day one

Today was huge. The Lottery kids are fantastic, and so smart. A full day camp with high schoolers is a lot, though, and by the end of the day I was ready to collapse. 

We read through the play, discussed it, auditioned it, and cast it all in our seven-hour day. The teaching artist, Nancy, has a really fascinating way of running a room that's entirely different from what I'm used to. She goofs around with the kids more than any other teacher I've seen, and rarely insists on focus or corrects behavior. Granted, there's not much need for that in a class full of mature high schoolers who all want to be there, but she seems to gain their respect more as a friend than as a teacher. She's very collaborative, so I had a lot of teaching experience today, from leading warm-ups (my friend Jeff Sachs - hi Jeff! - will be pleased to hear that "To Be or Not To Be" was a total success), to helping plan auditions. Much of the lesson planning was done on its feet, with only a loose structure and a set of goals to guide her through the day. 

I'm beginning to realize that I'm horrible at correcting behavior that distracts others from the drama. I always want to let the kids figure it out for themselves, but today, they rarely did, and we wasted some time before one of the other interns stepped in to ask the kids to make choices that furthered the drama and their character's development. It's certainly something to work on, and I've got ten weeks to work on it, so I'm glad I caught it now.

After a day like that, I needed some time outside and a good dinner to perk me up, so I made my first trip to the Seward Co-op. Between that and the farmer's market on Saturday (I didn't blog about it but I'll make it back this week), this vegetarian is thrilled. I'm absolutely in love with Minneapolis' food scene! I wish co-ops like this existed near Evanston, and although our farmer's market is great, this one was so beautiful it had me in tears. 

After dinner, I surprised myself by actually making it to a yoga class tonight, despite my exhaustion. This one was a more advanced class and was heated, so between that and the bike rides there and back, I'm completely wiped out. I liked today's class better than yesterday's, and I can already feel myself getting stronger (I held Crow today for almost twenty seconds!) I think, though, that I may have messed up my shoulder, so tomorrow will likely be this week's day off for recovery. 

Tomorrow's goal is to bike to CTC instead of taking the bus. I think I've figured out my way around well enough to make it, and it's not a hard route to follow. I guess we'll see if I've recovered enough from today to expend the energy tomorrow morning!