And now, we wait

It's the calm before the storm, so to speak, in terms of the college semester, with lots of major papers due Sunday night from my CSU courses. That it comes as a surprise (to the students and to me) of sorts is shocking, but with only a week following fall break between relaxing and panicking to get that final document in good shape, the surprise is understandable.

Once most universities made the switch from having two weeks FOLLOWING Christmas break as the final weeks of the fall semester, the proximity of Thanksgiving to Christmas made things very tight. 

I recall those days of coming back after two weeks away and THEN panicking to get those final papers written and cram weeks of reading into days. They were not great days, but on the plus side we didn't start the semester until after Labor Day...

Scheduling ourselves into problems and challenges is quite common, of course, and we mostly have ourselves to blame. 

I am this week under some stress because of a readers theater holiday show that I wrote and am directing. Due to last week being Thanksgiving, the entire process -- from auditions last night to the performances on Saturday -- wraps up in six total days. 

The auditions brought out 50 people who wanted to be part of this relatively low-stress event, which is gratifying but also a potential problem. After all, the show was written to accommodate about two dozen players. 

So, there I was, on-the-spot, calling an audible to double cast the show and present it twice Saturday evening rather than once. I had not seriously considered that as a possibility until I saw all those faces eager to take on a role. 

So I scheduled myself into a full day today of splitting the cast into two groups of 24 (two people dropped out) and both shows will be fine. Of course, the split means that there will be TWO initial read throughs Wednesday night, so rehearsals will be back-to-back at 6 and 7:30 p.m. THAT means everyone needed to know today which cast they were in so they could do their own personal scheduling.

It is now done, and thank goodness I didn't have the pile of papers coming in TODAY that I expect next Monday morning. 

I have high hopes that both shows will be good, and someone is organizing cookies after the second show, so there's that.

There are no cookies for my online students, unfortunately. 

But they probably wouldn't have time for such silliness anyway.