The Big Read and the Drama Festival

Firstly, and of no interest to anyone, Raven's to-do list:

• Read over Biology for mock tomorrow.
  
• Write more of Utopia vs. Brave New World essay.
  
• Finish Section A of Chemistry past paper.
  
• Write some of political manifesto.
  
• Fill infind Medlink forms.
  
• Email purplerainbow.
  
• Hope purplerainbow rings me.
  
• Research possible Drama Festival plays. Make LJ poll.
  
• Beta for, and email amchau.
  
• Figure out outline for HP/Discworld crossover.
  
• Submit fic to FictionAlley.
  
• Look over, and find beta for, and think of title for, fic written yesterday.
  
• Cry.

Is it any wonder I'm going absolutely bloody insane?

But the first item on the list should have been "update journal", as that is what I want to do, and it's going to be a long entry.

The infamous Big Read assembly was this morning. It went perfectly. All right, not perfectly. But it did go well and gave everyone involved warm fuzzies for the rest of the day. I tried to go into school early for it, and succeeded, but oh, it's bloody cold. So, so, so cold. Not that it's snowing, but the sky has been cloudless and so it's been even colder. My definition of "freezing" is when you can see your breath when breathing through your nose, and that applied to today. It was so cold the rotten-leaves-sludge had frozen solid. The pond in the park was a slab of ice.

So I was very, very cold when I got into school. Rola came in moments after, and so did Becca; off we went to the cenenary hall. Mrs Barry was already there, with a motley collection of objects. She set us to blowing up balloons for the sketches. I can't actually blow up balloons, so Rola did that while I reassured Laura that her Toad of Toad Hall costume was perfect (it really was - she had breeches and a waistcoat and boots and green make-up) and Mrs Barry went off to the staffroom. She returned with Mrs Colvin and Mrs Custard, who both looked fantastic as well in their gowns and witch's hats, and Mr Wood and Emma. Emma looked determined to keep her dad under control. He did behave himself, and he looked as authentic as he possibly could - he had a black wig, big black glasses (that he couldn't see through) and a lightning-bolt scar Emma had drawn on with lipstick. And he had a broomstick.

I giggled a bit, and then held still while Rola pinned an "EEYORE" sign to my back. I pinned the Tigger one onto her, and Becca put on her black coat and her sign - "DRAGON." While we were engaged in doing this, people started coming into assembly and the hobbits arrived. They were insanely perfect. "Perfect" is a word I've been using a lot, but they were. Mrs Mills was given the One Ring - it was made of gold cardboard and was the size of a dinner plate - and the other hobbits were given pint mugs that were actually more like two-litre mugs. Mrs Mills actually behaved shockingly normally, talking about how difficult it had been to dry her hair into hobbit-style curls(!) I approved of her costume - very Frodo-ish, and they all had gloriously hairy feet.

While this was all going on, Mrs Custard disappeared. I was in a state of panic. "Where is she?"

"She's gone to get her broomstick," Mrs Mills told me.

"She must have parked it somewhere," said Mrs Colvin sagely.

I nodded. And then realised that the music had stopped. We had the Harry Potter film music on, courtesy of Julie in the soundbox, and it gave the proceedings a fitting but surreal magical air. Laura and Laura were already out there, doing the Toad dance. Nichola introduced them. Things were going well. Then Rola prodded me. I heard Nichola talking about "Winnie-the-Pooh, by AA Milne", and I stomped out, ears on head. I wasn't nervous, because, well... I'm a sixth former. I've been in the school six years, I know everyone, they know me; I only get worried about doing stuff in front of people I don't know. And if I had to play anyone, Eeyore is the best choice. If you incorporated his personality into mine, or vice versa, no-one would really notice.

I won't reproduce our script, but it involved me sitting on edge the table with the ears on my head, being depressed, and Rola bouncing. She wasn't wearing Friday's costume - instead, she'd strapped a large stuffed Tigger to her front with her tails. She bounced throughout the scene. We got laughs. I actually enjoyed myself. And then off we went.

Next, Harry Potter. The school were in complete hysterics at the sight of Mr Wood. Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, he burst the balloon that was serving as the golden egg. I whipped off my ears and ran on with another balloon. He popped that one too. Becca managed quite well without it, of course. She was a marvellous dragon. When Emma read, "The dragon roared,", Becca said, "Raar." When Emma read, "Harry dived...", Mr Wood attempted to go through the floor with his broomstick. Mere words do not encapsulate the humour of the situation. The English staff nearly ruined everything by almost forgetting to hold up their scorecards, but they did in the end. And then the Harry Potter lot trooped off, and on went Mrs Barry, as Gandalf.

She made a very good Gandalf. None of us are real LotR fans; we merely picked a bit at random, and I am assuming Gandalf had a sword. She was wearing high heels and was a good two feet taller than the hobbits when she shouted, "You cannot pass!" And then the hobbits came on and the school erupted again. They loved them. And they were particularly amused at Mrs Mills, for obvious reasons. I think we ended on a really good note. And on went Nichola again - "Come and vote for your favourite book!"

That would have been that, but Mrs Wigmore wanted to see the Lower Sixth after assembly, so I had to sit down for that. In a nutshell, she wanted to see us about the Drama Festival. Despite last year's fiasco, they are holding it this year, and yes, we do get to get into groups and produce and direct. There wasn't time to really think about it, so I went down to the library office to gather my belongings (and grab an After Eight - everyone in the library committee got one) and then ambled off to English twenty minutes late. I was late, and the lesson finished early because of various reasons, so I only had to suffer through forty-five minutes' worth of Utopia before getting out again. I somehow skived most of my morning's lessons. I didn't go to General just on principle, and also because Becca and Julie were skiving to do the music and lighting preparations for the Pop Idol technical rehearsal. They asked me to get some music for them, which I tried to do - I only meant to skive French, I would have gone to Ethics, but I just forgot - in the first single. In the end I just spent all my time in the soundbox with them and provided the only piece of sound-type knowlege in my possession - a CD-RW disc will not play in a CD player as ancient as the school's one. I got around the problem by having Mr Hood copy the CD-RW to CD-R, which made it play. They wanted to do the radio mikes during lunch, so I went off. I did ask why they didn't just use the cordless mikes, and the answer is, they pick up Delta Taxis. I kid you not. When using them, people accidentally get instructions to drive round Coronation Road or whatever. It's most bizarre.

I grabbed lunch - a muffin and two sandwiches, cranberry and turkey as they're going all festive - and went down to the library to perch on the desk and help out with the voting. As predicted, the thirds are voting in their hundreds, but we did get some other years, too, and persuaded some of the sixth form, so we're getting somewhere. I was discussing the Drama Festival and the choice of play with Nichola when Katrina and Bev came in. "We want a word with you."

I was surprised. I was even more surprised when they told me they'd sorted out a group for the Drama Festival, if everyone agrees to it. The group is the two of them, Meg, Nichola, Charlene, Becca and me. Emma doesn't want to take part. I agreed to that. The difficulty is what play to choose. No musicals, because none of us is musical. As it stands, Nicola would be in charge of scenery - she's a wonderful artist - and Meg would help her out, and Becca would direct, knowing the most about drama as a whole, with Charlene to help her, and Bev would choreograph should we need anyone to (she's the only one of us who can dance), Kat would keep the form under control and I would write. Well, not write. If we choose an existing play, it will be my job to cut and re-write to get it down to half an hour, and if we choose an existing story, it will be my job to adapt it into script form. I'm quite looking forward to that. The only problem is deciding which play to choose.

That's the only problem now. There was an earlier problem which involved Gemma, Verena, Becky O and Becky Branton wanting to be in the group, too, but Becca dealt with that by having a few words with them. I suspect the few words were "Fuck off!"

And that is all. One could say I didn't do any work at all today, because Rice-Oxley has invented another game. This one is called "The Module One Quiz Game", and it was quite fun, involving printed cards and questions like "What do endopeptidases do?" and Steph trying to cheat and failing. I tried to stick a piece of paper into the electric socket on the table. It didn't work.

I went home at five to four, as we were let out of Chemistry a bit early (past papers only, plus Mrs Miller seems to be warming to the Cadbury Land idea), and it was pitch black. Absolutely pitch black. I walked down to the station in the freezing cold and shivered all the way. It became December over the weekend, seems to me.

At the station I met Katrina, and we discussed possible plays to do on the way home. And now, because I trust the opinion of you lot, a poll. What play? Or, what book/story that I can re-write as a play? The caveats are:

• It should be reasonably short. Maybe not half an hour, but someone of my ability (ie, me) should be able to crop it to half an hour without too much difficulty.
  
• It can't be Shakespeare. The Lower Fours will never be able to cope.
  
• It can't be by Willy Russell. Mrs Wigmore's against his plays because whenever people do them, they invariably win.
  
• It can't be a musical.
  
• It should have enough parts for a class of twenty-five (even if some of them only have small parts), and going back to the Shakespeare point, it has to be something that thirteen-year-olds can cope with.
  
• It can't be The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Little Women, or Fantastic Mr Fox.

Sorry to sound so unbelievably controlling, but there you go. Personally, I'd like to do one of the Discworld plays - Mort, or Guards! Guards! - but I've been told it would be too obscure.

I'll be surprised if anyone answers this poll!

[Poll #217056]

Sorry for the sheer length of this entry.