Casey in London

Some Thoughts

2011-11-08T10:47:00.000-05:00

1. Things I'm not entirely sure how to pack include: a bowler hat.

2. Percentage of my floor I can currently see: 2%

3. My paper goods weigh disproportionately more than everything else I own combined. (But only as long as we're not counting the tree trunk I like to call a 'djembe.' Because it is a tree trunk.)

4. Why isn't my room packing itself? And paper work, why hasn't that been completed while I sleep? WHY,

5. If a pair of shoes are *perfect* for a number of outfits, but are also falling apart- do I bring them to Seattle because I want to look right or throw them out and figure I can buy a new pair when I get to the US? This is actually a serious question. Help. (Note, this applies to three pairs of shoes, all slightly different.)

6. I have sustained several mysterious injuries in the last week. The cut on my finger I remember, it was from brussels sprouts, but the cut on my thigh? Seriously, how did that happen without my noticing?

7. My improv group is doing a fundraising show for Make-a-Wish on Sunday. And I can't be there what with a continent and an ocean making that a difficult commute. So my head has been recorded on an iPhone and then using Dropbox has been transferred to an iPad from which I will issue the scene challenges. How high tech are we? I'm just annoyed the holographic pad won't be working yet. Lame.

8. Too many people to say goodbye to. So instead I'm hanging out on the internet. Productive!

Schooner or Later

2011-10-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

On Thursday evening there was the last Sandpit of the year. The Haberdashery (sometimes formerly known as 'Casework,' formerly known as 'Capricious,' sometimes referred to as 'La Louche'), our new game design collective, ran 'Schooner or Later' (formerly 'The East India Company Game') again and it went really well.

Next time we're hoping for fewer name changes.

Do you remember how the game works?
Let me remind you: It's a trading game based on the East India Company. Everyone has to give up their bags as collateral and in exchange are given the rental of a company boat (their hands, cupped together. We take their bags so that they don't have more carrying capacity.)

There are three countries involved in this particular trade triangle: India, China, and Great Britain.

Britain will buy most things at a very good price, but due to the trade monopoly agreement it has with the EIC, if you trade there you have to take British made goods with you- a whole heap of wool (cotton balls!). No one will buy the wool, but sometimes India and China can be persuaded to take some for a fee. Mostly it just fills up your boat.

India sells pepper (pepper corns!), and also grows opium. (balloons! hard to hide! easy to pop!)

China sells tea (tea bags) and will, angrily, accept opium. As a reward for getting the opium (un-popped balloon with your name on it) into China and helping to disrupt the economy and therefore drive down the price of tea, the EIC will give you a £200 bonus at the end of the game for each load of opium you smuggle into China.

Smugglers need to be wary of the roving coast guards, but above board traders have nothing to fear. All of this takes place in as wide and varied a playing area as we can manage to get. In this case? Most of the ground floor of the National Maritime Museum.

We had about 35 people playing and some of them made trade agreements with each other and convoys and official distraction people while others did the opium running. It was kind of great. One man in a tricornered hat (the whole evening was shipping themed) decided to collect the cotton wool balls and place them in his hat. I decided he was a floating "America" and secretly hoped he would start making crafts out of them to re-sell to England.

At one point, due to a mis-calculation by one of our port representatives, for £50 one of our players was sold *all the tea in China*

Excellent. Also, that's a ridiculous price.

Figuring out what to use for currency in the game was a challenge since last time a limiting factor was that there simply wasn't enough money. Turns out that plastic coins were prohibitively expensive in the quantities we needed, so the cheapest option (we weren't allowed to use food, so spray painted beans were out of the question) was pennies.

Do you know how heavy 2,000 pennies are? REALLY, REALLY HEAVY.

Fortunately Josh took them home. They're no longer my problem.

(ps. Do you know how weirdly bank tellers will look at you when you ask for £20 in pennies?? £13 cleared out one bank's supply, so I actually had to go to two different banks to get it all. "Do you want some 2p coins?" Nope.)
(pps. Josh is threatening not to let me name games any more since the two the The Haberdashery put on at the NNM were named "Schooner or Later" and "Unlimited Port-ential" and that was 90% my fault.)

Edinburgh Mini-reviews

2011-09-30T17:58:00.001-05:00

In Edinburgh I had a notebook where I constantly wrote down things to remember. Here are a selection of my mini-reviews I wrote that week. I'm pretty sure these are in order of what we saw. I should also point out that I have typed verbatim what I wrote that week and so I make no promises about comprehensibility.

“Answer Me This,” podcast book signing (free book fringe)
Lovely and wonderful and kind of charmingly brilliant. We sat way in the front row and first they asked if anyone didn't know who they were. Egged on by Kevin, I raised my hand. They then proceeded to spend most of the show explaining asides to me, “festivals, they're these things that happen in the summer...” They also explained The Blitz, and Bovril. It was funny, and I'm not gonna lie, not always unhelpful. They were excellent at calling back to earlier jokes and were a delight to watch REALLY close up. The panel finished with Ollie singing to me his musical version of 'The Wanderer' that he'd made up in college to help him pass his English lit degree. I blushed. It was awesome.

Ceilidh!
Super fun sweaty excellence. Lots of older Scots in swingy kilts and a lovely and adorable German scientist with charmingly mismatched dancing parents who were in Scotland to visit her. The caller made a bunch of mildly racist comments. Stretching outside afterwards led to a drunken mooning by a Scotsman. His friends bundled him into a cab and waved as they drove away. End result? Total endorphin high and beer and nachos. Oh! And Greek Dancing! With a surprise bridge move! That was fun. Kevin and I are musicians and therefore had mad rhythm skillz.

Interpretive Dances to My Diary (72% non-Fiction), devised show
These guys come from Neo Futurists stock and it definitely shows. Short, choppy, punchy bits put together for something that felt complete. The show was small, intimate, and clever. It worked best when they were relaxed and interacting with the audience rather than doing their 'actor voices'. A charming bit about first kisses and an EXCELLENT recurring bit where they pulled 'and' sentences out of a fishbowl. “and...slow mo dance break.” or “and...when I said I loved you for the first time, it was an accident, not a mistake.” They seemed like my kind of people, but maybe a little more...actorly. Multi-media, good use of sound clips, lovely text animation, chopped carrots, and bright red jump suits.

Music Box Impro, Improvised Musical
We sat in the 3rd row or so after waiting a while in the onsite bar and falling a little in love with the venue. (It felt like a slumber party in a lot of ways.) Music Box had us chat to the people sat next to us to come up with locations for the musical- result? Zombie Pompeii. (“I've never seen anyone cross their fingers for a suggestion before!”) Supremely silly, spotty singing, excellent calling of mistakes, (“I'm very stupid.”) goofy song about how a zombie can't smell z-o-m-b-i-e, and a plan for zombies to run and international coffee cartel (“using zombies...to manage business!”). Dancing magma when Vesuvius blew up and a head zombie named...Boris? Wonderful lesbian busybodies. Good fun.

Soldier and Death- Relief Theatre, Puppetry
A Slavic tale of a soldier battling Death with magical items like cards that will never let you lose and a sack that will compel anything in to it. Small, wooden puppets and a young, thin cast. (Seriously, their belts were wrapping twice around some of them.) I kept wanting to call the production ernest, but that wasn't quite the right word. Kevin came up with “sincere” and that settled in just fine. It was a very sincere production. We chatted briefly afterwards and discovered that they're all students at Edinburgh Uni and this was their first time working with puppets. Charming more than excellent.

Sarah Millican- Thoroughly Modern Millican, stand up
Gosh she's cute. She's really really cute. She had a signer translating her show which was HILARIOUS- particularly when Sarah made her repeat things “I want to see what Katherine did for Tugging....” Mellifluous, mellow Geordie accent. An exercise bit where she wanted a video called “fat lass as a go” and its sequel, “fat lass tries again.” She talked about poo and called people 'flower.' Charming.

Dave Gorman's Powerpoint Presentation, stand up
Brilliant. Totally awesome and fabulous. First hour long show that didn't DRAG anywhere. And so funny! And cute! And clever! 10:08 is a happy time. Graphs about punching above his weight. And an epic explanation of how many many people think he is jewish. He made me love the internet more than I already do. Dave Gorman + Social Networking FTW (Rick Stavios)

Lady Cariad's Characters, stand up
Small, crowded, sweaty room that we snuck into after apologising to the Music Box folks for leaving them and not going to their show. They said it was okay since Lady Cariad was so good. And she was, I mean, fine. Cute characters and clearly enjoying herself. I enjoyed the parkour guy character the best, I think because he was the most clearly not her. Fun, but not the most amazing thing ever. Maybe suffering from the trouble that being immediately after Dave Gorman is? Lovely that we got squeezed in though.

Picture Book Perfect, Children's book panel, book festival
Viv! Yay Viv! I don't like book festivals, I want to be entertained, not told to buy more things. That being said, getting to know Viv has meant an incredible uptick in my interest in illustration. Especially in the process of making a book. Super cool. She and Levi were weirdly mismatched stylistically. Weirdly. Viv was simultaneously awkward and totally in control. She painted some emotional animals, a toddler bopped around with some purple headphones and an iPhone, Levi showed some gorgeous tempura paintings, and Kevin bought “There Are No Cats In This Book” after participating in the inaugural “reactions to Viv's books” video I made him make. She wanted to make a book personification of a cat. I think maybe she succeeded. Yay, concept books!

Give the Fig a Roll- Queen Mary Theatre Company
I hated this show, but apparently I didn't really get it- so here is someone else's review.

Couch Impro, sketch improvisation
Tired, a bit shaken from the Fig show and desperately hungry it was so excellent to be greeted, taken to the venue (which was warm and relatively quiet and filled with older, comfortable Brits drinking in a way that made you certain you'd be called 'pet' at some point) realising that I knew half the cast, having someone come up and say they'd seen me perform in London, well, I felt welcome and unclenched my muscles... Amazing that I went to the show based on the description in the guide. They were great- the best three headed expert I've seen, excellent calling of absurdity, a wonderful genre switching bit, and a lot of quick thinking. Using the audience's anonymous relationship problems as a starting point was a brilliant way to hang a short from show together. It totally worked. Then they asked it I was here with a a show. "Um...no." A woman named Silvia was my favourite.

Stream of Piffle, Taking the Piff, sketch show
Was that mimed rape joke really necessary? I appreciated the big words and the Macbeth sketch was great, but having two women in your cast does not excuse you from misogyny.

Beowulf, musical retelling of said epic poem
I want to have made this. Barring that I am delighted to have seen it. We sat with one of the Ryans from "Interpretive dances of my diary" who recognised us in the queue. (The show was in a wooden music hall tent I played in at the Brighton Fringe when Latana sang Milhaud.) The acting was fabulous (Grendel and his mother were particularly riveting) they made extraordinary use of the space. SO well written and SO well sold. Wow. Just, wow. Beowulf was basically The Dude from Big Lebowski, the back up singers had PIPES, they did epic battles through thumb wrestling, I identified with Grendel's mother, the underwater fight with the buckets, the beer streaming down Grendel's shirt signifying his switch from narrator to monster, just wow, wow, wow. Kevin and I both want to work with them (horses and swords, horses and swords, horses and swords..and HORSES ed. This is a song I've had periodically stuck in my head since we saw the show) Oh! And the Old English Song at the end: I was annoyed with the academic character by that point, (glasses are awesome. Hmmph.) but then she sang the song (as the dragon) and Kevin is right, it was the sexiest thing ever. I was giddy at the end so while Kevin networked I made Grendel nervous and then hugged him. Not. Awkward. At. All.

Catie Wilkings: Chip off the odd block, stand up
A small audience in a small venue. She was charming and middling. Excellent concept of anti-semantic jokes. She said we had brilliant laughs. Meh.

Prepare to Be Tuned: Anyone For Tennis? Musical comedy duo
Not quite Flight of the Conchords but super cute songs- also, excellent random asides (the ghostly voice they just ignored, the penguin suit). Definitely worth YouTubing. God that was embarrassing when they were thrown by how loud our laughs were... (TIME PORTAL IN OUR LOUNGE ed. this is a song that has been periodically stuck in Kevin's head since we saw the show.)

Nina Conti, ventriloquist
Ventriloquism! Wonderful ventriloquism. Foul mouthed monkey, poetic owl, prank calling grandma, and a roving accent. Nina is very good at cracking up- thereby totally holding the illusion while at the same time using the puppets' voices to point out that it is all just her. Good improv with the audience and the wonderful dancer at the end! How great was he?? Also, the clearly adulterous couple in the front row (dude! don't announce it!)

Constance and Sinestra, musical
We checked the time more than once. The first time only halfway through the show. They clearly really liked Sweeney Todd and the space (site specific as it was) was good- but there were no characterisations, I couldn't sing you ANY snippets of any of the songs, they told everything and showed nothing, they killed a character in the least dramatic way possible, they didin't utilise the instruments and it was just so. damn. shouty. Stupid and boring. But the taxidermied mother had pipes.

Baby Wants Candy, improvised musical
This wasn't our last show, but we're pretending it was. A whole musical about the festival, on the last night of the festival, made by people who've been at the whole festival, for people who've been working the festival. It was so cozy and familial and full of in-jokes with fabulous singing, a weirdly evil plot, and a pub full of Scotsmen all named Ewan. So much fun.

Nov 10 at 2:35pm

2011-09-26T03:44:00.000-05:00

Is when my flight leaves from Heathrow.

Baba Yaga- The Thank Yous.

2011-09-10T11:54:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting in the cafe of the V&A in a room designed by James Gamble, right directly next to the William Morris room and listening to a pianist improvise while I eat salmon and a pair of beautifully dressed salads. (They taste good, they're not wearing fascinators or anything like that. Oh, English and your myriad meanings.) A man is rocking a newborn baby in his arms near the piano and shushing him to sleep. What I'm saying here is that life is beautiful.

Here's what else is beautiful: The number of people who popped up to help me get Baba Yaga made.

Months ago I decided I wanted to make a maze out of yarn. Because it would be fun. I considered finding out how annoyed Ella would be if I made it in our living room, but never got further than musing.

Then an email arrived asking for proposals from GSMD grads to use the Barbican Pit Theatre for week long research and development residencies for creative projects. A game, obviously was what I needed to suggest, but what? A thank you needs to go to Holly who pointed out that I could make my maze there, and then for nodding her head while I blathered on about the story that could go with it. “A comb. There are stories where a comb gets turned into a forest. And there's, like, a mirror? And that turns into a lake? But the maze- the maze could be a forest if we put leaves on it and stuff. Right? Validate me here. I need validation.”

I wrote my application to use the Pit Theatre at midnight in a lovely old house in Fountainbleu. Gwen's mother Clare smiled at me as she went upstairs to sleep, “You'll get it done.” She said, knowingly. And I did, just barely in time. Impishly and groggily I decided to call my new venture Casework. Because naming things after yourself is totally not lame at all. (Gwyn insists on calling it “Caseytronics” which I kind of feel is fair enough.)

Thrillingly and unexpectedly given that I had written the application on a whim- the Creative Learning department and the LAB project decided that I could use the theatre from September 5-9th.

Crap.

That meant that this was real and I actually had to figure out how to do this and fulfil what I said I was going to in the application.

I did an appallingly poor job of getting my team together and, when I did finally contact them, I failed to give them enough information about what I was planning. Magically and mercifully Jonah trusted me on the basis of, “want to do a project with me? It's about Baba Yaga.” He kept texting me and pointing out that I should really tell him about this project he had agreed to do. Dave made a perfect drum line that exactly captured what I wanted for the witch almost instantly during our first, belated, meeting. Viv turned down work in order to keep her week clear. I can't thank them enough.

Planning the maze and the game would have been impossible without the whole Fire-Hazard Pints & Planning crew who inundated me with examples of cool structures, suggestions of game mechanics, and generous offers to take a day off of work to help me build the maze. I sat at our table in the Pembury Arms with two notebooks in front of me and at least three smart phones being passed around with pictures of things that might work for the maze. Without them I still would have tried to make the maze out of yarn, which would have been lame and wouldn't have led to the purchase of 4 kilometres of cling film.

Kevin showed up in the midst of all of this on a holiday to visit London, me, Ella, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Points to him for arranging his vacation so that he could help with Baba Yaga. Things moved more smoothly because of his presence and excitement. Also, when I decided at half eleven one night to start building a maze in the hallway, (Not the living room Ella! This was even more disruptive!) Kevin was the one who started wrapping around the lines we had tied creating a tunnel that ended up being the main design element of the maze.

Monday morning of this week I had somehow collected a team of four to start building the maze. The first thing we needed to do was place the scaffolding poles. It was at this point that I realized that I had very little clue about what I wanted this to look like. Adam, Jonah, Kevin and Viv were all very patient as I wandered more or less arbitrarily around the space shouting, “Here. And, um, here. Also there. Thank you!!” They were also patient when I managed to twist my ankle skipping excitedly down a step I hadn't realized was there. (This was, like, an hour into the whole process. Embarrassing.)

At lunch Jonah invited his dancer friend Georgie to come and meet me. Thank goodness for that because without her we really didn't have a working game mechanic and she dances so beautifully.
Pretty much the best firebird I could have asked for.

As soon as the scaffolding went up, we started twisting rope with our hands and tying it onto the poles. This was how we spent about two thirds of Monday before Keith, the stage hand, quietly left the room and came back with a power drill he'd attached a hook onto. I'm not sure how much rope he managed to make before we noticed and realized that, um, that would A) Work B) Work better, and C) Mean that we weren't blistering our hands. Building the maze continued much faster after that.

I don't think I can say enough about how helpful and gung-ho the staff at the Barbican were. Keith and Steve jumped right in and helped us build the maze. Steve in particular spent way more time than he was technically supposed to designing the lighting for the maze and just generally making himself invaluably useful.

We learned to stretch the rope so it wouldn't twist up- walking backwards to pull and pull and pull. We learned how to keep the cling film taut when wrapping or creating a tooth. We learned that dropping a roll from a high height is not a terrible idea as long as one end it attached to something because it is so sticky that it takes a while to roll off itself and sometimes you even have to help it along. We learned that there's no sense in trying to talk in a room filled with people unwrapping cling film because it is So. Loud. (And I learned to tie a square knot and a half hitch, but everyone else already knew how to do that.)

Day one ended and it felt like we had made a lot of progress. So off to the pub we went.

Day two brought a different group of people (thanks Nick!) and started off with teaching the newbies the tricks of the material. We built and built and built and somewhere in there Viv decided to make the fire bird costume. She showed up on day three with a bag of fabric and feathers and a sewing machine. We built and built and built realising that the high stuff needed to be finished before we wrapped any more lower panels because otherwise we couldn't place the ladders. Weirdly, the more we built the less finished it became. By the end of day three I was panicking that we'd never get the maze done. Also, we'd run out of cling film which resulted in all of us using the wireless network on various devices trying to find a shop in London that would courier us another 750 metres of cling film. Somehow we found one and an hour or so later a taxi pulled up with three more rolls.

You know. Just a day in the life.

People came for a day or an hour to help us build and test (thank you Patrick and Ruth and Holly). Jo was the first to try going through the maze with the characters and the music, but Elena helped too and said it was one of the most terrifying things she'd ever done. Excellent. It was then that we realized that even if nothing more happened, we had something that worked. We also realized that we were dreaming in cling film. I mean that literally, I kept seeing the organic twisty shapes we were making in my sleep.

At this point we're not even to the performance day. First we have to get through Thursday. At 5 (we we meant to be out by 6) the three of us who had been there the whole week (Viv, Jonah, and myself) started getting perfectionistic about the maze. I was going around with a pair of scissors taking the loose ends off of any and all knots I could reach. Viv kept wrapping more things and making sure pathways existed- noting which entrances let to the most direct and/or most convoluted passages. And Jonah got a bit compulsive about one of his tunnels. That night my father patiently dealt with me as I had a mini breakdown over skype; “so few people get to see it! And then it's all going to disappear!” I grieved, certain that this was a representative microcosm of my time in London.

At one in the morning the day of the performance Elena, Viv, Jonah and I were still passing emails back and forth writing and re-writing the game instructions which were now made up of rhyming stanzas. (Each message ended with, “okay, off to sleep now!” but then someone else would respond and we'd all start emailing again.) Also that evening we finally figured out what sort of a gem we had on our hands. All of us sent off as many messages as we could to as wide a network as each of us possessed: “Yes, this is during a working day, but it's AMAZING. Please, please come- not for us, but for you. Don't miss this.”

And so Friday took off. Viv showed up with beautiful instruction sheets she'd made that morning and sewed Georgie and I into our costumes. Elena volunteered to be the doorman, and then after the first round of players she and Adam decided that there needed to be an internet presence for the game- so they set up a tumblr account. Clare ferried people up and down the labyrinthine workings of the backstage of the Barbican. Steve brought in his camera and started taking quality photographs of the maze. Adam volunteered to make a video out of all of my time-lapse photographs. Jonah, Georgie, Dave, and Viv all cut their lunch short so we could film. Kevan and Emily both came back after they played and stuck around long enough to help us with the tear down. People were patient waiting for their turn. People tweeted and texted and emailed and our guest list grew DURING THE DAY. Jonah overheated and the paramedic wouldn't let us go on again for another forty minutes (“Just a plaster. Couldn't I just have a plaster?” Jonah said plaintively as the paramedic stuck a thermometer in his ear and took his blood pressure.) and still people waited their turn. My camera's memory filled up and other cameras appeared in my hands. Gwyn put all the digital files on to his computer. Elena set up a drop box for all the documents we'd created. The pile of positive feedback forms grew. People I hadn't seen in ages showed up and I glowed and felt so honoured and humbled by everything.

It was magic. The whole experience was magic. Still is magic.

God, I'm blessed.

Edinburgh Bullet Points

2011-09-02T09:31:00.000-05:00

1. Dear Uncle Andy,

Many years ago you went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and when you came back you brought exciting stories and an album of songs from an Australian performance art band that I can still sing most of due to the fact that I spent years listening to it too much. Because of you I have always wanted to go to the fringe.

Thanks for planting that desire, I had a freaking amazing time.
Love,
Casey

2. Kevin flew in from New York and then had two days to attempt to get over jet-lag and hang out with Ella before I put him on an overnight train up to Edinburgh. We arrived at 7:30 in the morning, climbed a giant, ridiculous hill, dropped off our bags and then got started. Because with something like the fringe it's better to jump right in rather than wade slowly.

3. 24 shows in 5 days (22 each). We saw 1 scripted musical, 2 improvised musicals, 2 sketch comedy troupes, 1 “wtf was that??” devised play, 2 improv groups, 2 panel talks, 1 ceilidh, 7 stand up comics, 1 neo-futurist alumni show, 1 ventriloquist, 2 comedy bands, 1 puppet show, and best of all? 1 Folk musical version of Beowulf. God, that was good. (We not at all secretly both want to work with these people.)

There were also 2 shows that we either forgot we'd bought tickets for or completely failed to accurately read the map for.

4. Kevin and I turn out to be excellent travel partners with an almost uncanny ability to get really hungry and lose it at the same time. This might sound like a bad thing but was actually and sincerely wonderful because it meant that we'd get quiet and withdrawn (due to low blood sugar) at the same time and then fix that (by eating) and perk up at the same time. The only real difference is that I need, like, a sandwich in the morning and Kevin needs a giant coffee or three.

5. Edinburgh is beautiful. Ridiculously rainy, but stunningly gorgeous. We kept catching our breath and sighing at how pretty it was. Bonus of all the rain? Numerous rainbows.

So, so, so pretty.

6. I kept running into people that I knew or had connections to. Walking into rooms or new venues or down a street and going, “Oh. Hi there.”

The city was filled with my people, both figuratively and literally.

7. The fringe is totally overwhelming. I had the catalogue sent to me beforehand and barely looked at it because it was so full of things. We arrived and I went through a period of panic because we were going to MISS things. Which, of course we were- we only had 5 days, things were already finished or finishing, there's only so many shows you can see in a day and only so many tickets you can afford. But the anxiety of missing something extraordinary took some getting used to.

8. Best Decision I Made: Joining Friends of the Fringe. It cost £25 and meant I got the catalogue sent to me. I figured I was happy to support the festival and too lazy to find a catalogue in London, so I went for it. This turned out to be an accidental stroke of brilliance: the 2-for-1 ticket deals meant that the membership paid for itself, but the real jewel was the ticket hut.

When buying tickets non-members have to stand in an epic queue that, because this is Edinburgh, is frequently soggy. Members, however, get to skip the queue and hang out in an adorable, dry little hut and take their own sweet time choosing what to see.

At first I kept apologising for hemming and hawing and taking so long at the desks, but they kept pointing out that there were few or no other people waiting so it was totally cool. Best £25 of the festival. Highly recommended. Five stars.

9. Flyering. We were there for the last five days of the festival, so a lot of people had festival fatigue. Not us, we were PERKY. Which endeared us greatly to the flyerers all over the city. There are SO many shows that lots of times the only way you hear about something or notice it is by being handed a flyer. Streets are covered in people trying desperately to get audience members for their shows. Kevin and I would go out of our way to get flyers and were always enthusiastic about taking them. We got profusely thanked for that a number of times...

10. The festival is so large and full of so many different things that any number of different festival experiences can be had. Want to get drunk and heckle a lot? There's a festival for you. Want to see a lot of dance? Only stand up comedy? An entire run of musicals? Things that make you cry? Political drama? Children's theatre? Want to make a study of different uses of puppetry? There's a festival for all of those.

After excellent and and appropriate-for-us shows Kevin and I would turn to each other and talk about how we had found our festival.

D'awww. I'm in love with the fringe.

Things I do with my time.

2011-09-02T05:48:00.001-05:00

I've been collecting suitcases of games recently.

That makes it sound like I am collecting ridiculous quantities of marbles or jacks or chess pieces or something like that. This is not at all what I mean.

What I mean is that I have a suitcase full of The Fox Hunt (Hide & Seek), I have a suitcase full of Apocalypse Games (fire-hazard), and because at this point I've run out of wheely suitcases and a tank of helium is kind of hard to pack neatly in a bag: a pile of Baba Yaga (Casework).

Oh, and I totally forgot I also have a bag full of The East India Company Game (Capricious) which desperately needs a new title and is just in a tote bag so is easy to forget.

I spent yesterday working long into the night. (Must remember to never drink tea after 3pm. I can't handle my caffeine.) And while some of what I did was invite people to my events, get writing and emails done, sort out scheduling, have a meeting with some of my collaborators, etc. Another thing I did was cover my entire hallway in a cling film maze that blocked every single door to every single room (and the outside world) and inflate a single cow patterned helium balloon.

May every night be as eventful.

Fox. Pictures. Fox.

2011-08-23T17:06:00.002-05:00

Map of the Magical Fox Territory

Fox Parkour!

Tom, our Fox Poo Man.

A Young Fox With A Rules Sheet

Fox Tail Construction

Talking To The Magical Fox! Oooooh.

We played a fox game. It was a success. 52 kids played even though it rained heavily for half the time we had. I came home and passed out asleep.

I should mention that the lovely fox costumes in the parkour photo and the one of the girl holding the information sheet came from The Fox Project, a charity devoted to helping and rehabilitating foxes in the area. If you want to go check them out they can be found here.

I went to yoga.

2011-08-23T14:08:00.000-05:00

I have never felt so much like a wet noodle. (This is not me. This is just what I did.)

Promenaders

2011-08-19T04:33:00.002-05:00

Last week I went to four Proms over the course of seven days. For those that don't know, the Proms are a series of concerts that happen every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. They are truly epic with a concert happening every night, sometimes twice an evening and with afternoon concerts on Saturdays. Extraordinary music, extraordinary performances, and the chance to see people you wouldn't normally be able to for a totally reasonable price. (I can't tell you how bummed I am that I missed Steve Reich. Man.) The concerts are broadcast on BBC radio 3 and some of them are filmed for television as well.

Royal Albert Hall is a giant tube of a building, and for the proms the centre circle of seats are taken out and the resulting flat floor space becomes the arena for standing room tickets that you queue up for and then pay £5 for on the day. The proms are named after the standing promenaders that fill up the arena. (Pronunciation Tip: promenAHders not promenAYders)

Last Thursday Meredith played her first ever prom as part of one of her trials. Being the good and dutiful friend that I am, I agreed to come listen and stand for the duration of the concert. I arrived about half an hour before the concert, jumped into the little queue, paid my £5, wandered past a cellist warming up on the staircase ("Nowhere else to sit!") and then wandered back and forth trying to find the door to the hall (I expected it would be propped open, it wasn't. I felt more than a little stupid when I eventually figured out that just because the doors were closed, that didn't mean that they were locked...), up another small set of stairs and ta-dah! The arena.

Royal Albert Hall is a little overpowering. Ornate and large and filled with people. I hunkered down in my chosen floor spot, but it wasn't long before I realised that I knew the man over there to the left with the little round glasses. Peter conducted the baroque ensemble that I performed with a bit last year and he is a lovely guy. He has a season ticket to the proms and shows up nearly every night over the summer.

Season ticket holders have their own queue and have a guaranteed spot in the arcade as long as they show up at least 20 minutes before the show begins. This is significant when the lines are super long and wrap around the entire block since only about 1,000 people can fit in the arcade. (Or 700? I've heard conflicting accounts of the capacity.) Season ticket holders, it turns out, are their own special breed.

When I went to Peabody my favourite game to play during audition week was, "guess the instrument." It worked best when they weren't carrying their instrument and you had to guess entirely based on looks and how they moved. (Best. Game. EVER.) Sometimes specific instruments were difficult to pick out (harp, flute, and singer have only subtle differences) but I had a 100% success rate with guessing the genre. Jazzers look significantly different to orchestral musicians, and early music geeks have distinctive hair. (I'm so not even kidding about that.) My point with all of this is that Peter claims you can pick out Season Ticket holders. (More or less, some of them are tough if they work in offices and have to wear a suit.) That being said, if the fellow in question has a lengthy beard and is wearing a cycling outfit: that's a season ticket holder.

Being new to this whole environment (Thursday was my second Prom ever, I went to one last year but that is it.) I asked Peter to explain some of the Prommer culture. There's a passel of hardcore prommers who all have season tickets. They stand up at the front, stage left. At the end of the interval they stand up and, with their chests puffed up tio the sky, chant in awkward and weirdly scanning unison: "Arena. to. audience: promenaders. will be. collecting. for. musical. charities. after. the. concert. So far. you have. donAted. over. (Wednesday it was £40,000) pounds. Thank you."

There are weird little regulars' tics as well:

You can get season tickets or day tickets to stand up at the top of the hall in the gallery as well as in the arena, ("Why would you do that? You can't hear anything from up there!") and whenever the lid of a piano is opened, say for a piano concerto, then the arena hollers, "heave!" and the gallery responds back, "ho!"

If the concertmaster then gets an A from the piano instead of from he oboist- then everyone applauds.

There was, for many many years, a fountain in the middle of the arena. This fountain has been removed this year and there are some people who are not pleased. These people also happen to be season ticket holders of good standing and lengthy service, so they've started a petition. Some even wear T-shirts with the fountain printed on them. Peter, being the crotchety old man he's not old enough to be yet, is stubbornly against signing the petition.

As Peter was explaining the ins and outs of the Proms, another season ticket holder joined in our conversation. Alex is a Classicist. His PhD has something to do with the god Aries and associated war gods. Alex is nocturnal and wakes up in time to come to the concerts, so he talks about getting lunch after the show.

On Wednesday the London Philharmonia was playing, so I went to that as well because I don't pass up opportunities to see Gwen perform. I had been having a lovely picnic with friends in Kensington Gardens (I learned how to bowl for cricket!) and then leisurely walked over to the hall intending to check out what the programme was going to be. Except the line was unexpectedly long and an hour and a half before the concert already went around two corners and halfway up the third side of the block. Did I mention it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella? I was very wet when I made it in, but I still made it.

My first summer in Britain I had the opportunity to play a Handel Opera in a residency programme out in the countryside somewhere. It was delightful and a powerful learning experience; being completely immersed in baroque recitative meant that for the first time I understood it, and how to play it and how the form of the music seriously affected how the bow needed to be used and where the emphasis of the phrases were and all that. It was fabulous and I got it.

This week of concert going has resulted in a similar realisation- as soon as the Philharmonia started playing the penny dropped- orchestras sound different to each other. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't GET it before that concert started. The basses are amazing and there were all these textures that I could pick out and hear and they were smiling and in to it and it was totally delightful in a way that was unique to that week.

So that's what I've been up to.

Foxes, the game.

2011-08-18T14:03:00.001-05:00

Most of Hide & Seek is up in Edinburgh right now for a big project for the fringe, but they've got a game on Saturday for the Hayward Gallery- so I've been brought in to run it. (I can't tell you how thrilled that makes me.) The game is for some unspecified number of families (or adults, but probably families) in the afternoon. I'm preparing for somewhere between 50 and 80 groups with the option to expand significantly if we need to.

The game is a sort of naturalist fox hunt. There is a fox who magically can turn into a human somewhere in the Southbank centre. We know what the boundaries of his territory are, but we're not quite sure where is earth (den) is. Can you help us? Foxes mark their territory with scent and faeces markers. They also mark important landmarks within their territory. Find some poo and dissect it, hopefully what they have been eating will give us some clues as to where they are currently. Oh, and his foot prints look like this...off you go.

Today I needed to pick up quite a lot of odds and ends for what has turned out to be rather a crafty game set up. It was great fun, and quite a lot like a treasure hunt looking for all the things I need. (still don't have fake flowers...will continue to hunt tomorrow.)

Something it would have been good to keep in mind:
Meters and Yards are quite significantly different. I now have three METERS of orangey brown fake fur...This is a ridiculous quantity.

At the end of the game when the earth has been found there will be a craft table with supplies for making fox tails to take home with you. It turns out that construction paper is difficult to find in London, particularly if you want only one specific colour and not a rainbow. So I was delighted when, after dejectedly finding absolutely nothing of use in the craft store, I went to the bookstore next door and found a bin filled with rolled up pieces of thick, brown packing paper. Which is perfect for what I need. And totally unexpected. Also, they had sidewalk chalk. Best store ever. Also, what? You're a bookstore!

In addition to making fox tails, players will need to dissect the fox poo that they find. (In order to discover what the fox has been eating to aid in locating them....this totally makes sense. Go with it.) So that means that A) I had to make quite a lot of salt dough to be used as fox poo and B) I had to figure out how to make it brown.

You know what people don't seem to sell? Brown food colouring. So I bought, along with 5 kilos of flour and bunch of salt: cocoa powder, soy sauce, onion gravy granules, and instant coffee. It's been exciting discovering what sorts of weird chemical reactions happen when you try to combine all of that together. So far the best in terms of colour has been cocoa powder mixed with a bit of oil and then kneaded into salt dough which has been made with coffee instead of water. It's a perfect colour, but unfortunately REALLY difficult to knead. Which I'm not particularly interested in considering how much of this I'm making. More experimentation proceeds apace.

My hands are currently covered in the lingering smells of soy sauce and cocoa powder with a just a slight hint of onion gravy.

It's gross.

Best Shopping Trip Ever

I'm in FRANCE

2011-07-18T17:15:00.002-05:00

Gwen's family are doing a house swap, just outside Chicago for just outside Paris, and I am the lucky duck who gets to horn in on the vacation. I took the Eurostar this morning (less exciting than I had expected. It's a train. There's a long tunnel. Whatever.) and arrived to smiling faces at Gare du Nord. Today we wandered around a bit and took a bus tour! I loved the bus tour!

The audio guide on the tour suggested that it was possible to purchase video cassettes on the Champs-Élysées. I would like to suggest that perhaps the audio guide has not been updated recently. The narrator was delightfully emphatic and alternated between chatting about things to our left or right (you may notice the Eifel tower in front of you...no, seriously, she said that.) and playing a piece of music that both Gwen and I were certain we'd played but completely failed to identify.

I took some pictures.

I'll share them with you in a moment, but first let me tell you that I declined the offer from a nun to take Gwen's and my picture. In some ways I regret declining that offer from a nun, but on the other hand I was having way too much fun attempting and then failing to take self portraits in front of famous Paris landmarks.

Here, let me show you:

Gwen and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
What, you can't see it? Oh, right. Sorry! The zoom was still too far in...

Gwen and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
Um, okay, so the angle is a little bit off.

Gwen and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe
Eh. It's alright. Not the most amazing photograph ever, but all of the principal players are represented.

Some thoughts on the Eifel Tower:

1. It's brown. Did you know it was brown?

2. Somehow, in person, it is significantly more industrial looking than I expected.

3. And less pointy.

I had gained some skill by the time we actually stopped by the Eifel Tower, and am almost pleased with these ones:

The zoom! Don't keep it all zoomed in! Also, change the angle, this is never going to be a good picture. Your head is in the way.

Ze Tower! (Is it rude to write in a fake French accent while sitting in a gorgeous house in Fontainebleu? Probably.)

It worked! A self portrait that worked! With an important landmark!

Some notes about my clothes: I'm wearing a coat. I'm clearly in Paris. It is mid-July. Pssht.

And it was a bit windy.

ps. The spell check on blogger is currently set to French. Currently 98% of this entry is highlighted due to misspellings.

Harrow Suzuki Group

2011-07-10T08:45:00.000-05:00

The final Harrow Suzuki school concert was this morning which means that now all of my school year things are finished with. The little ones all wore fancy dress (costumes) and looked adorable. (I'm hoping that one of the group photographs will wend its way to me!) My favourites were the two boys who had substantial plastic helmets as part of their attire, because how do you play the violin with a helmet on??

The younger group sang a princess song with lots of actions and a pirate song with lots of jumping. They were excellent. We've been practicing them a capella because I'm not so great with the piano, but the pianist who was accompanying the violin portions of the concert decided to help us out as well. That was great except that at the beginning of the first song we turned out to have begun in two completely different keys. It took a minute for us all to work that one out and start again. Oops! Embarrassing! Fortunately Suzuki parents (or at the very least THIS group of Suzuki parents) are the nicest people ever so they just chuckled and we carried on.

The older group did a rhythmic vocal warm up that they had written new words for, a dancing song with actions and “ai-yi-yi”-ing, and pease pudding hot in 4ths. Thank goodness for the piano in the pease pudding song; we always get there in the end, but this time they were able to sing the 4ths straight away. A relief since this was, after all, the concert. Phew.

I have a great fondness for any number of these students. They're clever and focused (more or less) and nearly all of them are hilarious goofballs. One of the girls was sat directly in my sight line during the violin pieces and for one song proceeded to follow the line of the music with her face. Does that make any sense? She was squinching her face all up and then popping her eyebrows up to her hairline following the melody that the violins were playing. Now, if I were a responsible adult I probably would have silently shook my head to get her to stop. But I'm not. So I joined in. (And hoped it wasn't *too* obvious!) After the concert her mother laughingly asked what the pair of us monkeys had been doing. (Tum ti tum....nothing, geeze)

I'm keeping this group until I leave because I love them so much.

Birthday Week!: Mommy Edition

2011-07-09T15:58:00.000-05:00

It's birthday week here at londoncasey, and I've just realized that because I've been titling all of these posts with what I actually call my relatives- that means that this one is titled "Mommy" and though I'm not 100% certain that I wanted the internet to know that I call my mom 'Mommy', well, meh. Let's go with it. (She typically gets called "Betsy" by those who know her.)

I'm leaving London.

My visa is up in mid-November and though I have spent most of this year trying to figure out how to stay, I couldn't manage to find a method that would both work (you know, legally) and feel right. So I'm heading back to America and I am (ever so tentatively) starting to get in to the idea.

About a month ago, when this decision was really made and I closed the doors on the half options that were still floating around- I talked to Laine and *FREAKED OUT* about things like...phone bills. And health insurance. And the price of food in America. Because I've not really dealt with those things in the US, only in the UK. (She promised me that I would be able to figure it out and then forwarded a link to a freelancers union in NY. She's an excellent sister.)

At the end of this month I will be done with all of my contracted work, though the tykes may continue to pull me in for supply/substitute teaching the first couple months of school. What this means is that though my income drops dramatically come September, I do have this glorious gift of time coming to me. And it feels like a good bookend in a lot of ways- I showed up in London (and, in fact, started this blog) with a whole month of time on my hands, a travel card, and a sense of exploratory adventure. Now I get the chance to leave like that as well.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm done with teaching for now. I'll be moving in the middle of the school year and it's not something I've been particularly excited about for a while (you may have noticed the diminishing number of tyke related posts). It very well may be something that I come back to, but I shouldn't think I would look for classroom teaching positions in America. (For one thing, I really really don't have an education degree.)

I'm done with the bass. I don't think I posted this to the blog, but I don't own a bass any longer- the one I had been playing in London now has a happy home in Norway and my American bass is helping out the Seattle Youth Symphony.

And maybe I'm done with London. (Maybe just for this round.)

Things I still want to do before I move back to America
1. Go punting. Andrew is moving to Oxford in October, this may become his responsibility.
2. Do some more rambling. There's an awful lot of the country I've not tromped through yet, and some more tromping needs to happen.
3. Go to Kew Gardens. I still haven't made it there yet, which is ridiculous given how much I like plant museums.
4. Have a massive birthday party of goodness. I did a bouncy castle last year, this year needs something new.
5. Do some European travelling. I'm going to France (finally) in, oh, a week! I'd forgotten it was so soon! But I want to see Berlin and maybe Hungary too.
6. Go camping! I want to burn things and sleep outdoors and get really, really muddy.
7. Get my English finances in order so I don't worry about having messed something up once I'm far away again.

You know why this list isn't longer? Because I do the things I want to in London. I go to improv class every week and I have a marvellous yoga teacher, and I get to be involved in all of these cool and exciting games and I walk in a London park at least three times a week, and every time I get on a bus I sit on the upper deck (and very often in the front), and I wander over to Trafalgar Square and squee at all of the squee-ing Harry Potter fans just because it is there and goodness me I am blessed. Not least because everywhere I go I am surrounded by some pretty extraordinary people.

Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

I'm going to miss here. But maybe it's time for something else.

Birthday Week!: Grammy Edition

2011-07-08T17:51:00.004-05:00

This week is birthday week, where about 50% of my family officially gets older. My grandmother Ruthe is the only one to have her birthday on a day that is not divisible by 3. Forewarning: I am *exhausted* and likely to be rambly....here goes!

Have I told you about the theatre project I'm doing? It's a site specific devised theatre piece/game for the opening festival of a new youth arts venue near Finsbury Park. We're working with a bunch of teenagers from the neighboring estate. It's a fun project in a lot of ways, but particularly exciting for me because I am listed in all the programmes and flyers as a game designer. Or games consultant, or something like that. It makes me feel hip and cool and like I seem like I know what I'm talking about.

Last month I went to Bristol for igFest (The Interesting Games Festival) it was pretty spectacular and involved a three hour long chase game through the centre of town on a Saturday night where you had to avoid getting eaten by zombies (or crashing into the truly remarkable number of becostumed hen and stag nights wandering the town and getting into fights).

The pièce de résistance was running away from zombies in an empty mall. I had an epic moment where I was climbing backwards up a down escalator in order to stay in once place because I needed to avoid the zombies milling around both the bottom and the top of the escalator. I eventually got caught about 20 meters away from the final safe zone, which was excellent because it meant that I got to have a face full of zombie makeup for the after party.

City Dash

I also helped to run two games- one for fire-hazard and one for hide & seek. Fire-hazard's game involved having a map and codes stickered to the players' front and back. The players snuck around the city centre using their maps to find small, hidden stickers with codes to text in for points while avoiding guards who would text in the players chest plate codes to take away points. It is our most tech heavy game and it went off surprisingly well. We ran it twice; the first day I was a guard and the second day I bossed people around. (The pictures are of me bossing people around.) The running of the game mostly involves tracking the course of the game in order to recalibrate it half way through if needed, so I spent the 45 minutes or so that it was running after everyone had their stickers and their texts all set up hunkered down in the corner of an alleyway that led to a lovely covered market, staring at the computer and clicking "refresh." I think I prefer the bossing people around aspect.

Hide & Seek's game was about ceilidhs and involved dancing, trading ribbons, and running away from "Evil Morris Dancers." My role there was mostly to be bossy (yay!) and instruct people in how to weave between each other while doing the dance. It was a great deal of fun and also involved a pair of bemused musicians who remained reticent when asked whether this was the weirdest gig they'd ever done.

On the last day of the festival (I make it sound like this big thing, but it was just a weekend) there was a game designers brunch to discuss questions about what we do. Er, they do. I wanted to go, but wasn't sure if it was really something I was part of (Casey, you were there with TWO games companies. Shut up) but having crashed in my friend Holly's hotel room after the zombie game (I needed a shower and the person I was staying with was heavily pregnant and far away and it was very late and oh my gosh the water flowed pink from all of the fake blood/zombie makeup) she and I went to the brunch together.

At first I stayed quiet, listening carefully to other people. Then someone asked about fire-hazard and I wasn't sure if I should really answer the question or not because it isn't *my* company and I'm not 100% privy to Gwyn's plans for it. But blah blah blah by the end of the meeting I was yabbering away like a talkative macaw.

At some point recently Gwyn and I were planning/hanging out and recalled a rumor that Jane McGonigal's book Reality is Broken had a chapter about our friend Kevan, so we tried to get an ebook copy to see if we could find it, but that was kind of a pain and whatever system for reading ebooks that Gwyn had downloaded didn't have a search function so we were just randomly scrolling through the book. This was remarkably ineffectual in terms of finding Kevan, but did mean that I noticed a picture of a bunch of people jumping down some stairs,

"Hey, Gwyn?"
"Yeah?"
"Isn't that you over on the right?"

With two fire-hazard members now confirmed as being in the book; we decided that Gwyn would buy the book, send it to me, and I would mark it all up and then report back. The first three steps of that process happened...Sorry, Gwyn.

I've just noticed that on the last page I've written and underlined, "Superfly" which I think is a good shorthand for how I feel about this book. Some of the pages aren't underlined! I got chatty in the margins and circled a lot of things.

My friend Josh and I have teamed up to design some games for Hide & Seek's next 'sandpit' game testing session in a week's time. We've worked on about 5, only one of which is going to be used for this Sandpit, but hopefully more of them will see the light of day in August.

So the point: starting with the second day of Bristol and the brunch and developing through working with Josh and getting hired to be a game designer/consultant for the theatre project and continuing to work with both Holly and Gwyn...I'm starting to feel like this is something I can say I do.

Bossing people with my hands full

Bossing people with a ridiculous expression on my face

Birthday Week!: Papa Edition

2011-07-06T18:02:00.000-05:00

It's birthday week here at londoncasey, where once a year we celebrate the 50% of my family who managed to be born during BIRTHDAY WEEK. It is, I think, exciting for all of us. Next up is my father, Dan. For his birthday he gets a blog about some tykes....

In spite of numerous leaving parties and speeches and class parties and general end of the year-ness, I am still at school. This is because I decided to work for the summer camp. Down in the junior camp ("down" because we're in the basement) we've got a surplus of tykes. On Monday morning we were expecting around 25, but as I was registering they just kept coming and coming and coming. When the dust settled we had 35. Maybe 10 doesn't seem like that big a number, but in terms of tyke corralling, it is significant. Fortunately we've now got six staff people, so it has actually been a pleasure so far this week.

We do, however, have one child who is literally a hand full. When he wants to be he is an absolute sweetheart and I genuinely enjoy working with him. That being said, when he starts acting up there is very little that we can do. Explaining quietly and in a deep voice while making lots of eye contact that throwing things at other children is not okay only makes him laugh. When he gets worked up he starts getting violent as well. This morning, and I don't even remember what set this off, I was holding him back and trying to get him under control. He kicked me, pinched my neck, and bit my hand- all of which I could handle and while it wasn't enjoyable didn't really phase me. Then he bent my glasses and I lost it.

I injure myself often enough that I don't mind some bruises or cuts (I have a foot long self inflicted bruise on my thigh right now from where I accidentally tripped and fell onto a bench in the hall during lunch last week. That was embarrassing. I threw food everywhere. One of the year 1 children came up to me after I had cleaned up and sat down again to tell me not to worry because he had fallen down as well and he was okay now.) But don't touch my glasses.

I felt weirdly exposed with my glasses broken. The right earpiece was bent wide to the side. Nothing was actually broken off but it meant that in order to stay on my head the ear piece needed to be outside my ear rather than behind it. If I looked down, say, to talk to any of the tykes, they slipped down my nose. Linda took the boy away from me immediately after my glasses got bent and I rushed outside to try and get myself under control. I cried. Liz came out and gave me a hug. Chetna came over and gave me a hug. I gulped some air and let myself be led over to the shooting range where the Senior camp was later going to do some archery. So that was cool. I at least managed to hit the target. (And didn't further injure myself like I did the last time I did archery as a 9 year old when I somehow managed to shoot the fletching into my index finger.)

We called the kid's mom and sat him in the room next door away from everyone else. (With the door open so we could still see him.) He calmed down quite a lot once he was by himself and ended up sitting there for over an hour while we waited for someone to come and pick him up. I suspect that being in a dark, empty space was probably a good thing for him- less stimulation. By lunch time he was back to being his charming, smiley self. But we still sent him home.

I went to an opticians after school and they were able to bend the ear piece back, more or less. They hang behind my ear now but the fit is still looser than I would like it to be and probably now is the time to get a second pair of glasses so that I am not completely bereft if this happens again.

Um. Happy Birthday, Papa! I understand now why you used to get to annoyed when I went for your glasses as a kid....

Birthday Week!: Mical Edition

2011-07-03T06:07:00.000-05:00

It's time to launch Birthday Week! This is the week that about 50% of my family was born, so it's an important one. Today, kicking the whole thing off is my grandma, Mical. What does she get? A completely random blog entry....

Today I washed my teddy bear.

It is sunny and warm out and I figure he has as good a chance as any for actually *drying* today. I've tried washing him once before, the first year I moved to London. He had started to smell and, well, that was at least as gross as it sounds. I washed him in the sink of my dorm room and the water turned a disgusting, dark brown. I was discouraged. Also, he took many many days to try. I was further discouraged.

So I did what any normal person would do and ignored the problem for another three years. Until today! Today I fixed the problem! Today it occurred to me that while the water may turn a truly vile dark brown colour, filled with grime that does not bear thinking about, I could continue to wash him. Today it occurred to me that this wasn't a one sink full of water kind of a job.

Twelve. It was a twelve sinks full kind of a job. And my hands and wrists hurt from squeezing that much water out of essentially a fragile sponge. But by the 12th sink full? The water was running clear. Thank goodness.

Gross.

Also, can I just say that 25+ years of anthropomorphising Soft Bear makes it VERY difficult to push his head down into a sink full of water? I had to consciously keep reminding myself that I was not being evil, that teddy bears do not need to breathe, that his eyes weren't accusing me from underneath the water, that, really, it was good for him to be washed and he would thank me later even if at this current moment he couldn't understand why I was doing this to him, that when I pulled him, sodden with water, out of the sink that the reason I was holding him like a baby and supporting his head was because the fabric was fragile. Yes. That's why.

I fear I may have revealed too much here today.

Anne Frank: An RE class

2011-06-22T19:17:00.001-05:00

We're learning about characteristics of heroes in RE currently, and this week discussed Anne Frank. We read a short biography about her and in between paragraphs discussed World War II, racism, and the Nazi party.

"Did Christians get killed by the Nazis?"
"Nope."
"Woo!!! Go Christians!!"
No, no, no. This is a sad story, not a football game, no one won the Holocaust.

We discussed the gas chambers.

"They dug big pits and threw them in where they were eaten by crocodiles!"
"Well, the Nazis did kill people in lots of different ways, but I don't think they did that."
"I maybe am getting them mixed up with the Egyptians."
"Maybe."

We looked at pictures of Anne Frank and the floor plan of the annex online. They wanted to hear some of the diary and one of the girls knew just where in the library it was, so she raced downstairs and back up again with the book in her hands. I read to them and they curled up on the floor listening.

"Is this a real story?"

Usually I answer that question like this: "Well, a lot of people believe it is true."

Today? "Yes."

What I Have Been Eating Recently

2011-06-19T11:03:00.002-05:00

This doesn't have a good name, I mean, it doesn't have *a* name. I've been referring to it as "the lentil stuff" which I suppose is descriptive if not appetizing.

The Lentil Stuff

Chop an onion, sizzle it in a pot.
Crush a handfull of brazil nuts, pop in the pot.
Dump a bunch of puy lentils in, a mug's worth?
Open a can of chopped tomatoes, bung that in too.
Decide that that doesn't look like enough liquid- fill up the can with water and pour it in.
Cook covered for a while.
Remember that you were meant to put some bullion in, toss a vegetable stock cube in.
Oh yeah, and some sugar. Decide that honey is probably even better and spoon some in.
Look at it for a while.
You know what that could use? Some more tomatoes. Open another can and add those.
Simmer.
Simmer.
Simmer.
It's still really watery, take the lid off.
Simmer.
Get bored.
Discover that you have some fresh tomatoes, chop up a couple of those and throw them in.
Simmer.
Bet that some freshly chopped basil would be really nice on top...

Decide that the lentils are *cooked* and spoon it into a bowl. Add some basil.

Make the ultimate decision: spoon or fork?
Choose fork.
Regret that decision.

Num num num.

Funeral

2011-06-08T18:54:00.001-05:00

Nemo's funeral was today.

He was killed two weeks ago crossing the street on his way home from school.

This morning I got to school and went straight to the library (it's my safe place) to chat briefly with my favourite librarians and prepare for the day. I started reading "Someone has died in a road crash: a guide for professionals caring for bereaved children and their families" which is a booklet put out by a charity that does what the title suggests it might. It's full of good information and well written, but I had to go out into the garden for a minute to cry.

There's a condolences book on the table in the library for people to sign and leave messages. Nemo's parent's don't speak English, but seeing the book filled can only be good. (And really, it's more for us anyway. To share in one place.) One of my favourite mothers was there when I came back into the library. Her eldest was signing the book and her middle boy, who has been in my classes the entire time I've been teaching, saw me, flung his arms open, and ran over for a hug. Thank you sweetheart, that was exactly what I needed.

The funeral was at a church near the school, near his home. In the bulletin notice the church said, "Nemo had greatly endeared himself to the 9.30 congregation-- nearly always coming alone, demonstrating a deep faith, sense of curiosity and fun." It turns out he used to take himself to church, and rarely missed a Sunday. It was also clear from the service that he did a remarkable job of connecting with people of all ages and walks of life and built himself a community wherever he was. At one point during the service someone said, "I don't think Nemo knew how loved he was."

It's true. School was closed this afternoon not because the kids were all coming to the funeral, but because all of the teachers and staff wanted to. There weren't enough staff members left in school to be able to keep it open. There are very few children in the school that everyone knows, and Nemo was one of them. Frankly, he might have been the only one. The staff and students walked (with a police escort to direct traffic!) from the school to the church. It felt like a solemn pedestrianized funeral cortege. It felt appropriate.

Nemo was a cellist and loved music. He would frequently be chatting to people and absentmindedly blocking the hallway with his cello on his back like a giant, black, Nemo sized turtle shell. Last year during the Key Stage 2 musical I let him try out my bass, which he loved and always asked me about whenever I saw him.

The service was as lovely as a child's funeral could be. The students sang a song, the readings were translated for his parents, the church was full, and there were stories about Nemo that made us chuckle through our tears.

But still, lets not do that again soon, okay?

Highgate Cemetery

2011-06-08T18:13:00.001-05:00

Saturday I took advantage of the sunshine and did something I've been meaning to do for the entire time I've lived in this city: visit Highgate Cemetery. I started on the wrong side of Hampstead Heath, so took the opportunity to wander across the heath in the sunshine and get a bit lost. Having taken a wrong turning out of the heath I turned around and walked towards highgate, marvelling at the beautiful houses and gardens, and then realizing that my “right turning” was actually the wrong one and now I was going to have to climb up the massive hill. Again. From the bottom.

I remembered a bicycle trip I'd taken when I was in middle school where we'd, for some reason, cycled up a mountain. I suspect it was a smallish mountain, but I was definitely the last person in the convoy and in order to help myself along I belted songs the entire way up. Finding that this was a useful tactic for me when faced with steep slopes, I sang to myself some more. I hope I didn't annoy any of the highgate residents. The houses were mostly set fairly far back from the road, and there wasn't really anyone on the road (the vertical slope of Highgate) so I think I was probably fine.

Once I got to Highgate Village I realized I still wasn't in the correct spot for the cemetery and tried to use a bus map to orient myself. When that didn't work I figured I'd just head down the other side of the hill. That didn't work either, but I did end up in a charming little park where I decided to take my sandals off and walk around barefoot. I was momentarily distracted by a very determined and upright toddler pushing a scooter just taller than her down the path. Her name was Ruby and she was heading away from the picnic, which I know because her mother was trailing her at a distance and calling to her.

Having reached an exit of the park I realized that the cemetery was on the other end of the park, so I wandered backwards and FINALLY- ended up in the correct place. Just in time to have a tour of the West Cemetery sold to me after what must have been the easiest sales job ever.

They made me put my sandals back on, but man that place is glorious. I had the mystery of the triple lined dollar signs explained (It's a J an H and an S, which has something to do with either translating 'Jesus Christ' from Greek or some other story that I don't quite remember.)(Okay, so it made *me* feel better about the weird but common Victorian symbol. I realize this doesn't really help you...) We went through the Egyptian wing, the Circle of Lebanon, past the giant sleeping lion of one of the UK's first successful Menagerists, heard stories about a handful of London's Victorian eccentrics and trailed through huge swaths of ivy. I spent a (possibly) embarrassing proportion of the tour chortling aloud to myself about how I loved the Victorians.

Our tour guide was from Inverness and had a delightful accent as well as a charmingly self deprecating demeanour. I thought she was great and when she pointed out that the cemetery always needs more volunteers I leapt at the chance to get a leaflet. (Who doesn't love leaflets??) She recommended a stack of books to read as well (while getting downright pissy about the Bloomsbury Group) and I'm hoping I get a chance to follow through on both things this summer. (Volunteering AND reading- in case that wasn't clear.)

500 Posts!

2011-05-23T06:52:00.000-05:00

I think 500 posts counts as an accomplishment worthy of celebration- and so I will appropriate pictures of another celebration-- My friend Elena had a birthday picnic yesterday and I finally got around to getting out my camera. I know Elena through fire-hazard and at any of our events there are, necessarily, nerf guns. It was a gorgeous day, my kite was attached to a bike and happily darting around in the sunlight, and there was hummous in 1 litre containers. A perfect setting for an all out nerf war.

The sky was blue, and I was sitting on the grass which meant that the sky kept beautifully framing people trying to shoot me. I started taking pictures and that soon developed into figuring out the best way to photograph a dart in flight. Most of the time this ended up with me being shot in the face and a menacing picture devoid of darts. Everyone once in a while it actually worked and that was tremendously exciting:

Josh got hit in the face.

I got hit in the face twice and totally missed Josh, but look! THREE darts flying through the air!!

Tom was out to get Ruth.

Gwyn looking all badass and trying to figure out how to cock two nerf pistols at once without the aid of a third hand....

Group Shot. (Heh. Pun.)

Happy Birthday Uncle Andy!

2011-05-22T17:57:00.001-05:00

Dear Andy,
You asked me if I had eaten any British strawberries as they are your favourite and you remember eating many of them around your birthday. Well, I am here to say that YES I have, and in fact, I made your grandmother's strawberry pie with them in honour of your birthday. I think these ones were from Norfolk.

Here's the thing though, I got the recipe from my mother's (your sister's) cookbook, and it actually is a little difficult to translate it from American into British. Things like "2 large packages of Jell-O" and "2 packets of graham crackers" are a bit difficult to find/guage volume wise in a country where Jello-O is called "jelly" and it comes already woobley. The crackers I replaced with digestive biscuits and then I guessed at all the volumes. I'm not used to working with jelly or hand whipped cream (thanks, Ella!) so this is not my most aesthetically pleasing result ever, (excuses!) but it was delicious. And enjoyed by many at the picnic today (it disappeared in minutes). We toasted you and your birthday!

Also, this morning I taught some tykes- I had them make you a little birthday card:

So happy birthday, Andy. You're the best uncle a niece could ask for!

love,

CASEY

Odds and Ends

2011-05-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

I taught in Harrow today and it was a bit of a mixed bag. Unsurprisingly, the lessons that I was prepared for went well! The ones that I wasn't? Not so much...Really, must learn from this.

We're on to a new term which means news songs for my two groups of singing tykes! I'm determined to start part singing with my older ones (5-8), which means I need to make sure that I'm not wandering all over the place pitch wise when I teach them the songs. (I like using teaching as a way to force myself to learn things I ought to have learned years ago.) We're working with "pease pudding hot" which I had them sing, use kodaly hand signals for, hocket (pass) between the boys and girls where one group sang only the words the rhymed with temperature words and the other group sang the rest of the song (pay attention, kiddoes! If you don't you'll get all confused!), and then tried signing with two different starting pitches.

We also had a big discussion about what, exactly, pease pudding is. A boiled pudding a la treacle pudding? A pot pie filled with peas? Some old Victorian food that no one eats any more because it is gross? No one knew. Fortunately Wikipedia has come to the rescue: "pease pudding is a boiled vegetable product, which mainly consists of split yellow or Carlin peas, water, salt, and spices often cooked with a bacon or ham joint." So there you go. Huh.

(Incidentally here's a conversation I had with one of my girls:
"Casey, have you heard of a man we're studying in school?"
"....Do you know his name?"
"I think, I think it's, um, William Morris?"
"Oh my gosh, yes! Have you been to his house in Walthamstow?"
"No, but he was born in Walthamstow!"
"Exactly! What is it that you are studying in school, The Aesthetics?"
"...um. No? The Victorians."
Because 7 year olds will not be studying aestheticism, you ninny.)

The younger group was meant to be singing "rain rain go away" but I got all muddled so they sang "pease pudding hot" as well...which threw off my whole mental lesson plan. Mrhg. Oh, well. I lost three or four of them to their mothers, which is my highest attrition rate ever in this school. Must actually have a lesson plan next time. Ah, well. Their version of a rhythmic rhyme called "chop chop choppity chop" took a delightful turn when one of the four year olds waxed poetic about a "nice piece of meat with a bit of fat around the edge" that we ought to throw into our stew pot. He continued talking for quite a while about this meat with the fat still on it and I grinned at him trying not to giggle at the tiny gourmand.

Speaking of delightfulness, I had a quick visit for tea and ginger cake at Peter's house yesterday. He and Gail say hello and also gave me a clipping from the Guardian of one of the Westminster vergers (who happens to be a friend of theirs) doing cartwheels down the aisle after the Royal Wedding. I've got it tacked to my bedroom wall now. Fortunately, YouTube has many, many versions for you to peruse. Here's one:

Happy American Mother's Day!

There's a wedding this Friday, have you heard?

2011-04-28T13:23:00.002-05:00

Royal wedding fever has well and truly hit. Yesterday I had the privilege of helping the librarians with their bulletin board about the wedding. We nicked a white paper table cloth, printed out a bunch of pictures of Kate and Wills, found some red, white, and blue ribbon and set about making a truly ridiculous board complete with a frosted wedding cake and (my favourite part) 3D cake toppers of the royal couple made out of even more white table cloth.

I love the librarians, and we had a great time chatting in our haste to get this done before the library was being used for a meeting about how we were essentially in a Changing Rooms episode and how we could each take turns to play Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen. Also, I got to walk around on top of the bookshelves and wield the mighty staple gun. So I was pretty pleased with all of that. (I apologise for the lack of photographic evidence of the royal wedding themed board, we did *intend* to take pictures, but that didn't quite end up happening...)

Today was nursery assistanting day, which unfortunately coincided with the jet lag hitting me. So I woke up to a phone call from my boss 15 minutes after school had opened to the children asking me if I was going to be coming into work that day. (!) An hour and 15 minutes later I arrived just in time to help set up the nursery's English Tea Party. Which was both delightful and adorable. We set up tables outside and put flags on them as table cloths. Each of the nursery classrooms made different foods so we had cucumber sandwiches, flag bedecked fairy cakes, frosted biscuits, crisps, Victoria sponge cake, etc. The children were all wearing crowns and it was both very cute and very British.

The area around the Royal Parks is getting absurd. Yesterday I went to go check out the media circus outside Buckingham Palace. There's a whole structure that's been built there to house all of the television crews. Lots of fancy lighting, giant boom mics, and crowds of people trying to get into the background of things being filmed. My favourite part was watching a horse drawn carriage complete with two top hatted drivers that went up and down the arcade getting filmed again and again from different angles. Don't forget to run along the side of the carriage and record the horse's hooves! Oh, you got that already? Cool.

Hyde Park has some giant screens that they were testing this afternoon as well as beer gardens (Pimm's Gardens, really. This is England after all), sausage and burger stands, and whole fleets of port-a-loos. (Still England.)

I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. The wedding is at 11am, and given my late rising this morning and the potential for transport failure, meh. We'll see.

Anyhow, that's the news from these parts. I hope you enjoy the bunting! (Edit: bunting has been removed due to annoying music and the wedding being past. Pretty dress though, didn't you think? My favourite part was the little flower girl holding her ears during the flyover. I think all weddings need a slightly grumpy youngster involved.)

Things That Are Broken

2011-03-29T16:50:00.000-05:00

This is an excuse post- mainly my computer's fan is on the fritz meaning that it overheats and freezes (how it delights me to write "overheats and freezes") rendering it largely useless. I mean, until I fix it...in the mean time Ella has generously let me use her computer meaning that I can, if necessary, be on skype or check my email, but (and here is the excuse part) due to the quirks of her keyboard (it takes a LOT of effort to use the space bar) I'm disinclined to blog a whole lot.

Which is why there will be no real content in this post.

Mostly the reason I'm writing this at all though, is to let you know that my 10 year old yoga pants finally bit the dust half way through class and are now held together with staples.

Because I am pure class.

I had a visit from my sister. Adventure Part 4. (Wherein we don't leave the house)

2011-03-22T15:53:00.000-05:00

Sunday was delightful, despite being plagued by jet lag and colds. We slept in and then Gwen showed up for lunch. I hadn't managed to start preparing anything yet, but Gwen brought wine, and Laine had the genius idea of bringing the folding chairs into the kitchen. (I don't know why Ella and I never thought of that, we hang out in the kitchen all the time because it is the warmest room in the house and, you know, there's food there, but we hadn't ever brought the chairs in. NOW, however, they live there. Thanks, Laine!)

Remember our awesome organic food box we get delivered? Do any of you know about Laine's peculiar devotion to cast iron pans? Have I told you that I've been experimenting with pastry? Well. All of those came together in a deliciously elaborate vegetable quiche with homemade pastry and about 10 different kinds of vegetables in it. We had extra pastry (and extra cheese and extra quiche mixture) so in addition to the quiche we also made little baby cheese quiches (soufflees? Kind of?) in a muffin tin. All of this was taking far too long for Gwen so we also made bar cookies with melted dark chocolate on top.

Delicious productivity, convivial atmosphere, and conversation that flowed and flowed and flowed. It was interesting hearing stories being re-told for a slightly different audience. I know how *I* tell the story of Gwen and I becoming friends, but it was fun to hear her version. Gwen has heard all sorts of stories about our family, but this time she got to hear them from Laine. Excellent, good times.

Gwen eventually went home so Laine and I, in our relaxed/lethargic state ended up watching a bunch of episodes of "Miranda,"a ridiculous and slapstick-y comedy that I've rather fallen in love with. Eventually we got hungry again, rummaged around the pantry, and ended up on accident with a divine take on macaroni and cheese involving orzo, sesame oil, tamari sauce, and bok choi.

And that was pretty much it. You'll notice that I didn't leave the house. (Laine and Gwen were both sent off to the shop for various bits and pieces as they became necessary. So I guess the title is bit of a misnomer...)

I had a visit from my sister. Adventure Part 3.

2011-03-22T12:27:00.000-05:00

Heist. It's a pretty cool game. This last run we did sold out in 77minutes. People like it. I was not at all sure that Laine would....

You take a team of 10 people, gather them up at a pub, and give them some sort of back ground about how a bunch of thugs have taken over an abandoned police station and how we need to get the (mumble) out straight away because of (mumble) which is why they'll only have 30 minutes and need to be super stealthy to get around the "guards." Then we give them maps, a bunch of radios with head sets, assorted other useful accouterments like wire cutters, gaffer tape, a nerf gun with one round of ammo, black beanie hats to look the part, coloured ties for identification and code name purposes, and express instructions not to cut the video camera wire because seriously it's a pain to fix. Don't do that. Then you give them 30 minutes to plan their attack before getting them to follow one of the "guards" to the station and letting havoc break loose from there.

Laine was kind enough to play a round for me so that she could understand what I'm always talking about. She made herself very useful in that she became the point person to relay lock codes through, but she also placed herself in the one spot the guards definitely wouldn't catch her. Clever and good at risk management, my sister. Also, silhouetted against a window which meant that I could see her the entire time, which was entertaining.

My role is to be the operations person for the team; meaning I give them their instructions, story, and equipment and then follow their progress and the guards' progress by listening to my radios from my secure spot outside the game boundaries. If the team needs some help, they've managed to get a box out to me, or the game is getting close to ending- I call that over the radio. Other than that I tend to listen in and chuckle at how completely their plans have blown up. (Because the plans always blow up. Always.) And cheer or jeer as necessary.

Laine hung out with me during my second and final round of the evening, so she got a good taste of how much fun listening to the radios is as well. At the end we helped the fire-hazard team tidy up a bit in preparation for Sunday's run and then went home where Laine Facebook introduced me to a bunch of her friends and then we passed out, exhausted.

Sunday's coming up next....

(ps. do you like my cliff hangers?)

I had a visit from my sister. Adventure Part 2. (Wherein I make excessive parenthetical remarks about cars)

2011-03-22T12:10:00.000-05:00

Heathrow serves London. People in London don't really need to drive because public transport is so good. Therefore, getting picked up from Heathrow in a car is a luxurious, exotic treat. Or, at least, that's how Laine and I were thinking about it.

Nik and I were hanging out outside customs determining whether or not certain people coming out of the doors would react well to spontaneous, enthusiastic applause. Then Laine showed up! And that was exciting! I may have squealed. I really don't remember. I'm pretty sure I didn't applaud but you'd have to check with Laine and Nik to make sure. My SISTER was FINALLY here!!!

We tumbled into the car (remarking upon our fancy-pants car privilege...) (Not that you'd have any reason to know this, but there is a parking lot *right next* to Terminal 1, which meant that we had to walk for a total of about 2 minutes to get from the meeting place to the car.) (I'll get over this eventually, but it was really exciting.) (For me. Probably not that exciting for you.) (Sorry.)

Nik was very sweet and drove us while Laine and I chattered away about her most recent exciting driving experience. (I feel like the presidential motorcade is probably more exciting than a ride from Heathrow, but I'm working with what I've got here...) Chatter, chatter, chatter.

We eventually made it to my house where, thanks to the Gods of Parking, there was a spot immediately in front of my flat.

We tumbled everyone off into their respective beds and fell asleep. Then everyone slept and slept and slept, except me because I was excited again so I got up early and made cornmeal pancakes.

Our corner store is remarkably well stocked for a corner store. It's not magic like Meredith's corner store (which once had fresh cranberries out of season (in the UK!) right when I was seriously craving some orange-cranberry muffins), but it's pretty darn good anyway. Which is why we had cornmeal pancakes with real maple syrup.

I'm only telling you this to make you jealous.

MMmmmmm.

We all had a nice morning together and that was lovely, though frustratingly cut short because I had to be in New Cross for that weekend's round of Heist with Fire-Hazard. So Laine and I waved goodbye to Nik as he set off back home and then set off for Adventure Part 3....

coming soon!

ps. Spell check is fun on these entries because Blogger doesn't like 'Laine,' 'Nik,' or 'Heathrow'

I had a visit from my sister. Adventure Part 1.

2011-03-22T11:49:00.001-05:00

Laine was here last week, and we completely failed to take any photographs. So you're just going to have to trust me that it was *awesome* and we still look nothing like one another.

She showed up Friday night so I went up to visit Nik ahead of picking her up at Heathrow. Nik just got a car so he took me on an adventure to Windsor Great Park, which, ps., covers 1,000 acres. It is newly spring time here so the sun is going down tantalizingly later each day- the light was fading but we went for a stroll anyway. (These things are important! Strolls, that is.) We got to the sculpture Nik thought he was aiming for but it turned out to be a granite doughnut instead of a horse. It looked like the horse was on ahead so we kept walking, enjoying the breeze, the squelchy mud, and actually getting to see each other.

Remember how the light was fading? And how the park is, oh, I don't know, HUGE?

The funny thing about large swaths of parkland is that, particularly if you are not on a path or road, there aren't any street lights. Or, really, lights of any kind save the light pollution coming from nearby towns.

We got a little bit lost.

Laine is really quite lucky we made it to the airport...

(That's not true. We found out way out of the park fast enough that we were able to nip home, make Laine a cheese and pickle sandwich, go out to dinner, and then wait patiently outside of customs. What is true is that we had an adventure in the dark (the very dark) and felt lucky to have finally found the place we started from again.)

My shoes are still a little bit covered in mud. Exactly the way I like them.

Some Ideas From Children

2011-03-08T13:38:00.001-05:00

I'm marking the kid's Religious Education books. Okay, so I probably should have done this...before. But I'm doing it now! So that's good.

At one point we were illustrating the metaphor of good= light and bad= dark. I've just got to a page where one of the children has drawn a giant warning sign that says "DANG" with exclamation point above it. I think it's adorable! (even though the next page makes it clear that what he was *trying* to write was "danger," which isn't nearly as funny as Dang!)

One child has suggested that on the sabbath Jewish people could go to the opera or go swimming. Those are his only two suggestions. I kind of love it. This same kid's explanation for why David fought Goliath was the reward of £10,000. (I don't remember that part of the story...?)

Possibly my new favourite: under Things I Wouldn't Do If My Parents Were Watching I found the suggestion that perhaps it would not be the best idea to smuggle a mummy from Egypt into the house under your folk's noses.

I heartily agree.

Also, "don't wobble with your silly faces." I mean, who could disagree with that?

And don't make the BT tower break. Very important to remember not to do that in front of your parents.

Conundrum

2011-02-28T19:43:00.001-05:00

This blog is brought to you via Sir Ken Robinson. If you don't yet know about RSA animates, well, then, you're in for a treat. Go watch that (it's just under 12 minutes long) then come back here and we'll get this discussion started.

I watched that this afternoon. Sir Ken has long been an...idol? of mine. I don't tend to have massive work crushes on people all that often, but MAN I think his mind is amazing. And kind of genius, super interesting, and ooh, do you think he'd let me work with him??

Part of why I get so excited by his ideas is his sense that collaboration is both how people learn best and also what our workforce and economy are looking for now (and in the forseeable future). Collaborative environments excite me tremendously and I do my best to create a classroom environment that encourages and promotes that.

Today was my first class back with the French kids. We've been on half term holiday and so I've not seen them in two weeks. It's always been an awkward time for a class- an hour long music lesson after this bunch of four year olds have already spent all day in school. It's not a recipe for focus and alert attention. So I tolerate a fair bit of scurrying around and try to work with the energy and ideas that they've got.

We started in with our usual hello song to which one of the children started snorting like a pig. "Ah, I see B's turned into a pig over the holiday! Shall we all sing like a pig?" So we oinked through the hello song. I asked some of the other children what they had turned into over the break and we snapped like crocodiles, snorted like pigs (again), and barked like puppies. B. then curled up into my lap. I took that as an opportunity to see if I could remember the words to "rock a bye baby" or not. Part of me was wanting to take cues from the children and use whatever they offered. To "yes, and..." what they brought to class. Another part of me was hoping that lullabies would, well, lull them if not to sleep, then at least to a calmer frame of mind.

The thing that *really* gets me about the second half of this story is that we were songwriting today. It was meant to be a collaborative creative process (and largely was) and even with that intent, with that idea in my head and having watched this video this morning, I still ended up trying to get them to fit into a box.

B. doesn't speak a whole lot of English. He clearly enjoys class, and he clearly has a lot of energy. Does he have ADHD? I would be surprised, which doesn't mean that he focuses all that easily or that he doesn't spend a large portion of the class spinning around in a circle on his bottom.

Today we worked with drums and a set of chime bars to reinforce 'Sol' and 'Mi' as well as to continue working on rhythmic solfege and writing music up on the board. I. has totally got it, she's on the ball, she pays attention, and she only spins around on the floor sometimes. (She is also four after all.) She's the only girl in our class.

B. kept playing on the drums when he'd been asked not to; I took his drum away four times or so over the course of our lesson. Yet he was the first one to come up with lyrics "sit, watch, sit and watch" Great! Really good! On pitches that we'd been using and the rhythm we'd been practicing! Fantastic!! Then came "No, no, no piano" Also, correct pitches, sung in tune, a variation on the rhythm we'd been focusing on, really really good work. Slightly concerning lyrics that you kids just came up with there, but we can definitely work with that.

But he kept rushing off over to the chairs and climbing on to the stack of them, something I never allow them to do. He would drape himself on top of the other children, take my drum, go and grab a pile of sparkles that had been left on the floor that I was holding onto until after class because of their distraction. Clearly he wanted to be doing other things, who am I to be telling him not to? (You know, besides his teacher...) B. sets off the other boys and at one point all of them were screaming and wrestling. I was frustrated, I was annoyed, I slammed my hand down on to the floor to get their attention. To scare them.

I intentionally frightened a classroom of four year olds today.

What??!?

What is the ultimate goal of my class? Is it to encourage a love of music and an interest in exploring sound? Yeah. I would say so. But it is also to prepare them and give them concrete musical skills to take to their next level of lessons. I'd like them to have fun, and I would also like the kids to feel like they have ownership of their own music making. I don't want to stifle creativity, but I would also like to have the kids listen to me. And I really don't want to go around frightening small children.

There is so much more to think about here; this entry alone has about 5 threads running through it that I need to unpack more fully: my philosophy of classroom management, the nurturing of creativity and collaboration in children, rambunctious little boys versus teacher pleasing and focused little girls, entertaining versus educating (surely surely that can be the same thing??), and learning to make lessons that are engaging and fun and interesting even after a long day at school.

So much to learn.

Music Video

2011-02-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

I got done with work early this afternoon and on my walk to the tube wrote this song. The lyrics changed a bit by the time I got home, but close enough.

I was thinking of a song for the kids to sing, but then while singing it to myself it got...bigger. So now I'm not really sure what to do with it, but I spent an enjoyable hour trying to find pictures that would go with it so I could make a little video to put on on the blog.

Hope you enjoy it!

Screwing with their little heads/accents

2011-02-15T10:07:00.000-05:00

In year 2 singing we are doing songs about monsters. To my delight the song that we started today was “flying purple people eater” which would have gone a lot better if I’d actually known the tune before we started... but hey, one can’t have everything.

In any case because I was winging it like mad- when one of the kids called out “It sounds American!” I ran with that. I had them all cock their hips to one side like a cowboy while singing “It was a one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater” and then TWANGING it up as much as possible (and maybe growling a bit) to sing “sure looked strange to me.”

A group of girls were singing the last line like that on the way down the stairs to lunch and I chortled to myself.

My work here is done. (The original picture can be found here )

Barren, Barren Blog

2011-02-08T11:32:00.001-05:00

Continuing with alternative ways of letting you know what I've been up to, here are some random extracts from my diary! [Ed. 'Daily Planner,' remember?]

Jan 18
8:15 school
1pm meeting with head of EYFS
2pm Sarah concert/Liverpool St
4pm Mer and Sarah- take over the world
7:30 yoga
9:30 skype Nik

Jan 19
8:15 school
CV to Rob! Tonight!!
7pm pints and planning Fire-Hazard

Jan 20
8:15 school
~~6:30 Toni~~
dinner with Linda
Jez meetup!

Jan 29
Take care of Muffy! [Ed. Muffy is Mer's kitten]
10:15 Music Workshop
6pm Marissa's housewarming!

[Ed. An email I received the following Monday regarding the workshop

"Dear all

The composition workshop last Saturday was a success!
Thanks to Casey and the students for their work!

Hereafter the video of the final performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pkNUUKeQ3k "]

Feb 2
8:15 school
9am EYFS meeting
11am lesson observation
~~Russian lunch! sign up!~~
7pm Fire-Hazard Pints and planning!
Send CPD participants email! Do I need the djembe?

Feb 3
8:15 school
12:20 mtg with Headmistress
Impro Show! Arrive by 8:30! Aieee!

Feb 4
6:30 Gwyn- take over the world

Feb 5-6
CPD weekend (meet Dutch folks at 9:50)
Harrow! (Call Ruth!)
Nik @ Night

This week we've got another Improv show (Thursday! 9:30! If you're in London you should really come! It's only £5! And we might even be funny!) And this weekend is Heist take 2 at the Old Police Station. (Sold out in 4 hours! Woah...) And school is trucking along (we've planned an open music day AND a performance/recital thing for next term!)

What you don't see listed in my diary is my daily ohmygodwhatamIgoingtodonext*year*???? freakouts. I try not to document those too much...

Busy busy busy bee.

I love my Vegetable Box

2011-02-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

They tend to send us free things each week or every other week. It's a good thing. I know they're doing it to keep us happy and keeping us subscribing to the boxes. You know what? IT'S WORKING!

Luscious, tasty vegetables; a bottle of awesome un-homogonized milk, and this week? A cookbook.

(Have I told you how perfect the carrots are? They're perfect.)

Poor Neglected Blog...

2011-02-08T10:57:00.000-05:00

This blog is practically an abandoned lot at this point, so bereft of recent entries is it.

Since I seem to be using up more of my writing juice in texts to Nik I thought I would share some of them with you. (Self indulgent and a bit silly? Why yes! Yes it is! But you get a blog entry so hush!) (Also, can we all just heave a collective sigh of relief that I have unlimited texts? Because otherwise I would be in big trouble phone bill wise.)

Sent 7-Feb-2011 15:26:17
Playing with static electricity and an acrylic scarf = fun

Sent 7-Feb-2011 12:59:00
No yoga tonight, my teacher's partner's father just died :(

Sent 7-Feb-2011 12:52:36
I. has just stolen my diary [Ed. That's 'daily planner' for you all not up on BritSpeak] and is complimenting my handwriting and doodling. Now she and her seat partner are colouring on the first page because she was *shocked* (and possibly a little bit offended) that it was blank. How lucky am I/these kids?? Our bus has been driving along Embankment and is now trying to get through Trafalgar square before driving along St. James park and the palace before getting back to school. IN THE SUN! Freaking magic.

Sent 7-Feb-2011 12:40:22
All the other teachers have sat themselves at the front of the bus thereby leaving two classes to fend for themselves so they're all screaming and falling out of their chairs. Do I try to police them or just let it go? I'm defaulting to just playing with the kids...well, that and texting you! The concert was really interesting, seeing how the LSO put the whole thing together. So much sun! It feels like spring! Can we go on a picnic/ramble when the weather gets nice?

Sent 7-Feb-2011 10:33:14
On a bus! Going to the Barbican with a load of Year 1 kids who keep singing the songs for the concert, they know the words really well! These kids were my first nursery tykes and I kind of love them. Plus, the sun is shining and one of them keeps telling me random animal facts, like did you know that the humpback whale has longer fins than even the blue whale? Or that German shepherds are stronger than wolves?Apparently these things are so...I like hanging out with these kids. Already this week is better than last!

Sent 6-Feb-2011 23:32:00
I'm still a good 15 minutes from home...The pub was much fun. One of my favourite people from level two improv has shown up again and he elicits the most fascinating stories from people. He just goes ahead and asks the personal questions and then people(English people even!) actually answer them! It is great fun to be around.

Sent 6-Feb-2011 23:17:04
Poke.

Charity.

2011-01-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

TEDMed.

Laying Down The LAW

2011-01-19T19:33:00.002-05:00

My year 3 kids. They're squirrelly. They're kind of rude. They're cheeky, man.

So I'm trying something new. I'm being STERN. I'm cracking down hard on this dilly dallying and this out of turn talking and this moving seats all the time and this cheeky-ness.

Darn tootin'.

I'm giving warnings left and right. And two of those warnings means a MINUS HOUSE POINT, no lie. (Don't really understand why that's a big deal, but hey. It works.) No warnings for the whole class period and they get a HOUSE POINT (again, not sure why this works- but boy howdy does it *ever.*)

My year 3 kids. They're doing their work, they're not talking to their friends constantly while I'm trying to make a point, they're raising their hands.

Sweet, man. I didn't even have to yell, just be fierce.

New Tykes!

2011-01-19T19:22:00.001-05:00

There's always space for more tykes, right? Well, now on some Sundays each month I trek all the way out to Harrow to be a Kodaly/singing teacher and theory teacher for a studio of 3-8 year old Suzuki violin students. The 1.5 hour schlep each way? Totally worth it. Goodness, that was fun.

There are two groups of children, the beginner and generally younger A group; and the older and more advanced B group. The teacher whose studio this is is also Dalcroze trained, so she's taking care of that with half the group while I've got the other half for singing. It's meant to be Kodaly based, but I know very little of that- so we're just doing a lot of singing instead. (Close enough.)

I started with the older B group where I began teaching a song I learned in an Orff workshop (bringing all sorts of music education strands together!), it's a Japanese dancing game that is excellent for working on both a sense of pitch and sense of rhythm. Actually I didn't start with that, first we talked about how all of the notes have names (Do Re Mi, etc.) and that we would use two of those to learn each other's names. So we sang this "hello" taunt (it's really just a chant on two pitches, but since it uses only Sol and Mi it ends up sounding like playground teasing: "nyah nyah nyah nyah" You know.) We even used Kodaly hand positions! (Though that is really the extent of my knowledge right there.)

Then we moved into the Orff dancing song and I had them bounce tennis balls around the circle (though passing is a skill they don't have yet, so really just a group of them bouncing the tennis balls while everyone else sings) which is a Dalcroze thing to do. All this for a Suzuki studio! Music education theories ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Suddenly my 40 minutes with them were done and in trooped a group of 3-5 year olds. Well, hello there age group I have two years of experience with! Not gonna lie, I kind of made up my lesson plan as I went along. I figured to get started I'd do my favourite vocal warm up- The *MAGICAL* Stew Pot (I just made up that name. Right there.) which is a miming game that works on phonics sounds as well as warming up the voice and the jaw. Children choose what to throw into the soup pot (this group was the most reasonable I'd ever had- all were thoughtful soup ingredients; no Christmas trees or chairs or dragons to be found. That being said the soup did contain noodles, pasta, AND spaghetti. If I remember correctly, all three of which were offered by the same girl at different points.)

We then did the same hello business with Sol and Mi and, because I had the picture cards with me, we did the same fairy tale based Do You Know The Story song that I've been doing at school. I love the Drunken Sailor tune, and the the picture cards! They're so brightly coloured!

Suddenly those 40 minutes were over as well!

One of the mothers came over to where I had been sitting on the floor with the children and bent down so that her face was inches from mine, "You're a very good teacher," she said, in such a stern voice that for a second I didn't understand that she wasn't cross with me. "You have them..." and here she gestured to her hand. I was honoured. And belatedly realized that I hadn't even had to tell any of the children to settle down or to stop poking their neighbor. I think I want to work with Suzuki trained children all the time. They were brilliant.

A ten minute break later and the older, group B were back in my room for theory. I went ahead and asked them as many questions as I could think of, drawing on a laminated, blank piece of paper I was grateful I'd taken with me. (Portable white boards are useful things to have...) Yes to clefs, no to key signatures, yes to note names, no to time signatures. Guys, I have be dying to teach theory for ages now. I'm so excited about this class. I ended up dividing the class into two, setting up a tic-tac-toe/naughts and crosses board made up of various note values and letting each team choose where they wanted to go. If they could answer some questions I thought up on the spot about those notes- then they could put their marker down.

In practice, they always got it right because if they didn't I would pause the game and make sure everyone understood (either through another diagram or through walking it out (yay Dalcroze!) or through verbal/aural explanation). They were clever enough in playing the game that it was a draw (as all good tic-tac-toe games are) and then those 40 minutes were done as well.

I caught the wrong bus, took it to the end of the line and back again while trying to get to the first of the trains that would get me home. It is a mission to get there, but THIS. THESE are the kids I want to teach. These are the kids I've been waiting to teach.

I had a freaking wonderful first day.

Light and Darkness: The Tykes Have RE

2011-01-05T14:08:00.003-05:00

I was having anxiety dreams last night about going back to school. Essentially first day of school jitters, again. It took me ages to actually get out of bed this morning as well for the same reason, but this afternoon? After having finished a full day of teaching? Good gracious I love my job!

This is my 3rd round of Spring term. I've now completed two full years of this job, so the same topics are coming round again. The reception tykes are doing Traditional Stories, which I love because it means I get to whip out Do You Know The Story? sung to the tune of What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor? I started my morning with some cutting and sticking, making A4 sized cards illustrating each of the verses. This meant that I got to harass the librarian (one of my favourite people at school) in order to locate fairy tale picture books with nice illustrations for my cards. The kids did great, the song is fun, and I love singing it because it fits in a portion of my voice that requires me to sing big in order to actually hit the notes.

Interestingly 2 out of the 3 classes said the name of the stories rhythmically, while the 3rd class just shouted out willy nilly. Of the two that did it rhythmically one class sings regularly as a matter of course, and the other had been singing for 10 minutes before I arrived due to a combination of confusion about when I would show up and my running over time with the first class. I've been wondering ever since how I could prep the 3rd class so that they also speak the titles rhythmically....

Music classes being over for the day it was then on to RE! A class that continues to amuse me by virtue of the fact that the school has me teaching it. (I feel distinctly unqualified.) Whatever; this week we were talking about anticipation! Particularly as it refers to Christmas and even more particularly as it refers to Jesus's birth. Also about the concept of the light/dark - good/bad metaphor. (I spent most of the class desperately hoping none of the kids would link it to race because I don't feel qualified to tackle that one either. They didn't, but they did immediately link it to Star Wars! ....of course.)

We had a class discussion where I drew a giant light bulb on the interactive white board. Good things about their holidays were written inside the bulb, and outside we wrote the bad things that had happened. (One child's grandfather had died. That was sad and we had an impromptu and completely spontaneous moment of silence for him.) We then read Isaiah 9:2 and 6 (Miss Casey? What's an extract?) where Jesus is described as a great light. They got to respond to that however they wanted- writing about light/good, dark/bad or drawing a picture or whatever.

They worked quietly! (mostly) And raised their hands when they needed help! And my most difficult kid did his work! And the results were varied and interesting!

When most of the class was finished we had about 10 minutes left and I had already gathered them at the front of the room where we were sitting in the dark,

Kid A: "Miss Casey? Um. Why are we sitting in the dark?"
Me: "I think it's a metaphor. I'm not really sure what point it's supposed to be making...I'm supposed to have a candle but instead we've just got the glow of the board lighting your faces."
Kid A: "So my face is lightness but my body is darkness?"
Me: "Sure."
Kid B, sitting off to the side: "Hey! I'm entirely in the darkness...I'm on the dark side!"

Cue mad scramble by about 50% of the kids to join Kid B on the dark side. So I invented a quick game- the dark side had a minute to come up with something evil, then the light side had to counter with something at least as good at the evil thing was bad. I, as the arbitrary arbiter got to choose which was more extreme and therefore won. Then we switched who got to go first. (The obvious flaw in this game mechanic being that whoever goes second necessarily wins.)

The first evil suggestion by the Dark Side was killing the Queen. I don't remember what exactly the Light Side came up with, but as it pertained to the whole world: they won. Then the Light Side came up with "being nice to everyone in the whole world" to which the Dark Side countered "The Devil eating the Universe!"

At which point I sent them all down to lunch.

New Years in the North

2011-01-03T18:26:00.000-05:00

Nik and I went to Newcastle for New Years: I met a cavalcade of his friends, all of whom are full of inside jokes, laughter, enthusiasm, and possibly too much energy. Over two days we were at three different families' homes, played numerous board games (most of which were either collaborative in design or possible to steer towards collaboration, much to my delight), played an epic 2010 quiz, ate heaps of delicious food, and had a wonderful walk right after mid-night through an old, icy train track (sounds dangerous; wasn't).

I thought they were wonderful.

Definitely looking forward to seeing them again and hanging out more, but for now, let's move on to the nostalgia part of things.

In 1994 my family took a trip to England. This was our first big international trip and it was a Big. Deal. We still talk about it regularly and it certainly looms large in my memory. (Can't speak for the rest of us, but I'm pretty sure that sentiment is shared.) One of my very favourite parts of the trip was going to Durham.

Laine and I had just finished 4th grade where we had learned about Castles. (Fantasy novel obsessed 9 year old Casey was very into this topic.) I still have vivid memories of what was probably my favourite project of all of fourth grade: designing and stocking a castle keep. (Combining two of my then favourite activities: drawing and designing things that were theoretically worth money and grocery shopping.)

The train into Durham has a magnificent view of the castle and the cathedral. As the story goes we stood on the platform looking at the castle and my dad told me that is was our hotel. Being sharper than your average rolling pin, I didn't believe him. Once he convinced me that, yes, we really were staying at the castle I'm pretty sure it is safe to assume I started bouncing up and down.

The castle is now part of Durham university and parts of it are used for university housing. Since we were there during the summer, they rented out the rooms to tourists. I remember worn stone staircases, bathrooms down the corridor, a wide hallway with places for me to perch (a windowsill?), creaky wooden stairs on the way down to the cafeteria with banisters topped by "pineapples" carved without having seen the fruit but only having heard a description, and telling my dad all about the arrow loops.

"Cakes, you know those are real arrow loops, right?"

".... !!"

Mind blowing stuff.

Oh, right. Nik. Here's how Nik works into this story- he spent sixth form living in Durham, it's where he met all the wonderful people from the beginning of this post. His mother was working at the Cathedral and so while the family lived in Durham Nik and his brother worked as vergers there. This was excellent for me because it meant that I had an extremely knowledgeable tour guide to lead me around. I was also pleased to meet some of the people from stories I've been hearing about his time working there.

It was a wonderful, wonderful day and because they were the cheapest tickets, when we took the train back to London, it was in First Class. Nice.

L to R: Castle, Cathedral, Me

Jingle Bells

2010-12-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

Meredith had a Christmas Party and we played pass the parcel. The forfeit that I got was to sing a Christmas carol and accompany myself of guitar. I don't play guitar...but it's cool! I came up with a morose version of Jingle Bells and started playing it over and over again (don't I sound like fun to have at a party??) Dave whipped out his computer, recorded the song, and added a bunch of effects to it.

Not very secretly I *like* the result.

I still haven't figured out how to put just audio tracks up on this blog, but I can put up videos. So here are some pictures of wee 'airy ginger coos from Scotland last year with Sarah and Desh. Accompanied by the saddest/creepiest version of Jingle Bells I think I've ever sung....

Saxophone

2010-12-27T08:45:00.000-05:00

I just played my first reed instrument! I'm up in Penrith for Christmas with Ella and her family. Her mother, Jilly, is a workshop leader, jazz musician, and all around cool lady. We've been having sing alongs with the piano and lots of harmonies (not so much me, I try to stay on the melody and that is hard enough with everyone else wandering off to different parts of the chord) and today, because there is a surplus of instruments lying around the house, I got to try out the tenor saxophone!

For Christmas Ella, who just got back from New York, bought everyone these ridiculous adult-sized footy pajamas. So please envision me in this giant fleece monstrosity, covered in rubber ducklings, trying desperately to play the saxophone....

The air kept shooting up through my top lip and I couldn't see where my fingers were going and my whole head buzzed and goodness that was fun! Jilly got out her accordion, and once I figured out how to play 3 notes semi consistently, we had a little jam around G.

Turns out that you can make quite a nice vibrato by giggling uncontrollably.

Food.

2010-12-14T17:12:00.002-05:00

My food habits are getting weird. (Again.)

I just had 9 clementines for dinner. Last night I had too many salted peanuts and a packet of blueberries (which are out of season! What were they doing in the shop??). On Sunday (or was it Saturday?) I had ice cream.

Which isn't to say that I haven't been cooking or eating well. Geoff and I made a delicately spiced, creamy parsnip soup. Last night I made a marinated turkey steak sandwich and some red cabbage Asian style coleslaw.

It's just that I don't eat that food for dinner. I pack those for lunch and go back to having my fruit and junk food at night.

That's balanced, right?

Tykes To Catch Up On! (Again)

2010-12-13T07:38:00.000-05:00

The tykes are still tyking along. But this time it isn't just random tyking around, this time we have direction. Namely towards our Christmas show on Thursday!

Here, let me tell you about it:
1. The Nursery Tykes are singing songs about Stars.

For some reason this year for both halves of the show (Nursery and Reception) I managed to decide that there should be PROPS. A LOT OF PROPS. Not really sure why it turned out that way. (No, I know why. It was because between props and actions or learning lines, I decided props and actions would be easier. Not sure if that is accurate or not yet.) Right. STARS. Prop-wise for Nursery we've got four fishing poles (bamboo garden stakes) with stars hanging off the end for Fishing For Stars, and five giant stars (think 2.5' wide) for Five Little Stars. Oh, and every class is making festive hats and wands with stars and practically silent jingle bells.

All of these props have been decorated by the tykes, so what that means is that they are all covered in not particularly well glued on glitter. Which means that now the entire school is also covered in glitter. Anywhere I walk while carrying the props is now covered in glitter. All of my work clothes are covered in glitter. My hair is covered in glitter. My trousers are covered in glitter. The glitter is covered in glitter.

Glitter, glitter, glitter.

And that's not even taking into account Reception's props. (Really only the Silver fish which are, of course, decorated with glitter...)

2. Last Thursday we had our first full rehearsal with the Nursery and the Reception tykes all together in one place. It turned out that due to some miscommunication between me, the head of Early Years, and the kitchen staff that instead of an hour in the hall, we had 20 minutes. But that's okay! We'd make it work! Because the tables were also already set up for lunch, we also had a lot less space than I was expecting which meant that when we actually got around to starting I was completely encircled by roughly 100 tykes.

On Thursdays I work as a nursery assistant, which is nice because I get to spend more time with that class of tykes, but is also kind of frustrating because I don't always know what is going on and because it is not *my* class, if things are dragging I don't feel like I can say "Right, we're doing this now" because that would be stepping on the head teacher's toes. Basically I am still adjusting to working for someone else, so it was with great relief and joy that I was able to be in charge of that rehearsal.

Everyone rocked their songs. We ploughed through them and they kept quiet when it wasn't their turn to sing and they sang loudly when it was their turn to sing and they all followed me when I got their attention by patting my knees and I had all of them doing the vocal warm up together and applauding and oh! I felt like I was being lifted up on a cloud made of endorphins and awesome.

3. I feel a bit bad about how many props and bits and bobs I've been handing off to the teachers to figure out how to make, but may I just say that they have come through with flying colours?! The nursery tykes all have different seasonally related hats- one class has gold reindeer antlers made from cut out hand prints, one class has felt Santa and elf hats, and the last class has 3D Christmas trees held together with sparkly pipe cleaners. The whole effect is adorable and awesome. The reception tykes all have their animal hats, and while people have been thinking that the polar bears are mice (I would object by asking what on *Earth* mice have to do with Christmas and winter except that the other two classes are fish and ducklings respectively so I suspect that I wouldn't have a leg to stand on with that argument) they all look fantastic.

Things To Catch Up On! (Again)

2010-12-13T07:32:00.001-05:00

I've been neglecting you! I'm so sorry! Things have been happening!

Here, let me tell you about some of them:

1. *Ages* ago we had our second impro show! And it went really, really, really well! The group that we had this term managed to gel in an excellent sort of way that meant that for our show we were all on it and all managed to elevate everyone's performances.

It was particularly exciting for me because I had my first ever monologue. I got a comment after the show telling me that I had looked completely relaxed while I had been performing by myself. I thought about it and yes, I had been completely relaxed, but also? I've got something like 16 years worth of performance experience. Yeah, sure, it's music performance and not acting- but I don't get nervous or shaky while I'm on stage. (Afterwards? Yes. My whole body collapses and starts quivering as soon as the show is over...I think that's weird.)

Four of us ended up at the end of the show with perfect scores (and everyone else had been trailing us only very slightly- seriously, it was an amazing show) and so as a tie breaker the directors had us do impressions...Yeah. I'm not good at that. (I'm not actually good at acting- I only have one character and she is me.) So I turned to Alistair who was sat next to me and asked if he'd be willing to do an impression with me. Nick was up first with an excellent Gordon Brown, Guy was next with a dead on Tony Blair, and then Alistair and I followed as a pair of rocks...Alistair ended up going up against Nick's Gordon Brown for the championship due to his stronger commitment to the Rock-ness of his rock. Mine was undergoing a "gentle earthquake" due to the fact that I couldn't stop giggling....

Our group was so strong and so good together that we've decided to keep meeting outside of the classes to continue working together over the winter. We had our first meeting last week and it was excellent. Only 5 of us made it in the end, but the space we have to work in is awesome and seriously, I love that group of people.

2. The vegetable box continues to be like Christmas every week. This week we got Jerusalem artichokes which I think may be my new favourite root vegetable. Oooh, but parsnips...it's too tough. Don't make me decide.

3. I found a discarded branch from the bottom of a Christmas tree outside of a pub. I rescued it and now have it hanging on our living room wall complete with red ribbons and one lonely Santa Claus ornament. See? I decorated!

4. Christmas plans are continuing apace- I'll be up in Cumbria with Ella and her family for Christmas and then down/over to Newcastle/Durham with Nik for New Years. 50% of the train tickets have been purchased, which means that I'm *almost* on top of these plans. (So close.)

5. This weekend we have a new version of Heist with Fire-Hazard. Heist was my first Fire-Hazard game, so it's kind of exciting to be on the other side of it this time. Instead of a warehouse, for this run we have found an old Police Station that has been turned into artists studios. The cells are still there however, which should add a fun bit of....realism? Eh, fun obstacles to the whole thing. We've got a whole weekend worth of runs for it, I expect to be exhausted at the end.

London is a Snow Globe

2010-12-03T09:41:00.000-05:00

We've been having a bunch of snow fall this week. Each morning I've been checking to see whether transport is running and wondering if we were going to have a snow day. Frankly, I've been hoping against a snow day because A) we need the rehearsal time and B) I, um, really like my job? Anyhow- London has been pulling through with very little delay in transport (particularly for tubes and buses. The trains out to the suburbs have been hit a bit harder, but even with serious delays- the trains have still been running.)

This Thursday, during my incarnation as a nursery assistant, we started out the day with our annual Pantomime show for the early years in the hall. (See previous post.) The tykes *loved* it, screaming their heads off and standing up in order to point out the bad guy and give as much information to the characters about what was happening as they could possibly muster. The show was Jack and the Beanstalk and in the first act when Jack and his mother were talking about being poor and oh, so very broke- one of the front row tykes kept saying "I could give you the money!"

D'Awww.

In the afternoon we usually have games all together with the other nursery classes and I wasn't sure if we were going to or not because the hall was full of people and outside was covered in snow.

Silly me, I shouldn't have worried. We had an EPIC 40 minute long snowball fight and sledding session.

Highlights included
1. Dropping snowballs on to tyke's heads
2. Ganging up on the teachers who took longer to get out of the classroom. And by "ganging up" let's please be clear that I mean "ambushing."
3. Squealing tykes
4. Squealing teachers
5. Sliding tykes down a small hill while using plastic building blocks as sleds
6. Our PE teaching marvelling aloud that we get paid to do this...Sometimes I'm amazed at how lucky I am. (All the time. All the time I'm amazed at how lucky I am.)

Englishness, Quintessential

2010-12-03T09:02:00.000-05:00

There are some aspects of Englishness that I am still picking up, like while grocery shopping today I realized that my list contained the term "kitchen foil" rather than "aluminum" (though I guess here it would have to be "aluminium" anyway and I'm just not ever going to say that). But there are some things that will always, no matter how long I stay here, mark me out as a foreigner. (My inability to pronounce any words containing the letter 'O' without a diphthong notwithstanding) And one of those things is Christmas Pantomimes.

Seriously. They're weird.

They're also very, very English.

And weird.

Also, I'm never going to think their innuendo laden seaside postcards are funny.

Tuesday Tykes

2010-11-17T02:07:00.001-05:00

I was thinking Tuesday morning as I was coming in to work that I just really didn't want to be there. You know, waking up early in the morning when I'd prefer to be sleeping, not *entirely* sure what the state of the songs are this week and sort of dreading needing to figure out how to put this Christmas show on. (I made a mistake with the nursery tykes in that I am not excited about the songs that they are singing, but it's too late to change them now and it's important to make sure that they're still having fun and learning the songs. It's a bit of a slog like that.) So...feeling a bit down and cranky.

But then?

Then I got to work and had my performance review meeting where we made a list of things I'm going to be working on this year, all three of which I'm excited about because they're things I actually want to do and that will actually be helpful. (Learning to use solfege through Kodaly training and working with the reception classes on it, making a resource bank of rhythm and instrumental games or exercises for teachers to do when it isn't music specialist time, and creating a progress grid based on national guidelines for tracking how well individual children are doing with music.) I was given a drawing made by one of my nursery tykes for me yesterday (tyke love! Yay!), and spent half an hour making up prototype hats/costumes for the Christmas play. The duck hat is covered in feathers and googly eyes and everyone that I've asked (including some of the most literal people around: nursery tykes) have correctly identified it as a duck! I spent the afternoon working with one of the nursery teachers to organize the stage set up for the show, the running order of the songs, and and figuring out what props we need.

So we're set, and I got to spend my morning doing arts and crafts and singing. So clearly, I'm back to feeling like the luckiest person ever that I get to do what I do.

(Yeah, that's bragging again...sorry)

Religious Education

2010-11-15T16:15:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday we had every one's favourite class! RE! I'm beginning to understand that the class that I teach for two hours on Wednesday is, in fact, a handful. And it's not just that I have no clue what I'm doing. (Not "just")

Last week we were learning "right" and "wrong" (For real? Really? That's the lesson plan?) The plan involved brainstorming things that you got complimented or rewarded for (Right) and things that you got in trouble for or shouldn't have done (Wrong) and then writing poems with the examples we brainstormed.

Writing down 'Right' went well enough, but in the same way that I forgot to tell the masters in the slave/masters exercise not to hit their slaves, this time I forgot to tell the class to tell me the things they got in trouble for- not show me. (Smack, whine, interrupt, etc. We actually had someone yanking on a new pupil's pig tails...classic.) (And also Wrong! Stop that!) They were kind of a mess there for a bit.

One of the girls had been particularly annoying. Getting in people's faces and personal space, talking while other's were trying to give answers and whatnot. I ended up giving her a negative house point and crouching down frequently so that I could look her in the eye when she was sitting on the floor. I told her that I thought she was a wonderful girl, but that her behaviour today was not appropriate. As I sent everyone else off to lunch I went back over to where she was still sitting and asked her if she was okay and if she wanted to go down to lunch with the rest of the class. She burst into tears and told me her head hurt. Figuring that something else was going on I asked her if she was sad? Angry? Disappointed? As many different emotion words as I could think of. It turned out that she and her sister had been having a big fight that morning and had been hitting each other. Eventually she was willing to be coaxed down to lunch and arrived in time for seconds of the pasta.

I can sometimes forget how complex an internal life these children have. One of the things that I really enjoy is reading their stories from English class- they're incredibly revealing. And probably I'm looking at this through the lens of having been a lonely and unhappy child, but it sure seems to me like there is a lot of pain at that age.

Excitement and Adventures!

2010-11-05T13:14:00.000-05:00

I'm never really sure what to call my catch up posts- the ones where I realize that tons of things have been happening, but I've forgotten to write about all of them. So here's a list for you anyway of recent exciting things and adventures. (In no particular order)

1. Ella and I are getting an organic vegetable box delivered now. It's like Christmas! And so tasty! And decently priced! We have this *massive* bag of kale, the most delicious (though odd looking) carrots I've ever eaten, huge parsnips that scare me with their massiveness, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, a whole slew of tasty leeks, broccoli, and a loaf of chewy crusty olive bread that I've been slathering in butter and devouring. Mmmmm. The things I'm excited about in next week's box are the cherry tomatoes, butternut squash, and (because they're clearly loading on the deals currently so that we keep ordering from them) a free bottle of milk.

2. On Tuesday my bag almost got stolen. I was sitting with my friend Nik on a bench in St. James's park chatting away and not paying the most attention ever when a middle aged man on the path hollered "Excuse me, is that your bag?" I didn't really understand what was going on, but turned around and saw a man in sunglasses walking off with my stuff. Thief guy said "Sorry, mate" as though he'd just accidentally picked up the wrong satchel, set the bag down on the ground, and then ambled off....It was the weirdest, most chill almost-robbery ever.

I kept the strap looped around my foot after that, and thanked the man on the path as sincerely as I could.

3. I will eventually stop posting about Charity, probably when she stops being fascinating. (Meaning, never.) I'm not sure that that link will work but it should at least get you to CNN.com video and if you look under Health, Charity should currently be one of the first videos listed. (She continues to make me cry.) (In a really good way, just to make that clear.)

4. I went to a game testing event last night! It was super duper fun and it felt good to be back. I can't tell you much about what we did because I signed a non-disclosure agreement. But suffice to say they're on to a fabulous idea and we were given pizza and beer for our "trouble. " (Like any of us felt anything other than absolutely privileged to get to be there.) Also, I love that I'd met about 50% of the group before at other gaming events.

5. Happy Bonfire night! Sarah and Meredith and I are celebrating in the not-at-all-time-honoured fashion of having a girl's night and making minestrone soup. Not sure yet if fireworks will be involved, we wouldn't want to make this too typical...

Future excitement and adventures include some potential new workshopping gigs, my friend Jo's art installation at the Barbican, and my next Maestro improv show on Sunday.

The Tykes are BACK!

2010-11-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

Or rather, I am back with the tykes. In any case half term is over and we're together again at school. Christmas preparations are in full swing! The tiniest of the tykes are doing a medley of songs focusing on the theme of Stars! Because...that's Christmassy. Right?

Did you guys all know that in the UK jumping jacks are called star jumps? I totally called on that knowledge to create an impromptu bit of choreography for the tiniest tykes when they were getting super restless during my class. We had two other songs to learn, but they clearly needed to move, so I ended up standing them all up and then doing star jumps through the first two lines of Twinkle Twinkle. Then, emboldened by that, made the little hand actions into full body actions and called it a dance. Which we're now totally going to do during the show. (I love being in charge!)

On Tuesday I woke up at 5, decided I had another hour to sleep before my alarm went off, and then woke up again at 8. Since I'm meant to be *at* work by a quarter after 8, that was kind of a problem. After scurrying through some of the fastest day preparations I've ever done I managed to make it to school only an hour late. At which point I used 5 minutes to craft the wonkiest star puppets ever. (I love that I have to get to work on time in order to cut paper and stick things on to Popsicle sticks.) We used the puppets in "Five Little Stars," another one of our star themed songs for the show.

Today there was a tube strike (again) so I was late (again). It took over two hours to get from my house to school. Not to worry, I hit the ground running and started the bigger tykes off on their Christmas show tunes! All was going well through the first class- the songs have a super peppy backing track that meant that the tykes were like "Again! Again! Miss Casey, we want to sing it again!!!" Which, really, is all you could ever dare to dream of for a tyke's music class. So I was feeling nicely set up for the other two classes. However, when I sat down to start the second class I found that somewhere between the bottom of the stairs and the top of the stairs- the CD had broken in half.

Er...

I have no clue how that possibly could have happened given the fact that it was in. a. case. But oh well. I winged it. (To less acclaim than I was hoping for, but you do what you can.) So we're puttering along. The show is the first week of December (or maybe it works out to the second week of December...single digits anyway.) So we have our work cut out for us.

Halloween!

2010-11-02T17:09:00.002-05:00

Marissa, Meredith, Ella, Geoff and I had an impromptu pumpkin carving party last week. We bought pumpkins and some 50p paring knives, ate some curry, covered the floor in newspaper, and squeezed into the kitchen to get to work.

Pretty sweet, huh?

Geoff did the face, Meredith did the awesome phoenix flying out of the flames, Ella did the classic jack-o-lantern, I did the ghost saying "boo", and Marissa made the cat with the moon.

Chichester, West Dean College

2010-11-02T16:59:00.002-05:00

My friend Abby is now on a Post Grad course at West Dean College near Chichester. Since it is half term and since I haven't seen her since a year and a half ago when she came to interview at the school, I went to go visit. Oh my gosh you guys, I kept giggling the entire time I was there because it was so stunningly beautiful everywhere you turned that giggling was the only reaction I could have. It was either that or go light headed from gasping so much. May I suggest that you head over to her flickr site as soon as possible? Amazing photographs of gorgeousness.

Go.

Shoo.

This post will still be here when you come back.

Abby is there to study book conservation, but other people study ceramics, clocks, instruments, metals, furniture, and tapestries. It was like a post grad, English Interlochen. A tiny, gorgeous environment populated with creative, passionate people that you divide according to their majors. ("See that guy? Bet'ya he's ceramics...") Most of them live on campus in this idyllic country estate.

I went for a couple of walks (first by myself because Abby was in class) I wandered through sheep fields, alcoves made from trees, and corridors of autumn leaves. I took a short nap on a bench with the sun shining on my face and chortled to myself whenever I startled the pheasants. (Which was constantly as they are both abundant and easily startled.) Abby took me through the Victorian kitchen gardens and I kept delightedly clapping my hands and grinning. We ate apples from the orchard, went on an epic tromp to the trundle, ate delicious food (even if Abby's classmates complain that the cheeseboard has the same cheese every night. Whatever, the Stilton was lovely.) And fell asleep gossiping. The next morning I was allowed to watch their book binding class and was fascinated. What a delightful visit.

As a quick aside- West Dean College was founded by the estate of Edward James, who worked with Salvador Dali. When Abby took me on a quick tour through the main building we kept turning around innocuous corners and running into, you know, just random things. Like two of the lobster phones. And the original watercolour of the artichoke house. You know. Just things. (!)

Friend Bragging

2010-10-28T04:25:00.000-05:00

I have trouble not crying whenever I read about my friend Charity. At the very least I get covered in goosebumps. I can't wait to actually watch her speech!

Links and Stories and falderol

2010-10-25T10:19:00.002-05:00

Remember my friend Charity? Yeah, she's speaking at TEDmed. That's how cool she is.

I am less cool, but still have an Internet presence- so check this out.

That's it for links, here's the stories:
This weekend I was being project manager extraordinaire for the Continuing Professional Development weekends at GSMD. This was the first of the new school year, so there were a few hiccups, but mostly things went well. Amongst the hiccups was the fact that the entire stash of tea and lunch supplies had gone on walkabouts. I had a little bit of a panic about that because TEA IS VERY IMPORTANT to English people. Fortunately the new bar manager thought it would be just fine to let me loose in the little-used commercial kitchen in the basement of the dormitory. So we used proper plates and tea cups and I got to use the DISHWASHER!

The dishwasher was very exciting, I'm not really sure why- but I got a big kick out of it. I would suppose that it is a fairly standard commercial dishwasher- you put things on trays, slide them into the machine, and then pull the handle down and wait for it to stop steaming before opening it again. But the mugs! They come out warm! And that was enough to keep me happy. Though I will say that is was a bit creepy hanging out in a deserted kitchen by myself with very few lights on. (Fortunately I had the dishwasher to keep me company...)

On Sunday I had a run-in with another electrical appliance- in this case it was an electric lock on a set of doors. I'm not really sure why this door has an electric lock, but in order to get in to the performance space in the basement (which is where the workshop is held) you have to get this tiny little key that will release this intense lock at the top of the doors. What I know NOW is that once you have unlocked the doors, you have to push them in and hold them there for a bit, because if you don't the doors shut and lock themselves again. Since I didn't know that I blithely let them shut behind me while I went to the far side of the room to turn the lights on. When I tried to come back I realized I was stuck, looked around for some sort of lock release inside the room (unfathomably, there isn't one), then grabbed a chair and proceeded to wait until someone showed up. (Who gets locked inside a room??) It was Sunday morning in a student bar, so I wasn't at all sure how long I would have to wait, but I was lucky and only stuck for about 15 minutes. Jose showed up with a bunch of equipment for another project and I slid the key under the door so that he could let me out once he was done laughing.

Falderol:

A month ago or so I was walking home from work via the long, long, long route and ended up at an art gallery near the OXO tour that was having some sort of exhibit about eco-art and recycled materials. There was a small handful of people sitting on the floor on the ornate canvas floor covering doing little handicrafts so I wandered in and when they asked if I'd like to make anything I said "yes!" and learned how to appliqué. This is what I came up with- it is an old green sports T-shirt appliquéd with sari fabric and a yellow fleece blanket. It took me about 2 hours, during which I didn't get any of my work done and my back started hurting from all of that hunching over- but I was so pleased with myself by the end and much calmer than I had been. I love London so hard.

Kids are Gross. Seriously.

2010-10-17T06:13:00.001-05:00

I'm about to share two graphic, gross stories. I think they're funny, but if you're easily grossed out and have never been around children before ever: they may offend your sensibilities.

1. In English class this week one student ripped out his tooth. His front tooth had clearly been loose for a while and it was bleeding a bit so I sent him to the bathroom to get some water and some paper towels. When he came back I took a look to see how loose it was, and while half of it was clearly off, the other half of it was still hanging in there. It was clearly going to pop out that day, but wasn't quite ready yet. I thought about offering to yank it out for him but figured that if there wasn't already an official school policy about tearing children's teeth out of their mouths, that if I did help him out with it- there soon would be. I sent him off to the bathroom again to get more paper towels and when he eventually came back it was with with a distinct air of triumph, a bloody stump, and a front tooth in the palm of his hand.

This, of course, derailed the next five minutes of the lesson.

2. On Thursday during my incarnation as a nursery assistant I heard rather a lot of chattering coming from the tyke's toilets and so went to investigate what the party was all about. I couldn't get past the door because the stench was so strong that I had to turn around and gag. Two of them had simultaneously done the foulest poos ever and were then just sort of hanging out there for a while.

"Miss Casey? Will you wipe me?"

No.

No I will not.

If you're old enough to pour your own water, put your own shoes on, and dress yourself- you are old enough to wipe your own butt.

So I gave a little tutorial from the door (turning my head to breathe and gag again) and congratulated them as sincerely as I could when they held up their used toilet paper for me to inspect. "Well done girls. Now, for the love of god, will you please put those in the toilet and flush?"

The next tutorial I gave was how to properly and thoroughly wash your hands.

Bouncy Castle Goodness or I need a new camera

2010-10-17T05:48:00.000-05:00

I finally had my birthday party! It ended up being a joint birthday with my friends Lyn and Jon, and I would post pictures so you could see how cool it was...but none were taken. Sorry.

FORTUNATELY

I can still tell you all about it.

The party was sort of epic. We hired out two tunnels at T47 which is an indoor football (soccer) pitch underneath London Bridge Station. Fire-Hazard runs Survivor Sports there, which is how I knew about it. The neat thing about T47 is not only do they have space to let us run fun games, they also have a bouncy castle that they rent out. So in one tunnel we ran glow in the dark tag, dodge ball, red light/green light, and a game wherein you have 1 minute to throw as many glowing objects on to the other team's side as possible. In the other tunnel we had music, food, general chatting, and a massive bouncy castle.

I think about 28 people showed up. Everyone was really helpful (if a little confused when I made them all put on glow stick bracelets. Had I not explained that part before? Oops.) We ran a bunch of the games from Survivor Sports, though in a less focused way. We didn't run Riot Ball (a.k.a. indoor glow in the dark Circle Rules Football) because people were so wiped out from the bouncy castle. Instead we improved on Red light/green light/grandmother's footsteps/night stalker: usually it is played in a small area that is difficult to get as dark as the main pitch and with only half the group while the other half is tearing each other up in Riot Ball. This time we had the whole group playing at the very back of the pitch where it is the darkest. And because we couldn't find a laser that worked (in order to let people know they'd been seen moving) we used a flash light. So the combination of being periodically blinded by the flash light (torch, whatever) combined with the fact that if you were It the only thing you could see was an ever encroaching line of disembodied coloured lights, meant that the whole game was a lot creepier. In a good way.

In running these games I discovered that while I love talking to players after the fact, getting feedback, thinking about long term strategy for the organization, and the general planning-ness of game running- what I don't love is being the figure head/spear head/main leader. I can do it, but I tend to forget half the rules, ignore the back story, and fail to consistently referee. I'll get to know you as a player and improve the running of the games, but I don't want to be the head zombie unless I have to.

FORTUNATELY

I have friends who like ref-ing, so we were set. Then at the end we played a big game of pass the parcel which was nice to get everyone together. I think I had 8 different social groups represented and then with Lyn and Jon that bumped things up to about 11 different groups (if not more) and everyone got along! It was really lovely. We were only supposed to have the space until 9, but I left with a group to go get some supper just before 10 and the bouncy castle was still going strong and they hadn't kicked us out. Thanks, T47!

Gender roles at Garden Time

2010-10-13T18:53:00.000-05:00

In the playground my floaty, thin scarf was liberated by one of the tykes. She ran around with it over her face (it was see through) haunting people as a ghost. A little boy lifted up the side of it to poke his head under as well. She yanked the scarf away and ran off to haunt some others, and since neither child seemed put out I didn't say anything about sharing.

I kept an eye on her to make sure my scarf didn't end up in one of the mud puddles and eventually the scarf morphed (as all good dress up items do) from being protoplasm to being a princess skirt. She pranced around with it held tightly around her waist, dancing about the garden. The same little boy came over and lifted up the side of it to poke his head under...and this time? Was it okay? It's still a scarf. But since it was representing a skirt,and since he was a boy, and since she clearly didn't want him to put his head under her skirt...do I put a stop to it? Or is that just me projecting adult thoughts and motivations onto a pair of three year olds? (I suspect the latter) At the same time, at what point do we start teaching boys that when a girl says no, she means no. At what point do you go beyond saying "be nice to everyone and respect every one's space" and into "but particularly girls' because there is a massive history there that you don't yet understand."

I wouldn't have been that bothered by it, only giving that encounter a passing thought, except that I kept watching her the whole garden time (I really didn't want my scarf getting muddy) ("why didn't you take it back?" you may ask. I don't know. I just didn't.) And later on when the reception tykes rushed onto the field one of the bigger boys came over and grabbed her, wrestled her and kissed her. Is that still okay? Is that still rough housing? Or is that something where I should step in and say not okay. She fended him off just fine, and maybe I wasn't paying attention to other combinations of children where one is fending off another, maybe it is fine and this is just part of what happens. But should it be? She can take care of herself, but should she already have to?

EAL English as an Additional Language

2010-10-12T18:18:00.000-05:00

There are tons of EAL students at school. Last Thursday I was practicing my nearly non-existent Russian with a tyke who doesn't have any English. Even just saying "good" or admonishing her to say "please" and "thank you" in her own language allowed us to make more of a connection.

We recently had an in-set (teacher training doo-dad) about working with EAL students. I was fascinated. What I really took away from the training is that their home language is incredibly important. The workshop leader used a graphic of an iceberg to illustrate that what you see of their newer language is supported by everything they know and understand about how language works from their first language. Also that you need to be careful about what you are testing, if you're working in a maths class- does the student understand the concept in their own language? Is the language creating a barrier rather than the material being presented?

In my Year 3 class we have on boy whose English is nearly non-existent. Fortunately there are many many French speaking students in the classroom so mostly we can get by, but it is clearly frustrating for him to never understand what is going on and frequently he is off doing his own (disruptive/destructive) thing, like poking holes into all of the erasers with his pencil. I feel bad because it becomes necessary for me to pull him away or discipline him in order to get the rest of the class to focus on their work instead of his antics, and I really really don't want his only interactions with me to be negative.

So it was with great relief that I realized that in our English lessons, I could have him write in French. Yeah, okay, they are English lessons, but really we're learning about how to build sentences and paragraphs and write stories and such like, so it doesn't matter what language you learn how to do that in. That week we were writing a story about a Seagull named Sydney ('cause why not, right?) and they were meant to get Sydney in some sort of trouble and then get him out again (fascinating to read their solutions, it's amazing how much of themselves they put into their writing. "Ah, so that's what you're thinking about!"). I had our French boy describe the seagull, and write a paragraph in French about what the character of Sydney was like. He did such a good job! And because he actually had a task to do that he understood he didn't distract other people and destroy school supplies! It was pretty much the best thing ever. I just kept grinning at him when he brought me his workbook to show off what he had done.

Tykes Odds and Ends

2010-10-12T11:31:00.000-05:00

Last week during a lesson in one of the nursery rooms I managed to use a hula hoop to knock over a bunch of test tubes containing coloured water. (Isn't that a wonderful set up for something? It seems like all of those things together would be the beginning of a fabulous surreal story, but really it was just a watery mess.) I felt bad that I had just spilled water everywhere including all over the Montessori materials on the shelves- but all of the tykes kept saying "It's okay, Miss Casey!" in that particular voice that you use to console a three year old when they've made a mess in a clearly accidental way. Like wetting themselves or something like that.

Good to know they've been listening and taking it in.

I know it's only October, but we're already moving in to working on the Christmas show. This year we're getting ambitious and having the show on a proper stage at an away venue instead of just in the hall/cafeteria at school. Also, (because I think they can do it) both the Reception Tykes AND the Nursery Tykes will be doing their own Nativity plays. I use the term "nativity" very loosely: one is about a kind scarecrow and his animal friends and involves Mr and Mrs. Claus; while the other does mention baby Jesus but is mostly about a bunch of stars.

I know I'm talking about religion a bunch on this blog- but it comes up fairly often at school. It's a religiously diverse school and I'm still not used to the fact that there isn't a separation of church and state in this country. Fine lines to tread and all that.

I wanted to make sure that all of the classroom teachers were on board with the Christmas show plans and I wanted to make sure that if there were any concerns that I heard them now, in October, rather than learning about them in December or, even worse, not hearing about them at all and just frustrating/angering some of them. So I've been running the scripts and songs by the teachers and getting feedback. Most of the teachers are keen to try something a bit more challenging, but it is interesting what sort of traditions people hold on to in a school where the longest serving teacher amongst the Early Years staff has only been here for 5 years. (I guess that is plenty long to make a tradition.) Fortunately at this point we've still got enough time to change the plans pretty drastically if we need to.

Halloween? Pssht. Thanksgiving? Whatever. It's jingle bells on rotate here! (Side note: I have, legitimately, had Good King Wenceslas stuck in my head for the better part of this past month. I have no idea why.)

Religious Education, or "well, this is fun"

2010-10-01T19:33:00.001-05:00

Two weeks of Year 3 Religious Education (and English) in, and I'm having a ball. The first week RE went great and English was a disaster. The second week RE was a mess and English was spectacular. So we're doing what we can.

In RE the curriculum currently has us talking about Judaism and specifically Moses. (Can I just say how much I love following lesson plans that I haven't written? It takes out 99.9% of the stress of teaching for me.) We covered The Exodus first and so I grouped them into pairs. Partner one became the slave while partner two became the master for a couple of minutes.

Foolishly, I failed to put in a clause saying "DON'T HIT YOUR SLAVE!"

I know better now.

We then had a group discussion about what it felt like to be a slave (using the interactive white board! Those things are fun.) and what it felt like to be the master. We then talked about how the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt and how even today there are slaves around the world and how sometimes it can be because of totally arbitrary things like religion or race or whatever. I don't remember what we did next but I do know that I enjoy working with 8 and 9 year olds. They're just old enough to have their own opinions and actually have something interesting to say with fascinating links and ties to other subjects.

The first week they let me get away with answering "It's a Bible Story" when they asked "is this TRUE?" The second week they wised up, "Yes, but is the Bible true??"

Um.

Um.

....

"Yes, it's true! It really happened."
"Nu-uh! It didn't! It's just a story!"

Um.

Well. Look, guys. Here's the thing about religion; some things that some religions believe to be true and factually correct other don't believe to be true. So, yes, for many people in the world they believe that this is true. Many others don't.

"Yes, but did it really happen?"

Right. So these are the 10 commandments, everyone look at the board please?

Here's where RE completely fell apart the second week: I made groups of 4 to collaboratively write 5 commandments for living life well and then make a poster. A few of the groups worked just fine, but the group I had working in French was alternating between giggling maniacally and crying and the group across from them decided that *all* of their commandments would be about who not to fart on. There was so much hooting and hollering going on that I tried 4 different ways of simmering them down and getting their attention: clapping a pattern to clap back, turning the lights off, shouting over them (oops), and quietly saying "if you're listening and paying attention you'll put your finger on your nose" which worked just fine for the groups who were working well already but failed massively with the two groups that were already out of control.

I talked with their teacher afterwards and we mutually decided that the way in which I'd built the groups was...not ideal. So I now have a much better plan for which kids to combine with which kids. Learning, it's all about learning.

Here's the other place it went wrong with the Ten Commandments

Thou Shalt Not Kill

But Miss Casey? What about all the Egyptians that got drownded?
No, no, it's okay to kill Egyptians.

Interviews

2010-09-20T19:04:00.001-05:00

Last week I was interviewed for the Evening Standard about "circle rules football" and this weekend I was interviewed by the BBC about the Pope saying that paedophilia was a disease. Do I have any reason to have any opinion on either of those things? No. But hey! I'm willing to talk on record!

I walked into the BBC interview by being near the Westminster Cathedral when they wanted some word on the street opinions. I don't really know what I said but it was something equivocal due mainly to my not following the subject and not being willing to have a defined opinion on something I know nothing about. I was enticed into it by the video camera...I have no excuse.

Circle Rules Football, however, I have the article in front of me right now. I got a call from Gwyn, who runs Fire Hazard, the games company I work with. He said, "hey, this guy is looking for some quotes about this game that riot ball is based on. You should call him." Riot ball is basically an amalgam of every ball sport you can think of, but played in the dark with glow sticks and a giant inflatable yoga ball. It's very silly and the lynch pin of "Survivor Sports" the indoor, glow-in-the-dark sports night Fire-Hazard runs fairly frequently.

"One player is Casey Middaugh, (side note: have I ever played circle rules football? No. But I *have* played and run Riot ball, which is loosely related...) a freelance music teacher from Clapton. Casey, 26, never really played team sports, preferring rock-climbing and yoga. (where on earth did I get rock-climbing from? I mean, yeah, I've done it a few times and enjoyed it but honestly? That combination is a straight quote from Princess Diaries. I'm so embarrassed...yoga I will own up to, however.) She was attracted to Circle Rules Football (no I wasn't.) because of the creative way in which it's played. "You can dribble the ball, kick or toss it. The only thing you can't do is hold on to it," she says. "So I think it is funnier because it is so obviously ridiculous that there's no pressure. I don't want to play a team sport with people who've been playing football since they were little and are super intense about it."

Blah blah blah someone else's quote

"Most players stumble upon Circle Rules Football by word of mouth- a manner very much in keeping with the laid-back philosophy of the game."Don't get me wrong, they get competitive," says Casey. "But competitive in a silly way. It's very tongue-in-cheek." (would I voluntarily use the phrase 'tongue-in-cheek?' no. It was fed to me. But sure, I'll go along with that. It is a game played with a yoga ball after all.)

If you Bing me this shows up. It's kind of fun and kind of silly.

Work Hours and Whatnot

2010-09-15T20:26:00.000-05:00

Here's what I started writing last week:

"My hours are all up in the air currently which makes me feel anxious, but I've done what I can about it and at this point all I can do is sit and wait- secure in the knowledge that my direct superiors are crossing their fingers to have me around for two days and at this point it is up to...um...other people. (Not really sure who to be perfectly honest.) I continue to have a lot of faith in the new Head Mistress, she's got her head on straight and I feel like we're on pretty much the same page about what sort of hours I'm hoping for. (And on the same page about how that probably isn't going to happen.)"

This week our new headmistress has worked genius miracles and it looks like I will be getting a day and a half. In order to fill out some of those hours what I will be doing is taking two hours of lessons away from one of the year 3 teachers who is also the head of Key Stage 2 (years 3 through 6) so that she has time to do the administrative portion of her job.

Since I don't have any formal education training this will be a provisional arrangement until everyone is satisfied that I can do the work effectively (or, you know, not.) I'm quite pleased with how this is working out and though none of it is set in stone, I'm feeling cautiously excited.

Want to know what I will be teaching this group of 8 and 9 year olds? (The lesson plans and curriculum are written, all I have to do is follow them.)

Religious Education.

(and English.)

Composition Club

2010-09-15T20:08:00.001-05:00

This club is my baby.

I love this club.

I have been wanting to do this club for ages and would (shh, it's a secret!) totally do it for free.

It's a group composition club with 9 year olds, and the whole thing warms my heart so much that I bounce up and down when I think about it. Or talk about it. Or type about it.

Want to hear what we did the first week?
I have this book that I bought with Mical last year from the remainders section at the U. Bookstore in Seattle. I would link to it, but I totally don't remember the title. Suffice to say it matches up paintings with tracks from famous and evocative pieces of music. So for instance flight of the bumble bee with a Japanese print of dahlias and a bee. Or Vivaldi's "Winter" with a landscape painting from the 1700's of Flemish ice skaters.

I wanted to write a piece our first week of club so that we really jumped in head first and got right in to the making of things. I figured that building a soundscape would be the easiest way in and I knew that we could build something fairly quickly. We started by looking at 4 of the paintings in the book and discussing what we expected the music to sound like based on the paintings. This aquarium scene is underwater and has a lot of fish. Do you suppose the music will be legato or staccato? Do you think it's going to be loud or quiet? What sort of instruments would you use for this scene? Based on this painting do you expect the music to be scary? happy? authoritative? calm? angry? Something else?

We only had two girls the first week, so I left them lying on their bellies on the carpet, waving their feet gently back and forth in the air while they flipped through the pictures and listened to the pieces in order to guess which one they were listening to.

Having discussed all four of the chosen pictures I was only going to play one piece for them to guess and sort out, but they were enjoying themselves so much that they asked if they could do all of them. You bet you can!

Once we'd finished looking at the book and they'd correctly deduced all four pieces (we even had a bit of a knights' duel during the march) it started to rain very, very heavily. This was *perfect* as it meant that when I brought up making a soundscape, the first thing they wanted to make it about was the rain. (How ideal.)

We went out into the hallway where the instrument store closet is and picked out some percussion that we thought might be useful including two rain sticks, some bongos, a slit drum, a thunder drum, and a clacker thing that probably has a proper name but if it does I don't know what it is.

We brought the instruments back into the room, had a bit of time to experiment, and then discussed and tried playing the story that our soundscape would be structured on. We begin with people walking around slowly (bongos), then the rain starts (rain sticks) and the people hurry away. When the thunder starts (thunder drum) the people knock urgently on doors in order to be let inside (slit drum top and sides to make two different sounds). Then, since we are doing this from the storm's point of view- there is a thunder drum solo accompanied by the rain sticks. The thunder dies away and the first brave souls venture out again (bongos). Then the rain stops and all you hear are footsteps.

Our piece is called "The Big Storm."

We wrote it all down, stuck our written text score on a music stand, and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. I was willing to quit way before the girls wanted to stop. We even performed it for one of the Year 3 teachers who happened to be walking by. I had the girls initial and date the score and gave them each photo copies to take home with them.

Excellent.

This week we started by analyzing three more paintings, welcoming our 3rd club member, and reviewing last week's piece. Our newest member learned/was taught two different parts (the rain sticks and the slit drum) which we rehearsed extensively before recording. (They're each going to get a CD of their work at the end of the term.) That took up so much time that we only had 15 minutes to make a start on our next piece.

Apparently this club is half music and half art appreciation (with a bit of Earth Sciences thrown in: for some reason we had a big conversation about the Pacific rim of fire before club got started today). The next piece we're working on uses as its starting point rhythm and pitch instead of location and environment. Rhythm and pitch are the two most basic building blocks of music and maybe a sculpture or picture of neat architecture would have been better to look at- but the first thing that came to mind was Piet Mondrian with his lines and colours. Shapes and colours? Pitch and rhythm. Let's work it.

So that's where we're at right now. (Just wait 'til we start using poetry as a starting point!) This club makes me so. so. SO happy.

Tykes Music Club

2010-09-15T18:27:00.001-05:00

I'm teaching two music clubs on Wednesdays now, which is a great deal of fun. I'm continuing the tykes' music club and then following that I have a new Key Stage 2 (8-11 year olds) composition club. And OH! I'm excited about that one. But lets talk tykes first....

I have nine of them in the club. They are squirrelly as tykes are wont to be, so maybe this wasn't the most brilliant idea ever? (Or maybe it was genius. I'll reserve judgement until I have them again next week.) What happened was this: I was digging around in the resource bookshelf in the music room and found a book called A Sackful of Songs by Jane Newberry. It has some delightful songs in it and I thought "wonderful! I won't be recycling material that these tykes have already seen before!" before choosing a gem called "Scary Monster!" (exclamation point helpfully included.)

This song, like many songs for tykes, involves changing actions. Always a good thing since that gives them an opportunity to control the song and get creative with it. The song is about a scary green monster roaring. Or laughing. Or crying or jumping or you get the point.

So we roared for a bit and that went fine. A couple of tykes were really in to the roaring and a few more were staring off into the distance. It seemed like it was time to move on to another action. So we stomped for a bit and then the song turned out to be about dinosaurs and then dragons and then back to monsters again before little C. piped up with: "I want the monster to eat me."

Very matter of factly like that.
(Exclamation point helpfully not included.)

So I "ate" C. by tickling her belly and then oooh did the floodgates open.

"Me! Me! Eat MEeee!!!"

The tykes scattered all over the room and cowered gleefully under the tables. I said I wouldn't eat any of them unless they all sang- so they all sang with gusto while I crawled menacingly around on the floor tickling each of them in turn whenever I could reach them.

I feel certain I wasn't meant to do that, but I can't actually think of a good reason why except for the whole running in the classroom thing and the fact that I have now set a precedent. (I think it is really the precedent that is going to bite me in the butt.) On the other hand I got them to sing the song enough times so that they all have a handle on the tune and the words and I did that without bashing it repetitively into their skulls while they sat down in a circle. Six of one, half a dozen of the other?

This is a PROMISE

2010-09-14T17:48:00.000-05:00

There will be blogs soon. There will be posts, as in- multiples. But currently? Currently I have to sleep. So please be patient and accept my sincerest apologies for the delay in blogging. Suffice to say things are good and trucking along. And I love you all very much. Thanks.

First Day of School Jitters

2010-09-06T10:26:00.001-05:00

I have a cold. It woke me up twice last night and is mixing and stewing with my new-school-year anxiety nicely. I think it might be making some sort of horrible jam. Or jelly.

Last Friday I went in to school for a staff meeting with the new Head Mistress. The topic was "excellence" and there was a lot of potential for it to be cheesy, but it wasn't. We were put into small groups and given time to talk about some event in our lives that was excellent. My table had trouble coming up with things because we didn't want to brag, we weren't allowed to use an example that was school related, and also- sharing? With people that you don't really know? Not always the easiest thing. We eventually ended up with some cool stories though. It's always nice to learn more about your co-workers beyond "they teach Year 1."

We were then given large pieces of paper and time to come up with a list of 5 things that are excellent about the school. Selling points, really. After that all the staff got up and looked at all of the lists. They were very similar- there were only about 10 unique points out of the 8 tables worth of lists. It was unifying in a way to realize that we all appreciated the same things within the institution.

Next came the list of things that could be improved...there were many more points on this but still a remarkable amount of unity. It felt good to know that even in terms of things we wish could change- by and large we were on the same page. (Can I also say how nice it was as an adjunct teacher to be able to participate in this? I felt included.)

Finally we were re-grouped from our small groups into our working groups (i.e., early years together, key stage 1 together, and key stage 2 together) to discuss which of the "things to be improved" WE could actually do something about. What is actually within our power to change. I just love team brainstorming like this. So much fun.

I was impressed with the new Head Mistress. She seems capable, competent, and like she will actually do what she says she will. It also seems like it will be much more difficult to...um,... finesse the system. Which is probably a good thing. She is also clear that the school is a business, which makes for fascinating comments about how the school is advertised and also the charge to consider what it is that each of us, individually and uniquely, brings to the school.

I still have the same jobs as last Autumn, both the tykes and the French school- but the scheduling and timing has been splayed out across the week so now I have an hour on Monday, half a day in the morning followed by an hour in the late afternoon on Tuesdays, and *hopefully* a whole day on Wednesday though currently there is a pesky three and a half hour gap in the afternoon that would be frustrating not to get paid for since clearly I'll still be in school and doing work during that time.

In any case my classes kick off tomorrow morning with the littlest of the tykes getting their first music lesson of the year. I'm nervous. Not that I'm unclear about what to teach them, but because I am worried about starting off in a good manner so as to encourage good behaviour during my class throughout the year and also so as to not frighten the new ones. Some of the smallest tykes will only have been in school for 2 days at this point and may be as young as two-and-a-half.

London is Fab.

2010-09-02T17:39:00.001-05:00

This afternoon after school I was wandering around all over central London during my customary walk and ended up in the West End where I realized that HAIR was closing in three days and if I didn't see it today, I never would. So I went to check and see if there were any tickets... why on earth do they all randomly get naked right before the intermission? There is no narrative reason whatsoever for that to happen. To be fair, there is barely any narrative anyway...

I probably should have shelled out another 12 pounds to be in the dress circle instead of at the tippy top of the theatre because they spent a lot of the show prancing around on all of the levels but mine, but it was fun anyway. And man do they end on a high note- for the final let the sun shine they invite anyone who can make it down there fast enough on to the stage and everyone is singing away with them and it is very high energy and cool.

Can I just say that I love that I can just decide to go see a West End show? On a whim?

Still Awake!

2010-08-28T20:06:00.001-05:00

Unsolicited Jet Lag Update:

It's 2am! And I'm awake! Awake awake awake awake! Really perky!

crap.

On the other hand, here is a great photo that Sarah's mom just posted from the wedding.

America: The Brief Sum Up

2010-08-27T11:48:00.003-05:00

24 days, 8 states, my favourite people, and a pile of stories. Pretty good work, I think.

Kansas: I never did tell you about the reception...one of the things that I have noticed is that if I promise you that something "will be coming soon" on the blog: I'm usually lying. Sorry! Here are some key words to attempt to make amends: photo booth, delicious food, bubbles, jazz pianist, snarky 9 year old, dancing so much I shredded the lining of my dress, group singing, group singing in parts, 5 little snowmen, mouth harp, muggy blanket of heat, peace pipe/cigar, bridesmaid's room for hiding in, A whole new world, 2am. (Missouri and Kansas = 2)

Chicago: So good to see Andy and Nancy! The general consensus is that I hadn't been there in 5 years, which is clearly far too long. I got to see Andy's band perform at CJ Arthur's and they are sounding good. It was fun to see/hear everyone again and also momentarily steal Sandy's rhythm bones. My friend Josh from Garfield was sweet enough to stop by the gig as well so there were more people in the audience! I wandered around a bunch in order to see how much I could still navigate just by memory- the answer? A fair bit. Andy and Nancy had a parade of people through their house while I was there, my favourite of whom was an artisanal garlic farmer. 'Artisinal' is probably the wrong word...but fancy and rare types of garlic in any case. Too brief a visit! (Illinois = 3)

Baltimore/DC: I stayed with my dear friend Daniel, briefly saw Liz, took a short walk with Zane, and spent the day at the National Air and Space museum with Sarah, Desh, Jim, and Guinness McDog. An excellent, excellent visit that reminded me that the "family size" package of food- while cost effective, sometimes means that you end up with a 9"x 11" casserole full of meatloaf... tasty and delicious turkey meatloaf, but still a bit overwhelming in size. Daniel and I went on a trek to find his old 3 storey tree house, but we failed to find an accurate alternate path that didn't have us fording a river. Next time, next time I will see this epic tree house. My final night Daniel and I went to Applebees where we made friends with our waitress who had been having a very tough night, but cheered up at our paper sculptures and mini footballs (we maybe weren't exhibiting the most appropriate restaurant behaviour...) (Maryland and Virginia = 5)

New York: I took the Bolt Bus to New York and was delighted with it. Free wi-fi! (that was where the epic and multi-linked Air and Space post came from) Lots of leg room! The guy sitting next to me was reading an article about John Cage written by Cornelius Cardew and I though to myself "there is no reason why anyone who was not a fairly extensively trained musician and/or composer would be reading this..." so I introduced myself. It turns out he's a composer- and being a composer, about my age, and traveling from Baltimore to New York we checked out Facebook to see who all we knew in common. Bizarrely the only common contact we had was an Irish opera singer that I had met in Norfolk. Small world, yes, but that's just weird.

In New York I stayed with my friends Kevin, Sean, and Zach over in Jersey City. We started at lunch with Indian food- which made my mouth burn. Kevin and I visited his office at Meet The Composer, walked through a rainstorm, sat under the highway during a rainstorm, and eventually ended up at a Vietnamese restaurant eating delicious bánh mì that made me so happy and then made my eyes start watering. (I used to be so good with spicy! Apparently no longer...) A trivia night followed that (our team got second place and $30 with absolutely no input from me. I'm not too up on 1970's pop culture) and so ended my first day in NY.

The next day started with cactus tacos (Mmmmm and not too spicy!) and then consisted of hipster watching in Williamsburg where I amused myself by doing a sociological sartorial study. I had drinks with an editor from Tor (we totally geeked out about graphic novels) and then spent the night in Astoria with my friends Ronni and Noah- you may remember them from the epic wedding posts of last year. They're doing very well and it was fabulous to see them again.

My last day in New York I actually spent in Connecticut visiting Meredith, her town, country club, and house she grew up in. It was great- a tour of Meredith's stories. We went kayaking and, thinking we were being clever, left our extra clothes on the shore. When we got back the tide had come in and Meredith had to fish them out of the water...oops. (New York and Connecticut = 7)

Boston: The Bolt Bus up to Boston hit rather a lot of traffic so the sun was setting as I arrived at the bus station. I had used the wi-fi on the bus to get a map of the area around Laine's apartment and directions for how to get there and was feeling quite confident about it all until I started to follow the map. The neighbourhood is beautiful; everyone has a garden, there are a couple of parks within walking distance (I got a little lost and happened upon both of them), and the houses are stunning. When I finally found the address that I had I called Laine up. There was no way that was her house and there was a light on and was she sure that I wasn't going to be knocking on some random family's door? Digging through their mailbox to find a key?

Basically what I'm saying here is that Laine has the most beautiful apartment ever. It is about the same size as the house we grew up in, has lovely bones and intricate detailing, stained glass windows, and enough storage space for an army. (Well, a small Spartan army.) And a pantry! And adorable little butler-pantry-nook-thingy.

More Boston and Laine in the next post.
(Massachusetts = 8 states visited! Making the rounds...)

National Air and Space Museum

2010-08-16T10:34:00.011-05:00

Yesterday Sarah and Desh took her little brother Jim and me to the National Air and Space Museum at the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles. Now, I need to tell you that in spite of my father swearing UP and DOWN that I loved the Museum of Flight in Seattle as a child; I remember hating that museum. (Except for the flying car, which you really ought to click on because: hilarious) Anyhow, suffice to say that because of my history with museums full of air planes- I was suspicious of the Air and Space Museum.

But! BUT! BUT!!! I was wrong. I was totally wrong. It was *awesome* and ridiculously fun.

We ended up taking a tour and were lucky enough/privileged enough to end up on a lengthy tour with an excellent tour guide and while he was totally upfront about the gaps in his helicopter knowledge was a darling and entertaining speaker. I was utterly riveted for the whole two hours plus. ("Plus" because I kept asking questions and he said that the tour was running over time, but he would be happy to answer those questions for me and whomever wanted to stay on after he was done if I would just please shut up and let him finish! Sheesh.) (That's not verbatim. He was much more polite than that.) (I wouldn't have kept asking questions if he hadn't kept hauling me up to the front when I muttered things under my breath.) (Hmmph.)

It's interesting being in a flight museum as an adult, or at least as someone with slightly more perspective than a five year old. The place was filled with scrambling, running kids (including a scrumptious toddler in an orange space suit from the gift shop and bunch of kids at that stage where their feet are huge but the rest of their body hasn't quite caught up yet). And everywhere around are weapons. Giant, flying, weapons. The Enola Gay is the second thing to catch your eye as you walk into the main hangar. (The first is The Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird, which, granted, doesn't have any guns on it, but is still clearly an instrument of war.) We were walking around the museum talking about various evolutionary improvements versus leaping advancements (like swept wings) and how all these things allowed us, the US military, to be better at killing the bad guys.

Killing. The. Bad. Guys.

Okay. Yeah. The history of flight has two branches- commercial flight and military flight. And our wonderful, fabulous, can't compliment him enough tour guide spent 20 years in the Air Force so of course he is more interested in the military branch of things. I am well aware that my lack of military knowledge allows me to be all judgemental from a particularly safe and ignorant point of view. But I have to admit that I didn't expect the National Air and Space Museum to make me think that hard. Or be that emotional. Or that uncomfortable and conflicted. Or, you know, that involved.

(Side note: The tour guides get to talk about whatever they're interested in. There isn't a set tour that they have to follow. Which is great because it means they are fascinating tours, but also means that Sarah and Desh once went on a tour that spent the entire time looking at engines. Which probably, at this point, I should trust and believe would be great because the tour guides are so fabulous, but really? Engines? Two hours of engines? I fear that that would be like a wrench museum. (Boring, guys. I mean boring.) All of the title cards for the artefacts and what have you are very technical; they totally and completely fail to be compelling on their own. Which is why the tours are so great.) (Have I made that clear yet? If you go to the National Air and Space Museum take a tour.)

Oooh! You guys ready for my favourite part? The Langley Aerodrome was hanging above our heads near the end of the tour. It is beautiful- made of pale wood and yards and yards of creamy cloth stretched out on an architecturally stunning framework. But, you know, it is also flat. With a boat in the middle. And clearly couldn't fly if you paid it to. So what on earth was it? I wanted to know.

See how this is falling into the water? how it is totally not going to fly? Isn't this silly? It was catapulted off of that there house boat and kerplash! fell into the water. Many times. I love it. Oh, early flight. So many times you did not work.

What makes it even more fun is that when the Wright Brothers managed to fly, the U.S. Patent office granted them a patent on the idea of flight. Take that to the bank. So after people had got thoroughly fed up with paying royalties on the idea of flight someone came along, dug out the Langley Aerodrome from its storage place in the Smithsonian, heavily modified it, got it to fly, unmodified it, and sued the Wright Brothers. Ultimately the judge rolled his eyes at both groups and said something along the lines of "don't waste my time with your ridiculous flying contraption, but Wright brothers? You can't patent the idea of flight, anything related to it that you invented? Sure. Go ahead. Definitely. But not the idea of flight."

Kansas Wedding: The first facebook pictures

2010-08-10T00:05:00.004-05:00

Blatantly stealing some pictures here...

Dave always writes arrangements of Happy Birthday for people on their birthdays and their wedding day happened to be the birthday of the organist who played for the wedding AND Sarah's christening. So Dave wrote a very cool barbershop quartet with beat boxing that we proceeded to horribly butcher to much acclaim at the reception. L to R we've got Nik, Me, Martin, Dave, and Joe.

Also: the entrance of the newlyweds! Just look at those smiles!

Kansas Wedding: The Parties

2010-08-09T18:10:00.006-05:00

Something I discovered this week is that if you are a friend of Sarah Titterington Ibbett's and you two are close enough that it was important enough for you to come to her wedding to Dave Ibbett in Kansas- then the odds are that you are very cool and totally wonderful. The same goes for if you are a friend of Dave Ibbett's and you flew all the way to Kansas for his wedding.

Not only did I get to see Sarah and Dave get married, I got to meet a whole slew of totally wonderful Titteringtons, make friends with some truly fabulous and loving bridesmaids, hang out with hilarious-constantly-singing groomsmen, and place myself in the middle of a bunch of Oberlin grads who made me feel totally at home.

Was all that emphatic enough? I don't really think so. The level of welcome and consideration was through the roof. And it was all so happy and simply delightful.

Early in the celebration period we had a picnic complete with baby twins! Margot and David were passed around all picnic long and *gosh* they are cute. They have very adult faces and kept whipping their heads around to observe everything very seriously. And then they walked!

On Thursday we had the Hen night/bachelorette party and the stag night/bachelor party. The women started off in the massively capable Maid of Honor Allison's room at the hotel which was heavily decorated in pink. We told stories, played games, drank mojitos, and giggled a lot. The guys played laser tag and had their asses handed to them by a bunch of local teenagers who clearly played laser tag all the time. Then we all met up at the local "Irish Pub" down the street.

We danced to the live band until midnight, played more games, and covered Dave, Dave's little brother Joe, and some of the other guests in bright red lipstick. A raucous and vibrant good time was had by all.

We had a bridesmaid luncheon where I spent most of the time talking to Sarah's Oberlin friend Emily about all sorts of things. There was a bit of a bridal shower and then we went back to the Titterington's house for a surprise baby shower for Meghan, one of the opera singing bridesmaids who is newly pregnant. (I got her a copy of But Not The Hippopotamus an important addition to any baby's library.)

The rehearsal dinner was held at one of the Titterington Uncle's house. Dave had made heaps and heaps of curry two days before (with able bodied help from Nik, Martin, and myself.) and everyone trooped in to the beautiful and spacious house to eat home made naan and tasty dips. Instead of having speeches and whatnot at the wedding, the majority of toasts were made at the rehearsal dinner including a stand up routine by Tim, the best man, and a bizzarro world skit written by Allison, the maid of honor, about an American Dave and an English Sarah. It was very cute and even included a Lady Gaga impression. Dave and Sarah's mom, Beth, had made slide shows of the two of them. It was very cute to see their baby pictures and pictures with each of the wedding party and their families. Meredith and I gave a speech about how we had known that Sarah and Dave were Sarah and Dave long before Sarah and Dave knew that they were Sarah and Dave.

Ah, then the final party was the reception. How cool was the reception? (Oh, you don't know yet. Because I haven't told you. But trust me, it was super cool. And it's going to have its own post! That's how cool it was.)

Kansas Wedding: The Ceremony

2010-08-09T16:44:00.004-05:00

I don't even know how to start writing about this wedding, it was amazing. How about the ceremony? I'll start with that:

I overheard someone say at the reception that it had been "a wonderful concert....and a nice wedding too." There was so much music throughout the whole week; so much music and community and love. Fabulous.

The whole thing started off with the local baroque orchestra playing a bunch of Purcell and one of the bridesmaids singing. (Three of the bridesmaids were professional singers.) The parents walked in to Handel and another bridesmaid singing, and then the attendants all walked in to an arrangement that Dave did of the Beatles "Here, There and Everywhere" And all that was before Sarah had even walked down the aisle! (We practised a lot during the rehearsal to figure out how long between each couple there needed to be in order for us to walk on the beat but still stay in the correct placement.)

A note about having a wedding full of musicians: we applauded EVERYTHING. Beautiful singing? Applaud! A nice reading? Applaud! A funny joke? Applaud! Some people walking into the room? Applaud!

Dave wrote a lot of music for the wedding, but the one piece Sarah hadn't heard beforehand was her procession music. Half the bridesmaids needed tissues before she'd even got to the front of the church.

We got to sing some of my favourite hymns, which was made all the more fun because I was sat between two of the opera singing bridesmaids- it was a wall of beautiful sound.

Sarah and Dave had chosen some really poignant and touching readings from Quaker Faith and Practice, and had various British groomsmen reading them. The Americans lapped this up with a spoon. (It was described to me later as "sounding like Shakespeare.")

And then they were MARRIED! My friends! My dear friends that I met so early on in my time in London, they got married. (see picture above for old school, unmarried Sarah and Dave. Wedding pictures will follow as soon as people start posting them online. My camera was being persnickety and not helpful in that regard.)

Then everyone sang "Jerusalem." A word about that hymn: it's practically a second English national anthem, has a wonderful tune, and some strange and excellent lyrics. All this combined to, in my mind, make it the theme song for the whole wedding week. Because the English groomsmen knew it so well it then became important for the bridesmaids to learn it and blow them out of the water (3 opera singers, remember? We could be loud) so they graciously taught it to us with inventive and hilarious hand motions and actions. It's been stuck in my head for the last three days.

So that was the ceremony. Here's another take on the wedding from my friend Nik who was one of the groomsmen.

Maestro Show Pictures

2010-08-09T16:32:00.002-05:00

Kansas!

2010-08-03T11:28:00.002-05:00

Have landed in Kansas and am now in the midst of preparations for Sarah and Dave's wedding!

Dave's friend from Cambridge, Nik, and I arrived within two minutes of each other so we were each met by half of the couple with hilarious personalized plastic hats decorated with pictures of American things (mine had an electoral map with which states Obama and McCain won).

We are staying with some family friends- an 84 year old man named Tom who is very sweet to us even if he repeats himself quite a lot.

It is HOT here. Today is meant to be record breaking at 101 degrees, but tomorrow and the next day there are meant to be thunderstorms! (Which I'm very excited about.)

More people are trickling in today- Dave's family, another Groomsman, and the Maid of Honour. I gather actual festivities start on Thursday.

The flights were fine and I got a good rest last night. A bit jet lagged still (I kind of want a nap...) more news as it happens!

Tyke Camp

2010-07-27T15:40:00.003-05:00

We're into the third week of Tyke-ness. I've continued to be privileged with really excellent helpers. Last week's theme, unintentionally, was "messiness" admittedly one day we did schedule "messy play" but the rest? That was just because we're such lucky ducks.

We've done bunches of cookery...stuff. We made coconut ice (essentially dessicated coconut, sugar, and food colouring), jelly, pretzels, and today we made cheese straws.

Can I suggest something? if you're cooking with children, maybe don't start with something that a) you don't have the correct measuring tools for and b) you don't know what consistency the dough is meant to be. In spite of having no clue what I was doing the cheese straws somehow, miraculously, turned out just fine.

We've started presenting cooking in a TV show style way: we set up a table at the edge of the classroom and cluster them all on the floor around and call them up in pairs to do any stirring or mixing or rolling or what have you. This has been fine so far since most of what we've been making has had a barrier (i.e., a spoon) between the tykes' hands and the food. For the pastry today, though, we were mixing with our fingers which is when something occurred to me: the floor? In the classroom? It is *filthy* and the tykes? sitting on it? Keep putting their HANDS on it. So we had them washing their hands constantly- once so they could touch the dough, again because they couldn't get to the dough without touching the floor again, once more because seriously: don't touch the floor, a further time because do you want to mix the dough? DON'T TOUCH THE FLOOR!, and a final time after their hands were all floury and buttery from the pastry.

Last week with the pretzels I decided that next time I'm going to be a bit more emphatic about what shapes are allowed. No, you don't get to stand at the table for twenty minutes making a snake and then making a ball and than making a snake again- other tykes have not had their turn! Make the first letter of your name and then SIT DOWN. If you want to play with dough? We have some beautiful, perfect, homemade, blue play dough right over there. Yes, it's been there all morning. Right there. On the table. Over there. That table, in the corner. Yes, that one.

You can roll and flatten and roll that dough to your heart's content. But this? This needs to be put into an oven.

Seriously kid.

Right, that blob? That's what you made! Well done!

Now, shoo.

We've done some arts and crafts as well. Lydia brought in this brilliant science activity book so we had Science Day! (you can tell on the weekly schedule which things I have invented and which I've copied and pasted from earlier schedules made by other people. Mine all have exclamation points...) We made air rockets with card, tape, and paper straws. We made climbing lizards (looking a friction don'cha know). We've painted pasta and made pasta necklaces, made ingenious hand print and glitter fish puppets, spinning spiral mobiles, and huge STACKS of colouring in.

This week is quite a bit smaller so I've only got one helper a day instead of two. Because there are so few kids I've started taking specific orders for colouring. It turns out that there are brilliant databases for printable colouring pages. Anything you could possibly want to colour in can be found on the Internet. Thank you, Internet.

I tell you about all of these exciting activities we've been doing (and I haven't even mentioned the trips to the playgrounds and the science museum!) but you know what they get really, really excited about? And play with for literally hours on end? The train set.

Three year olds are awesome.

(PS. "Messy Play" involves covering the tykes in smocks, sitting them down at a table, and putting trays of stuff in front of them. Specifically corn flour mixed with water, shaving foam and glitter, hair gel and glitter, and shaving foam and sand. They liked it okay but I LOVED it. We had a very fastidious set of tykes that day. Most of the corn flour + water mix that ended up on the floor was entirely my fault. As was *all* of the shaving foam that ended up in the tykes' hair and on their faces. I'm so embarrassed...)

Impro Show

2010-07-27T15:33:00.003-05:00

We had our show! My first ever acting improvisation show! And there were PEOPLE there! And it went really well! And in the very last scene I started hyperventilating and couldn't calm my heart rate down until 20 minutes later!

12 of us from the class ended up being able to make it to the show. Our teacher, Tom, told us that since only 12 tickets had been pre-ordered he expected about 25 people and due do the small audience size and relatively small size of our class he'd decided to do the show without an interval. This was definitely the right decision because there wasn't an unnecessary break in the energy in the middle, but we did a much more kick ass job pulling people into the show than Tom was expecting - 50 people showed up to be our audience.

The performance was set up as a "Maestro Show" which means that ostensibly it is a competition. Really it's just a good way of having a bunch of improvisers on stage together with some sort of structure. We all got little vests with numbers on them (1-12) and our two directors (our teachers Claire and Tom) would pick numbers from a hat, call those people on to the stage, and give them a scene/scenario/or game. At the end of the scene/scenario/game then the audience would be asked if that was worth 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 points and everyone in the scene would get as many points as the audience clapped for. (It's in your favour to have your friends in the audience...boosts your applause!) As the show progressed people with lower scores got dropped from the running until there were only two improvisers left - then there was an elimination round and one was crowned MAESTRO! And they won £5, that's the end. Go home.

Make sense?

I got called up for four scenes- I ended up in six because other people kept having scenes where they needed a token lady to show up and I kept being the only female in an aisle seat. (also? I'm way super volunteery) (Yes, that's a word.)

Everyone did a really great job, it was a lot of fun, and we're going to be EVEN better next time. That being said, because this is MY blog and it's all about ME- here's what I did:

The first scene I was in was a parent teacher conference. The set up is designed to have both a battle over status and also as much leaping and justifying as you can shovel in. We kind of lost the plot in the middle but I gather that I, as the head teacher, had called the parents in to talk about their son's eating habits because as a rule we don't prefer the children to eat the furniture and then they were talking about their son like he was a horse and then he had been eating all of the sports equipment and was I sure the school was feeding him adequately and shouldn't that be their responsibility? And MAN that got absurd and confusing quickly. In spite of that we got 5 points! (or 4, I don't actually remember) Woo!

Next I had gibberish scene with Anne Marie. (She's wonderful and Irish.) In gibberish scenes you switch between gibberish and English whenever the directors ding their bell. It's meant to be as fluid as possible going from one to the other in the middle of sentences or even halfway through a word and is excellent for upping the emotional content of a scene because when you're speaking gibberish the only thing you really have to work with is strong emotional and physical states- not so much with the content. Anne Marie had to fire me. As it transpired we worked at a zoo and I had opened the lion enclosure door because I felt that they needed to be free, but 18 people had been killed in the ensuing chaos and really? what choice did she have? Anne Marie was brilliant in closing the scene using the same phrasing I had used about freeing the lions to send me out of the office. 5 points again.

About half the group had been culled at this point and Chris and I got called up to do the final scene of a long running television soap opera in which as many reversals and big reveals as possible happen in the final 60 seconds. This was like taking candy from a baby (a sleeping baby who doesn't know they have any candy) since really all we had to do was cliche after cliche after cliche. I was his mother, I was dying of cancer, he was actually his evil twin, my brain was exploding, I wasn't dying of cancer, blah blah blah and then- (man this would have been cool if we'd actually managed to do it in unison) it was all a dream. 5 points.

You might notice at this point that I've got quite a lot of points.

Anne Marie and I were the final two standing and so as a tie breaker were given the task of filling 60 seconds with neurosis. I went first and freaked out about everyone watching me (inside I was like "what on EARTH am I supposed to be talking about?" First time I'd ever done anything like that.) and then started hyperventilating. This was in character, mind you, I was supposed to be being neurotic; but at that point in the show? Blinded by the spot light? Yeah, important thing to remember: Don't Pretend To Hyperventilate- you'll start doing it for real.

Anne Marie was confused at the beginning of her minute because she had thought she was doing a different word which played in *perfectly* to being neurotic because she kept asking for reassurance that what she was doing was indeed what she was supposed to be doing. It was great fun and Anne Marie won and I'm totally already signed up for the next course in September.

The Tykes Have A Summer Holiday

2010-07-14T15:23:00.003-05:00

At school we have a summer camp for the tykes. It's actually totally reasonably priced and so we end up with some kids from school, some starting school in the autumn, and some from the area. For this week and the next two I am the head teacher/leader/whatever for the junior camp. It's been great fun.

I kind of keep forgetting that I'm in charge so my two wonderful co-teacher/leader/whatever folks have been a fabulous help. I don't forget in the sense that things don't get done but in the sense that a decision will have to be made like "hey, it's raining and we are scheduled to go to the fountain to go wading...that's not going to work. What should we do instead, Casey?" and I pause for a fraction of a second before thinking "Oh! Right! I'm in charge!"

Camp is pretty unstructured, we've got an activity in the morning, lunch and the great kid switch, and then a trip or activity in the afternoon. It's relaxed and focused on having fun. That being said, I'm so pleased that Linda and Lydia are my assistants the first week because they've got so many excellent ideas and it's great to have such wonderful people to get my sea legs with. Here are some things I've learned so far:

1. Free play time is great, but make sure the supplies and activities available for free play vary each day, otherwise the tykes'll get bored. Even the most fun activities are less fun when they are always there.

2. Tykes enjoy some structure. For instance- the obstacle course we built inside during the rain storm was great fun for about half an hour at which point there needed to be a change- the tykes were going from happy to manic and that's not fun to be around nor to experience yourself. We switched to circle games like duck duck goose and The Farmer in the Dell and that allowed us to extend the activity another half hour. Very good to know and learn for scheduling purposes.

3. Just because the schedule you inherited had lunch at 11am, that doesn't mean it's a good time to have lunch. On Monday the kids a: weren't hungry yet and b: finished lunch so early that we had to tuck another extra activity in there before the moms came to pick the morning kids up. Fortunately we sorted that one out right quick.

4. Songs are an excellent transition activity. And though it is the middle of the summer and muggy as anything- it's always a good time for "5 little snowmen fat" which is the current favourite song amongst this week's tykes. I started singing with the tykes on Tuesday while Linda and Lydia were setting up the cookery activity (yes, "cookery" activity) and it worked so well that I've put it into the schedule.

We made gingerbread men and decorated them. The kids counted the cups of flour, tablespoons of butter, cups of sugar, etc. and then each got a turn to mix the dough with their hands (before the eggs were put in). They rolled the dough and cut the cookies out. It was very successful. We didn't have any proper measure cups/spoons/weights so we were eyeballing the dough and estimating everything. Linda was shaking the powdered ginger in and, because everything reminds me of a song, I started singing "shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake the ginger, shake the ginger" At about the same time as the tykes started singing along I suddenly realized that the actual song was "Shake Your Booty" by KC and the Sunshine band and maybe that wasn't wholly appropriate...

Today we made paper plate masks and painted them and sprinkled them with glitter. I probably sang something during that too, but I don't remember.

Rattling around in my head

2010-07-09T07:13:00.005-05:00

It's been a bit of a tough week. A bunch of my friends are going through some rough times and since 75% of them are foreigners we're also all panicking (do different degrees) about the new, more stringent visa laws. I'm good to go for another year still but it has been dawning on me that all of this is both precarious and likely temporary. Though I would like to stay in London and have all my friends stay here too- it is not up to us. So that has been frightening and difficult to come to terms with.

There have been two jobs that I have applied for recently that would have allowed me to stay in the UK. One I didn't get an interview for and the other I spent Wednesday taking four hours worth of assessment tests for. I didn't get called back for a second interview for that one.

(Part of the issue is that I'm not even sure what fields to even look in. The two I've applied for differ in all respects.)

I've been feeling down about it and so had tea and freshly picked cherries at Peter's house this morning when I picked up a bass I'm borrowing for a gig on Sunday. We had a good chat and literal tea and sympathy can never go wrong. Particularly as I now get to play with a 19th century, fretted, guitar shaped bass with a lion's head scroll for the next week.

I came back to the flat and glumly walked around the kitchen, bumping into Ella and Geoff. Ella, being the darling she is, listened to me moan for a while and then came up with an idea that hadn't totally occurred to me.

I currently *love* my job with the tykes. I bounce down the hallways and sing and grin and regularly walk into my boss's office and announce grandly that I. LOVE. MY. JOB. So I'd rather not lose that. That being said, I've run the numbers and it would be nearly impossible for me to make the amount of money that I need to through teaching alone (especially since I don't have a teaching degree). So the new idea is to scour any and all arts jobs bulletins, arts schools, and arts organizations to see what vacancies they might have. If I can make 70% of the amount I need from one of those jobs and if they'll allow me to take either one day or two mornings off a week then I can do that and my tykes and make enough to stay.

I don't know if it will work, but the new idea at least offers a glimmer of hope where I was starting to feel like there wasn't one. Between the two of us we've already managed to find two more jobs that would fit the bill, sound interesting, and I have a hope of getting. They both close on July 19th- so there is even still time to apply.

So there you go, those are the things rattling around in my head currently. Wish me luck?

PS. Happy Birthday Mommy! Happy One Day Belated Birthday, Grammy! Happy Three Days Belated Birthday, Papa!

4th of July

2010-07-05T18:27:00.002-05:00

The fourth of July was very well celebrated over here. On the third a bunch of us made a picnic and trekked over to Victoria park where they were having a World Music Festival. The vibe felt a bit like the concerts at Woodland Park Zoo where yes, the music is wonderful, but the real joy is in the picnics, little children dancing, people watching, and chatting with your friends. We made, once again, about 3 times as much food as was really probably necessary and had a marvellous time. Some of the non-musicians were a bit bewildered as the rest of us nattered away trying to sort out just what time signature each song was in.

At nine the park closed but we weren't done hanging out so we walked along the canals and ended up in a field right next to a pub where we sat and chatted for another couple of hours. I've recently learned to do headstands consistently and as it was a nice balmy evening and the grass was soft- I kept tipping myself upside down. Might need to stop doing that...I think I'm starting to annoy my friends...

On Sunday Meredith and I went up to Nottingham to visit Sarah and Dave and Dave's family. We had a big barbecue, met a bunch of his relatives, and re-enacted the battle of Trent with water pistols. It was very silly. Some of Dave's second cousins-in law (...) were visiting from Australia. One of them was an eight year old named Amy who had a pony named Aussie, a cat named Bull, and two adolescent mastiffs whose names I have forgotten though I am certain that I was told. She was great. Really looking forward to the wedding now, it was lovely to see Dave's family on their own turf- all relaxed and friendly and funny. So welcoming to us as well. We all took the train back to London together and it was nice to have the dinner club together again. We played a version of the surrealist game the exquisite corpse. In our version you write a phrase, the next person draws it, the third person writes a phrase that the drawing is illustrating, the next person draws that phrase, and so on until the paper is all used up. We thought to use Newspaper headlines as the phrases and ended up with some seriously bizarre results.

No fireworks, but a very well celebrated Independence Day none the less.

PS. Happy Belated Birthday, Mical!

Improv Class! Characters

2010-07-05T18:05:00.002-05:00

Today my favourite of the teachers we've had so far taught and it was an abnormally small group, only twelve of us, so there was a lot of time to try things and really get into things- which is always a treat.

We played a game called "hot seat" where you come into the space as a character and then everyone else gets to ask you whatever questions they want. A good way of doing this for anyone, but especially as beginners, is to base your character on someone that you know. Because there was no impetus to work on setting a scene or develop a plot or anything like that, it meant that all of your energy as an improviser could go directly to fleshing out who your character was.

It was riveting.

The bar was set frighteningly high by the first few people to go- the characters were heartbreaking and breathtaking, fully fleshed out and interesting. Because we weren't sharing *our* stories but instead our *character's* stories it meant that everyone felt very free to hand out secrets, to be open, revelatory, and honest. It was incredibly intimate; it was an honour to be entrusted with these characters' stories. At the break we were actually hugging each other- it had been such an intense experience.

I chose a friend of mine and was shaking before my turn. "I don't know how she's going to answer these questions!" I thought, certain that I wouldn't be able to give as authentic (it wasn't really a performance... an experience?) as everyone else had. And then there she was. Or someone rather like her in any case. I had about 12 minutes of answering questions and she didn't even pause. Best of all, she was internally consistent and her motivations were clear with later statements making references to earlier statements and everything making sense. One of my classmates later said that he got so angry with her. Not me, her: such strong opinions about everything. She really rubbed him the wrong way.

Man, that was exciting.

stuff.

2010-06-29T11:21:00.003-05:00

It's too hot to get any proper work done. I finished one job application and should hear whether I have an interview by Friday. I'm working on the cover letter for another job application and have made good (if not exactly excellent) progress on that one. I had viol consort this morning, which was a joy and a wonder; improv class last night which was good because I *finally* got a scene to work, got my hair trimmed, and am heading off to yoga class momentarily.

I've also been breaking things: the gut holding the tail piece of my bass just broke so the bridge is sitting on my table right now, I broke my phone and so lost 2 years worth of numbers, I broke the chair in the living room (admittedly it was broken when I found it, but I repaired it with wood glue and now it is MORE broken) and burned my finger with steam while making lunch today.

All in all it's probably a wash in the productivity v. destruction sweepstakes.

Charity Sunshine

2010-06-23T16:54:00.002-05:00

I have a friend named Charity Sunshine. She's pretty extraordinary. Whenever I read about her recently I tear up, so click on the link please.

Orff Workshop

2010-06-22T01:26:00.003-05:00

This weekend I was lucky enough to be sent to an Orff workshop down in Richmond. Orff Shulwerk is another school of thought surrounding music education. They had a lovely little browsing library and I found a book called Comparing Dalcroze, Orff, and Kodaly by Gilles Comeau. I thought "oh, perfect!" and proceeded to write this whole paragraph down:

"For Jaques Dalcroze and for Orff, rhythm is unquestionably the most important element, the foundation of all musical composition and all artistic works. It is not surprising, then, that they both use physical movement as a basis for music education. In the Orff approach, however, movement is not the only medium of choice; language is also fundamental in learning rhythm, perhaps even more important than movement. Kodaly, however, tended to emphasise the melodic component by developing a pitch discrimination, a melodic ear, and inner hearing. It is not surprising that he favored singing as the preeminent medium for music education."

Now, I don't know how helpful that description is for you, but it was brilliant for me. The workshop was run by a delightful German man named Rodrigo who spent most of the workshop being both incredibly silly and incredibly tactile. (Do German's have a smaller personal bubble than the Brits? I kind of suspect not and blame his lack of one and willingness to invade others' on his Portuguese background.) We learned a number songs from around the world and he did an excellent job of teaching us the songs in small and fun steps so that we were playing games and enjoying ourselves, but also repeating the songs again and again and again without getting bored.

There was definitely more of an emphasis on words than I've experienced with Dalcroze workshops. That being said, it wasn't always easy to remember the words since the songs we sang were from Taiwan, Tanzania, Japan, and Germany. (And the German one was in nonsense words! But German nonsense words...)

One of the things that I really liked was that three of the five songs we learned were singing/dancing games. So that the movement was definitely tied to the rhythm, but also tied to specific group movements that meant that if you got it *wrong* well, you knew.

In Dalcroze one of the exercises that you do is called a "follow" and you move about the room in a manner dictated by what you hear from the piano. Say, for instance the teacher is trying to get everyone to walk around the room to consistent quarter notes. The only thing that is helping you to know if you are absolutely dead on or not is the sound of every one's feet. If you hear one big CLOMP! then it's all good, if you hear cloclclocclclomp....then you're not together as a group. Eventually you feel it in your body and through this method you develop a very secure sense of pulse and inner rhythm.

In contrast- this weekend what we were doing was playing games that involved rhythm: our Taiwanese song eventually involved two pairs of partners with sticks sitting perpendicular to each other and tapping them on the ground and slamming them together in a specific rhythmic pattern. The sticks made a hash sign that opened and closed as the rhythm went around. There was also a dancer that had to put their foot in and out of the opening and closing square in the middle of the sticks and then make their way gracefully across the square while stepping at specific times dictated by the rhythm. It was a lot of fun and if you got it wrong your foot was caught in a bunch of sticks (fortunately made out of lightweight plastic, not painful) so you knew you got it wrong. I don't know how much that helps if you haven't already got a pretty sound sense of rhythm, but it was a great dance/game; a lot of fun.

One of the other things that I really enjoyed was that any time we were dancing, or doing some sort of complicated body percussion, or playing on the xylophones and other instruments: we had to keep singing the song. This meant that one or the other aspect (singing or rhythm) had to be solid enough to you could put it on autopilot while focusing on the other aspect. At least, that's how I dealt with the complicated multitasking issue....

Lots of fun, lots of good and useful ideas, and if you even mention in passing a Japanese clapping song game about making Mochi I will force you to learn it and play it with me because I *love* it.

Ps. Yes, it's the same Orff as Carmina Burana. I love that man.

More of Meredith's Pictures

2010-06-20T13:15:00.005-05:00

Did I mention that Meredith rented a car? She had to get to a rehearsal in Brighton on Monday so it made sense to get a car that would also help us all to get around and to pick people up as they arrived at the train station. We figured it would be a good idea to get the dent insurance because they upgraded her to a Mercedes Benz (the only automatic they had available) and as a special deal that meant that she could add a second driver for free.

I DROVE ON THE LEFT! IN A MERCEDES! IN THE COUNTRYSIDE! AND IT WAS AWESOME!!!

(I love driving.)

(These pictures have nothing to do with the driving. Except that the way I felt at the end of the gruelling six hour hike/ramble? Similar to the way I felt after driving successfully through teeny tiny country roads without hitting anything or anyone. So this is a tangentially related picture.)

Meredith's Birthday

2010-06-20T12:47:00.004-05:00

For Meredith's birthday she rented a cottage in a little town just off of the English Channel and we stayed there as a group and made delicious food and chatted and laughed and bumped our heads on the ridiculously low ceiling beams and went on a six hour long hike over many, many, many hills. It was beautiful and we were drenched in sweat and grime by the end of it. Meredith said it would be okay if I posted some of her pictures so that you all can be jealous...

Tykes Run Around Like Crazy

2010-06-18T12:01:00.006-05:00

It's been a busy few weeks in tyke-land. Last week was Sports Day! There were a variety of races and then a picnic complete with "ice lollies." The parents have to stay behind a barrier and the kids run around in a somewhat organized fashion while their photographs are taken. It's kind of silly and a bunch of fun.

The tykes were divided up into a groups of yellow, blue, red, and green and then led around to various events by their teachers, classroom assistants, or very responsible year 4s. I was in charge of Circle Ball and Leader Ball, both of which were played with bean bags... Circle ball is essentially a relay race around a giant circle, and leader ball is the same thing but in a line and with the added difficulty of throwing and "catching" the bean bag. (I don't think any of the tykes caught any of the bean bags ever.)

My station was supposed to take 15 minutes with another 15 minutes for a snack and water break. Unfortunately a round of circle and/or leader ball takes about 30 seconds...so we did it four times in a row! With much jumping and hollering of encouragement.

Can I just take a moment here to tell you about P? P is a lovely little nursery girl who bears an uncanny resemblance to a basset hound. Huge, beautiful brown eyes and the largest jowls you've ever seen on a three year old girl. She spent the first half of the year consistently confused and bewildered looking, but over the last term and a half or so has brightened up considerably. It turns out that jowly three year old cheeks when they smile? Are the Best. Thing. Ever. And P was having a grand old time at sports day, racing around the circle in her hilarious torso swivelling run with the biggest grin ever on her face. I freaking love P.

So that was sports day. The week before we had had International Day! International day is a trip. The school is almost absurdly multicultural, and in addition the parents can sometimes get absurdly competitive. This is all to the good on international day when everyone shows up in their own traditional costumes and two of the nursery rooms get given over to FOOD. Piles and piles of delicious, amazing, fabulous food. The two rooms are divided up amongst countries or regions and then decorated by the various families, each trying to out do the others. Mmmm. Korean sushi, home made hummus, fried plantains, empanadas, crepes filled with nutella, delicious piles of things from the Indian and Middle Eastern tables, and I don't even know what I was eating from the Austrian table but it was cheesy and awesome. (Man, now I'm hungry again.) The poor kids are given hot dogs in the cafeteria while the teachers and parents get scrumptious food...

It's not ALL about the food, it's also about the costumes! And because the parents need a chance to photograph their babies- we had a parade. The parade also included a short musical performance which was my responsibility. It was really rainy that week and usually International Day spills out into the garden, but because of the mud we planned to have the parade and performance in the library. Except that someone then made the decision that it was bright enough and dry enough to do the parade and performance outside even if the eating still had to take place inside. This meant that it was totally unorganized and the tykes ended up streaming out through a filter of their parents which meant that I had to figure out how to A: collect all the tykes and B: distract them from "Mummy!" so that they would sing their songs.

A few minutes and some very over exaggerated warm up exercises later I pushed the encroaching crowd of parents back and we got along to singing. Whew. They were delightful, and if their are now some videos floating around of me jumping up and down and looking ridiculous- well, that just goes with the territory.

Do you remember my little Italian Boy? His family is moving back home after this week so he won't be around for Open Music Day on the 30th. On sports day his mom apologized to me that she was taking him away early (I encouraged her to come see our class this week) and explaining to me how much her son loves my class. He has apparently taken to singing our songs to himself as he wanders around their home. He also gets disappointed whenever we fail to sing his favourite song ever "copy cats" so she asked me for the lyrics so that they could sing it together.

I love stories like that. Just love them. And the lyrics were put in his box that afternoon.

Games! Games! Games!

2010-06-18T06:36:00.003-05:00

Oh Sandpit. I love you. For those of you who don't know, Sandpit is a monthly (more or less) event put on by an organization called Hide & Seek, and it is a testing ground for pervasive games. If you search for a definition of pervasive games on Wikipedia it redirects to location-based games which I'm not totally sure I agree with, but close enough. Point being, FUN! and PEOPLE MY AGE! and WHEEE! I love Sandpits because to me they feel like a networking event at a convention for interesting people doing interesting things. Case in point, on Wednesday I met this guy, who was getting spooked because so many people were recognizing him on the internet. I also had some great conversations with a pair of people who do satirical theatre events in North London, a tourist from LA who was stoked that he chose this time to come visit the ICA gallery (where this month's sandpit was based), and one of the people who run The Fun Fed. And those are just the *new* people I met, I'm already friendly with about, maybe 10%? of the folks who show up to these things.

So the way it is organized is that you show up and you are given a schedule and description of the games being played that night. Then you choose which one's you want to play and you go to the reception table thing and get stickers for 2 games. They've been having trouble at the last few events because there have been way too many people for the number of games planned. So this month they beefed up their offerings and overshot a little bit. This doesn't bother me because it meant that I ended up getting to play 5 games. Well, except that the last one was oversubscribed again (people were just showing up without having stickers) so we split the group in two and instead of playing I ended up leading the second group.

I remember what I played because I've still got the row of stickers attached to my T-shirt:

7:00-7:30: Fun Fed - outdoor games that basically boil down to "warm up activities for workshops" and/or "team building exercises." (My favourites.) There were only four of us who managed to get out there for the first time slot so that was lovely but then I had to leave early to get to...

7:30-8:00: Pavement Wars- one team was on lines and the other on cement squares. Each team had a "king" surrounded by the other team and though we could only move one person 2 spaces (lines or cement squares) each turn we had to get to reach the king and have the whole team hold hands at once.

8:30-9:00: Sangre Y Patatas- run by a guy who has developed this game as an iPhone app we were in a black box theatre with bells hung from the ceiling. Everyone had their eyes closed and whenever you bumped into someone you had to say "patatas" if you were a benign potato or "sangre" if you were the monster. Every time the potatoes bumped into the monster the potato died loudly and dramatically. (or quietly saying "oh, crap.") This was actually hilarious and amazing. Our group was so big that after the first free for all we were broken up into three mini sessions and timed to see which monster could get the potatoes out fastest.

9:00-9:30: Fun Fed- I went back again but this time there were more people and it was awesome.

10:00: Werewolf- this one is a tradition at Sandpit events. I gather that they keep trying to not do it but then get yelled at so they keep putting it on. It is "Mafia" but where the evil creatures are werewolves instead. At the planning meetings for Montreat in 2001/2002 we played this every night, so I'm familiar with it. Basically you get a group in a circle and give everyone a secret role- werewolf, villager, seer, or healer. Then each night (everyone puts their heads down) the werewolves decide who to kill, the healer decided who to save, and the seer gets to find out which players are werewolves. Then when everyone wakes up (opens eyes) they are told who was brutally eaten by werewolves and then get to start wildly accusing/defending the other players until they eventually decide on one person to lynch. (This game is rather violent, isn't it?) If the werewolves are convincing enough they can win, if the villagers are clever enough and figure it out- they win.

So that was the games. It was well good.

Improv Class!

2010-06-08T17:38:00.004-05:00

I've signed myself up for an 8 week acting improvisation class! It is the follow on from the two weekends that I've done and the first class was last night. There are about 15 of us and each class is three hours long. I gather that a number of different people from The Spontaneity Shop will be teaching us. Last night we had Claire, a lovely woman from Chicago. (There were 3 American women in the group, we had some USA love.)

Because it is level 2, it means that the group has self selected to be even more awesome. Level 2 is one that you can just hang out in for as long as you want, continuing to work on skills and playing and practising. It's a class but it's also a lab, if that makes sense. I think about 50% of the group has already done level 2 at least once before. Of the two weekends that I did only three of us managed to persevere this far. You do level 1 if you're curious or want to work on breaking out of your shell or whatever. You do level 2 if you secretly love this stuff. (Oh wait. Is that just my reason? Not so secret now.)

At one point I was telling someone about the improv choir that I did this weekend, and I think was also drawing parallels between what we were doing and contact improvisation. They asked if I had had an abnormally structured childhood...

ps. Yoga brag: I hung out in a head stand today. Just 'cause, you know, I can. Whee!

Instructional Video

2010-06-08T17:33:00.002-05:00

This kid is fabulous. I don't understand how the "Drawdio" works but it is SO. COOl! And I think that if I had made one when I was 8 like this kid is, I probably would have seriously annoyed my entire family.

Improvisation Choir

2010-06-07T10:35:00.001-05:00

Ella’s mum Jilly is running an improvisation choir in London and they had their second rehearsal/meet up on Sunday so I went along. It’s been a while since I’ve done free improv with people and it was a lot of fun to do it again. Especially since I figured out how to belt in my lesson with Jilly on Wednesday so I can get LOUD now. Whee!

There were about 8 of us there, and I gather that there was only about a 50% overlap between this week and last time so the full group is a bit bigger than that. We spent the beginning playing with a lot of different sorts of sounds starting with things like growling and then moving that into pitched sound while keeping the same level of energy and tone colour. We did one free improvisation and discussed it afterwards, noticing that we felt like we wanted to move more. So that was the next aspect we added to it- each sound had to be associated with a movement. We then continued to do improvisations and change the parameters a bit each time to see what came out.

Once we relaxed into it and started playing with what we were doing it was really fun. One woman, a puppeteer, and I ended up trading places a bunch and the whole group was doing a great job of listening and joining in with what was being offered. At one point we were clearly in a jungle with a number of monkeys, some birds, and wind blowing through trees. At another point one woman crouched down into the middle of the circle and started intensely speaking the words “Once upon a time” and the group immediately hushed and created this spooky, magical soundscape.

The fun thing about voices is that there is nothing between you and the sound- so things can change instantly and you don’t need to worry about the right pitch or technique or anything like that. Voices are available and just there in a way that instruments are not necessarily.

People were being both bold and generous with their offerings to the group and it was a pleasure to work with them. Four of us went out for drinks and a snack after the rehearsal and chatted about the experience and what we were looking for/what Jilly was looking for out of the group. It was interesting and the sort of conversation that I haven’t had in a while.

Last week Meredith and I were discussing what it had been like to create my final project from last year and what we thought went well and how we would do things differently now. Again- I hadn’t talked like that in a long time, and it was nice. I miss talking analytically about artistic processes.

I need to make something soon...

My feet are filthy

2010-06-07T10:28:00.001-05:00

There has been a lovely stretch of gorgeous weather this week. Doubly nice as it has been half term this week so other people also had time off and there were activities going on. On Saturday I was down in Brockley with some of the fire-hazard folks to run games at the summer fete/festival they had going on. Perfect weather for a community festival. And for running around barefoot in the grass.

Fire-hazard's target audience is usually young professionals without kids who are looking for something unusual, active, and somewhat silly to do. The festival? Was filled with toddlers and adults who were just chilling out and listening to the music. Not a lot of adults looking to run around (did I mention it's been hot? It was hot) and many of the children were far too small to be involved either.

Giving it a go anyway, we set up an obstacle course with bits of rug, cones, a handy bench, and three big yoga balls. The idea was that you had to get through the course without touching the grass (it was lava you see), get to the inflatable sword at the end of the course, and then get back again all without being hit by the roving lava balls (yoga balls) or the rock giant (one of the team with an inflatable axe). It was pretty fun and we were having a good time with it.

Every once in a while we'd get a curious kid staring at us or starting to do the course and then I would try to corral the other children who kept stealing the yoga balls to roll them towards the runner. I think we only had three people who weren't from fire-hazard run the course.

There started to be some trouble with the yoga ball stealing children throwing the yoga balls too hard at passing strangers, so being the responsible adult that I am and the only member of the team that was not actively afraid of children I hollered at them all and made a big circle out of red cones and codified the game that they were already playing- which is to say "tag" where whoever was "it" was running away and you tried to hit them with the giant rubber balls so that you could be "it" next. No throwing, only rolling, and no going outside of the cones. Harumph.

We played that for quite a while (me and the kids; the rest of the fire-hazard team was refining the lava game) and then I was losing them and the balls again so we played something called "Manhunt" which is hide and seek and tag combined into one game. I made the other fire-hazard folks put up a boundary perimeter of cones that included a big area to run in and some trees for cover. Each of the kids got a neon yellow arm band and 10 seconds to run and hide. At which point I sauntered over to the one place that they actually could hide and managed to get three of them before they could run away. When you got tagged you gave up your yellow arm band and started running after the others. Last one with the arm band still on wins.

After that game ended we packed up and went off to enjoy the rest of the festival figuring that we had dispensed with our duty. It would help next time if we all had fire-hazard T-shirts and if there were some official looking signs. In spite of the announcement from the stage I think one of the big problems was that people couldn't tell if we were part of the festival or just a bunch of people having a silly looking picnic.

We played manhunt again with just the five of us later that afternoon. It was fun figuring out how to hide in a huge group of people and how to get away without running and freaking out the rest of the people innocently hanging out at the festival. (Most importantly- I won. Remember how everyone else is freaked out by kids? I found the highest concentration of children that I could and so spent most of the game making things out of pipe cleaners in the crafts tent and keeping an eye on where the rest of the players were out of the corner of my eye. They never even looked for me there.)

Oops.

2010-05-28T19:10:00.003-05:00

So I was at Meredith's house tonight catching up on silly television shows for teenagers and chatting about all and sundry. She has recently been tested for food allergies and turns out to be allergic to all sorts of things- so she cleaned out her cupboards of offending foods and gave them to me in a Tescos bag. Which promptly broke as I was walking home. In the middle of the street. With cars heading towards me from both sides. So I froze in the middle of the street and fortunately all the cars stopped and one even asked if I was alright as I gathered up what I could save from the broken bag and strewn groceries. I got most of it, but left a bit of a trail of tea bags and broken boxes. The rest was jumbled haphazardly in my arms which was fine until the sweet chili sauce slipped through and landed on my toe where it proceeded to shatter and splat chili sauce all over the pavement and my flip flop.

The rest of the walk home was uneventful, I managed not to drop anything else and was not hit by any cars or bikes or lorries. Phew. That being said, I'm such a litterer.

Yoga Class: Bragging Again

2010-05-25T19:32:00.003-05:00

I'm not good at this pose. I have a lot of trouble with it. Normally I can catch my ankles, and if I'm doing really well that day I can catch the outside of my feet and then hover at 60 degree angle over my legs.

But today? Today my yoga teacher turned the lights off, had us close our eyes, and just relax into the pose. Something about the environment or the prep that we had done throughout the class or just how my body was today meant that I just melted. I kept realizing that I had just a little bit more, so I would shift and...melt. It wasn't a strain or anything, I mean, definitely a stretch, but not a strain. And then I felt my bangs brushing against my knees and realized that if I just flexed my feet then I would be able to... just a little bit farther...and there! There! My forehead touched my knees and then rested there. My hands were still wrapped around my feet, not out on the floor like that guy, but the rest of it? That's what I did.

I was so excited that as we came out of pose I whispered "did you see that?!" My yoga teacher thinks it was because I wasn't trying as hard. How very Zen.

I haven't been this psyched during a yoga class since the first time I did a headstand. And this time I didn't even end up breaking my glasses!