Weekend Coffee Share

 

If we were having coffee, I'd tell you I need to leave by 11:30 am because my first substitute teaching gig starts at noon. I'm not quite sure on what I'll be doing. I'm to fill in for the CLC Director. I just got access to the list of openings yesterday and that was one that was open. I figured why not. I also signed up to teach social studies next Friday, all day. I'm planning to sub while I look for a permanent job.

This week I self-published a play I wrote called Dora McDonald on Trial. Set in the early 20th century, the play covers Dora's trial for shooting her lover. Dora was married to Gambling King Mike McDonald, who had wealth and power. She took up with Web Guerin, who when the affair started was half her age. After 16 years together, Web tired of Dora's drama and jealousy. Nowadays theaters are looking for plays with small casts and I just couldn't figure out how to have all the lawyers, family members and witnesses and keep the play under 6 actors.

Image I used for the paperback version of Dora McDonald: On Trial

I have started another play with a smaller cast and wanted to publish Dora so that it doesn't just gather dust.

Last Saturday in the wee hours, i.e. 5am, I went to meet a friend I taught with in Korea. He was en route to his high school reunion in Kentucky. I hadn't seen him since 2007! We went to a nearby coffee shop and caught up. He gave me a copy of his book, A Walk Across Mongolia: Lessons in Progress from Sacred Mother Mountain to Mother Lake, about his trek from the southern border of Mongolia to the northern one. Mongolia is so sparsely populated that some days he'd walk all day and never see a soul. 

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I had an interview for a summer job teaching in Albania. A week went by and I hadn't heard anything so I figured they offered the position to someone else. However, on Tuesday I got an offer. I've accepted it because I've never been to Albania and I think I can manage a quick trip to Greece, another country I haven't been to. I'm waiting for the contract and if WWIII breaks out I'm not going, but I'm optimistic.

If we were having coffee, I'd tell you that while the weekend was warm, the week has been quite chilly and sometimes rainy. The grass is nice and green and some buds are sprouting, but there's no reason to get out all the spring clothes just yet. 

Oh, I'd also tell you that I've spent a lot of time interviewing people and writing for a homeless center a high school friend manages. I thought it would be a good use of time while I'm job hunting. I've been working on her newsletter. I never thought it would take so much time. I like I spent 24 hours last week. I didn't anticipate interviewing 7 people. I'd call them and leave a message, then they'd call back and leave a message. A third of the time spent was on telephone tag. But I did learn to use Mailchimp and the newsletter is much more concise and easier to read if I do say so myself. 

I finished reading Ibsen's The Enemy of the People. Ugh. It was a book club selection, but I missed the book club meeting to work on the newsletter. Talk about preachy. I also finished Peter Schweizer's Red-Handed. You can find that brief review here. 

How's your week been?