Weird, Wild Stuff
I'm the only one in my office right now, and I mean the only one. Everyone else seems to have gone home. It got incredibly dark around 2:30 or 3, it looked like it was 5 or six hours later, but it is lighter out now. I had real trouble getting to sleep last night, mainly because of the heat. I only have an oscillating fan, and it was damn near impossible to get comfortable last night, plus I had a lot on my mind.

I got good news on the internship front, I have an interview next Friday at Ann Arbor's own WTKA. I grew up listening to the station, and it would be a ton of fun to work there. Plus, I could try to get stringing work at the A2 News as well as do my stuff at Roosevelt. I got notice yesterday that my room is going to be shown now, because I am not renewing my lease, funny how fast things go by when you think about them. 

I received to bits of mail from my old High School yesterday. Well, actually I "received" them a while ago, but they were sent home, not to me in Chicago. They sort of pull me in two directions in terms of how I look back on my high school life. One was the invitation to my first class reunion, the big Cinco. I'm not that Jim Shilander anymore. I'm  not sure how I'm going to react seeing all of these people again, all of these people who made me feel, often through no fault of their own, so insignificant and mediocre. Are there people who might be there who I would like to see, yes. I went to school with a large percentage of them for 12 years, and we picked up people along the way. I always felt like, having graduated with 67 kids, I got to know a lot of those people perhaps more intimately than I would have liked. There are those who I'd like to see if only out of some sense of scientific curiosity, to see what happened to them. And then, there are those who I really do not care about, largely because it was obvious they never cared at all about me or anyone but themselves. I realize that high school and adolescence in general is a time for self-centeredness, and I was as guilty of it as anyone, but still, the people who haven't changed, the people who's college or post-high school lives have not given them perspective on their actions? Those people I don't need to see. I may just go to antagonize as many Opus Dei folk as I can, we'll see.

I also got a letter about the benefit performances of Les Miserables being performed by the Drama Club and various Drama Club alumni. I would have liked to have done it, but 5 hours each way driving time makes it difficult. Robert is doing it, and he has a pretty good part, though he is admittedly not the strongest singer. The Drama Club was sort of my refuge while I wasn';t playing football in the fall. I did eleven out of a possible 12 shows in high school, and I loved every second of it. I feel that as someone who does have self-image issues, who is introverted, that theatre gave me the opportunity to explore. I was often more comfortable as someone else than I was as myself. Ms. Anne Kolaczkowski-Magee has run the program since she's been there, and when she left for two years to get recertified, it was taken over by the very capable and talented Glenn Bugala. Ms. K-M is one of my heroes. I don't think anyone at that school works harder for her students and cares more about their lives. She really does love her craft. Glenn Bugala was the same way, though he was put in a very difficult position because a lot of people didn't want to accept that Ms. K-M had left. The benefit is for a new theatre that they are building at the new school. For the last 15 years, the school has either had to rent out space from Ann Arbor Civic Theatre or find a space for a show. Now they'll have their own shop, their own stage, and their own storage. Ms. K-M joked in the letter about making it the K-M theatre, but frankly, that's what it should be. I can't think of anyone else to name it after (especially cause no one at Richard knows who Bob AuFrance is). There is no one more deserving. I will be there, guaranteed.