Two Shows Down
Tonight was the second show of NOAC. Mike, Dan and I have been working long hours to get the new oashows.org up and running. It's been a tedious process, but also a very informative one. I've learned a lot about the limits and capabilities of CSS design and implementation. If only I could learn the gentle art of self-editing.
Yesterday I had expressed to Dan my dissatisfaction with NOAC so far. It just seems like I'm not getting to interact with people as much as I had the last time, that the people I was dealing with (Dan and Mike notwithstanding) aren't the people I'd like to be interacting with, and that the majority of my time has been spent locked away in a cold padded cell. I guess I had just started to wonder why exactly I had signed on to work in a stressful environment for two weeks during my summer.
But during the load in for the opening show, I started to realize why I came. There was an indescribable, intangeable, yet oddly palpable pulse and energy to the crowd. As the audience filled the seats, I got this weird tingle up my spine and I remembered why it was that I had come here in the first place. This organization is more than a social club, it is a way of life and a state of being. Because it has challenged me to be better than what I am and part of something bigger than who I was, it has become a part of who I am and what I have yet to be.
Tomorrow Mike will most likely finish up the bulk of the ColdFusion scheme. Dan will add the little flourishes to the site that make it uniquely OA Shows. I will wrap up a script that I did not want, nor did I have the talent to write and send a press release to the media. I know that a week ago I wouldn't have seen the value in these seemingly meaningless motions which we have gone through daily for the better part of a week, but today I realize that it is the sum of the parts of these actions which will make the work that we do here a success for our friends and something to look back on one day with pride.