Just in time for Halloween a little Zombie action

a little of Maddie's makeup work for the Zombie movie. She ended up playing one of the zombies due to a slim actor response... She looks pretty scary and it is not every day that a mom doesn't panic when she gets an IM that says "it is freezing here and I am covered in blood"

Happy Halloween

Two days off

Yippee for Teacher conventions.... We have today and tomorrow off and I could use the vacation from school.

Tuesday all the Read 180 people went to a training session for the day on how to run and read the billions of reports associated with the program. He was a very good trainer and we learned a great deal more than we had at either of the other two training sessions. A couple of us got into a little trouble for giggling too much... yes that would be me and the teacher next to me, but shoot it was a long day.

One weird thing that has popped up in every single meeting we have had with these people is the phrase "come to Jesus meeting" Our first trainer must have mentioned that 4 times when she was talking about students and convincing them how important this program could be for them. I just thought it was an odd little phrase. She came up for a second training at the school and used the phrase again.

then a few weeks later the salesman for the program came up to discuss issues and he used the same phrase. I found that a little peculiar. It is not something I hear often. Finally at our most recent training with a completely different guy the dang phrase popped out of his mouth. I mentioned how odd it was in the car when we went off to lunch and danged if he didn't spout it again when we came back. Emily pressed down on my hand and I could not stifle the laugh... honest it was not my fault.

I am loving Google-talk. I get to talk to Maddie a couple times a week now and all it cost me was the $11.00 microphone. She is getting acclimated to school pretty well. I can't remember if I mentioned, but she did not get cast in the musical, then she was not accepted into the dance troupe either. She was pretty bummed out, but then she found a Zombie movie to work on. It is a senior film project and she is helping with makeup, playing with latex and oatmeal and all sorts of cool stuff.

She also has been working on the set for Best little Whorehouse and enjoying that a lot. She has quickly moved up to the only girl they let use the power tools to now running the follow spot for the show. That is pretty cool.

her most exciting theater moment happened recently when she got to paint the floor of the theater. It has always been a thorn in our sides that they will not let us paint the floor of our local theater. It is kept nice and shiny for the musical performers, but it reflects light like crazy and wreaks havoc with lighting. She said it gave her quite a thrill to be dry brushing the stage floor.

The big weirdness that has happened to her is that her roommate has ditched her. She found a post-it note saying that she was moving out in a couple days to go room with a friend in another dorm. She never said a peep to Maddie about moving and poor Mad doesn't even know if the school knows that she has moved.

Maddie did send her an e-mail asking for some particulars so that at least she knows what to expect. As far as I know if roommates are having issues they are supposed to go through mediation before they move. I am anxious to find out details.

I am headed up to see the show next Friday and I hope we get a chance to talk a little.

The weather is very nice today and I think I shall go to Janesville and do a little Halloween shopping. I am way behind in getting ready for trick or treating.

THANKS SPIDEY for the wonderful card and of course the confetti :)

Weekend update

Friday was the meet and greet for the authors so I went to that... not that I am an author, but I have assisted on the technical side of the book the Middle School is producing so I got an invitation. After school I got my dress ironed and my hair curled... My timing on the hair curling was a little off... I was ripping out ot the rollers as the parade passed me by. (heck that sounds like a song) It was homecoming weekend too. I only missed a little of the parade, but it was a short one.

The party was held at the historic depot in town. I had not been in it since they restored it and it was quite nice.

I was early so I helped light all the candles and wandered a bit to look at the tobacco aritfacts. They had a mess of tables set up in the big space, but I quickly found the back room where two tables were set up. That was in the pottery room. Our little town is slightly renowned for it's turn of the century potters.

It was cosy back there and away from all the people. Frankly when the pianist started playing I was transported back to my musician days. I think I have played hundreds of these things, but was always sitting and watching. That is a much more comfortable perch for me than trying to be interesting face to face.

The hors de voures were good... stuffed mushroom caps, little bisquits with cream cheese and blackberry jam,
They had some lovely local wines from Wolersheim as well. It was quite elegant... The plates were even real china with gold rims. La le da

Aparently the book festival on Saturday went well. Friend Rob introduced Jackie Mitchard. I was still in bed sleeping until ten .... Our presentation did not start until one. I got up and ironed my dress and set off.

We were upstairs in the library and my two co-presenters were already there. We sat and talked a little. We were definately winging it. The guy before us went a little long so we were a little rushed. Got through the presentation. Rob did all the talking and Kathy and I played Vanna White to him. She ran the projector and I held the posters :)

It went well and thank heavens it is over. Another uncomfortable setting for me.

On Sunday they had the film festival and showed movies in several different venues. I was not at all interested in the family films or the eco-films so I headed straight for the Anime. There was a short presentation about the popularity of Rascal the Raccoon in Japan, where it has been said he is more popular than Mickey Mouse

It went on a little long and then they played Hayao Miyazaki"s Spirited Away,

His films were featured since he had been an animator on the Rascal animated sereies in Japan, not to mention the fact that he is huge now in Japanese animated films

After Spirited away all the kids left and since one other adult had entered the room the presenter decided to rehash his Rascal talk again. I sat through that once more, but it put off the next film by almost an hour.

Howls Moving Castle was next up and was the film I really came to see. I enjoyed that one immensely.

I did not have time to see Princess Mononoke since the awards for the independant films were going on already. I quickly ran over to that building and was able to catch just the end of those presentations.

Tesla and the Bellboy won the Critics choice award so I was satisfied.

That was the weekend
Yesterday was a pisser of a day at work. I was tired and the kids were tough. I sometimes wonder if I will survive in this new job. I am not able to take criticism very well in it, but I think that is because I feel so unprepared and have no foundation to rest my rather fragile ego on.

Hopefully today will go better

And the Oscar goes to

Puck and I were invited to judge films for the book and film festival here in town. I also have been assisting my friend Rob in creating a book about the town ... It has been slow going and he has been working on it for a little over two years now. He is having the students interview elderly residents and write biographies. He originally began it as a writing assignment for his seventh graders because he had so many good writers in that grade

When he didn't get the principal job the joy went out of his life and the project got put on a back burner. I have been scanning pictures and formating some of them... cleaning up some of the imperfections and such so now I get to go to the open house and meet the authors (la de da) Jaquelyn Mitchard is the guest author and is giving the keynote address. It could be fun, but I am not so fond of the meet and greets.

We watched several of the films at one of the other judges houses. The first one was pretty terrible so we were ready for a long night. It was a civil war movie and the actors they used were mostly reinactors rather than actors LOL. Heck they killed off the only decent actress in the whole 2 hour movie and left us with the rest of the mess. The cinematogaphy was quite good, as was the music, but without caring about the people it was a problem. They tried to put too much history in it and made a poor judgement call with a dream sequence between the main character and President Lincoln. You should never portray famous faces unless they actually look like the person. Yikes! That was bad.

We decided to view the shorts after that and WOW. Two excellent Film Noir shorts. The first was a quirky little comedy about a jazz musician. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but some of the others didn't get the absurdity of the piece.

The next film was truely Acadamy Award material. It was called Tesla and the Bellboy
OH my gosh I just found it on YOU TUBE God I love the internet

We all loved this one and I think it will get our critics choice award.

the third short film was very odd and called Pin Monkey This one was pretty good. The filming techniques were great. There was something wrong with the sound though and the topic got a little too creepy and gross. Too Bad

We watched a polka Documentary too that was excellent

It is going to be tough to decide.

Puck was by far the most thorough judge. He really knows film and pays attention to details that most people do not see. I forget how smart he is sometimes :) He also spends his evenings watching movies and probably sees one or two each night.

We had an excellent time.

Tomorrow I am going to see a production of Throughly Modern Millie and am looking forward to that