Celebrity for a week, try it on and see if that is truly what you want.  With the award winning play “The Square” by Michael Wallace produced and supervised by Red Mountain Theatre Director Tomi Griffin and student directed by Brittney Johnson, the Red Mountain Thespian troupe got to experience celebrity more than once having competed with the show at three preliminary contests and then were showcased as Arizona’s Best at the grand finale, “The International Thespian Festival” held in Lincoln at the University of Nebraska in June.

Twelve students, two parent chaperones and  one teacher from Red Mountain spent an entire week of theatre-watching the best of the best of high school theatre, learning from multiple workshops, networking for college scholarships and going “ga ga” over the other teenage celebrities with two new main-stage shows and several award winning one acts a day. It was truly a theatrical experience of a lifetime and the Red Mountain Theatre Club intends to shoot for the star treatment again and again.

The food wasn’t bad either.

I love Facebook because even if I can’t actually call to talk in order to catch up, or thank people: friends, students, parents, former acquaintances whom I would like to have had a better friendship; Facebook allows that in a world where I have to play mommy sometimes and I feel guilty that I don’t do enough of that, and I am still so very behind on work (got an observation with my principal Tuesday, got to get Pirates broken down and ensemble cast worked out and a rehearsal schedule, get my tapes done to finish my orals, meetings for Internationals and every fund raiser or activity has it’s own paper work, study flight lessons, stay in shape, go grocery shopping, not to mention Christmas shopping) and I so want to keep in touch with my friends too.

So…Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears and let me say I MISS YOU ALL and wish you Happy Holidays AND thank you all because this past year, “I got by with a little help from my friends.”

Since I last wrote I managed to pull off Much Ado about Nothing and my students were fabulous as usual. I was super proud I directed a full length Shakespearean show that turned out so extremely well. After that I took my students to the Arizona Thespian Festival and we won first in state for One Acts and will be taking our show to the International competition in Lincoln, Nebraska in June.

As you can see by my first paragraph, and the fact I haven’t updated in almost 3 months, I have been a wee bit busy.

Friends, students and family that read this: I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALL!

Tomi Griffin-Official Soccer Mom-Drama Teacher-Hopeless Romantic-Friend-Soon to be Pilot.

Mo had his first match today which they won! Mo plays defense.

The Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre is this Friday. My kids are fabulous!

Had my second flat tire ever last night. The last one was in Belgium. Funny that I made it thus far in life without any and two within a six month span. My over-protective tech students fixed it for me. I love my job!

Mo and I ate at KFC a few nights ago. Two of my former students are now working there. I am so amazed at how they have grown up. One of the girls I had when she didn’t speak a lick of English, and now she’s fluent. I love seeing my students out and about. They work all over the area I live so I see them at the movie theatre, restaurants and stores.

Mo has been playing soccer so I am making friends with the soccer-moms and dads. I wonder if that is anything like Sarah Palin’s hockey-mom. While I appreciate Ms. Palin’s accomplishments as a woman, I sure don’t see how she could be a hockey-mom of five and run this country too, something has got to give. I can hardly run my life and my ONE son with my job that is more than a 9-5er.

Speaking of that it’s Saturday and I am off to work at school with the kids on their upcoming Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre. I am so proud of them; they are really doing a professional job with it, and I haven’t had to do hardly any work myself which is FANTASTIC and unusual.

5,4,3,2,1 and we’re off!!! School starts Monday and I am still frantically running around getting things done for my classroom and Mo’s. Mo will be taking guitar, keyboard, Spanish and computer tech at his new school (Learning Fountains School for the Performing Arts). I am excited about all the music and Spanish. I have been working on the mandatory teacher website for Mesa Public Schools and this site is linked so I will also link back to the site. http://www2.mpsaz.org/rmhs/staff/tlgriffin/ Eventually the Theatre Club page will be built and today I will add course guidelines to 5^th and 6^th hour. (My stuff for that is at school). In the meantime I am off to the races to see if I can make it down the list of TO-Dos for today. See you all on Monday! Oh and the staff at RMHS is fantastic! I am going to love working with Mr. J and I really like the principal too.

What a fabulous feeling, like dancing on the ceiling to have so many excited, passionate, talented, hard-working students waiting for me at school this week and hanging out cleaning and organizing and contemplating how to run the drama club this year! Oh how they’d grown, all taller, and wiser and driving! I am so lucky to have so many wonderful students all over the world and I am so happy to commence the year and get started on the fall play. On with the show!

Okay kiddies, it’s that time again. I do think I will work at the school Wednesday – Friday in my classroom and getting to know the theatre. I probably won’t be there before 10:00 AM, but if you want to come by and help me find stuff you are very welcome.

I saw “Oliver” with Mr. J (RM choir director) and Mrs. Turley and the new dance and drama teachers from Shepherd last night. Great show and I found out from Mr. J (head of performing arts RM) that I CAN do “Much Ado about Nothing” and Pirates of Penzance this year. So those are the tentative big shows for the year. Auditions for ADO will be the first week of school, probably Thursday and Friday after school until 5:30 PM. You can prepare a Shakespeare monologue (I know you all know how to do this or have one already because I taught you this). Have a picture and resume ready as well (taught you this too).

See you in a few!

I’m back in the saddle again.

I still haven’t adjusted to the time zone, so I am still zoning (now I literally know the term).Mo and I have managed to eat at Jack in the Box, two days ago after stopping by my new school and getting my keys and schedule, meeting the secretaries etc. We ate at Taco Bell today and tonight we have tickets to see Oliver at the Broadway Palms dinner theatre. Two of my ex-students are in this professional show.

I really miss my students in Belgium but am excited to see my students here. I even ran into one of them at my favorite store-Wal-Mart.

Keep in touch everyone!

Car went bye bye today. Nous marcherons demain et le reste de la semaine. I am down to the futon, table and chairs, clothes; Mo’s bed the TV stand and a few other bits and bobs.

I am almost home. “Next time I go searching for my heart’s content I will look no further than my own backyard.” 

Well, it is official my darlings. I am coming home, back to the sunshine; a new beginning at Red Mountain.

Yesterday was the last day of classes at St. John’s and it was very melancholy. I will even miss my nemesis class as they will I; we really grew on each other. I actually had Virgin Pina Coladas with them at the pub last night. Funny here that 15-18 year olds can go to the pubs. I have stayed away this entire year, but they cajoled me into it last night; it was quite a group gathering. When I lived here in the 70s all the students hung out at a pub called Joli Bois, now it’s the Snug Pub.

I have two weeks to get my stuff out of my flat (all going to charity to save me the mass effort of trying to get down the narrow stairs etc. I had brought it all up in intervals over the 10 month sojourn, and I really don’t want to put the effort into bringing it back down, so whoever wants it and will come get it, go for it!).

Today was graduation; I didn’t go as I couldn’t get a babysitter. All my students were there and Judith was there, and Mo’s friends were out of town. That’s okay, I am having a melancholy day anyway, as I stated before.

My students here signed me up on Facebook, so now I can keep contact with them that way, and you in AZ can look that up too.

Okay guys keep the cookies waiting and I will see you soon. My love to all.

BTW “Go Obama!”