My day so far

So I currently am living as a house husband to an amazing wife while searching for work at every turn. Theater is certainly a passion, but it is tough to maintain such a transient lifestyle. I did not last as long as I thought I would, but education is an interest, along with geology and law. Sadly, I am not sure I ever really knew what I wanted to do with my life. To this date, halfway through another graduate degree, I have had one terrible experience in education that seems to have left me lost in my professional life. I wish I could be satisfied with a menial job of any kind at this point, but the education I have doesn't keep the opportunities rolling in.

I am toying with the idea of opening a children's theater studio here in Harford County, but I fear that such a bold step will meet with failure if not carefully measured and placed. It has been a dream for quite sometime. However I had always regarded this dream as eventual. I am faced with opportunity and I am on the verge of going for it. I have so many things to consider. For instance:

Will there be enough interest in county like Harford?

Is Baltimore a better location?

Where can I get the capital?

Am I savvy enough to go this alone, or should I have a partner?

Can I find a space that is compelling and acceptable?

For now, I believe the next step is designing a business plan. I hope I can gather all of the variables. I would love to mimic the Rising Stars (Rome, NY) business plan. Two or three shows with maybe two or three workshops running per semester during the school year. When summer rolls around, have a full selection of interesting course choices offered. Designed for children.

I have always loved the idea of a company where the older, more experienced members would actively guide the younger and less experienced. More of a family of performers rather than only being together for one show. This is entirely based on my studies of the group theatre. A school and company all rolled into one.

Is my eventual dream meant to be more immediate?

What I can't talk about

I am constantly plagued by the fact that I work in a profession which gives me so much conversational fodder, yet legally binds me not to speak of it. I attempt to get around it by omitting the names of students and schools, but it just ain't the same. I also fear the uniqueness of the individual (the existence of which I question more and more) will catch up to me. Some one will put two and two together and I am sunk. I had better watch it. I gotta tell you this story...but I can't.

That is all.

October Storm Part III

"holy $#@!" was the first thing that left my mouth when I finally got into the city. I had finally realized what was wrong with the trees. Every tree was missing at least one major branch. the weight of the snow on the still leaved tree limbs was too much for many of the trees to handle. The worst was Wellington. reduced to a one way lane zigzagging between humongous piles of snow and branches. We made it to my place and decided to stay there for the time being. The time being wound up being 2 days. The University at Buffalo actually closed. THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO NEVER CLOSES! EVER!! The city of Amherst declared a ban on driving until the mess could be cleaned up. When we finally were able to return to campus, they had laid the broken tree limbs perpendicular to the roadway, side by side. The reminded me of those old photographs of mass graves after a genocide, only they were tree branches. The fall-out from the storm was quite miserable. Neighborhoods protested that many of the oldest trees in the area had been marked for removal due to irreparable damage. That was always news, this "84 year old man said his great grandfather planted that tree 150 years ago" or something similar. The argument always being that the residents couldn't see what the arborists saw wrong with the trees. Piles of branches still there a year later. The weathermen predicting it will happen all over again a couple of times the next fall.

One thing is for sure...The trees don't look the same.

Facebook and the Dead

I have had the sad occasion to have two acquaintances on Facebook pass away. And both times I have been witness to a most peculiar phenomenon. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the wall, it is a space in one's profile to which anyone can post if they are a friend. After one dies, the wall becomes saturated with well wishes, RIP's, final admissions and reluctant goodbyes. It becomes, more or less the outlet for friends of the deceased to post their last words to that person. A beautiful flowing collage of epitaphic expressions on a web page.
Some may argue against it's creation, stating that the dead will never know these goodbyes. I do suppose this argument is valid. The person to whom these comments are directed cannot read them. But is the page of which I write really meant for the deceased? I think not. It seems to serve as a therapeutic comfort for the living; a concise virtual funeral; a marvelous tribute to a person who has gone away.
In one case I have found anniversary posts; remembrances of like eloquence are found commonly in newspapers every day.
To conclude these walls have lasted to this day. Anyone who was a friend can observe the walls of Will Mcafoo, and quite recently Heather Weeks. Two friends of mine that are gone and not forgotten in real life, or online. Their profile, and that Facebook funeral remain there for us to visit whenever we would wish to for the rest of our lives.

Feeling sick of myself

Am I one to ignore friends? I do not believe it. How then has one slipped away not so suddenly without me realizing she was sick at all? Granted I haven't seen her for almost three years, but it hurt no less when I received the news. Heather Weeks is dead. No time for well wishing. No chance to recognize her disease for me. Please, if anyone actually reads this pithy blog, remember her in you prayers on our behalf. engage in whatever ritual you would to mourn the passed. But do not be sad. Heather knew where she was going, and she was not afraid to go. I hope that after my life has ended i could go to the same place and greet her there. Thank you, Heather, for your superior dance talents made me look competent. I cannot forget the late nights in the locker room hallways choreographing for jazz class, and I hope to never let them slip from my memory. You are certain now never to be forgotten again though you are beyond our contact...for now.

The Queue and the Elevator Call Button

I love people watching, as you know. This latest example doesn't disappoint, yet raises questions about the logic skills possessed by the average person. What goes through the minds of people who feel the need to not observe and accept the fact that I may have some competence in the world? My story:

Whilst I was on queue in the computer lab this noon, suddenly a girl, rather rudely asked if I had checked all of the stations for open computers as I was the first on line for one. Not waiting for a response, she walked the entire length of the room to see if there was an open station before returning to the queue. I could only assume that she felt my skills of observation necessitated verification by her. I didn't say anything to her, I might have, but rather enjoyed also observing the fact that two others who had trusted my ability to see had fallen in line behind me. This young lady's impatience had delayed her even more.
Who among us observers of the world have had experiences such as these? If I am standing in from of an elevator door and the button is lit, intuition should say that I have obviously already pushed the button, yet more often than not another person enters the scene and pushes the lit call button. Waste of calories.
The last example of the strange need for self verification before I go: Consider the hypothetical Door around which a number of students stand with anticipation in their eyes. Would the newcomer assume that the door is indeed locked and we are awaiting a key master to provide access to the room behind it?
Sadly, my observations have confirmed that the newcomer is more oft to press through the crowd of people and test his Arthurian might against a door which has failed to yield to all the rest. I would truly be amazed if the door actually opened, but it never does, because it is just as locked as it was when the last newcomer tried to open it.

Observe, good friends
I like the change of tone in this blog...

Stupid People

Have you ever walked through a group of people and felt like you would never pass through to the other side alive? Yeah, this happened to me yesterday. I was exiting my French class and had to walk through a group of very material looking young women. I was hesitant at first, but I had to go on through. The first thing I hear is an unidentified sentence with that little upward inflection at the end of it. Like a valley girl/Long Island princess type inflection. Its the type of inflection used to form a question for a normal speaker. However used liberally by these young ladies in statements and exclamations as well...incorrectly. So I think to myself "Robert, don't listen to them, wahtever you do, they might hurt your brain and you might never recover!!" But alas, did I listen to myself? No. My ears honed in and I hear "When does the next daylight savings time come, like next week?" It's November 20. Daylight savings just ended. ouch! I think I just lost the ability to add simple numbers trying to think about that statement. So what do I do, I listen for a response. I hear "Yeah I know it gets dark at like 2 o'clock." I start to reach the end of the crowd, for a moment I feel as if I am beginning to black out. I just make it out of earshot and slowly begin to recover from the shock I had just endured. These people are in college. Even worse, they are old enough to vote. No wonder the world is going to the dogs. Just thought I would share my near death experience with you.

October Storm part II

On my way home I received a telephone call from Amy (the GF). "Are you liking the snow?" "yeah, I know, it's actually sticking down here." I arrived at the University and attended class. All through the class the snow came down. I was dressed in a suit and nice shoes and was not looking forward to having to walk in that. Luckily I had my huge golf umbrella that would save my suit. The shoes would take a beating, though. About 6 inches of snow fell in the three hours that the class was in session. So I move my car over to the University Apartments and seek refuge inside Amy's place. I stayed ther over night. The next morning was very surreal. From the living room window we could see the campus, and the entire place was covered in two feet of snow. That was not the only thing I noticed, either. One of the trees was missing and every other one looked different some how. I had to get to my apartment. So I, still in my suit, and Amy exited the building through a door that could only open just far enough tyo let us out of it because the snow lay holding it shut. We began to wipe the two feet of snow off of her truck with our bare hands. The suit got wet, but luckily it was not wool, so nothing seriousely bad happened to it. We had qute a lot of trouble getting the car out of the parking space since the university always seems determined to plow every car in. We left the oddly different campus and prepared for a very interesting drive through town. Few things could have prepared us for what we saw on the ride home.

The update on the facebook thing I complained about

A while ago in time, but only like two posts ago, I decided to make facebook the subject of my talk.
Now facebook has changed just a bit, now EVERYONE can join facebook. Yay????

My plight is thus:

While I do support the fact that my sister as an attendee of a community college can now join facebook, I am rather disappointed that something which was exclusive to college students now has been opened up to the world. It might as well be another myspace (shudder at the thought of all the pedophiles hunting for your children). I enjoyed facebook for that reason. I wanted a place to stay in touch with my colleagues from school only. That's what made The Facebook different from Myspace, and was why I subscribed to one and not the other. That's really all I have to say on this subject. I know people will disagree with me on this, and they have every right to. I just thought that the fact that it was exclusive to that 30% or so of the population with higher ed made it special.

Arrivederla

The October Storm: Part I

Yo, peeps, Again, I have not really lived up to my promises. This blog is very thin and I have had it for almost an entire year, how sad. But, never fear, because I have again returned to speak about the flaws in our society. The Sweet home Middle school craft fair is coming up and I am sure I will find something there to entertain me. Also, I have enrolled in the new education in and through the arts program at the University at Buffalo. I will be receiving A proffesional Certification in Theatre Education as well as a Masters in Education. cool beans! I have also started relearning the French language. I have had considerable success with that, maybe that can take me places I have never been before.
So, story:
Living in Buffalo this past weekend proved to be quite a considerable test of will. Many poeple don't realize the magnitude of this storm. Every tree in Buffalo is destrotyed to some extent. most of them will likely die, and Buffalo will never be as green as it once was. It's enough to make any arborist at heart break into tears.
My thuraday started with an early rising to make an observation that my friend had set up for me in Rochester. At about 1:00, I decided that I had witnessed enough for that session, and left for Buffalo. I stopped at the rest stop and noticed the rain that had been falling was coming down quite slowly for rain. I then realized that it was snow. I laughed it off, stated "that's Buffalo for you" and made my way back to toward Buffalo once again. Little did I know that If I had waited until the end of the school day, I would have been stuck on the thruway for most of the rest of the day. And the snow still came down and developped a blanket over the entire region.
To Be Continued
'til next time,

Robert Tucker