Today is Saturday! My first “official” week at Culver is done! As an Upper Camp Theater Staff/Instructor, my days are pretty routine. Everyday I wake up at around 7:30, get to breakfast by 7:50, get to the theater/my office by 8:15, and there my day begins. In this first week, I mainly focused on getting prepared for our summer production, Madagascar Jr.
As the lighting designer as well as assistant tech director and stage manager, there are many things I have to do to make sure this show stays on track. We finished casting our students in the middle of the week, while I also turned in a Script Treatment for the lighting design to the director and the main tech director. There have been some challenges. I’ve been doing my best trying to draft a light plot by hand: measuring hanging positions, counting circuits and instruments and then putting them on paper. It’s interesting to fully design lights by paper, when I’ve been trained to do it through Vectorworks and LightWright for the last four years. That being said, the skills I’ve learned are still the same. In any case, this is actually fun, a challenge that I haven’t had in a while.
Besides this work, there are “other duties as assigned”, meaning leading tours for classes in the theater, helping run and set up assemblies and movie nights, as well as just general tech things. All of which is helping me spend more time getting to know the place and the people. I’ve been having very interesting conversations with faculty and staff here where I share some thoughts about Culver, an outsider looking in perspective. I think in my brief time here, I’ve been able to get a glimpse of a program that is shaping many students and molding them to be better versions of themselves and I think that’s amazing. There are some ideas that I have and I look forward to having more conversations with people about them.
The other thing that I started this week was getting back into daily devotionals. As I mentioned in my previous post, up until recently, my faith life felt dry and lacking here at Culver. Once I started reading the Bible daily again, it’s been a whole different perspective. As I continue with reading Exodus, I’m learning new things about Moses and the lives of the Israelites as God protected them and led them out with leaders such as Moses and Aaron. I finished the last 4 chapters of Matthew as part of InterVarsity’s Daily Bible Study and I’ve gained greater appreciation of the resurrection story and its central part of the gospel that I work hard to share. Finally, I participated in a Bible Study via Google Hangout led by my friend Christian back at Oxy. We looked at John 4 and I once again, had a sudden realization between an Old Testament text that I once studied to John 4. These experience I’m having with the Word of God, is something that I haven’t had in a long time and I’m truly thankful for those who have been praying for me in this last week. I’m excited to see where my studies will take me, and in turn see how God wants to continue to use me on this campus.
Final side note: It was really awesome to see so many of my friends at the Bible Study. To see so many people at a summer Bible Study, but also my friends, it warmed my heart. I hope to pop back in again on Wednesday.
Yeh Heard It Here 