Today in a bit of syndicated serendipity, i caught the final episodes of The Cosby Show, Boy Meets World, and Full House. While i'm sure at i had watched it when it first aired, i had completely forgotten about the musical doorbell farewell to the Huxtables. The Cory and Topanga send off was as full of cheesy flashbacks as you would expect. The last Full House episode was the one where Michelle lost her memory after falling off a horse. It wasn't much of a finale because apparently they didn't know it would be their last show at the time it was made.
Seeing these episodes put me in the mood to see other series finales. I know that i saw the conclusions of Quantum Leap, Cheers, and Star Trek: The Next Generation; but i wonder how shows like Perfect Strangers, Punky Brewster, Head Of The Class, MacGyver, and The Wonder Years said farewell. Maybe i saw them but i don't recall what happened.
I think seeing these three shows today is a sign -- a sign that i need to find a new hobby to fill the free time which came with my lightened summer class load.
I was already up, watching some television, when my house guest Randy finally awoke. He walked into the living room to find me watching Against All Odds, an education program about statistics they have been showing in the local "college" channel. Having just completed a semester of statistics, i was interested in the story they were telling about the role statistics played in the FDA's approval of AZT, a drug used to treat HIV. The next episode was about calculating confidence intervals for population proportions. When you see a formula for p-hat on television its so much more exiting that seeing it on a white board. Randy was kind enough to point out that watching this program makes me a huge dork and offered to monitor all of my television viewing to make sure i don't permanently damage my already fragile social skills.
I had my last spring exam today. I learned a lot this mini-semester, but perhaps the most important lesson was to never take three summer classes at the same time again. All three classes were very demanding. They even put up a fight till the very end because all three exams where quite challenging. I spent six full hours these past two days taking final exams. Summer semester begins on Monday all ready. I get to enjoy a whopping four days of summer vacation. At least i'll be down to one class that only meets twice a week.
The subject matter of my statistics class is a bit dry, but usually we do some activity each day to liven things up. It's the first college class for which i got to go outside during the class period. The first time we saw how far we could spit sunflower seeds. The second time we saw who could fold the farthest flying paper airplane. We've also calculated the odds of winning a pack of gum in our in-class raffle and determined whether or not the actual weight of the candy in a bag of Skittles is significantly different from the weight printed on the package.
Sometimes these activities make really funny noises. For one activity, we had to roll a die 20 times and record the value of each roll. The sound of the entire class rolling dice on the very hard desk surfaces was just silly. The other day we each filled a plastic cup with five carmel-filled Hershey's Kisses and dumped them onto the desk to see how many landed upright. The candy cacophony tickled my eardrum. On one of my rolls i got a delicious chocolate Yahtzee. Whoohoo.
Thanks to everyone who has come out to see Said and Meant in Kalamazoo. We had a great weekend, filling the house both nights. In fact, they have decided to extend the run. In addition to the previously scheduled shows this coming Friday and Saturday, they are adding two the following weekend: Fri Jun 23 and Sat Jun 24. If you are still planning to see the show, you may want to shoot me an e-mail so i can put you on the reservation list or you can call the theatre at (269) 345-7529 to accomplish the same thing. I would hate to have you drive down there and discover that we've sold out.
Evangeline has been trying to get ahold of Randy who has been crashing at my place. She's left a couple of messages on my voicemail that started with "Randy, if you're there pick up." Here are clips from an e-mail exchange between her and i shortly after.
I guess she got me. Maybe i do need a cell phone.
I was able to spend some time at Festival this past weekend. I was surprised by the number of dance studios the city of Grand Rapids can support. Every other act on stage was some group of kids dancing. One odd similarity i noticed was the absurdity of the costumes warn by the performers. The mores stripes, sparkles, and swirls on the fabric, the more likely someone was going to be dancing in it. I'll give the young girls stomping away to the Irish tunes some leeway because i can assume that their dress may have been traditional, but i have a hard time picturing hot pink being the hot color in ancient Ireland. Finally, some of these young kids were barely wearing anything at all. I wanted to give them a swimsuit to put on to cover up.
Once of the last performances a saw was a group of really little kids hip-hopping all over the stage. These kids where shaking their stuff even though they had no stuff to shake. First graders should not be bumping and/or grinding. It's just not right. From what i saw, America's hoochie population is in no danger of dying off.
Opening night of Said and Meant went just fine. The audience was kind but their laughter was somewhat unpredictable. They responded to some of the scenes much differently than expected. I suppose that's all part of the charm of live theatre.
The only challenge we really had to put up with is the heat of the theatre. The performance space lacks certain comforts such as air conditioning. It was cool before the show but once you pack in an audience and have the stage lights on for a while, it gets quite warm. After curtain call, the entire cast headed straight out the front door to cool off.