Hostels and YPT Day

Ah Wednesday...my day to get some rest before work.  :)  I headed out of Nido just before noon so that I would have plenty of time to prepare for YPT today.  Almost as soon as I arrived, the duty manager for today (Alex, who is an absolutely delightful man) came down to the technical wing to find a technician for a repair job in the general office.  He knew it was lighting related and thought that a fuse had been blown, and I was the only technician in the building (and believe me, I use the word "technician" very loosely when referring to myself!).  Fortunately, when I went to the space, it was just a blown lamp (the bulb itself), so it was just a matter of taking the blown lamp to storage and finding a new one that was similar.  I'm really good at matching things.  :)  But it was one of those weird managerial issues...had there been a dire problem that wasn't just easily solved by a trip to the lighting storage, there is not much that I could have done.  Either way, they were fine in the end and Luke carried around a radio for the rest of the afternoon in case anyone needed help.

The cute place that I found in Battersea where I had hoped to say is now unavailable, so I did a bit more searching for accommodations during tech and performances.  I eventually found a hostel situated above a live music pub in Brixton, which is about a half hour from BAC on the bus.  I booked it, and I'm actually pretty excited about being there for a few days.

YPT was interesting...more technical issues to work around than usual.  Sam requested a mini-disc player (is it just me, or did that technology never reach the US?), and the first two that I brought to the space were not functioning properly.  The third was a charm, although we then discovered that the track she needed was not even on this particular disc.  Since the sound system only had one external hook-up for equipment, I kept juggling cords back and forth between the mini-disc player and the CD player.  I will have no problem setting up equipment next week.  :)  The kids were wild as always...funnily enough, I could envision how a twelve-year-old Corrina would have felt as part of this group (pretty miserable, to be honest...).  I wish that they knew what they were missing, though...Sam is awesome, and she has so much to offer as an instructor, and they are wasting their limited time with her.  Also (and this may be my anxious teacher gene coming through), there are some kids who are obviously not trouble-makers, but they retaliate or try to fit in with the other kids and get in trouble while the other brats go unnoticed.  Just an observation...there's not much I can do until tech except try to support Sam as much as possible.  The performances are rapidly approaching, so hopefully, they will start behaving...although I'm not really holding my breath.  :)