jazz festival weekend

the jazz festival was awesome, as always. it’s so funny the range of emotions that occur during this weekend…everything from "OMG i can’t believe it’s here" to "why do i do this again?!?!?!" in general, though, it’s never a dull moment, to be sure….

in essence, about 11,000 teenagers and their families and supporters descend on our campus for three days and compete in jazz performance. we have bands that are categorized by the size of their school, including middle schools and colleges (2 and 4 year) and we have vocal jazz also.

there are always some slight logistical and silly things that happen such as one year some of the kids stole one of the golf carts and ran it around campus until it ran out of battery life. that was fun. no harm was done, it was just a little scary to think of a rented golf cart going by the wayside and having to pay for it until we found it. the last few years, though, the kids have been harassing the water fowl that live around the lake that’s on our campus. this is really sad. i heard this year they were going around to all the geese nests and smashing eggs. what makes people behave that way?!?!! they are essentially killing our next generation of canadian geese and the birds get really stressed out. that makes me angry too. why?

i do site coordiantion for one of the venues, and it’s always interesting. i only have two rooms to run, one being the vocal jazz. it’s so cool to see the variety and bredth of talent that exists at all levels. i have heard middle school kids that sound like they should be on american idol and college people who couldn’t carry a tune in a bag (not generally true, i am sure it had more to do with nervousness than talent, but still, if one is going to perform, they have to be able to do it in public).

we were doing really good this year. my rooms were running on time and there hadn’t been too many problems. then, on saturday afternoon, right before the crunch time that happens at the end of the competition, a thunder storm came into the area and for whatever reason, THE POWER WENT OUT all across campus! this immediately brought a whole slew of things into our brains mostly surrounding the question "WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO NOW?!??!" it turns out things weren’t as bleak as first thought. there were some venues that were able to function with emergency power, and we quickly developed a contingency plan for if the power didn’t come back on. how can you have a festival concert with no electronically enhanced sound? thank goodness we didn’t have to comtemplate that. the power was out for just over an hour, total, which put us somewhat behind, but we managed to catch most of it back up.

after the festival was over saturday night, i got invited to go to the after-festival sort of party thing that takes place. they generally invite me, but i usually have something else i have to do or get to, so i almost always say no. this year, though, it seemed like the thing to do and i am glad that i did. the food was excellent, the food and beer was free for working the festival and it was a very cool time to just sort of take a collective sigh of relief and say "wow, we made it…another one bites the dust" is the term we like to use.

highlights from the festival:
1) explaining to a reporter why it was a delicate balance to let people in to see competition performances only between songs. if their parents really cared, they would be to the venue on time. if it was their kid, i’d be willing to bet that they would be just as pissed if their kid was doing a solo and some asshole banged the door open because they couldn’t get there on time. eh. i do this every year.

2) one of my more brilliant co-workers who was doing cash management for the festival decided to be a stud and hand his foot over the edge of the golf cart they were riding around campus. the driver, also an obvious brain surgeon, was talking on the cell phone and got to close to a pole on the passenger side, catching the first genius’ foot and twisting it completely around. the hurt-foot-guy insists it’s just a sprain and proceeds to walk on it for two days upon which he finally calls the nursing line and goes to the hospital to hear the news that he has a broken ankle. i think this one gets the darwin award of the festival =) i was calling it the dumbass award all weekend, but i like the darwin principle better =)

3) extreme, severe sadness that my favorite choir director is retiring this year and won’t be coming back. WAHHHHHH.

4) talking down a choir director that was so upset by placing second that he told us to keep his trophy and that he would never be back to our festival. encouraged him to be part of the solution…if he thinks there’s a problem, come up with a way to fix it and present it. the worst that will happen is that he will be told no, then he can at least not come back with a clear conscience. he ended up taking his trophy and saying "MAYBE we will come back next year. great guy, truly..he just got a tad frustrated.

5) dealing with volunteers who wouldn’t eat their roast beef box lunches saturday because the roast had dabbled pink blood on the bread and it "looked gross". this one just made me laugh.

6) getting to hear amazing talent and see beautiful people exercise their talents all weekend.

7) getting to hone my ranger/patience/community facilitator skills while juggling many of these things at once.

today, life is good. i am tired, but happy, reasonably well-rested, and looking to face the week with good thoughts. my h comes home tonight after a week in vegas. woo hooo.

peace. 

insecurity and conflict….

yes, it was an interesting thing.

last night my magickal group met, and it was a good class. i feel like i am learning some stuff, but then in other ways i feel like a perpetual slacker because i feel like maybe i should spend more time studying this stuff than i do. but maybe this is just the way it’s supposed to be.

i have been tired the last few days. there was some drama with my nephew that left me discouraged that someone so young could so immediately turn to violence to solve his problems. i tried to explain to him that violence will merely perpetuate more violence, but he doesn’t want to hear that. neither does our president. but the president didn’t get two stitches in his nose, a broken nose, and a broken wrist for trying to solve his problems using violence. instead, he gets to send other people to die. what a morbid and twisted thought THAT is. and so very sad and very true.

so, when i got to class last night, one of my class mates had created some "divination dice" awhile back, and i think she is trying to get them charged with all the magickal energy she can because the last two classes, in the period where we visit before we begin class, she has had them out and rather pointedly said "hey, wanna try my divination dice?" this week i took them and rolled and i bot two blanks and a geometric figure i could probably not reproduce and she said that meant i was currently experiencing indecisiveness, insecurity and coflict. how did those dice know that i am flirting with someone knew and feeling worried about whether or not she will be scared away because i am married, if her expectations of me will be too much or more than i can give, whether or not she will like me, and why she gave me her phone number, but when i tried to call her and got her voice mail, i didn’t leave my own number. these are things that make you go hmmmmm.

i have been working on breath exercises lately and it’s been a pretty interesting thing for me. i hadn’t realized how much what thoughts or feelings i am experiencing at the time really affects how much air i let my body breathe in. i wonder tangentially if this (i just types shit by mistake….freudian slip? hahahaha) affects my health on a lot of different levels and i am sure that it does. one of the things that i notice that is kind of scary for me is that when i am at my house, i have to make a concentrated effort to breathe deeply and meditatively there. i feel conflicted and suppressed there. it’s the weight of people’s expectations in that house, that surround me like the fur balls i refuse to clean up until we get some nice, warm weather so i do not polish floors that will immediately become muddy again when people and dogs and cats tromp through without regard to who might have cleaned things in the not-too-distant past.

and why is the cat having such a hard time going to the bathroom in the litter box? this is frustrating me.

i feel like i am getting my groove back to writing here. like i am done, maybe, being mad at the diarymaster for not giving me a free paid diary, even though i didn’t ask when i was feeling whimpy and pressured about money when my diary expired. i might finally be over that.

peace. 

good weekend….

my weekend was really awesome.

i feel so privileged to have been a part of the show i participated in, and to get to see the talent of the people who were in the show. i also got a special surprise this weekend…

on friday night, i was driving to the theatre, and i passed by an old friends house. he’s one of those friends i totally take for granted. i have known him since i was 12 and i always tease him and say that i knew he was gay before he knew he was gay. we met, interestingly enough, because we both ended up at the downtown library together and he was trying to start a cat club. very cute stuff, that. he is one of the few friends that i had that totally stuck by me when i got pregnant with my son, and he has been my friend always. we live less than a mile from each other, and yet, these days, our paths never seem to cross. so, as i drove past his house, he was outside, so i decided "it’s been too long since i spoke with robert, i need to call him, then." and i did. so, he gets on the phone and we make small talk for a bit, then i tell him about my show, and all is good. he is happy for me that i am dancing and life appears to be pretty good for him, also. he’s working for a bank in town, and has a new car. so, on saturday night, i got this phone call on my cell from a number i did not recognize. he then sent me a text message, and HE CAME TO MY SHOW! it was really, really awesome. he seemed to enjoy it, and i am glad i got to reconnect with my friend. i will not let this much time pass again before doing something else with him….

then, on sunday, my daughter and her friend came to the final show. they really seemed to enjoy it, and i am glad she came. when i said before that no one in my family came, i wasn’t really expecting my kids to come, but my husband, mom and sister didn’t come either, that’s what i was sort of sad about.

anyway…..stoopid work, i better go do some now. i might update again later if i can. there’s more to write about the weekend, small little vignette stories and odd moments in time, but alas, work calls…..

peace.

the government sucketh….

so, there’s this guy. i heard he was a pretty cool guy, although i never met him. my husband served with him in the national guard and he’s the cousin of another friend of ours.

the thing about this guy is that he took the same oath my husband and his cousin and a lot of other guys took. to uphold the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. except he got called on it and he served proudly. and for his effort, he lost his life.

now, his widow cannot have his plaque placed at the spot in their town that honors fallen veterans because he is pagan. she wants him to have a pentacle on his headstone and the va will not allow it because as of yet, it isn’t an approved symbol. in my mind, that just sucks. it sucks because this man died for his country, defending my freedom and the freedom of every other citizen of this country, but one of his most sacred freedom’s, the right to practice his own religion, guaranteed to him by the constitution of the united states that he swore and gave his life to defend, will not now honor his wishes.

the good news is that his widow is doing a smashing job of championing this cause and she has remained calm and respectful while making it perfectly clear that this is not only unacceptable, but downright wrong.

here are some references for your viewing pleasure:

Yesterday, she met with Senator Harry Reid, from Nevada, who has been supportive. Here is a picture of her giving him a flyer with all the facts and some other stuff:

here’s a link to where she recently appeared on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5334805

and here is an article about the situation in the Army Times:

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1584012.php

this is just wrong. go write a letter or something =)

me, of late….

well, the last few weeks have been crazy, and there are no signs of things slowing down for the foreseeable future, however, today i have decided to take a big ‘ole sigh and reflect a bit…

one of my major stressors lately has been work. there was this position open that works integrally with me, and over the last couple of years, it’s been kind of a mess. the position was created when two departments were split and this new management position created. the first person who had it wasn’t what i would call dedicated and it took marriage and a child to make her go away. she’s a really nice person and i saw her just last week, but as a manager, she seemed more interested in being friends with anyone than being an acutal supervisor. this is the person who overseas the customer and student services portion of the department i work for. then, they put someone in the position on a temporary status who decided she liked it and wanted to continue. for the first time since i have been here (almost six years), they did not choose the person who has been functioning in the position to fill it permanently. this sort of pissed me off, because i have a lot to do, and frankly, i don’t have time to break in another new manager. not to mention the fact that three times now i have trained someone in a management position who makes significantly more money than i do. what’s wrong with this picture?!?!!?

so, the new manager. well, my first thing against him was that i don’t think he should have gotten the job. the second thing against him is that he’s a man, which i think is horrible for this position because generally speaking, men do not multi-task well, and it’s a pretty big requirement of this job. but, being the team player i am, i said i would do whatever it took to make him successful. so, he starts about a month ago, and i start training with him right away. he doesn’t write anything down, and he won’t read any of the information that has been given to him in order to make him learn his job easier. sort of the "wisdom of others" type thing, some written by me and some by the person who had the position in an interim capacity. then, his wife works on campus too, and she comes over, calls and emails CONSTANTLY. i don’t know where she works, but her office is OBVIOUSLY not like ours because this is our busy time and we just don’t have time for this. so last weekend, i gave up my saturday to help out with registering one of the largest kids programs we have. we trained about 15 to process registrations and did about 1500 in one day, less than eight hours. well, that creates a tremendous amount of paper that subsequently has to be mailed out because it’s seven weeks of summer camp for kids and we have to confirm, print statements, and send out health forms. this office has been understaffed for months, and this is the time when it shows the most. so, monday, the man tells me he’s going to be there at 6:30, so i show up at that time to make sure he doesn’t ruin anything….he shows up at 9 and stays for half a day and leaves and noon because he doesn’t feel well. tuesday, he says he will be in early, doesn’t show up until 9, goes for coffee with the wife at 10, lunch at noon, then to get a soda at 2, and home at 4. ummm. no. wednesday, he shows up again at 9, then at 10, the wife calls him and tells him he has to do carpool something with the kids, so he has to leave for three hours because he lives in BFE. in the meantime, i am running his department for him and managing the getting out of all this material in the face of being short staffed and all the staff who’s there being stressed because they aren’t used to all this. the rest of the week was similar. i am frustrated with him, but we got out all the paper at the end of the week last week, and now it’s time for him to exist on his own. i think he made a poor decision with an internal promotion also, but he will have to live with that also. i have washed my hands of the situation and now intend to be a distant support and a fly on the wall. he is on his own, and this is my time to breathe in, breathe out, and watch everything blow up. i have done what i could =)

this week is going to be fun stress =) i have three rehearsals this week for three shows this coming weekend for the dance recital at the community college where i take my bellydancing class. if anyone wants to see a small video of me dancing, here it is: http://dropshots.com/day.php?userid=57017&cdate=20060409

there are rehearsals mon-wed-thurs and shows fri-sat-sun. should be fun-fun-fun!!

i am in the center of the stage, the big yellow-looking costume with the black waist thingie. please keep in mind that this video was taken by one of my dance sister’s husbands who was also trying to wrangle two children along with the video camera. if you get vertigo easily, you might not wanna look….ahahahaha. good luck with that =) 

my daughter’s birthday was kind of uneventful. she was gone for most of the weekend, and allowed us to buy her lunch and give her presents for her birthday, then she took off with her friends again. i suppose that’s the nature of the beast when you are talking about teenagers, but it still hurt a little bit.

i think that’s all i want to write, right now.

i should probably do more, shorter entries, rather than these epic ones, but i got to write when i can =)

take care all!

peace!