the sun will come out to blind you dream!

Starved Rock was absolutely beautiful, even better than I remember from when I was little. I am so glad I went, I walked for miles and climbed into all sorts of places that may or may not have been on the trails, I don't know, I couldn't tell from the signage. There's one point on the trail (maybe) where you climb down into a den, and you're surrounded by limestone bluffs that are probably 60 or 70 feet high all around you, and it is so quiet and cool and beautiful... oh, I just loved it. Laura, we should do a family thing there, it's sort of equidistant from all of our houses and it's really fun.

Today was the first day of orientation and I think I'm really going to like it SO much that I am just feeling all happy and full of song. I really like my colleagues and the department is really cool and the people are really helpful and supportive. And I'm going out for dinner tonight with a bunch of the other MFAs, so my social dormancy is finally coming to an end, thank God.

One thing that I found kind of amazing is that they have so many productions going on here... I think there might even be more than at UI. There are the five shows per semester that are within the department (this is comprised of mainstage, gallery and freestage shows) and then they have all these peripheral programs that mount shows all year long. So it looks like nobody who wants to work gets shafted, which is a relief. Plus, there's a couple of professional theatres in town, which I did not know about and will have to check out at some point. And I met some people in the directing and design departments that I totally hit it off with, which is nice. I was just worried that the actors would be cloistered and we'd just be staring at each other... so that's good, too.

O.K., I have to go because we're meeting at 6. If you are waffling between e-mailing me or not e-mailing me, ALWAYS err on the side of e-mailing me. The End.