A little somethin' somethin' Eric and I made...

Today I fell asleep in the library and I no idea how long I was asleep. I was reading The Queen Anne House (about the Queen Anne period in American style) and fell asleep in its pages.

I had class until 11, then I kind of hung around, then got something to eat, then went to the library for an indeterminate amount of time. I know that I woke up at 4:30. So... I could have been asleep for 3 hours, or 15 minutes. I wasn't paying attention to time at all.

Do you ever fall asleep in public then wake up and feeling very self conscious about what you might have dones while you were sleeping?

In other news, I got a haircut.

(Or a theatre arts studies major a lampshade)

So, this afternoon I was doing homework. I was reading a chapter in "The Scenographic Imagination" which I found quite interesting. However, as the sunlight began to wane I realized that my dimly lit bedroom was not the best environment for hours of reading. I decided I needed a lamp. I made a plan: I would run to D.I. and buy the best lamp I could find, then return shortly to finish my homework. I then set out on what would become a very complicated adventure.

Finding no suitable lamps at the Deseret Industries, I decided to try Savers. After all, Savers is slightly classier, and they have stickers that tell you if the lamp works before you buy it, which is always a gamble at the D.I. So, I jumped in my car and scurried over to Orem.

 Arriving at Savers, I found a suitable lamp. It was a chintzy gold faux-finished number, and it did not have a shade. Because I, like Blanche DuBois, "Can't stand a naked light bulb any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action" this would need to be remedied. So, I  made my purchase and set off for Wal-Mart.

-Robert Edmond Jones

So, today I was assigned to rip apart platforms. As I labored, hitting them with hammers and mutilating them with crowbars, my boss came up to me and said, "I just want you to know, you're ripping apart history. Those platforms are like 40 years old." That explained why they were built with nails. But as I continued my rampage of destruction, I took some time to thoughtfully ponder their history.

What shows have these platforms seen? Hello Dolly? Our Town? Brigham: The Man and His School--the BYU Musical of the Century?

What great legends have walked these worn steps? The real Janet Van de Graaff, class of 1988? That's the only person I could think of... here's a photo.


A part of history died today. But we kept the wood, so the platforms will live on!

So, the other day at work I learned how to weld. This was a new and exciting experience for me. There is something thrilling about learning how to bond two pieces of metal together. Understandably, I was pretty excited.

So, after a brief training from my supervisor I was left to my own devices. I suppose this was not unlike the practice of throwing someone into a pool in order to teach them how to swim. I was to practice with the scrap metal and attempt to weld four pieces of metal into a square.

I put down my welding helmet (by the way, welding helmets are truly one of the great technological wonders of our age. I had never worn one, but it is a fascinating experience. The glass darkens itself as the light gets brighter, it will blow your mind) and I began to weld. I was doing pretty well, if I do say so myself. Occasionally the metal, which had bits of dirt and paint on it, would catch fire (not the actual metal, of course, but the extra bits) and I would have to blow it out. As I welded the third corner I smelled some smoke, so I blew on the corner, or what I thought was the approximate area of the corner. I went back to welding, but I noticed that the smoke smell lingered. I stopped to investigate and looked around the room through the glass of the helment. I looked at my left sleeve and saw a pinpoint of light. I removed the helment to discover a full-on blazing 3-4 inch flame. My sleeve was on fire, or rather, the sleeve of the flannel shirt I was wearing that didn't actually belong to me, and which I had borrowed without asking. Nevertheless, I was aflame. Let me just tell you, it's a disturbing thing to find yourself on fire. Memories of "Stop, drop, and roll" flashed through my mind. However, I quickly came to my senses, began to frantically pat my sleeve, and the flame was extinguished. My sleeve continued to smolder for a moment, but I escaped free of injury. In reality, it wasn't a huge deal, but in the moment, it seemed pretty big.

After it was all loaded onto these little carts, we just had to move it into the scene shop, a distance of probably 30 feet down the hall. This seemingly small task would prove Herculean. The problem was that we were entirely covered in oil, along with the polished cement floor. We slid and slipped and fell all over the place. I was straddling the steel in order to clutch the casters, as any attempt to grab onto the steel was futile. We were falling all over ourselves and the steel, wallowing in the slippery dirty filth. The floor was slick and by the end of it I was covered from head to foot in oil. It was worse than the Exxon Valdez.