. I've seen many a person who has initiated a break-up just as upset as the person on the receiving end, shouldn't it be easier for them if it's what they want, but leaving is somehow in some cases just as hard.
I just think it's interesting that even though I haven't lost anything, I still feel some heartache. Even though my family and my friends are still mine to call whenever I want and I will see them all in relatively short amounts of time I miss them with an ache that feels like lose.
And I have to say I think driving away is in some cases harder than being left behind, and maybe it's simply because the feelings make a little more sense when you haven't chosen to be left...

I haven't been writing much... I've been doing a lot more reading, talking, and drawing but not much writing. I'm not sure if that means I'm through my most introspective phase, or just that I'm lazy. I think both might be true.

Identity is a strange thing. If I've learned one thing about human nature in my first year of graduate school it's that. Identity, the way we see ourselves, the way others see us, how those line up or don't, and how we feel about all of it, is a strange enigma. Our identities are always changing and we have power of most of those changes. With the technologies of the age I control almost everything about my physical appearance. And with the powers of the internet I control much of the way I present myself to the world.

I saw a low-budget production of Julius Caesar today. The production chose to focus on the separation of the flesh and the spirit. You can kill the flesh of Caesar, but you can not kill his spirit. His spirit is acting long after his body is permanently still.

I wonder if identity is something like that. We have power over the flesh. But often we do not have control over the spirit. I still battle the same insecurities I did as an adolescent even as a child. I'm full of pride, and as much as I recognize that and strive for humility my spirit is a prideful one. Patterns of behavior, and even patterns of feelings rule our lives.

I realize that I may be making this more black and white than it actually is. Losing weight or plastic surgery would be long hard processes to change the flesh. And I know that occasionally the work of God is instantaneous and a spirit is changed forever in a moment. I believe in that, but mostly I think our spirits spend our entire lives trying to change. We spend out lives struggling to understand or change or embrace our identities.

No promises but I'm planning to write more. To post my random musings. I'm also planning to link this to my facebook. We'll see if I can figure that one out.

So on Wednesday, I'm sitting outside at the table at work and I get a call from an unknown number with an Iowa area code. I answer it and it's a acquaintance of mine from a church retreat called Chrysalis, she tells me she's the lay director for the next flight and she's putting a team together, and she would like me to be a part of it. I'm instantly so excited and overwhelmed. I tell her that I'm going to graduate school in the fall so I will need some time to check on things. She tells me to check on things and pray about it and call her in a week week and a half. We hang up.
I've spent since then thinking about it and praying about it. Last night after change over I decided to hash it out with Cassie. Here's what I said. i feel like there a many lessons God could be trying to teach me and I'm not sure which one it is. Maybe he's trying to tell me that my priorities are messed up and that I need to do this and put him first once in awhile. Or maybe he's trying to as usual teach me to say no. There are so many reasons to say no to this. The flight is labor day weekend, less than a month after I move to Normal and start a new school, new job, new routine. I have no idea what my schedule will be, I might very well be in rehearsals or techs, right now I just have no idea, and no real good way to find out. Also the flight and subsequent team meetings will be held in Marshalltown Iowa 5 hours from Normal, IL. With gas being as expensive as it is, we're talking probably close to $150 a trip. So going just for the weekend would be costly, and I would need to go to at least one meeting. $300 is not in the budget, especially with start-up costs in Normal.
But still I feel this call. I want so badly to say yes. I want to be used by God again. I want to be part of a community like that again. Of course selfishly I want the spiritual high, but I also long to serve, it has been too long since I took a real servant role in a ministry. I know it's part of my calling, my personal calling.
So today I tell myself I'm going to call Allie, the LD, and ask her the questions I forgot to ask. I didn't know where the flight was, it might have been in Cedar Rapids, which is closer by more than an hour, meaning less gas, more reasonable travel distance, etc. And I didn't know what role she was thinking of me in during this flight.
I called. She said Marshalltown, and my heart sank a little. And when she said she wanted me to either be an ALD or a Table Leader...
I told her the situation. And she said it sounded like I need to say no to this one. I wanted so badly to do this. And when I got off the phone after saying now I started to cry. I wanted to do this so badly.
Why does God put opportunities in our paths that seem so good and so right but that we realistically just can't make happen. Or is that simply me being skeptical of God's power. Is it possible that if I had said yes I would have discovered people who would offer to buy me gas, or other things, and I would have found a way around whatever responsibilities I was supposed to have those first weekends so I could make it work. Why would he want me to say no to this? And why does it hurt so much? Does that mean I made a wrong decision? Is there a way to change it now?
I hate this feeling...