Heigh-ho, heigh-ho

I’ve been a bookish goody-two-shoes type my whole life, so the first day of school has always held a certain allure for me. In elementary school it meant a brand new outfit laid out the night before, an L.L. Bean backpack with my initials on it packed to the brim with crisp notebooks and sharpened pencils, and essays titled “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.” In middle school it meant getting up at the crack of dawn to tease my bangs to just the right height, finding my locker, and feeling certain that nobody would like me. In high school it meant spending hours trying to look like I’d spent no time at all getting ready, finding the perfect spot on the seating chart, and angsting over choir auditions. In college it meant putting posters up with Elmer’s Tack, reconnecting with friends, and sizing up the freshmen (“fresh meat”). In grad school it meant getting into professional mode, freaking out about my class load, and getting used to people calling me Ms. Muller.

The nature of my job is a little bit like having 4 or 5 first days of school every year, but the first day back to work in September still has a special meaning for me, and that day was today! Some things never change. I still had to plan out my outfit last night, and I could barely sleep because I was so excited to start. I’ve seen most of my friends from work in the past few weeks, but it was still fantastic to be back in the office with them. One perk to my schedule is that I get to gradually ease back into work with a whole week devoted to prepping the show (in this case, Donizetti’s Daugher of the Regiment) before rehearsals start. The creative types don’t show up until next week, so basically we all sit around geeking out over Post-its (Wow, I’ve never seen that color of orange in a sticky tab before!) and trying to make our paperwork look pretty. Prep week is completely different for me now that I’m an assistant director. When I was in stage management, prep week was filled with a mixture of tons of paperwork and a fair amount of physical labor, cleaning the rehearsal rooms, taping out the set, and generally getting everything ready for rehearsals to begin. As an AD, I’ve done a lot of my work before prep week ever begins, getting to know the show as well as I possibly can. There’s a limited amount of paperwork for me to do (most of which I finished today because I’m overzealous like that), so my main job is to soak up as much information as possible this week and make sure I’m completely ready for the director to arrive. My job is made easier by the fact that we’re doing a recent remount, so most of the information is readily available. And...no physical labor at all, so I can wear heels. Yay! Can you tell I’m happy to be back in the land of the employed?

I’ve been keeping busy outside of work, too. This weekend I attended a percussion recital, went paddleboating in Hermann Park, had game night, and made new friends at the Flickr meet-up. Think I can sustain any kind of social life now that I’m working? Hahaha, think again.