Wow, has it really been almost seven months since I last published? Blog fail! I figured I should get this post, at least, out the door before 2011. It was mostly written in September, so there might be some things that are no longer true. The vast majority of the text, though, is not publish-date-sensitive. Hopefully more to come, filling in my summer at the very least.

I now know what it's like to go through surgery. Thanks to my former appendix for the lesson.

My family planned a vacation to coincide with my brother's college graduation in August. After the graduation festivities, we set out for the Outer Banks of North Carolina by way of Washington, DC. The Outer Banks are a great place to go to just get away from everything and enjoy the ocean. I spent uncountable hours reading Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand—a very engrossing and relevant book) at the beach, and countless more hours taking photos of the ocean and my five-year-old nephew being his unashamedly cute self.

The Outer Banks were so enjoyable, in fact, that we extended our stay. However, that might not have been the best idea: I felt a little off the day before we were to leave, and I felt really bad the day we planned to leave. I felt so bad that I actually wanted to see a doctor—an extremely rare state of mind for me.

Onset

The day I felt a little off was probably related to the eventual diagnosis, but at the time I (and everyone else) thought it was just heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Earlier that day I spent significant time (at least two hours) constantly in the sun. I eventually decided that I had to get out of the sun, no matter what, and spent the rest of the day feeling really exhausted. It felt really good to get to sleep that night, and I figured I'd feel a lot better in the morning.

Morning brought some relief, but I still felt tired. I had a mild headache, but that happens often enough that I thought nothing of it. I figured I'd push right through the day, but my stomach started aching just before lunch time. Since I'd had a good-sized breakfast (the remains of last night's dinner), I decided to try to take a nap instead. Sleep didn't exactly come readily. By the time Mom came to check on me, I was well past a stomach ache.

I had what felt like very bad constipation, only the usual tricks didn't work. It also kept getting worse. From the pain scale I later saw in my hospital room,1 I judge in hindsight that I was at a 3, moving to a 4 when I decided to go to the hospital. (I try to avoid doctors whenever possible; in general any problems I have resolve themselves given a little time.) I finally just gave up trying to solve the problem on my own. Whatever it was, I needed an expert.

My mother stopped to tell Dad where we were going on the way to the car. All I could think was, "Less talk, more driving." I told her as much when she made it to the car, but I think it was more funny than anything else considering my weak, tortured voice at the time.

At the hospital, I dragged myself in and leaned heavily on the reception desk. My stomach demanded so much attention, I could barely answer the basic diagnostic questions posed by the woman working there, but that probably gave her plenty of information right there. I let Mom fill out the blank form I received; there was no way I was going to sit there and write all that data. All I wanted was to move as little as possible.

Diagnosis

When the hospital staff called me into the triage room, I was at about 6 or 7, pain-wise, and that's what I told the nurse when she asked. A few questions later, I had a room and a hospital gown—the first time I can remember being given a gown in my life.2 I changed and gingerly set myself down to wait for someone to come and see me.

A female doctor (of whose name I can remember only that it started with an M) came to examine me and ask more questions. She hypothesized that I might have strep, given my slightly sore throat, and listed three tests I would receive: strep, blood chemistry, and CT scan. She left and returned after a brief eternity to take the strep test. I don't remember her coming back after that; a nurse came to draw blood.

My mother, who was hanging out for a while to provide moral support, left to take her usual walk on the beach (and because the nurse said I should rest). Sometime after that, there was a shift change. I got a new nurse by the name of Philip, who was very good. He was direct and to the point about everything, no matter what I asked him. Of all the people I met at the hospital, he was one of my favorites.

I also got a different doctor, not that I can remember his name either. All I remember is that I sort of liked him better than the first. It was something about his personality.

Later, a man from the radiology department came by to drop off a bottle of Sprite® with barium solution added and a questionnaire; he instructed me to finish the bottle within an hour and a half and to answer all the questions on the form.

The form was the easy part—I could do that all at once—but there was no way I was going to chug a full bottle of soda all at once. (I can't even chug soda when I'm feeling good; the bubbles make it difficult.) So I sipped. And forced myself to sip again, five minutes later. And again. I had just one sip to go when the radiology man came back for me, and I didn't have to finish it. Too bad; by then it was starting to taste pretty good.

Actually getting the scan was an interesting process. The machine sounded like a jet engine once it really got going, and the technicians kept making announcements over a speaker in there. I was told to breathe, hold my breath, let it out, breathe, let it out, take a deep breath, hold it, wait for the machine to scan me again, let it out... I didn't understand why the breath control was such a big deal, but I did my best. Apparently all those years of practice in singing and theatre classes weren't enough; I couldn't always hold it long enough. (It didn't help that my soon-to-be-diagnosed condition accelerated my respiration.)

When I got back to my room, I waited a good while for the results. I used the last dregs of battery power in my cell phone3 to recall my mother so she could hear the verdict as it arrived. She came back just in time; the doctor brought the news within a few minutes of her return.

So, I had appendicitis. Not exactly what I expected to happen on vacation. Apparently I was bucking Outer Banks statistics; Philip later told me that it was common for vacationers to catch appendicitis on the first day of a trip, not on (what was supposed to be) the last as I did. But then, I've never been one for conformity.

The doctor said he thought I'd be taken care of that night, and left to relay my case to the surgeon for a second opinion. Less than an hour later (if I recall correctly), I was meeting with the surgeon and getting the run-down. The anesthesiologist came by to check on allergies and explain how that part of the procedure would work. It took just long enough to call in the crew for the rest of my family to join us at the hospital (though my best friend, with us for the trip, was absent).4 As they were coming from one direction, the two orderlies who took me to OR were coming from the other.

"It"

Dr. Lowe, the surgeon, was a kind, competent-seeming man. From the moment he first entered my room, I had an overwhelming feeling that he knew exactly what to do and how to do it. His confidence-inspiring presence helped alleviate the few qualms I had (by then) about going through surgery.

I had an entourage all the way down the hall to OR. It was actually kind of fun, since I was finally about to have the problem corrected. My family parted ways with us at the big double doors to the OR department after eliciting a promise from the surgeon for pictures (which I have yet to see; my mom said she thought she left them in the waiting room).

On the way to OR2 (the specific room within the OR used for my procedure) I began to notice that the doctors had a really good sense of camaraderie among them, a welcome addition to the auras of competence and warmth projected by nearly everyone I met. Dr. Lowe, the anesthesiologist, and the assistants all knew each other well and kept up a non-stop humor stream as I was wheeled in. I did my best to join the fun in the few minutes before the point where I can no longer remember anything. I can barely remember being told I was about to get very sleepy. My last thoughts were of relaxation and of trust in the skills of the people around me.

Operation Successful

I woke up in a timeless world, feeling like I'd just dozed off for a moment. I was in a bed, but the last place I remember moving was an operating table; I honestly don't know how I ended up on a bed in a shadowy nook of the operating room, but I did. A woman was sitting at a desk, relaying somehow the details of my case to someone else; I will never know to whom she was speaking, but the nurses in the ward where I was later taken are good candidates. I was floating on a cloud of white linen, not really feeling anything except drowsiness—Dr. Lowe's promised numbing medicines were working. Eventually someone came over to greet me, and then I was wheeled to an elevator, floating along to my room for the night.

Mom and Dad showed up with my sleeping nephew, quipping that it looked like I'd have a roommate. I tried to keep up conversation, but I really wanted to just go back to sleep. With my side of the conversation consisting mostly of single words (several of which sounded like "sleepy"), I convinced everyone that I felt fine and just needed to rest. But first, they made me "play" with a breathing apparatus "to help avoid pneumonia"...or something like that. Then everyone left and I drifted off...once a nurse managed to make the IV pump stop beeping about an obstruction every two minutes. (I heard identical beeps from other rooms from time to time, so I knew it wasn't just me.)

About an hour later, I woke up. I had three pressing concerns: a beverage (my mouth felt like plaster), a trip to the bathroom (how much saline did they put through my IV?), and the breathing tube in my nose (which was getting to be quite annoying). I fought with myself for a few minutes, trying to combat my usual reluctance to bother anyone else with my desires, finally remembering that helping me stay comfortable was half of the nurse's job. I pushed the call button, hearing a faint electronic ring echo down the corridor outside my door. All was quickly taken care of (my vitals got checked, besides, "as long as you're awake") and I went back to sleep much more comfortable, after the nurse painstakingly placated my IV pump—again. I noted more discomfort around my incisions than before (the medications were wearing off), but no way was I going to let that keep me awake.

The Next Morning

In the morning, the dawn came up like thunder through my window and hit me across the chest with golden strips of sunlight. I snoozed for an hour or so until someone poked a head in to check on me around 07:30. She told me I had breakfast coming—my first food in nearly 24 hours, not counting that wonderful CT-contrast5-and-Sprite® solution the day before. While I waited, I heard the distant beep of an IV pump; a nurse poked her head in just long enough to say "That's not you, is it?"; I grinned and told her "Nope, sorry." Finally free enough of physical irritants to be bored, I broke down and turned on the television, finding a decent show (Boy Meets World, which I used to watch several times a week, years ago) just in time for my food.

Eating presented a problem. I still had an IV in my right arm, so it wasn't a great idea to eat normally—the IV pump would have kept beeping away. I tried to eat left-handed and use my right hand for things like holding the little margarine cups so I wouldn't set off the beeper, but even that tripped the finicky pump. That same nurse came in; sheepishly I said, "Yeah, this time, it's me." She fixed it and started to leave, but it began beeping again before she could reach the door. Rather than try to have me work around it, she just shut it off and disconnected me. "It's just keeping the line open, anyway. We'll let you eat in peace."6 The line just had to stay usable until my pre-discharge antibiotic at 10:00 (pulled to 09:30). So I had nearly full use of my right arm, but I still had to be pretty left-handed; I didn't want to stress the IV by bending my elbow all the way.

Breakfast took me long enough to eat that I had to find a new channel to watch in the middle of it; a nurse checked on me and, surprised, asked, "You're still eating?" What could I say? It was slow going with that blasted IV in my arm, even if I didn't have to worry about angering the pump unit. She brought over a syringe of saline solution "to keep [my IV] from clotting over", used it, and was gone. I still had half of my breakfast left, but trying to be left-handed was a good challenge.

Eventually I finished the tray (not bad for gourmet hospital food), with still an hour to go until that antibiotic. I found passable shows to watch, mildly amusing but not at all substantive. (I thought of the cable cliché, "500 channels and nothing to watch." It seemed appropriate, even though there were only about 50 channels.) While I was waiting, the anesthesiologist dropped by to check on me. I was glad of that; he'd done such good work the night before, I just had to thank him.

I was pleased when my IV showed up, even if it meant being tethered again; in my book, maintaining a state of forward motion is always a cause for happiness. I even found a good show to watch while the IV ran: National Geographic happened to be playing a very timely Naked Science piece about hurricanes.7

My nurse came to tell me about the discharge procedure and what I shouldn't do/eat while I was recovering. My phone was too dead to place a call and the room phone didn't allow long-distance calls, so I gave her Mom's cell phone number to call for my ride. Mom proceeded to pull her usual act of not answering the phone. (That Mom rarely answers her phone is a big running joke in my family. ) In the mean time, I got to get dressed—in my real clothes. The nurse returned to say she'd left a message; I suggested trying Dad, who almost always answers his phone. When she called him, he said they should leave me on the curb. Thanks, Dad, I feel so loved. 8

Getting dressed, I started to notice that my body was not quite itself. I felt like an overinflated balloon being shaped into an animal as I bent to pull on my jeans, and every little jostle bothered the gauze-covered spots on my abdomen. Putting on my shoes was an interesting experience. Had anything fallen on the floor, I don't think I would have been able to pick it up at that point; luckily my habit of not dropping things had stayed with me through the ordeal. A few times since the surgery, one nurse or another had discussed this concept of "gas" being left inside my belly, gas that had been used to facilitate the laparoscopic procedure. I wondered, but never got around to asking, why so much of it had been left when it was such an inconvenience. They all said it would take about two days to be absorbed and removed, but that did me no good that first morning.

Everybody showed up for my release. Mom, Dad, Conner, and Marty all came in to see the final outcome. I guess you could say I was unsurprised when a nurse brought over a wheelchair for me; I haven't been to many hospitals, but I've visited enough to know that you always leave on wheels. On the way down I got a veritable torrent of cautions and warnings from the two escorting nurses; one of them threatened to cut me if I even thought about going swimming in the next two weeks (heh ) and waved us goodbye. The other saw me to the car and left us with a couple of restaurant recommendations. Too bad I never got to try them; I'll have to remember to try The Food Guys on my next trip to the Outer Banks.

Recovery

The first stop for the day was "breakfast", even though it was almost 11:00 and I'd eaten not long before. I ordered some fruit and eggs, figuring they should be safe. Not bad, but it was almost too much food. (That restaurant, the Ship's Wheel, is another item on the list of things to return to on my next Outer Banks visit. It most definitely did not get a fair chance on account of my state at that time.)

I wanted to go back to the motel and rest after eating, but was taken to the aquarium instead. After that, we went to Fort Raleigh. I didn't really want to do a lot of exploring, but I got into a good conversation with the woman at the gift shop counter and found out about a possible theatre job for next summer. The Lost Colony (a drama about a British colony at Fort Raleigh that disappeared around 1590) has been performed at the Waterside Theatre since 1937 and is apparently a big summer job draw for college students. (Within a week, I emailed the company to inquire about getting involved; as soon as I can get all the materials together, I'll apply and see how it goes.) Dad and I traipsed over to see the theatre while Mom and Conner went to see the earthen fort.

For the first few days I had to limit myself to a slow amble; anything more and I got uncomfortable very quickly. Even so, that first afternoon was probably overkill for me; when we did get back all I wanted to do was lie down and not move. Of course that was the night when Marty invited his best new buddies over for dinner. Figures.

But things quieted down soon enough. Aside from Conner getting carried away and forgetting to avoid my abdomen (...ow...) the evening was all right. Then I got to relax.

The next day, Tuesday, I read. And read. Thank goodness nobody wanted to do much. It was nice to return to the hotel's beach pavilion (which had been my usual hangout for most of the previous week) and get back to reading Atlas Shrugged; I was to write an essay about the book for a contest, due on September 17, and the deadline would not wait for my surgery.

That night we went in search of go-carts. More specifically, Marty and his friends wanted to go go-carting and Conner got into it. So we had to find kiddie or family carts, which of course were unavailable at the track where Marty et al went. I would have loved to drive Conner around again (we'd found go-carts the week before) but I didn't feel up to it. Mom got to act like a speed demon while I tried—and failed, miserably—to take pictures of the carts speeding (at 15 miles per hour) around the night-lit track. (It was after 20:00 and dark, despite the floodlights. Not even CHDK could help me get pictures of fast motion with so little light.)

Conner and Dad were to fly home early Wednesday morning, because Conner had a Kindergarten orientation to attend on Thursday. The nearest airport was 90 miles away in Norfolk, VA; Mom drove them at 03:30. But first, we had a great closing dinner at Owen's, across the street from our motel. Marty, Mom, and I would drive back by way of Fuquay-Varina (a suburb of Raleigh, NC), where we visited an old friend of Mom's.

I got used to sleeping flat on my back for those first few nights. Sleeping on my side was out of the question, let alone rolling onto my stomach. But I got my sleeping position freedom back steadily, and surprised myself by waking up on my right side Wednesday morning.

Back to (Almost) Normal

It took a while to get my abdominal strength back, but I was ready to do crunches by the time I started theatre class 20 days after my surgery.9 I even did everything in dance class, which was quite pleasing. I half expected to have to bow out of some of it to rest my muscles, but that didn't happen. Hooray for the human body's capacity for repairing itself, eh?

On second thought, maybe it was a good thing we delayed our planned departure. If we'd left on schedule, I would have contracted appendicitis on a highway surrounded by corn fields, the nearest hospital possibly a hundred miles away. (Worse yet, our original—and aborted—summer vacation plans were to take us to outback China... Scary thought.)

Every so often I would still get the occasional protest from some part of me that wasn't quite back up to spec, but I'm back to my usual self now. I've been dancing, climbing ladders, hanging lights, and generally getting down to business these past few months, with no complaints from any part of me. (Well, that doesn't include my stomach. Sometimes I get so busy at the theatre that I forget to, you know, make time to eat. )

So now I've been through surgery, and recovery. It got annoying at times when I couldn't do certain things, but for the most part it wasn't as bad as I feared. I hope I don't have to do it again, at least for a really long time; but if it is necessary I'll be a lot less anxious in the future.

1. This copy from Pacific University, Oregon
2. I've never been in to a hospital for something major, so maybe that's why I just stayed in my own clothes on those rare occasions.
3. Like an idiot, I forgot my cell phone charger at home when we left on this month-long trip. My phone was only alive at this point because my brother's phone uses the same charger as mine. It had been almost two weeks since I was last able to plug the phone in.
4. Marty, who knows me probably better than any of my friends, was not with my father and nephew at their aborted dinner that evening.
5. I believe the additive was barium-based.
6. Or something to that effect. My memory of some of these exchanges is a bit foggy.
7. Timely, because the big concern of the weekend was Tropical Storm Earl and whether he'd force an evacuation by turning into a big bad hurricane. He did. And all tourists were asked to leave the following Thursday, so we did, but not before watching the motel get boarded up. It looked like they had a lot of experience with hurricane preparedness.
8. My dad has probably the driest sense of humor I've ever encountered. Fortunately I'm used to it.
9. I considered quipping to Liz (the principal, who's known me for almost twelve years) that "I'm back again! Well, most of me is."

Anyway, I took a total-recall approach to this post, which was a bad idea now that I look back on it. I should have done what I did with my Guys and Dolls retrospective and taken a few notes every day to document what I was doing as I was doing it. This way, I'm sure a lot got left out, even if I did do a major brain dump right after getting back home in September. But the important stuff is there. And so, on with it.

When people asked me what I did last summer, I didn't know where to start at first. Fortunately, I've had practice describing my activities, so I can start with a very concise summary: Theatre.

Less concise, but more precise: Technical theatre and stage design.

I spent two months doing a couple different so-called "Design/Tech" programs, both of which were halfway across the country from Minnesota (one was in Colorado Springs, CO, and the other was in Boston, MA). Each program had a different focus, which was nice. One focused on the technical side of things, and the other focused more on design; but they each covered aspects of both, and—more importantly, I think—they each taught me a great deal.

Options

Before I did anything, I had to find and apply to programs that sounded interesting. I have to thank my mother for doing a lot of research for me. She found five programs to which I ended up applying, four of which I was very interested in.

Stanford was the most academic of the bunch. They offered what basically amounted to college-level summer classes for high school students. I wasn't terribly interested in it, but figured applying couldn't hurt. As it turned out, it was all right that I wasn't excited about Stanford's program. They turned me down. Oh well. No skin off my nose, except for the fact that Stanford's application had taken the most time. Whatever. Next…

Alfred University offered a summer theatre program to which I applied and was accepted. It was a design/tech program, probably similar to what Emerson's program was like. Speaking of which…

Emerson College had a great-sounding Stage Design program in their Summer Arts & Communications Academy. It got into everything: Set design, costume design, and lighting design. (Almost nobody has sound, unfortunately.) I got in there, too.

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center offers a program called Youth Repertory Theatre every summer. I'll describe it more in detail later, but it was highly technical with the promise of instruction in the basics of design.

For something different, LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) offered summer courses in various fields of acting. In London. In England. I applied for two of the courses—involving Shakespeare and physical theatre—and got in.

And those are the choices I had for this summer: Alfred University, Colorado Springs, Emerson College, and LAMDA.

Choosing which program(s) I'd do, though, wasn't trivial.

Deciding

Summer really isn't that long. Three months sounds like a long time, but most programs don't start immediately, and those that do don't generally go through the end of the summer. Between the two extremes, there's a lot of overlap. Doing more than two or three different programs is difficult, if not impossible. So I had to choose which programs to turn down.

Since Stanford was out, I really didn't have to decide between academics or theatre. (Not that there would have been a contest; academic courses usually bore me, and I like to be interested in what I do during the summer.) However, I did have to choose between the acting side and the technical side. Because I've done years and years of acting (I'm currently in my 11^th year at my extracurricular theatre school), I elected to explore the technical side of things this summer.

(Last summer at Northwestern University, tech was a requirement for all the actors. Since that program did ten shows in five weeks, we needed everyone in the shops getting things set up. That gave me my first experience with theatrical lighting. And yes, I do plan to finish my post about Northwestern. Eventually. It's just complicated—more so than this summer. As demonstrated by the fact that I wrote this one faster and more easily.)

That meant that LAMDA was pretty much out. Not only was it yet more performance, but the information packet I got in the mail indicated that housing was not guaranteed, and food was not provided. Neither was transportation. Sure, Colorado Springs was even less certain, but it was a lot closer to home. I really liked the idea of traveling to London, but I didn't like the idea of having to navigate a foreign country on my own for over a month. Also, the timing didn't exactly work out with my front-runner, Colorado Springs. I regretfully sent an email declining LAMDA's acceptance. I will go to London in the future—definitely.

With London out of the way, and Colorado Springs becoming the one that I really wanted to do, Alfred and Emerson had to duke it out. Well, I had to duke it out.

In the end, it came down to timing. Emerson overlapped Youth Rep, but Alfred's conflict was much worse.

So, in mid-June, I packed my bags and set course for Colorado.

Colorado Springs

The idea of the Youth Repertory Theatre program is to take a group of students ages 15–18, in both performance and design/tech, and provide them with the experience of a fully mounted show. Er, two fully mounted shows. (That's what the "Repertory" part means. The program always does two shows—one musical, one straight play—on a rotating performance schedule.)

It just so happened that I was the only out-of-state student. Why? Well, Youth Rep (as we affectionately call it) is a local, day program. It's not like the program I did at Emerson College (I'll get to that next) where students come from all over the country. The Fine Arts Center is just a local theatre, and they don't provide housing, food, or any of the necessities. It's not designed for what I did. But it still worked.

After I sent in my application, I got a voice mail from Chris, the FAC's technical director. Traditionally, all applicants come in for an interview or audition (depending on whether they apply for design/tech or performance). In my case, that was obviously not an option. But he was happy with a telephone interview, and so I was accepted.

Fast-forward to after the afore-mentioned decision process. Once going to Colorado Springs was definite, I needed to find a place to stay. It just so happened that Margaret was again the key to part of my life. She has family in Colorado Springs (she has family and/or friends just about everywhere), and she asked them if they knew of people willing to rent out a room for the summer. She got back a lead pretty fast, which ended up being where I stayed. A little Facebook and telephone magic, and it was all set.

Beginnings

Upon arrival in Colorado Springs the day before Youth Rep began, I got settled in my home for the next five weeks. The accommodations were modest but comfortable, and only a few blocks from the FAC.

That first Monday morning, after trying (and, as it turned out, failing) to set myself a routine, I arrived fifteen minutes early to the Fine Arts Center, to find the lobby nearly empty. Not surprising, considering that the FAC is closed on Mondays; but wasn't a program involving about 80 high-school students about to start? I didn't have to wait long. People started arriving, first in a trickle, then in bursts, then in a steady stream. Within ten minutes, the lobby was echoing with chatter, squeals of delight at seeing friends from the previous summer, shuffling, and all the attendant commotion that comes with a gathering of teenagers. The front desk staff made futile efforts to shush the group while I edged toward the few other quiet types taking refuge along the sides of the space.

Promptly at 09:00, the doors to the theatre opened. Over who should sit where, there was some confusion. No directions had been given to anyone, but it was all straightened out. The staff appeared on stage. Faculty were introduced, speeches were delivered, etc. etc. etc. After about half an hour, the program officially started, amidst more uncertainty due to lack of instruction—this time, over the sign-in sheet that had appeared at the front of the house right aisle. (It moved to the green room bulletin board for the rest of the five weeks and became routine for all of us.)

Our design/tech group was a few students short; one had apparently decided to do something else with her summer, and another couldn't make it for the first day. We made our introductions without the absentees; there wouldn't be that much to catch up on. Once introductions (including one interruption, a full-company meeting in the rehearsal space that nobody had thought to tell our mentors about) were through and our "textbooks"—large red three-ring binders—distributed, we began to learn.

Classes

In the first few weeks, mornings were devoted to a classroom-like study of our textbook material: An entirely FAC-staff–written Design/Tech Handbook. I learned a lot of the basics from that text. We also did some design exercises: Listening to music and drawing it, getting a word or concept and expressing it through various art works, and creating basic, quick design sketches from two-page clippings of plays.

For most of the text, we simply read the material as a class, with Chris (TD/SD) and Holly (ME/LD) leading with expansions, examples, questions, and answers. A few subjects (such as stage management, production, and costume design) warranted bringing in other staff members, which was always enjoyable.

I would like to say that, while my classmates and I were occasionally reticent to have discussions, at least one of us had something to say 95% of the time (not always me, I freely admit). The number of silences after questions may have been a little high, but it was more often due to thought than a desire to not speak.

Beyond the Youth Rep program, my instructor at Emerson appreciated having examples of my style a month later. I grew rather attached to those exercise pieces. They're all keepers.

Shop

With classes in the morning, shop training was left for the afternoon. For the first few days, the two were tied closely together, because we learned about the different tools in class and then learned how to use them in shop; but from there, they split.

I found shop to be very satisfying, especially once we started the build. Everyone had a hand in just about everything on stage; pairs or trios of us ended up having pet projects of a sort, in that we did most of the work for some particular design element.

For example, I and a pal (Calum, with whom I worked and chatted frequently; our banter quickly earned us the nickname "the married couple") had a heavy hand in building Grizabella's staircase on the main wagon (now that was one big rolling platform!). Calum, a second classmate (Steven, also a frequent work partner), and I all erected the piping on both house platforms. I and a third classmate assembled most of the scenic flats that would hang on those pipes.

Everything was interrelated. Nobody's project was really isolated. Each of us probably had some part in 75% to 95% of the set. That kind of interdependency is really awesome when you look back on it, and it was all Chris and Holly planning the whole dance.

Aside from the scenic elements I was involved in, I am also rather proud of two other small projects in which I participated on which I was the only student. The first was hanging the three moving light units (the FAC uses ETC Revolutions) at the back of the house, setting their DMX addresses, and running their power cables; the second, running the headset (intercom) cables to the two scaffold tower follow spot positions at the back of house (one of which I ended up in) and interconnecting them to those in the booth.

No, I did not hang three $7,000 lighting units by myself. That job came after I requested some involvement in lighting. (I'd been doing nothing but scenic work for three weeks while people with no real interest in lighting hung everything else.) Most of the lights were already hung, but the back of house hadn't been finished yet. So Chris, Holly, and I (feeling smug, of course, to be on special assignment ) trooped up to the booth and did a little put-the-Revs-on-the-pipe-without-letting-them-fall-30-feet dance. That entailed Chris and me sitting in the glassless windows, using the pipe for balance and our feet to support the Revs. Oh, boy, was I glad when each unit was seated on the pipe…

Running headset and power cables took advantage of my existing knowledge of circuits. The challenge was finding the correct lengths of cable. Since most of the cabling had already been done on stage, the supply of available cable was limited for both types. I had to do some creative things to get cables that weren't too short or too long. But I had fun doing it.

And by the way, the connections between projects were strongest when you were doing something on your own. Sometimes the smallest things—like headset cables—were very important. What would have happened if I'd messed up a connection and the follow spot operators (a group that included me, as it turned out) couldn't hear each other, or the staff? (It couldn't happen, because I checked the circuit myself when the cabling was complete. But it makes a good "what if" scenario.)

What I built

I lost track of all the scenic elements I was involved in. However, several of them stick out in my memory as pieces that I invested a significant amount of time in.

As a particularly remarkable example, I had significant roles in two of the three steps (I know, ouch) involved in making the staircase. With one partner, I glued and stapled about half the steps together. Then, a week or two later, Calum and I spent the better part of two working days stacking and securing and arranging those steps into a staircase bigger than either of us. We each drove dozens and dozens of screws into that thing. Neither of us knew you could break a sweat while sitting still, but we did with all that pushing on screws.

More screwing (a running joke) was involved in constructing the railing pieces for Midsummer. Those also got carriage bolts, which were great fun.

Before putting the steps on the main—huge—wagon, Calum and I (with help from Steven) put still more screws into the smaller flats on the back of the wagon, turning them into one big flat. That involved some ladder work and a few awkward positions. But it was all fun.

As I mentioned, Calum, Steven, and I single-handedly (triple-handedly?) put up the pipe frames on the house platforms that were later used for both hanging scenic flats and lighting instruments. If putting the flats on the back of the main wagon involved "some" ladder work and "a few" awkward positions, building the pipe frames involved awkward positions on ladders, ladders in awkward positions, and combinations of both. Plus those pipes were heavy: Ten or sixteen feet of steel pipe is no laughing matter when you're surrounded by polished wood paneling and painted seat backs; you mustn't hit anything or drop the pipe. But again, mostly fun, and we could all laugh at ourselves afterward.

Finally, those scenic flats I mentioned got three different stages of input from me. First there was that whole putting them together thing (staple gun and wood glue). Then there was attaching the flat goods (fake wood paneling, in my case) to a couple of them. Then I got involved in putting foliage on the trellis-type flats (with an upholstery tacker, a staple gun's runt child). I was especially proud of putting those things together, at the time, since they were my first project.

Tech and Performance

The last two weeks of the program—and especially the final nine days—were devoted to finishing the last few details of the set, tweaking lighting instruments, learning run crew duties, and showcasing the fruits of our labors. I ended up not having a thing to do for most of Midsummer's first half, but my assignment as follow spot operator on Cats—as well as the backstage hang-out time I gained by my lack of duty during Midsummer—made up for that.

Tech

I won't go into detail about the tech rehearsals themselves. If you've had them, you know what they're like; if you haven't, just ask Wikipedia. (I'll give those of you without experience in things theatrical a hint: Tech week is often referred to as "hell week" or "torture week", and for good reason. The rehearsals are very tedious for everyone, cast and crew alike.)

However, while Midsummer rehearsals were especially tedious for those of us with very few duties, Cats was a never-ending source of change, frustration, and entertainment for those of us manning the follow spots. Cues changed every day, and I (for one) never figured out all of the characters I was supposed to hit until the second performance. (Quaxo, if your positioning had been any less obvious…) Our entertainment, we got from headset chatter. Even on performance days, we cracked jokes, somehow managing to not irritate our SM.

Performance

All told, the performances were all enjoyable. With the exception of our last day (I'll address that shortly), everything happened almost exactly as it was supposed to. Set pieces moved, props traveled around, light and sound cues ran, and the audiences loved it all. Predictably, Cats was a sensational hit, selling out all four performances. Many of us on the crew, including me, were hoping to arrange tickets for others—in my case, the guy who provided my housing and my mother—but didn't move quickly enough, and had to deliver bad news. My mother got in to see the dress rehearsal by invitation, but she only saw the final performance by volunteering to be an usher; as it turns out, she wasn't the only parent to do so.

The Last Day

Many differences cropped up in just the four or five days between the dress rehearsals on Tuesday and Wednesday and the final performances on Sunday of the same week. One difference in particular, however, wasn't a conscious change by the creative staff. One of the leads got too daring during intermission of the Midsummer matinee on the last day and managed to injure himself severely enough to hold the show. He finished with a gauze bandage on the back of his head, close monitoring from the wings, and minimized appearances in the latter half of the show. He was taken to the hospital following the performance, but we still had one show left.

Cast and crew alike were worried about him. Never mind what would happen if he couldn't perform in the evening run of Cats; he was one of us, and nobody wanted him to be hurt badly. So everyone was relieved when he appeared, fully treated and ready to perform one more time, in time to wow one more audience.

Alex Killian is one tough guy. He took a head injury, finished the show, went to the hospital, and came back to finish. Not many people can say that, and I deeply respect him for it. I am proud to say that I know him.

The End

Of course, that final performance was bittersweet. It wasn't just Alex; five weeks with this group of people had gotten me rather attached. I suppose my position was unique; as the only out-of-towner, I alone was possibly seeing these people for the last time. Many of the others could count on working together again next summer; a lot of them attended the same schools. I couldn't count on anything. I was only eligible for the program this year; barring some sort of special arrangement (which I might have to look into, now that I'm thinking about this once more), I can't participate again.

But regardless of whether my future holds involvement with the FAC, my past always will. Who knows, I might decide to go to Colorado College. They have a rather novel class schedule, under which students take one class at a time for three weeks. I like the sound of that.

Boston

After a couple of days getting organized, repacking, eliminating unnecessary stuff (which went back to Minnesota—thanks, Mom! ), and booking last-minute travel changes, I arrived in Boston, MA around midnight and got to Emerson College at 02:00. Getting checked in was pretty simple—a couple staff members and both of my suitemates stayed up waiting for me—and I went quickly to bed after unpacking enough to get me through the night (read: pajamas). Tori, the program supervisor, told me when classes started (09:00) and said to come to her in the morning for directions to my classroom. I tumbled into bed, setting my alarm for 07:30.

I slept through it.

Tori woke me up at 10:00 via proxy; I was roused by Ben, one of my suitemates, knocking on my door. I rushed through the process of getting dressed and went out to knock on Tori's door, which was next to mine—interesting coincidence. (It was also interesting that the reason Ben was around to rouse me was that he'd also slept through his alarm, because he'd stayed up late to greet me.) That first morning wasn't the last time I had to rush to get dressed, but it was the first and last time I did so during class hours.

So, Tori led me to the classroom, by then nearly two hours late. It was not a good start to my first day that was actually already a week and change into the program. But the students and teacher were welcoming, and I learned of the reputation I'd earned in my absence.

There were many conflicting stories going around regarding me, the mysterious tardy student. One of the most popular was that I was up in the mountains building houses; another, less credible, said I'd been eaten by a mountain lion and wasn't coming. Most of the rumors did get one thing right: I was in the mountains. After all, Colorado Springs is up at about 6,800 feet.

All those rumors earned me the nickname "Mountain Man". Heh. Well at that point, I felt like one. Coming from 6,800 feet to just above sea level… Just imagine.

First Project: Drafting

Anyway, I got right into the thick of things. I already had a partner for a project they'd started two days before; she'd come up with a set design for a short play called Film Noir by Bathsheba Doran. My first assignment was drafting elevations of my partner's scenic elements.

Now, I'd never done any drafting before. Well, not formally. (I had a tendency to doodle geometric shapes in class when I was younger.) But before lunch I'd gotten a crash course and was well on the way to producing what Brynna—our teacher—would later call "pretty drafting."

I spent as much time as necessary on every elevation. If I thought something didn't look right, I rechecked it. I couldn't be rushed. I knew the project wouldn't stop with my work, and I wanted the next step—whatever it was—to go off without any hitches due to negligence on my part. As it turned out, the drafting was made into a white model. Julia, my partner, worked long and very hard on her model, and I think it turned out very well. Unfortunately, I couldn't get pictures of the finished model in a timely enough manner, and even one sheet of drafting is far too large to scan.

Costume Design

Individually, we each also started a second project in tandem with the individual/pair design work, called our "refrigerator character." This was a character to be designed from scratch, using only a photo of a refrigerator taken by someone else in the class. The design would, ideally, include as much detail as possible, including name, occupation, age, home, familial relationships (if any), personality, and whatever else we could come up with, though the character's costume was the most important component.

My photo2 prompted my imagination of my somewhat wacky character, a 47-year-old divorced fraud analyst at U.S. Bank named Alan Kluesner residing in a rather messy mansion in the suburbs of Des Moines, Iowa (my full notes). The kicker was actually finding a Plaxo profile picture of a forty-something U.S. Bank fraud analyst in my research. Of course I spent far too long researching Alan's life, from where he might live and work to what his home and office might look like, but I think it was worthwhile. (I won't deal with adding any of my research photos to this post; suffice it to say I have pictures of possible offices, houses, clothing, and so forth.)

This project allowed me to exercise my Google-fu and my skills in watercolor and GIMP. Taking a few pieces of costume research and a sheet of tracing paper, I got my character's shape down. I then photocopied the tracing and watercolored it. Finally, I scanned the finished watercolor into the computer and cleaned up some of the rough watercolor edges. Below, the final cleaned version:

Alan Kluesner, my 47-year-old bank fraud analyst character design project

Lighting

Another project was a group lighting design, created to go with a song. As a group, we chose the song and collaborated on colors, angles, and timing. Our guest instructor, Scott Pinkney, taught the basics of lighting and helped us with our choices. The song ended up being "Helter Skelter" as heard in the movie Across The Universe. Our efforts are documented in the video below (until such time as it may be removed from YouTube for copyright infringement ).

Grunt Work

Because our lighting instructor (not Brynna) was the lighting designer for Shakespeare on the Common's production of The Comedy of Errors, we all spent two days helping to assemble the set for the show before we began the lighting curriculum in earnest. It was fun, even though the weather was a little hot and I'd already spent the better part of five weeks building sets. We got our names added to a program insert for our trouble.

Makeup

We had a week of three-hour makeup classes, too, where we learned the basics of stage makeup and experimented with color, fantasy characters, old age, and some trauma (bruises, cuts, and so on). Funny how I tried to include a Bajoran as a fantasy character; too human. But one of my classmates turned herself into a panda. (We jokingly called her "pissed-off panda" for the rest of the session, because she got annoyed whenever anyone said she made a cute panda.)

Final Project: Solo Set Design

The concept sketch I drew for my set design before beginning the research and compositing process

Each of us also took on one final project. Mine was a solo set design, which I created based on the short play The Message by Hilary Bell. I began with a mental concept, which I then sketched. I did dozens of image searches for the various components of my design, saving them all (and embedding the sources in the file comments) and adding them to a GIMP file, and then composited the entire scene together. Making everything fit and look reasonably natural took a little effort, a lot of patience, and far too much time, but the end result, below, was totally worth it.

The wall portraits are all separate layers. I imported the headshots one at a time, added a border, and then used the perspective transform tool to "place" them on the walls. Conveniently, the walls in the greenroom photo I ended up using were built from concrete blocks, and thus had lines on them for me to follow. I laid in the couple, cart, and baby separately, erasing away the empty parts of each picture (standard practice). Much of my time went to tuning pixel-level detail around the more complex shapes and arranging the portraits. While preparing the image for posting here, I actually noticed a detail or two (like the shadow at upper left that isn't cast on the actress' headshot) that I didn't catch, but I think it still looks pretty awesome.

Since I had time to spare in class, Brynna suggested that I print the composite, trace it, and create my own watercolor version of the scene. So I did. It, like the refrigerator photo character, was good exercise for my neglected watercolor skills.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

Looking back on the work I did at Emerson, I spent most of my design lab time either behind a drafting table or behind a keyboard. I suppose that indicates what I enjoy and/or what I'm good at. (Like I didn't know I enjoy working digitally. ) The drafting was surprisingly satisfying, and I'll have to look for more opportunities to do it.

Traveling the Northeast: Family and Colleges

When the Emerson program ended, my mother picked me up in Boston and we drove to meet up with my father, who turned 60 last June. My parents celebrated his actual birth date with local friends in Minneapolis; however, since the main corpus of my dad's family lives in Pennsylvania, my mother set up a second celebration in the East.

We spent a week at a rather nice campground in southwestern Pennsylvania, the five of us (Mom, Dad, my brother, me, and my four-year-old nephew), sightseeing and visiting family and friends in the area. I took far too many pictures of my nephew (as I always do—he's too damned cute) and the new 16GB SD card I bought in Colorado Springs when my 4GB card got full came in very handy. Not that I came close to filling it; I've barely managed to use half of it—including copious video clips—and I haven't yet emptied it.

After my dad went home (with my nephew) and my brother returned to school, my mother and I began a wandering tour of colleges in the northeast. We visited (listed in no particular order): Muhlenberg College, Alfred University, Brandeis University, Hampshire College, Amherst College, Brown University, Cornell University, Ithaca College (where my cousin is currently a freshman), and Carnegie Mellon University. At most schools we took the admissions tour, though some got less attention and some got more. (For instance: My cousin took us around Ithaca herself, but Amherst got a mere drive-by—the timing didn't work out for a tour, and we'd just spent most of the day touring Hampshire College.)

I found some good options through those tours, and eliminated a few choices. The experience got a little tedious at times, but I ended up applying to Brandeis and Brown (from this list only; I sent out nine applications total). Brandeis even looks like my current front-runner, so I'm really hoping I get accepted.

Home at last

After returning home, I added up how long I'd been away. The total was three months. Three months! That was a long time to be living out of one duffel bag and a backpack. Not that I haven't done that before; I last did it in 2007, when I went on two three-week canoe trips in Temagami, Ontario followed by a month of exploration on the roundabout (via New York) drive back. (I definitely suck at blogging about my summers. Two pretty major summers—2007 and 2008—never got blogged about. That's fine, I know that I fail. )

I got involved in the youth group play at our synagogue as an assistant director, and got myself roped into being part of the pit orchestra too (I just had to open my mouth...). That's been giving me some useful experience in directing and leadership; it performed the first week of February.

Guys and Dolls led to another pit orchestra opportunity that I couldn't resist, and I simultaneously got another, unrelated offer to run tech at the Jewish Humor Festival (which I keep typing with an extra 'e' after "Humor" for some reason). My last two summers of learning about tech came in handy, and I picked up a bunch of new skills as well.

The day after the end of the Humor Fest, I got another job at the same theatre running projection for their next show, Jack and Rochelle, which I'm doing alongside continuing pit orchestra performances with the Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company. Both productions run through March 28.

I'm also waiting to hear from colleges. (The first letter, an offer to be put on Colorado College's waiting list, came March 15. 'Twas but an advance scout for the coming—I'm sure—onslaught.)

Final Thoughts

No matter where I end up in the fall, no matter what I do with my time (write! photograph! sing! play violin! edit Wikipedia!)—I know that I learned a lot this summer. Hey, the carpentry skills I picked up in Colorado Springs already came in handy when we got home. A board on the steps of our back porch came off about a month after we got back, and I was able to go down to the basement, scrounge a power drill and some wood screws, and fix the step—once I stopped at the hardware store for a pilot bit and a Phillips driver bit. Set-building skills translate directly to the home–maintenance world, and vice versa.

I truly believe that everyone should do theatre sometime. It teaches useful skills, it's good for stimulating creativity, and you get a real sense of accomplishment as you watch the audience enjoying each performance. Art may imitate life, and life may imitate art; but the art of theatre is life.

And that is what I learned this summer.

1. Never again! From now on, I'm setting target dates for important posts and publishing them no matter what pictures or videos I would still like to add. The amount of time I delayed this post's publishing to wait for pictures that never materialized was utterly ridiculous.
2. Unfortunately, I never got a digital copy of my photo during the session. Whoever took it didn't keep a copy (I asked all my classmates) and Brynna didn't keep them either. I have a print-out, but it's hard to take to the library and scan because it's mounted on a foam board for presentation. I'll keep working to get a copy somehow...

Sometimes things are too good to be true.

Remember when I said I'd been accepted to the Musical Theatre Extension at Northwestern? Turns out that was a mistake. Let me explain. (I'm still in the theatre program; just not the Extension.)

In the list of requirements for the Musical Theatre part, there was a request for a video of me singing a solo piece, accompanied. That was never made, and never sent. My mom called the office (I don't like talking on the phone) to ask about it, and they said not to worry about it.

Apparently, I wasn't considered for that program. I made it into the five-week regular program only, which also means I don't need the digital recorder after all. (I can still bring it -- could be useful; it's just not on the packing list any more.)

The woman at the office made a note of my change, but it never got entered into the database, and so the letter was sent with incorrect information. (That's what she said in the voicemail I got today, at any rate.) Oh well, I guess I get more time to relax this way. Two more weeks to not be bustling about campus.

As I said in a recent canned post (the one on Web form usability), I applied to two summer programs this year. Both of them have admitted me, and I'm going to accept the invitation to attend the theatre arts program at Northwestern University's National High School Institute.

It's funny, because I didn't technically complete the application requirements for the program I wanted to do (the Musical Theatre extension). They let me in anyway. Which means I have a seven-week commitment this summer. Update (05/07): The letter was mistaken; details here. From the end of June through mid-August early August, I'll be in Evanston, IL, working really hard on everything from acting to movement, lighting to scenery.

Summers usually bring a lull in writing for this site, and I don't anticipate having any meaningful amount of free time for anything. The literature for the program continually reiterates that it is an intensive academic institute, and specifically states that free time will be rare. Given the chance, I may decide to dash off a few paragraphs once or twice during the summer about my progress, but consider this a heads-up that I probably will be pretty silent. Par for the course, right? At least this summer I'll have a library and Internet access...

Am I excited? You betcha. Nervous? Uh... Who wants to know? *nervous (dang it!) chuckle* It looks like a very good opportunity.

That brings me to my next point: This is the only year I can do it. The Institute is open to high school students completing their junior year, which means that's me. Next year isn't an option, though I can still do UChicago's travel program next year (which is why it's OK to postpone that one). No, I can't do both; the dates overlap.

So there's the latest news. Now I have to go and add writing letters to my ever-growing to-do list. One to accept Northwestern's admission, and one to politely decline UChicago's. Writing, writing, writing... Now I know why I feel like knowing how to write well is so important.

Update (22:30): I knew I forgot something! Turns out that my research on digital recorders will be good for more than just capturing orchestra trips and anecdotes; the Musical Theatre extension has a digital voice (or microcassette) recorder listed as a necessity. Well, I guess I'd better make sure I get on that upgrade.

Update (05/07): Got a voicemail from Northwestern today correcting the letter I got. I only got the five-week program after all. I was kind of wondering... More details in my latest post.

I got back from Chicago late last night. The train was nearly 30 minutes early, but the delay in baggage handling made up for it; we waited about 20 minutes in front of the carousel before it even started turning. (It was made slightly better by the fact that we could see into the baggage room; the flaps on the carousel were pretty broken.)

All told, I think it was a pretty fun trip. There were only a couple things about it I didn't particularly like.

The first thing I didn't like was one of the pieces the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) played in the concert we went to Thursday night. It was some contemporary piece by a Korean composer named Unsuk Chin. I wasn't the only one who found it, shall we say, unappealing. (Worse, she was there at the performance. Yipe!) No, I'm not a big fan of contemporary music. Of any kind.

The second thing I didn't like was also a piece, this time in the violin recital I went to with our conductor and one other student -- the recital option wasn't very popular last year, either. That was a piece by a Finnish composer -- name of Kaija Saariaho -- written for solo violin. It was more contemporary music, composed in 1994 as a memorial tribute to Witold Lutoslawski (who passed away less than two weeks before the piece's premiere -- quite fast work). As I said, I'm not very fond of contemporary music.

Third came Verdi's Requiem, which we went to as a group on Saturday night. Obviously Verdi isn't a contemporary composer. It just wasn't what I had been expecting, and it wasn't particularly entertaining. It somehow reminded me of Gregorian chant, I think because the soloist(s) would sing a line and then be echoed in chorus and round by the choir. It was largely monotonous. However, I think that was the only concert I truly felt had been wasted time.

The fourth thing I didn't like (wow, were there that many?) was sleeping on the floor. Well, it was perfectly comfortable. I wouldn't exactly call it a dislike, since I slept relatively well, but coming home to my bed was nice. There would have been two of us on the floor, but a couple of my roommates were good enough friends (and small enough, as they were freshmen) to share a bed. I could have insisted on getting a bed at least one night -- my birthday was Friday, hold the singing, please -- but I hate kicking people out of their accommodations, and I was used to the floor by then.

Now why did I do the bad stuff first? On to what I enjoyed, immediately!

Aside from that second piece at the symphony concert, I enjoyed listening to Wagner's Prelude and Libestod from Tristan und Isolde (which was slow, but still reasonably interesting) and Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14. The Berlioz was the best part of that concert, in my opinion. And well it should have been -- the concert was billed around that piece.

Friday morning saw a trip to the Sears Tower for breakfast and a walk around the Skydeck. I took some pictures up there, one of which can be seen to the right. Isn't it a great view? (The rest of the pictures will have to wait a while; I'm running out of disk storage at the moment, and the card they're on has gobs of free space.) There were also some displays up there (the Skydeck is on the Sears Tower's 99th floor) including such notable personalities as L. Frank Baum (author of The Wizard of Oz), Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi (better known as The Blues Brothers), Studs Terkel (upon whose work the musical Working is based, and which I will be participating in late this Spring), and even Oprah Winfrey (whom I include here only because I've heard her name, not because I really care one way or the other). A lot of great stuff has happened in Chicago; I think there was even a film crew out while we were there (one of the other sightseeing groups mentioned something to that effect).

We played a concert at Navy Pier around noon. The wind ensemble played outside and got rained on, which meant their performance was cut short (I got only pictures of them, before it rained). Then we in the orchestra set up our performance inside the very noisy mall. I got a full recording of that, enlisting a chaperon to hold the recorder. As a result of that, there is some chatter in it, but mostly during the pauses, which means it can just be edited out when I get some software to do so.

Friday afternoon we (well, just a small group of us -- around ten) toured a string instrument maker's shop (William Harris Lee & Co.) and tried out a few of their hand-made instruments. They might even have a sale coming because of that; one of our group fell in love with the cello she tried. I grabbed a 1:40 sound bite of the room while people were playing (after I had done my own tryouts of violins), but I don't think I'll upload it right now. I have to do some thinking about what to do with those recordings.

Oh yeah, that reminds me that I really like the Roland EDIROL R-09. I think I'll keep it. I also used it to record our concert at Navy Pier on Friday and the clinics Saturday morning. I'm just blown away by the sound quality of that little box. My only wishes right now are for sound-isolated headphones (to set input levels and monitor) and an external microphone (to reduce handling noise). A case would be useful, but is not a priority. (Priorities are actually the same as the order I used here: headphones, external mic, case.)

Friday afternoon was me studying lines in my room, then Friday evening was the violin recital I loved so much. It was at Ravinia Park, which meant a 45-minute train ride each way, but the performance (a certain Jessica Lee, violinist) was exemplary. The only thing I didn't like was the contemporary piece. Well, and the half-mile walk in the rain -- with no rain jacket -- because we got off the train one stop too late. It was just the three of us: me, our conductor, and a flute-player. The rosin dust cloud at the last bow stroke was incredible!

Saturday morning was our own breakfast (like most of the meals on the trip) and the clinics. I recorded over two hours of 320 kbps MP3 audio footage that morning. There are 300 megabytes there, but I don't know what to do with the recordings. If nothing else, they make good documentation. Maybe with some editing, I could turn out a CD-length copy of each one. Hmm...

Saturday afternoon was my downtime, spent reviewing recordings in the hotel room and watching a movie. I think it was 2 Fast 2 Furious, since the Wikipedia article's plot summary matches what I watched. (The only word I could get out of the horizontally-squished, accelerated credits was "Furious", so I had to do some sleuthing to figure it out.) Saturday evening was the pretty-boring -- but still technically impressive -- Requiem concert (which included recognition of the Midwest Young Artists' graduating class for this year), followed by a short hang-out in the floor lobby at the hotel before the rest of the group got kicked out around midnight by a burly security guard.

Sunday morning was a good sleep-in and then packing. I'd packed Saturday night, so I didn't have much to do. It was, for me, just getting up, getting dressed, and tidying up my stuff. We checked out around 11:00 and took our shuttle to Union Station, where we got lunch and boarded the train.

The rest of the trip was either sleeping or train rides, neither of which were particularly interesting.

A few memorable things happened. First was the accident on the Red Line, in which a semi crashed into an elevated-train station. Some of our group were in the area at the time and were evacuated from the train they were on, getting redirected to bus transit.

Second was the rain on the way to Ravinia. I mentioned this above, but I'll go into more detail here. We got off the Metra train one stop too far and had to walk back to Ravinia Park for the recital on Friday night. It was raining pretty hard, and the trip was a bit longer than we'd anticipated. The only one of us with a rain jacket was, of course, our conductor. By the time we got to the recital, we were sufficiently damp. On the way back we got smart and took the train from the nearer station.

Third, after the White Sox game was rained out (also Friday night), some of our group got into a pull-up contest with some Chicago teens (14-16) and won a hip-hop CD. They played it in our floor lobby later that evening. I'm not much for hip-hop, but at least some of the lyrics were reasonable.

So that about wraps up the trip. I think it was worth the time. Now I just have to get used to
my school stuff again. Oh, those five days were bliss...

We're going to a symphony concert, playing our own mini-performances (we'll have two groups, each with their own concert), sightseeing (including the Sears Tower), having clinics with members of Chicago orchestras (I FAIL; see update below), and generally enjoying the city. It'll be a busy four days, though that's mostly crammed into three days due to the eight-hour train rides (plus time for boarding and disembarkation). Probably no time for or access to a computer, unfortunately. I don't look forward to catching up on Monday (after a late arrival Sunday night), either.

Nevertheless, I think it will be a fun trip. We went to Philadelphia last year, and I had fun. That's where I met the friend who introduced me to the robotics team. The team captain is coming this year, and he's in my room. Maybe some time to chat there.

As with Milwaukee, I've prepared a few posts in advance so there won't be a paucity of content on this site. More back-burner stuff that's not time-sensitive. I think I have a post scheduled for every day I'm gone, but I don't have time to check; it's time to leave, well, now. If there's a gap, you know why. I had a million and one things to do yesterday.

I should also mention, I turned on comment moderation temporarily to prevent any spam while I'm away and can't delete it. Any comments you leave will be visible after I get back, when I go through the moderation queue. Late Sunday night (if I'm lucky and not tired then) or Monday, Central Time.

See you in four days! Try and enjoy the canned words, huh?

Update (04/28): Whoops, the conductor for our clinics wasn't a Chicago Symphony Orchestra musician. He was the conductor for a local arts program. Oh well, can't get everything right.

Overall, the capabilities of Google Docs are pretty impressive, and it's sure a far cry from the text-only editors included in MediaWiki, Instiki, TiddlyWiki, etc. Considering that it's just some lines of JavaScript (OK, a lot of lines...), it can do quite a bit. Supported by the server back-end, Docs can import photos, generate charts, edit tables, and track revisions, not to mention a bunch of other stuff. While these are impressive capabilities, there is an equally lengthy list of what it can't do.

Even existing features have deficiencies. For example, when you compare revisions, even a document with three or four authors will often have only one change color, even if changes were made by multiple authors; they all get rolled into one color, despite the list of author colors at the top of the comparison screen. Also, chart generation is limited in Docs to creating dataset spreadsheets, creating charts, and importing a saved PNG file, requiring that you a) have temporary local disk access and b) don't put sensitive data in charts you temporarily save to public computers. (Admittedly, putting sensitive data in Google Docs may not be the best idea, but that's just Google; public computers are used by who knows how many different people, not all of them trustworthy and honest.)

Another point worth noting is the absence of border controls in the table editor dialogs. While you can change the background colors of the cells individually, by row, and by column, it does not appear to support selecting arbitrary groups of cells and editing them at the same time; selecting the "Change cell..." option modifies only the current cell, even if multiple cells are outlined in blue from Ctrl + click selection. These advanced controls are available from the "Edit HTML" pseudo-tab (it displays as a tab only while active, and as a plain link when inactive), but who wants to dig through complicated table HTML in what's supposed to be a WYSIWYG editor? If the desktop application is available, it's easier to create the table in there, format the borders, merge necessary cells, and set formatting in the application, and then paste it into Docs (though some extremely advanced techniques are simply impossible, regardless of what you do).

Now, for the highlights. I may have downplayed Docs' usefulness by criticizing it so much already, but I really want to praise Google for what they've built (bought?). Despite the limitations, Docs is immensely useful for the frequent traveler, especially if the only formatting needed is non-existent or very basic. While Docs doesn't support margins (in the interface; some will paste to inline CSS from apps like Word), many people just want to type, including me, mostly. I used to use a lot of margins in my homework, but Docs has helped remove the distraction of formatting and made me focus on the actual work. Instead of making every blank paragraph 12-point Times New Roman with no indent and setting my answer paragraphs (spaced with one blank line on top and bottom) to 0.5 inch indent with an additional half-inch first-line indent, I just type. In Arial, or Courier, or Times, or whatever font I'm given; I just let Docs set the basic formatting and I do the writing.

As for traveling, I was on the road for two or three weeks at the end of the summer, one of which overlapped with the start of the school year, and I didn't have my computer. Simple solution: I used Docs. Now that I have my computer back, I don't want to go back to Word; Docs is more fun to work with, and it saves a window space on my taskbar (since my browser's always open anyway). And I can work on assignments with friends, collaborate on unrelated stuff, or even ask my parents for help over the Internet, and they don't have to stare over my shoulder/steal my spot; they can just load the assignment in another browser.

I can see more improvements coming, now that Google has launched their presentation app, and I truly believe that Google will continue developing their suite of services, and that they will keep making my life, and those of millions of other people, better. Until they add more formatting support, I'll just keep Word for posterity.

Before this revelation, I discovered another: The door to the pool had a sign, "Please towel off before returning to the hotel," the first sign of its kind I've ever seen at any hotel. And Fairfield Inn, run by Marriott, is reasonably upscale.

Which brings us to another point. Despite being a mere $20 cheaper than our previous room at the Radisson in Philadelphia, the service and room quality rated half the price of the Radisson. In the room, a laminated card states, among other promises to guests is to "always make you feel welcome" and "always give you the service that will make you want to return." Neither of these are fulfilled at the Harrisburg/Hershey location.

Welcome to Philadelphia, PA.

I've been in lots of big cities, some bigger than Philly, but I think the Cradle of Liberty needs to stop cradling liberty and start focusing on improvements. We stayed at a hotel on Roosevelt Blvd. (US-1), and getting anywhere took forever. Even going to my grandmother's house, a mere 1.5 miles away, took ten minutes. Downtown to the Franklin Institute Science Museum? An hour. The problem was the signals on Roosevelt. No matter what direction you come from, what time of day it is, or how fast you go, you will get 90% red signals. And that's a lot of reds: The street has signals about every 500-750 feet for ten miles. Needless to say it slows you down a lot.

Another thing is, depending on the neighborhood, you'll get panhandled more times in an hour than most people brush their teeth in a week. OK, so I exaggerate a little, but it's pretty bad. At one gas station near the zoo (in what one would think would be an upscale, touristy area), I was panhandled twice, and one of the guys went and asked my mom, too. It may be the City of Brotherly Love, but let's leave it at that; I sometimes felt like these guys thought it was the City of Brotherly Money. Or maybe there's a connection between the Love and the Money; one of the panhandlers had insisted on helping us get gas from a recalcitrant pump before asking for money.

Finally (for now), it's just hard to find a hotel room. Anywhere. Anytime. Whether it's mid-week, weekend, or Monday, hotels are booked with either business travelers (going to conventions, seminars, and the like) or families (on weekend vacation). I'm only sampling the summer, of course, but business seminars don't stop during the school year.

Fortunately, I've left Philly, so none of these issues are bothering me any more. But stay tuned; traveling gives plenty of opportunities to write.