Too Much Drama for One Week

This week was busy enough, and now everything's been knocked out of whack by one thing: a very small college play. How could their drama cause me so much drama?

It goes like this: the band rehearsal room at the college backs up to the "alternative" theatre (pretty much a tall-ceilinged classroom with seating for maybe 20 people), which means that sound from one bleeds through to the other. The few times they have actual plays in the theatre, we have to curtail our classes and rehearsals. The plays never start before Wednesday, so the two classes that are affected are mine. Last year, this caught me by surprise on occasion (as in, someone came in and said "oh yeah, we're having a play tonight"), so I checked with the appropriate people at the beginning of the semester to make sure this didn't happen again.

I thought it was working well; I got an email about a month ago telling me the dates of the plays, and they said they wouldn't start until a Thursday night, and the start time would be 8:00. So you can imagine my chagrin when I got an email on Wednesday afternoon saying that, in fact, the play would start Wednesday (as in that night) and the starting time was 7:30. This forced me to cut my improv class literally in half. If I'd had a week's notice, I could have scheduled a nice quiet little written quiz for the second half, but I'm not the type of prof who pulls surprises like that (although, in retrospect, I should have given the test, seeing as how three people skipped class that night).

So I reluctantly agreed to cut my class short, as well as combo rehearsal the following night (understand that the theatre people have been nothing but cordial and apologetic, and we've agreed on a compromise for future shows). Then I read the bottom of the email, where they mentioned weekend matinees...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

This weekend, you see, is Halfling's recording session for his jazz scholarship, and the plan was to use my rhythm section from the last "Kev and Friends" gig and do it there in the band room. The play would nix that as well. Since it's become my project as much as his, I was now starting to take this personally.

I scrambled to check for alternatives: the choir room was also in use; using Halfling's school would require the presence of a "real" faculty member and all kinds of red tape to call off the security dogs (literally, I think). We finally decided to move all the living room furniture and just do the thing here at Casa de Kev. No interruptions (not even Tasha, who'll hide under a bed upon hearing the first chord), it's close by (especially for me, heh), and he's comfortable playing here. Whew--we can collectively exhale now.

So all that's left is the final preparation tomorrow, along with just getting through this teaching week. Dingus put it best when he asked how a four-day week could feel so long.

Is it spring break yet??