Happy Opening!

So we were in at 8am again today. I'm getting used to this so its not too bad.

We already had County of Kings set up from the night before so we go right in to the set up and focus for the show. I thought it was going pretty fast - I was just matching focuses to other lights. But the stage manager was geting really stressed out that we weren't going to finish. So I kept trucking along. I guess Sean in the genie was having trouble so it was slow going for them, and thatvmay haw been what was stressng him out. So there was a problem with a bulb in a light I was working on and I was aheadish and Jarrod snapped at me when I couldn't figure out what bulb I was using...it was just high tension.

The stage manager requested that Jarrod program because it was faster. So he obviously didn't trust me and I was frustrated because I love programming. But oh well. I observed and learned a little bit about the keystrokes and everything. There was a problem with the gels, but we got it worked out pretty quick and it should be set for the rest of the rep.

So then we got in to the tech reheasal
And the stage manager had more light cues than we programmed. Andhe didn't know which ones were programmed or not. So he called all of them and I hadto figure out when my go was real or not. A lot of the times his cues were off or wrong or he would say the wrong number or the wrong label.  It was awful. He would say standby when it should have been a warn, he said go when there weren't goes, he saidbthe cue number 30 seconds before the go so you're waiting like the cue is imediate and it's not. It was so hard not to like...say something. But we have to be polite. So finally, he called the show next to me in the booth and I just read my cues over his shoulder to clarify what he was calling. It's going to be a long run.

The show was okay. A couple screw ups, but we blamed it on the SM. After that we did the change over to the Taylor Mac show in 30 minutes which was rockin. So we just kind of..hung out until the next show.

I did my pickle before the show and it was awesome :) I will post pictures later. Sean did the Taylor Mac pickle and it was also awesome. But he tried to do three pickles together and only the first one lit. It was too bad, bit it was still cool. The Khmeropedoes pickle is tomorrow and then we're done with pickles until the second rep.

So yeah. I got to watch the Taylor Mac show and it was great- controversial, funny, entertaining. Back at the house now chilling with the house mates, and I don't have to go in until 12:30 tomorrow. Awesome. Easy posting from now on, loves.

Tech It.

Today's been really chill and I'm super enjoying it. We were called at 9 instead of 8, so I got to sleep alittle longer. Sean and I went early to Jack's Cafe which is across the street from our theatre. It wasreally cheap and super delicous and the employees were amazingly friendly. It was great to start the day off with a solid breakfast. Anyway, that's slightly off topic of the work day.

So we got in at 9, talked for a bit about the day, and then jumped right in to the set up for Khmeropedies, the show that is up for preview tonight. We had to move the horsecock on the 1st electric because it was bumping lights (great name for the giant cord, right?), which involved a ton of breasting of other battons and re-picking and tying ad everything. Tedious, really. We rehung some of the legs and then "dressed" them, which basically means you fold the bottom under so it stays straight and pretty. I'd never done that before but it has a neat, clean effect. Once that was done, we added some side gels to the deck lights to stop the bleed, pit some black duvetine on the outside doors so the sunlight wouldn't come in. I guess that's the standard black fabric that they use to cover over things that need to be blacked, but still accessible. We just pull black fabric from the costume shop generally...I didn't know there was something specific you were supposed to use. We did some other minor tasks as well, but nothing too new or strenuous. It was nice, and relaxing.

After that, they started dry teching,testing, and cuing the show. Sean is programming and opperating this one so I was just on standby and I got to work on my pickle. I hate designing...it's not really my strong point and I don't like struggling for ideas. But the show I am doing the first pickle for - County of Kings - gave me some really cool ideas and I can't wait. It's about a New York native who grew up getting in to trouble, doing drugs, drinking, getting thrown in jail, and living on the streets. His set is a lot of black metal - some huge trusses and black metal caging on the bottom. So I have two black stands to weight down and string the pickle across the middle. Then, either I am going to carve the show title in to two pickles and string them across, or I am going to hang a scroll-type thing with the title in between two pickles (one on top and one on bottom), so they light up the scroll. It's going to look sweet. So I have three hours to eat and then head back to the theater to work on that. Then, at 8pm, I have to get back to work. We have to switch the theater over to the County of Kings show so we can focus and tech it in the morning. That show runs at noon and I am light oping, so that should be a busy morning (and fun because I get to display my pickle!) and then we do Taylor Mac at night, so I'll just be hanging out. I think I might stay and watch the show. Or work on the Khmeropedies pickle - I'm not sure what I am doing with that one though. So yeah, easy night, early morning, long day tomorrow. Let's do it. 

Focus!

Today was probably one of the better days. The exhaustion is getting to me and I can tell, but I am pulling through it. Obviously - there isn't really another option.

The morning was ridiculously easy. We did a lot of cleaning, a little bit of re-cabling and labeling, just busy work, basically. We took an early lunch and came back at 1 - and then we focused. I love focusing. It was a good 4 hours of focus, but we worked hard and got everything done. The stage manager was the one who came to focus instead of the designer. So that was cool. He came with a minor plot and spike taped and basically marked on the floor where he needed each light to be. It was a cool system. I've filed it to use later if I ever need to do a focus on a show - regular or touring. I want to sit down and talk with him about like...stage management stuff too. But I don't know that I will get a chance once we are busy with the run of the show. We are teching and doing a preview tomorrow, so we will be with the company all day, so we'll see. But the focus was good. I was nervous at first, focusing with a professional, but there was no need. It was easy and fun.  I learned that you can bang on a light if it doesn't quite do what you want. As long as it's off. Then the bulb wont break. So when I couldn't barrel it to get it sharp, we banged on the barrel. When I couldn't shutter-cut off a curtain because the shutter was caught, we banged on it. It was sort of fun, hah. I also learned that sometimes it's better to not have a sharp focus if there is a lot of light bleed or "flare" as Robert, the stage manager, called it. He was really helpful and eager to help Sean and I learn as we worked on the lights and it was a lot of fun.

After that, we switched over to Taylor Mac, the next show in our first repertory set. We took dinner, and then we came back and chilled. Focused a few of the Taylor Mac lights with Andy again, so I enjoyed that. Like I said, focusing is my home base. I know it and I am comfortable with it. Hopefully by the end of the festival, all the rest of the electrician stuff will be just as comfortable to me. Once Taylor Mac got there, it was pretty easy going. Jarrod is light operator for the show and he is programming that one too (Sean and I will get to program for Khmeropedies and County of Kings, which will be cool, and a little stressful). So we were basically on standby for most of the tech. I sat backstage and ran up the house lights when needed, but other than that, it was really relaxed.

Taylor was done with his tech by 8:45 or something, so we switched the rep back to Khmeropedies and get ready to go home for the night. We are supposed to be in show blacks for tomorrow, and Jarrod specified long black pants. I'm a little in screwed, because when I packed, I followed SVSU's rule that you only need long sleeves and long pants if you are seen onstage during a change. everyone else just needs clothes that are black. But that rule doesn't fly here. Everyone has long pants and a t-shirt. So I have yoga pants, and I will tape over the colored part on the waste. Then I will have to go shopping and find more suitable clothes. The little things you learn in the real world, right?

So, all in all, today was a lot better. Hopefully it stays this way.

And I keep forgetting to add! They told us Sunday (us being Sean and I, they being Jarrod and Andrew) that, as the apprentice electricians, we had to work on this thing called the Pickle. Every opening night of the shows, we have to electrify a pickle themed like the show. And I guess the pickles look really cool because they glow because of the salt. So I was really nervous about that because I don't really like designing, and I'd been screwing up so much I didn't want to screw up the pickle too! So I stressed a little. But Sean and I were talking and we have a lot of really fun ideas. I'm kind of excited to work on the Pickle - it will be a nice break from the real work of the shows. But we haven't had any down time to work on it. Jarrod said we were supposed to work on it at the theatre when we had downtime. But we work pretty constantly. And when we had downtime today while we waited for people to get there, we were on standby, so we couldn't really leave to go do pickle stuff. So I don't know. We have to make two by Friday. I'm not really sure how it will work out. But we shall see! Taylor Mac, the drag queen, and Lemon Anderson, the New York jail bird will have pickles! (We're thinking a disco ball glitter pickle and a pickle in a jail cell.) Maybe I'll post pictures when we get it done.

Hopefully I will have time to post in the next few days!

Getting Closer to Home Base

So today we started with a minor lesson on the board. It's an ETC Element, so I am pretty familiar with it after my work on the SVSU summer shows last year. Patching and light checking remained fairly easy going until I opened the wrong show. It's saved by date, but the board is set up on a different date and time, so when we save a show as "5-24-2011" it comes up under the wrong day and gets really confusing when you are trying to find the latest show. So the mistake wasn't that terrible and Jarrod was pretty understanding about it. But still. We continue with the silly mistakes. But I guess everyone makes them, and I am kind of coming to terms with that. Even today, Andy came to focus some lights and it turns out he typed some of the paperwork wrong and we had to re-circuit a bunch of stuff. So it worked out alright.

After that, we dropped all the gels. That was also pretty easy going. We had to jam in some of the Par gels because they had barn doors on them too., and when I couldn't get some of them, Chris's answer was, of course, "you have to." So I kept trying. And eventually we just ditched the frames and stuck the gel sheets in to the barn slots. Not everyone's favorite solution, but it worked. The rest of the gels were easy and went by really quick. We are starting to get in to the work that I am more familiar and comfortable with.

We moved the light board in to the house as well, and had to drop the data lines and VGA cable and everything. Robert, the house TD told me to make sure I put stress relief on the cable before I dropped it. I misunderstood what he meant and just made sure it didn't tug from the connection when I dropped the cable and made sure it had slack and left it. He meant tie it to the beam above the drop area so it pulls from the string and not over the edge and holds its slack. So the sound guy says that cables aren't secured and people would trip, and I can't go up to fix it because I am in the lift working on lights, so Robert goes up to fix it and calls me out on my poor stress relief job on the cable. So I learned how to properly put stress relief on the cable. Sad way to learn - I don't like getting called out, but I know now and will always treat my cables in the best way possible.

We focused a few lights with Andy. Only 14, but it was still a nice break from all the cabling and new information. I like focusing. I know focusing. It's tough to screw up if you know what you're doing and can figure out what the designer wants. I can read them pretty well. So that went well. It was an on and off day with my confidence of what I know in theatre, but it's getting better.

We got out at 7 instead of 10 like we were supposed to. I went to the Sottile Theatre, which is right next door to the Robinson and watched the preview of the Magic Flute. It was pretty a cool - a German Opera with lots of trap doors, pyrotechnics, neat costumes, and a beautiful but simple set. Everything was pretty cool. It was long, and I was tired and I could barely stay awake for it or focus on it, but I'm glad I went. 

Getting Comfortable...Sort of.

Today was a little better than yesterday. Still feeling like I have a long way to go, and that the people in charge wished I knew more, but it's working I guess. There were a lot of silly mistakes and misunderstandings of instructions even after they were explained and double checked. 

We started the day laying Marley floor for the dancers. That was kind of fun, actually. Everyone said Marley was a pain in the but and tedious, but I enjoyed it. You have to even out the floor first. If there are uneven sections, they get gaff taped over so the differences aren't as intense. Then, roll out one piece, tape down the end, and then tab the end on the opposite side of the stage. Then, when it's all positioned properly, you stamp it out in a straight line so you can flatten it. I guess big theaters have rollers (like mini steam-roller type things) that flatten it faster and easier, but I didn't mind the stamping. You have to do that same process for each strip of Marley. And sometimes, since the Marley was old and had been in storage, there were holes, rips or tears that we had to gaff tape over to smooth them out. Once the whole floor was laid, we went over it with Purple Power solution to get the grime and old gaff glue off of it. Some of it would come up if you went over it with new gaff (working it like a waxing strip), but not all of it. So that was a cool experience. I'd never done that before. 

Then, Sean and I went back to the whole cabling and label process. We ran cable for the side catwalks and then cross beams. It was cool - Jarrod sent us up with the plot and the instrument schedule and we had to find the lights that were in the right spot, run the cable, label it, and make it pretty. Sean was unsure of how to read the plot and confessed that he didn't like the paperwork and the technicalities of everything. I felt perfectly at home. We had a little bit of confusion because Jarrod forgot to tell us that all the house instruments were listed and we were only cabling the bolded ones, once we figured it out, we were on a roll. I think it took us longer than Jarrod wanted, and it was a bit a set back and point of frustration, but we got through it and everything was set up correctly. 

Once that was done, we moved on to the boom poles. There are 4 booms stage left and 4 stage right. We had to remove the C-clamps from all of the lights and then attached them to side arms on the booms. Chris is our Journeyman Carpenter, but he also knows rigging and electrician work and has done a bit of professional theatre work. So he knows what he's doing, for the most part. And sometimes he likes to rub it in our faces when we don't know exactly what we're doing. So we're trying to get the c-clamps off of these lights and I struggled a lot. I am weak to begin with, and my wrench is only a 4 or 6 inch instead of an 8 inch, so I don't have as much leverage. And when I say I can't move it, his answer is "you have to." Helpful. But eventually I got him to get the ones I couldn't and we got the lights on the booms and kept on our way getting things done. It was tough doing the lights on the top of the booms because it was awkward holding them in the air and tightening a c-clamp on a vertical pole and what not - but it got done, needless to say.

Then, the big test came. Jarrod and Andrew had a production meeting. So they were leaving Katie, Sean, Chris, and me a huge list of things to complete (more than we could have been able to do) to keep us busy while they're gone. Once they're out, Chris brings up the idea that it's a test to see that we're working hard and that we can handle ourselves and everything, and that they would come back and check all of our work. So we start busting our butts to crank everything out. We got it done for the most part. One boom downstage left didn't seem to have the right multi, but when Jarrod came back, he showed us where it would break off and plug in for the boom as part of a show rep. I remembered him telling me about it, but I'd forgotten and I felt bad because I hadn't written it down when we'd talked. But he said he didn't expect us to get as far as we did, so it wasn't too bad. Needless to say, we passed the test. Chris was good and organizing and directing us and planning out the tasks. Katie was good at helping and encouraging and everything. We got through it. Solid.

So we're working on running the now found cable to the downstage left boom, and at this point I was tired and everything, and frustrated with the minor tasks I'd been screwing up, and stressed/nervous because I didn't want to screw up again. And Jarrod told me to get a break-in for the multi which would have a male connector to the multi and female circuits. But somehow I got female and male mixed up in my head (stupid, right?) and had to re-do the whole thing. And you can tell when the people above you get frustrated at the stupid things your screw up. So that was annoying. But I wont make that mistake again any time soon, you can count on that. So I've been struggling a lot with little things like that, but I guess it's good to struggle with them now and get it out of my system, instead of screwing it up on a job where I am not an apprentice and expected to be learning. 

And I've been compiling a list of things that would be good to have if I want to work for real in a theatre. Or even just in my regular work at SVSU. Things that we tend to have on hand so I don't get my own, or that we get around not having, but really are necessities. 

Headlamp, instead of trying to hold a flashlight while focusing lights or doing other hands-on work. All the cool, important, experienced people have them. 

8-inch wrench. To get those lights that I am a little too weak to master. 

Good hammer. Mine is little compared to most peoples. And a little bent. 

Bungie coil thing for wrench or hammer. Most people have them for when they work in harnesses or in the lifts. they're helpful, unlike my tie-line on my wrench that is always too short and hangs funny and gets in the way. 

Carabiener clips. They are helpful for holding things. 

Tool belt or belt clips to hold things. I never have enough pockets to carry everything.
Real cargo shorts for women. I've been learning that my cargos have fake pockets when I really need them to be real. 

And I'm sure it will get longer as time goes on. 

Capability Versus Competency

So today was another long day - in at 8am, out at 9pm. But it was a lot easier than yesterday. No outdoor work - we stayed strictly inside the Robinson Theater. The warm outdoor air was actually welcoming after the hard work inside. Even with the AC running, it wasn't chilly - just a comfortable working temperature. I kind of missed the sun, though.

Anyway, we got right to work where we left off, labeling cables and circuiting the units. It was pretty dull. I had to keep asking a lot of questions about the system and had to redo a few labels because I misunderstood what the M.E. wanted. I am perfectly capable of doing the work, but when his system is so different from what I'm used to, it's hard to switch over. I feel like he might label me slightly incompetent as he keeps correcting me. But I always get it right in the end. Maybe it's just me being paranoid because I don't do it right the first time, but I don't know. I still have a lot of things to learn. Even when it's just the proper way to do something that I've been half-assing since I got in to theatre.

After the cabling, the boys wen up and started throwing weights so we could take the batons up to the right trim height. I started labeling multi-cable with Katie so we could power the electrics as they went. It was pretty easy going work. Eventually, Sean and I went up to the catwalks and ran some multi from the circuits there to the floor level where it could be used to power electrics without raceways. I've never worked with multi, really. It was cool. The breakouts come from the multi which is plugged in at floor level, and then the breakouts are run with extension across the baton so the units can be powered, rather than having a box and running extension or having the actual raceway. Anyway, Sean would often go to run a piece of cable, or we would discuss how to do a certain piece of the work, and we would talk it out and do it the way I thought would be most efficient, and then the ME would come over and fix it to the way Sean had been wanting to do it. It was a joke at first and then it got frustrating. I wanted to make the right decisions the first time. And I kept feeling like that was another reason for the team to get frustrated with incompetency, although it wasn't really a big deal in the end. One we had to run a lot of connector cables, and I asked the TD to send some up, and I just assumed they were the proper gage because he was the TD and I thought he'd know. And we ran all this cable and when the Jarrod checked it, I had to go back and re run some of it because it wasn't the right gage. It was mostly Sean and my fault for not checking, but we didn't even think the guy in charge would have handed us the wrong stuff. But he's not the lighting guy. He knows all the big stuff, Jarrod knows all the specific lighting stuff. We got the work done and made the cables look pretty and everything got done. If we ever have to do any of it in the future, I'll be ready.

After that work, I went up to the apron bar (which was a lot lower than the one at SVSU, thank god) and started to run cable there. It was also frustrating then when I needed things to be reexplained to me, and I could just come down or have someone come up and show me what was going on. I had to find the lights that were already up there, move and space them properly, figure out where the breakouts were so we could have circuits for the units, and then run cable when things were out of reach. It wasn't honestly as bad as it sounded, but it took me a while because I'm short and a little out of reach of the apron pipe in most cases. I had forgotten a flashlight and a drop line and tie line at first, only going up with my wrench like I would at SVSU. We don't usually run cable in the air - our apron pipe is so high it's sort of  an "it is what it is" basis, unless Tom wants to go change it. Once I got the tools up that I needed, it worked out decently. I got the cable tied up, though some of it isn't in a proper clover-hitch. But I think it's okay. The ME seemed pretty understanding that the apron pipe wasn't really worker friendly.

So anyway. It was a long day. Not as hard as yesterday. I don't feel as starved or dehydrated. But it was frustrating because there is so much that I have to learn about real world theatre, and I am working with so many people who already know a lot of that stuff. They've worked on Broadway or in real theatres or have theatre degrees and lists of experience. It's crazy. It's great to be able to work with them and make the connections, but it's intimidating, and it really makes you realize where you're at in your line of work.

I have a long way to go.
Lets hope the next 4 weeks are a good jump-start to where I need to be.

But. I'm peacin' for the night. Off to the porch to hang with the housemates until bedtime.
Back tomorrow at 8am. Supposedly we might get out early. Here's hoping.

Diving In

Alrighty.

First day on the job and it was looooong.

We started our day at the Cistern Theater, helping with their load in. This is an outdoor theater that needed to be completely built - the stage on the actual cistern, the 4 scaffolds used for lighting and sound, the sound equipment area, etc etc. We were to do this from 8am to 12pm and then move to the Robinson Theater, which would be our main location for the duration of the festival. We were told we would be there until 9pm.

Yep. 13 hours. Minus 2 for lunch and dinner, so 11. Not so terrible, but not a walk in the park either.

The first thing you notice when you get to the work site are the newbies, like myself and my fellow electrician Sean. The kids who came in not wearing carhart shorts and work boots, lacking the proper tools, not knowing what to expect, looking fresh and clean rather than warn out from a month of arduous work.

But despite that, we got right in to it. The trucks needed to be unloaded, the stage needed to be built and leveled. Lots of heavy lifting. Summer stock theatre is not the place to be if you can't tough it with the best of them. So we lifted and moved and unloaded stacks upon stacks on materials, sorting them and prepping them for the building.

Once the platforms were together for the stage, we moved on to the scaffolding used for lighting. This work required experienced workers in harnesses climbing 30 or 40 feet in to the air with heavy metal poles. Scary, sort of. I didn't get to be one of the harnessed workers - probably a good thing. There's no way I have the balance, strength, and focus to be up there working. Instead, I stayed on the ground, passing up materials to those high above me. It was tough work, but cool to watch. The systematic movement of the harnesses, the placement of the scaffolding. A team leader was placed with each scaffold, whom I would assumed was a certified rigger. They watched the other workers and informed us how to properly pass up the pieces. It was incredibly safe and incredibly well managed. The cooperation was integral to the entire process. When putting up vertical poles, no one could move. Everyone got in to position, got set, the pole was handed up and placed, and then they could reposition for the next one. People on the ground had to be constantly aware of the possibility of falling poles, or the necessities of those in the air. Someone would pass up a pole and you would hear a "got it" from above, and the passer would reply "I'm off," meaning he had let go of the pole and it was in the air with the harnessed workers. Without these minor phrases, the whole process could go to chaos, with poles dropping all over the place. But enough people knew what was going on and the new ones caught on quick, and the whole process went fairly quickly and safely.

Once we were done there, we move to the Robinson, which was a lot nicer than work in the blazing sun and humidity of the outdoor Cistern Theater. The Robinson is a tiny little indoor theater, and it's air conditioned. I don't really want to stay inside for 13 hours, but it's better than dying of heat exhaustion. We got right to work once there - we stripped the electrics and had a worker in the grid throwing weight to keep everything safe and even. We did some new things too - we move the electrics to different lines, requiring us to drop pipes and re-hang them later. It was tough work - the pipes were heavy and required the whole team to lift them in order to remove the chains. But it was something I'd never done before. One of the other workers, Chris, and the TD, Andrew were working on the grid and in the fly system throwing weights and keeping the rigging safe. I wish I could have worked with them because that is a huge void in my knowledge of theatre. Every time something comes off or goes on a pipe, the weight has to be altered so the pipes can go up easily, but don't go flying to the ceiling when you let go. Once, Andrew thought Chris had cleared a pipe, but he hadn't yet. We took off all of the lights and it flew about 5 feet. luckily, a couple workers caught it in time to weigh it down. It was super dangerous...probably like 900lbs overweighted, which is not safe. That thing could have hit the grid and pretzeled and destroyed everything in the theatre, including us workers. We always talk about things like that at SVSU, but it's never actually happened. It's a good thing to experience, so you know the dangers, but we were lucky in that situation.

After that, Sean and I continued to hang lights along the newly arranged electrics, while Chris and Katie went up to the grid to "kick shivs," which was a term I was unfamiliar with. each pipe is hooked up to a counterweighted pulley system, and each pipe is tied up with cables and pulleys that are attached to the grid. These are the shivs. And when you move electrics around on pipes and want to rearrange the spacing of the fly system, the shivs have to be moved. And when they are stubborn or there is limited space to move them around in, they quite literally have to be kicked. Interesting. Supposedly this is something that very rarely happens in college theatres (we never do it at SVSU). It's mainly something that would happen to touring shows staying in the area for an extended period of time (like Cirque Du Soleil...). If it was onloy to be in the area for a day or two, the tech would just deal with the space provided. But when taking over a theatre for a long period of time, or at Spoleto aparently, we things get moved around. It's probably a good skill to have, or at least know what's going on, if I want to work for a major touring company like Cirque.

By the end of the night, we got down to the more tedious work of cabling the lights we'd hung and labeling all the connections. This is standard in a theatre, but everyone has their own system for cabling and labeling. We don't normally tape or label at SVSU, so although I knew the theory behind it, it was a good experience to actually put it in to practice and get in the swing of it. Cabling was a lot easier here, too, since each electric had a raceway (also a new term I learned - the piece with the circuits on it that runs the length of the bar) unlike at SVSU. At home, only our 1st electric has a raceway and the rest have boxes that can be added or removed from various pipes. Here, we just moved the raceways. Tough, but made the end job a lot easier.

Anyway. Today was long. I learned a lot, got refreshed on a lot, and observed a lot. And I asked a lot of questions when I could. It's been crazy. Working in the sun all morning wore me out. I drank tons of water and tried to eat regularly, but I still think I got a little dehydrated and a little staved. You don't realize it in the heat until it's too late and then it sticks with you all day. and 13 hours is a long time to feel rundown from the heat. But hopefully tomorrow will be better - I know what to expect, and I'll be indoors out of the heat for most of the day.

Considering everything I learned and experienced today, I am excited to see what tomorrow has to offer. Even despite the fact that I'm dog tired. These people get home at 10pm, party until 1am, and then get up for work at 7. I don't know how they do it. I'm ready to curl up and sleep for like 12 more hours, and this is day one! We'll see. I'll sleep well tonight, work hard tomorrow, and maybe earn a night to relax and stay out late despite the daunting schedule of the next day. Step by step, right?

Working 8am-9pm tomorrow. Stay tunned :)