December, December

It has been such a long time since I last blogged! Oh no! Things have been very busy with the close of the semester approaching, as I'm sure you are experiencing or can imagine. The Drama Club hosted a mentor/mentee Thanksgiving dinner, which was a big success, right before break. My mentee Alan and I made mashed potatoes :) I am really proud of how far the program has come since it sort of flopped the past few years, and hope next fall is even better! Although we probably won't have specific mentor/mentee events in the spring, it is always good to have an upperclassman you can trust to call or ask questions or just hang out with, even after you start to feel at home here.

Thanksgiving itself was a really nice well-needed break for everyone, it seems. I went home after Christmas shopping with my Mom, and Michael came to our house for the break which was really nice! The family gathered on Thursday and, with much threatening from my mother on a kiddie table outside on the deck, we settled to owl-print napkins and a huge meal. We were so over-prepared for dessert, everyone is still working on finishing the pies and cakes now! Mike and I helped Mom decorate on Black Friday, and over the weekend we headed back to our respective schools for the last 3 weeks of classes and exams.

As far as exams go, I have 3 in the topics that are the hardest. Politics, Psychology, and Spanish III apparently don't have the presentation mentality that Lighting Design and Directing do; while I am looking forward to preparing an ACTF-style poster and presentation for Equus in Lighting Design and am almost done with my directing scenes and staging analysis for Directing, studying for those exams will be crammed between trips back and forth to the Barre Opera House, where I am stage managing The Nutcracker next week. The Directing I Class scenes will be presented in a showcase free and open to the public on Monday, Dec. 13th at 7pm in the McCarthy theater. The scenes do contain mature content and language, so be aware of that, but they are a wonderful mix of funny, scary, thoughtful, and romantic for an adult audience.

Also coming up in terms of SMC theater is a benefit concert called Make a Joyful Noise! to raise money for the Devlin family, strong members of the Saint Michael's community who discovered in November that their daughter, Kathryn, has myelodysplasia, a pre-leukemic cell state. The Devlins' son Patrick died last fall after a long struggle with leukemia.We are hoping to give the family as much support as possible while they go through Kat's bone marrow transplant in Boston! You can send donations to:
John Devlin
Box 161
Saint Michael's College
One Winooski Park
Colchester, VT 05439
You can also send small things to help them out for their trip to Boston for Kat's transplant. Here is a list of places the Devlins stopped frequently if you are interested in sending a small gift card:
Au Bon Pain, Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Sbarro, Breuggers' Bagels, Panera Bread, Trader Joe's, Starbucks, Dragon Bowl, Bertucci's.

The benefit concert will be at 6pm in the McCarthy theater and includes uplifting music and dance pieces. A suggested $3 or more donation will be accepted at the door. I will let you readers who are unable to make it know how it goes! I don't know if I'll be able to write again until after exams and The Nutcracker are finished, so stay warm, enjoy the holiday music, and send a prayer out for the Devlins.