Five Furiously Fast-paced Weeks to Go!

The war wall hasn’t changed much this week, but that’s no reflection of how busy we’ve been this week. I would post a picture, but we don't have a functioning camera in our office today. I guess you'll just have to hold your suspense until next week... Without Nina in the office as frequently, we don’t have as many quotes on the wall, but here’s a good one from last week:
Speaking of GM’s, Carin’s been busy as ever, spending much of her time this week booking flights for visiting academics and artists, fanangling and printing off new budgets, going over our company GST report, and trying not to pull her hair out over the company credit card which has yet to arrive. She’s also probably busy doing lots of other things that I don’t even know about... every once and a while we hear her muttering, “kill, kill, kill...”

Andrea’s been spending late nights in the office, messaging me to go for dinner at 10pm when I’m almost ready for bed. Her report to the Trillium Foundation (which funds her position) is due tomorrow, which is causing an appropriate amount of stress she is currently balancing with her responsibilities in Marketing and Development. She’s revamped our website countless times, re-coloured our lotus logo, dealt with a new shipment of flyers, and worn heels to work almost every day. BAM. Did I mention that she was also performing in CBT’s Flipside Festival last weekend? No big deal.

Byron was also working with the Flipside Festival, directing a piece about a mother and son. So while a considerable amount of time was dedicated towards that in the last week, Byron has also been laying the foundation for the welcome packages that will be handed out to academic and artistic visitors upon their arrival, while simultaneously attempting to file his taxes. He’s also worked out several awesome deals with food sponsors for our festival such as Epicure (providing us with free food for opening)!! He’s also be working like a madman to make sure all the shows are cast... where are all the Asian actors?

Matt, our Potluck Festival co-producer, has been leaving a LOT of messages (e-mail and phone) that he fears are going nowhere in his attempt to cast plays. Good thing he has a blackberry, enabling him to frequently check his e-mail in fits of casting paranoia. He’s also helped me out a tonne by sending a mailout to his contacts in an attempt to get high school volunteers.

Nina is whirlwinding in and out of the office in a flurry of meetings, loose sheets of paper and venti cups of coffee. She pops in for a meeting, interview, and lunch and is gone before we can quote her for the War Wall. Incredibly busy as always, she is doing mysterious work and making important decisions that keep the company running.

Our incoming Artistic Director, David, is almost done with Monster (directed by Nina) at LKTYP and will again be a presence in the office (mainly there to harass us while we work) after the holiday weekend. In the meantime, he will continue to be BCC’d on all my e-mails and honor me with answers to my questions accompanied by an occasional sarcastic response. We miss you, David!

My week has been yet again by liaising with academics and artists. We’ve invited a few new people this week, and only have a few more people to confirm travel arrangements with and then I get to put a giant checkmark on my to do list. I worked with Matt to put out the aforementioned volunteer call, went to a Maple Leafs NAAAP mixer with Byron and practiced slinging business cards like ninjastars and worked on building a signup sheet for board members to pick up festival/conference guests from the airport. As a conference presenter myself, I’m only starting to realize how screwed I’m going to be if I don’t get my academic act together soon—whatever happened to living life contently as a simple intern?

Oooh boy, this has been a long freaking update. I’ll leave you with this: Kapisanan is launching a new website this weekend. We’ll be there to review it, and you should definitely go check it out!