Spring Crits, day three

Morning session, intrepid Juniors...

Mr. Davis

"...budgets need work...kept looking for the trashcan...don't treat sophomores like sophomores..."

Mr. Groeneveld

"...fell off the map a little...not a paperwork person..."

Ms. Cohen

"...haven't critted for a while...like the paperwork more than the drawings...really excited about stage management..."

Ms. Buckser

"...applied skills I wasn't sure I had...taking on communications concepts...took this semester to relax..."

Ms. Ikeda

really got jobbed by the photographer..."was dreading physics...learned a lot of school rules...just make it up..."

Morning (right, not) shoe winner:

Caitlin

(although I almost dq'd these for being a repeat of Emily - have to check)

Afternoon session, job seeking seniors...

Ms. Wells

off to LA to hopefully do SM type work for TV.

Ms. Gable

off to LA to do informational videos.

Ms. Kinch

off to LA to seek her fortune.

Afternoon shoe winner:

Stephanie

(although Kristen's were very nice)

There were no good analogies today, but there was a nice euphamism:

"communicating that way"=whining

Also overheard today (talking about me):

"how does he know that?"
"he knows everything."

Nice.

Day 2 Update

I added more to the comments on the day 2 post.

It is worth noting that in most cases these are poorly paraphrased recounting of things said by the critee and are not my opinions or evaluations. That kind of stuff I can't really put here (the all David honor roll set aside).

Clarification

For anyone who was confused by the all too brief appearance of a student and a giant penis on my site. It was, in fact, homework.

From the assigning Prof:

The object in question, professor B, is in fact a Dionysian phallus-maypole, and it is more on the order of eight feet tall. Five of the students had the assignment to recreate a bacchanal, and this was a set piece they created to do their ecstatic dancing, sacred trance-performance, and dithyrambic hymn-chanting around. Ah, gimme that old-time religion! Who says history can't be [insert phallus joke here]?

Shame on you that thought I was some kind of dirty person.

Here's an expurgated photo for those of you who may have missed it (my likeness used to protect potentially embarrassed students - and likely to horrify others in general).

Cat Fountain

Today I finally broke down and bought one.

For quite some time now I thought it would be a nice idea to have a recirculating source of water for the kittens. Up to now the problem was that the only one at the pet store was more than $50 and that seemed too steep a price to pay.

Today though we found one for almost half that, just a little more than the bulk waterers without recirculation and this seemed like a good time to stop growing algae in the cats water. That's the problem with the jug water thingys - can't get into the to clean them. So once somethin's growin' in there, you're pretty much SOL.

This one is a lot more aetheticly pleasing than the one I'd been looking at anyway, and I think it holds more water. The one complication is that for the little "dome" thing to work right the fountain must be totally level.

We also saw a really cute little kitten at the same store, but were able to restrain ourselves as our household already has more cats than people.

Now we just have to see if the cats will use it.

The MAN

I got a call from THE MAN. Made me change the last entry. Always gettin held down by the man.

Spring Crits, day two

Grad1s and Sophomores

This year we have no grad1s :-(
Next year we will have grad1s :-)
Next year we will have no grad2s :-(

Our intrepid sophomores:

Mr. Grathwohl...

"...CAD Wow!... Welding was awesome!...don't like woking with people..."

Ms. Fellin...

"...happier... really learned alot...glad to be done with lighting..."

Mr. Jentzen...

...is stilltrying to do everything... did alot last week... liked the hands on...

Mr. Schwartz...

...is an office TD... is not going to be a doormat...

Ms. Lipson...

...is voluntarily leaving us for greener pastures. :-(... doesn't want theatre as a job..."rigging is the best course ever! except for Kevin's..."

Ms. Stone...

...loved the whole Rep thing... worked on the tension grid in spite of herself...

Ms. Burford...

...is having an affair with excel... loves Chicago... likes to organize chaos...

Mr. Torska...

...can really dress for success... likes to "have at it with metal..."

Mr. Harris...

...has decided it's all about priorities.

Ms. Lynn...

...design, PTM, who knows what the future will bring (except more rolls).

Ms. Culver...

...finally posted things like I have been assigning them... loves excell and CAD...needs to put the knife down at 3am...

Today's analogy:

You're working too hard, like your foots all the way down on the gas, but in a low gear.

It is worth noting that today Anne said "fuck" more than once, and also that I did not fall asleep like yesterday.

Winning shoes:

Sasha.

Spring Crits, day one

First day, Grad2s and Frosh.

Shannon is the lone PTM student of the day:



She had a very stylish critboard with all classes represented and a little bit of carnival roller coaster thrown in for good measure. I totally forgot to take pithy notes to publish here.

The day's best shoes were Emily's:



although I think Anne would have given the award to Susan.

I've decided that keeping track of crits analogies might be a good activity. I remember one time I said that to be successful in theatre you really had to love what you are doing. I was saying this to someone that was really unhappy and they responded that almost nobody in their class liked what they were doing either which led me to explain:

You have to love this business like it was your little sister. Some days you just want to smack her, but you couldn't live without her.

Today's best analogy belonged to Anne who told one student that his work was like a big dog, dragging him from place to place. Congrats Anne.

Blog fame? Infamy?

Last week I had two interesting blog experiences, if there is such a thing.

The first is something I am quite used to in spheres more pedestrian than the blogosphere. I made a comment on the jill/txt site with a little dry David humor. The next person sort of missed it entirely and wanted to know why Americans have to make everything about George Bush. For a little while I was honestly afraid of what this person I had never met actually thought of me. I was even more upset that I had fouled a blog I like with a little David flamewar (three posts, I know, hardly constitutes a flamewar but you get the idea). I was reminded of another blogger I haven't met who told me they actually had to switch off the comments so that they could keep some interloper from ruining their site. I hope I didn't do that. All appears to be water under the bridge, but I have to say my comment urge has been stifled some.

The next thing that happened was even weirder.

I was looking through the referrer links on my counter and saw one from a site that clearly wasn't a blog, but was a site I had never even heard of. Following the link I found not just a link to my site, but an entire posting crossposted on their site. It is here, most of the way down the page. The entry is slugged "If this were an idea."

In some small way I guess I became a bio-diesel pundit. Who'd-a-thunk it? Think I can count that as an article published when I revise my CV?

Its nice to be noticed.

Waiting

A couple of people have asked over the last day or two if things are slowing down any now that classes are over. Truth is that the last couple of days have been fairly slow, but by no means are the last two days a good predictor of what is to come. More than slowing down, or wrapping up, that last day or two has absolutely been the calm before the storm - you know, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Friday I was waiting for the crush of late and revised assignments to come in. And then Monday I was waiting for the balance of the authorized late submittals to come in. I was really quite surprised that nobody tried to turn in more work today. I guess slowly but surely people are getting the point. It always seemed unfair that people that kept up didn't get much of a bonus over people that simply recovered. The days of that posture are coming to an inevitable end though, and I believe that that's a good thing for all.

Today I am waiting again. Today's wait is for instructors to turn in grades for the semester. I amalgamate all the grades into a report for a meeting we have tomorrow. At least I am putting the waiting time to good use - reading PTM thesis projects while we wait for other faculty to return from the West Coast.

Tomorrow the waiting will end for this phase. There's a full day of culminating meetings and then Semester Reviews begin. Thank you sir may I have another.

Payin' the cost to be the boss

The other day I said "the leader of the free world" had been on television. Since then I've been thinking if perhaps that designation was no longer proper.

When do you think the President of the United States became "the leader of the free world?" Certainly this really can't be from before World War II. People talk about Churchill and Roosevelt in the same way. Often it sounds like Churchill was the bigger wheel. So it must be a cold war thing. The United States did lead the world's free nations during the cold war. So that makes sense.

Does that means that the gig ended with the end of the Cold War?

I think that Reagan clearly fit the bill. He was the leader of the free world. George HW Bush even fits the bill a little. There was a genuine coalition for Gulf War I even if it wasn't the commies that we were fighting. Clinton is a little less clear, but even in his case it did seem like we were moving with a World mandate behind us. Actions in the Balkans, in Somalia, there still seemed to be a consensus in world opinion to back up the effort.

But I also think the luster was fading off the title through that period. Personally I think some of it has to do with the demonizing we saw coming from the Congress and from American media through that phase. My memory isn't a good record here because I haven't been a keen government observer all my life, and in the grand scheme I haven't lived very long, but what I noticed is that the discourse during the Clinton administration became more mean spirited, less respectful of the title even if they didn't respect the man. I guess the rest of the world picked up on that.

George W Bush really doesn't carry the title. Not militarily, not economically, not philosophically. The deep divide in American politics plays itself out on the world stage. I think it is likely that the number of international citizens that might have looked to the President of the United States for leadership in the present is lower than it had been in the past. "You forgot about Poland!" pretty much sums it up.

I wonder who is the leader of the free world now? Is it important that one person wear that hat clearly? Is it worth more compromise at home to provide more of a consensus if it means regaining the mantle of world respect and leadership? Certainly would seem so to me. But what do I know, I build flats for a living.

You know its not that I'm saying that the President of the United States can't be the Leader of the Free World, or even that George W Bush can't. It's just that it feels like we got used to it like both titles came together. If we want to be in that position again, there's some rehabilitation that will need to be done first.