Shooting, Organization & Things Overheard

Well somehow we survived shooting more than 1,700 freshmen, sophomores and juniors.

Oh dear, I guess I should stop saying that. Let’s scratch that and start again.

Somehow we survived photographing more than 1,700 freshmen sophomores and juniors, but I think the Richie Hata’s Club grew exponentially in the process.

Despite spending hours on a nifty looking 3-page elaborate schedule that charted times and teachers outlining when they should bebop down to the auditorium with their students, the day pretty much was nothing more than unorganized chaos. All those teachers pretty much just took roll and then bebopped down to the auditorium when they felt like bebopping.

That all rather left me feeling like the guy in the song “Alice’s Restaurant” with his “twenty-seven 8-by-10 glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one” and no one to show them to. (I know. I know. I know. I should have learned my lesson from that whole Dante’s Circle of Hell incident.)

I might as well have tossed my nifty little schedule into the air, set my hair on fire and ran willy-nilly screaming out of the building. It took several trips to the ECD (Emergency Chocolate Drawer) and a rather hefty three raw sugar skinny latte to steel myself.

So much for organization.

Which, of course, at this point in my life, I’m beginning to think is way, way overrated. And which, of course, brings me to another dismal failure of mine–my desk.

I had planned to shoot a “before” picture of my desk which would clearly show its cleanliness and my new-found organizational skills in an attempt to silence the Naysaying Nellies. But sadly, by the time I got around to it, well, let’s just say I have to re-re-organize my desk just to get it back to its “before” greatness when I could actually see the brown formica.

I have this feeling that Challenge #1 of the “Richie’s Full Blown 5 -alarm Fun-Filled Educational Challenge” isn’t going to be so fun-filled especially since we’ve only completed Week #2.

Well, enough about me. This blog normally focuses on my kiddos. So now that school is back in session and my DIs (Darling Inspirations) have returned, let’s take a quick sneaky peak into the “Things Overheard & I Can’t Believe You Actually Said That” Category…

Things Overheard #1…
newspaper photo editor… “What did I do with my pants?”
me yelling from across the room… “Pants! What do you mean, ‘What did you do with your pants?’ There better be pants!”
newspaper photo editor… “Calm down… I’m wearing a grass skirt.”

As if that explained everything. As if.


Things Overheard #2…
yearbook staffer… “So we have to sell three full pages of ads? So that means a full page ad is a full page?”


Things Overheard #3…
photography student… “What’s Labor Day?”
me… “It’s a day to honor workers.”
photography student… “Oh, I thought it had to do with mothers…”
me… “Oh my…”


Things Overhead #4…
(The yearbook staff has been working diligently trying to fine tune their yearbook theme after I nixed their theme word, “Essence.”)
me… “Essence is too girly. Sounds too much like perfume.”
them… “How about ‘Substance’?”
me… “So now we’re going to hand out crack with the yearbooks?”
them… “How about ‘Epitome’?”
me…“Oh, so now we’re the epitome of stupidity?”


There were a few more suggestions, but quite frankly, they made my head explode. We finally settled on “The Fine Print,” and I think that will do just fine.

So now, I guess I better get back to that whole desk cleaning thing…but first, I think I better check out the ECD again.