for the sake of irreplaceable persons, we'll dramatize a specially preserved extravagance

Wow. One week down... 103 to go. Good Lord. O.K., so there's lots to say about this whole situation, and not all of it good... some of it alarmingly bad. But I will refrain from discussing such matters on the information superhighway. And I will say that I am in some ways the luckiest person on Earth to have gotten into a program with some of these people. Some of my classmates are SO talented... both at the graduate and undergraduate level... and I can't wait to work with them. And I really like the directing recruits for this year. A bunch of us went out last night and talked and talked and it was just wonderful... so I think that my fellow students will be my saving grace. When everything else seems totally insane, we'll have each other.

I haven't really had any time to check out any churches or anything like that in town because I've been so busy (o.k., get this. Eight hours of callbacks. PER SHOW. SO I was like, well, I'm done reading the sides I was assigned, I'm going to leave and figure out all this crap I have to have ready for Monday, and they said NO. YOU HAVE TO STAY FOR THE WHOLE EIGHT HOURS. EVEN IF THEY'RE DONE WITH YOU! WHA????). But so I was driving by this huge Catholic church in town, on my way to the callbacks incidentally, and I saw all these Reverend Phelps protestors surrounding the place with their horrible placards and leering rictuses! So I leaned out my car window and yelled "Shame on you!" I'm sure to great effect. So I called the church and told them that I was sorry that they had attracted the attention of such bad people, and that I would like to know why it happened, if they were taking a stand on an issue, or something like that. Haven't heard back, though.