Plays and Marie Kondo

School starts today, and I am about 75% ready. More importantly, though, I’m requiring one of my classes to blog every week, so I figured I better get back into it myself post haste.

Here’s what happened since my last update:

1. I won the lottery to see the touring production of Frozen, which means I got to see it for $29 (once the fees were added in). My seat was to the side of the stage so some of the action was cut off, but for $25, I have so few complaints. It was a lot of fun, and it was interesting to see how they changed the production to make it work on stage (rearranging scenes, adding scenes, more songs, different ways of getting the characters in the same room, etc.). The biggest change was that they made Elsa and Anna’s dad less terrible than he is in the movie, though he’s still not great. Oh, and Elsa’s motivations and fears are just a little bit clearer.

The best part was probably the young woman behind me who LOST HER MIND when “Let It Go” started. The gasp of joy she let out when those first few notes started was just such a highlight. (It also helped me forgive her for singing along with the other songs prior to that–just a little.)

2. I also went to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child up in San Francisco. The effects in the play were mind-blowing. The guy in front of me kept losing his mind–like, legit LOSING HIS MIND–every time some bit of magic happened on stage. I could see him trying to figure out just how they did everything, and he would turn to his girlfriend (?) every time like, “Did you SEE THAT???” Hahahaha, it was (sorry, not sorry) magical.

The play itself was really spectacular. My friend asked me who was the cursed child, Harry’s son or Draco’s, and, really, there are, like, six cursed children in the play, if you count the two kids, Harry, Draco, Cedric, and SPOILER. (I know you know that I’m not telling you.)

The guy who played Scorpius was really good, and I thought Harry was also perfectly cast. It’s always wild to me that Harry, Ron, and Hermione are my age, and so, you know, they were actually MY AGE on stage. Wild.

I wish I had re-read the play before I went because I could not remember a lot of the fine details, though none of the big twists or reveals came as a shock, and I would love to compare how I imagined it to how it actually played out on stage. As it is, I will just have to re-read it at some point in the future, I guess.

3. I also finished one book:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is probably the best self-help book I’ve ever read. It’s grounded in spiritual practices like gratitude, and it has clear, actionable steps that can be taken immediately.

I listened to the audio, so A+ on the narration as well. This is a book in translation, so some of the terms were awkward to my American ears, but I got over that pretty quickly.

Also, my favorite part about this book is all of the stories about a tween Marie Kondo trying to tidy her family’s home, so it was like having a bonus middle grade story in the pages of a self-help book. Hot tip: I would 100% read a good middle grade novel about a girl trying to tidy up her family home while realizing that she really needs to deal with her own stuff instead. Come to think of it: that’s probably why I liked this book so much. I saw the adorable middle grade novel within. Also, of course, I can now easily find all my clothes because I use the KonMari folding method.

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4. I am going to have to step up my reading since, again, I’m requiring my students to do so much of it.

Have a great week, everyone!