Freshmen

Move in weekend starts tomorrow. Five thousand freshmen and their parents are descending on the campus. And to make it perfect, there is a busted water main right in front of the biggest froshie dorm, there's a soccer game tonight I got roped into working, so I'll be working 4:30pm to 7:30am tomorrow night while they all go drinking after mom and dad go to bed, and then we still have our burglary suspect out here, one more additional detail to handle.

There may not be a more annoying creature than today's helicopter parents. They come with the kids to the ice breaker activities intended for their kids, complain about dorm policies, buy the kids anything they want and then drag it all up into a room the kid will leave unlocked, etc. My favorite has to be parents who try to crash classes for kids, tied with the ones who feel they can file a police report for an item that they bought and paid for but gave to their child who did not secure said laptop while they went to the restroom or their bike while they ran back up to their dorm room.

I have years of experience with the parents at this point, so it won't be overwhelming. I'm also not on days so I will see more of their drunk kids than of the irate parents. One thing I really wish I had more experience with recently though is musical theater. Rock of Ages was a fun romp. It may not have contained original songs but I am a big believer in the found poem, as practiced for centuries by writers. I also believe in having a good time. 80's music holds a danceable, singable motivating power in it that will never die. As much as I'd never want to dress in jean jackets, neon and leg warmers to dance on Whitesnake's car, their music is undeniably fun. Put it on Broadway and I'm so there. It may not dislodge the sway of Phantom of the Opera (which has held strong since I was in 2nd grade, though the 2004 movie disaster almost killed it) but it did get deep down in there, further than Book of Mormon at least. ("Hello!" is an awesome opener and I thought I'd love it, but I can't handle the crassness that Matt and Trey threw into the rest of the show.) Yes. I am a theater geek. Sean took me to Rock of Ages and the first thing I did was quiz him on the lighting design of the traveling production. Gotta make sure he uses his Lighting Design degree a little at least.

I might just be a geek about everything. I could write another big paragraph about re-reading "Rocket Boys" this week, digging out the rocketry gear *I* had in high school. But that would be too much. Maybe sometime soon I'll have an actually interesting thing to talk about from school, but for now you get my musings.