Overwhelmed

Tomorrow my residency week starts, which means the new semester will be on. I am a little nervous for having to be responsible for schoolwork again, especially since I've been feeling like I have too much work at my day job for the amount of time I have to devote to it. I'm only there for five hours a day because I want to make sure I have enough time to get homework done, but lately they'll given me several more sizeable responsibilities. I've been working on learning Open Air, a horrible project management program, and the other day I was sent to Connecticut to be trained on quote generation in Siebel. It's nice to be trusted, but it's getting to the point where I'm starting to have too much to get done in the time I can spend on it. I'm afraid of getting to the point where I start slipping, make my bosses think I'm not doing a good job anymore. The problem is lack of time. But I don't want to take on any more responsible hours while I still have schoolwork to worry about. I think it's time to talk to somebody about it, but I'm afraid that if I say I can't do what they want of me, they'll find somebody who can. It may not be my dream job, but I need something that will accomodate school for now.

Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge #15: No-Context Theater!

This installment of the Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge will involve a piece of No-Context Theater. Inspired by real life, only dramatic! Make of it what you will, and enjoy!

(Two young women sit on a bench, sucking down sodas. A young mother runs through, trying to wrangle her little daughter.)

MOTHER: Lolita! Lolita, get back here!

(The mother drags her daughter off. The girls looks at each other.)

JESS: Quinn. That girl. Her name!

QUINN: Did we hear that right? That couldn't possibly be her name.

JESS: You heard it!

QUINN: Who names their kid Lolita!? So she'll be a nymph when she... doesn't grow up?

JESS: Nymphet, Quinn, get it right.

QUINN: Oh, sorry I used the wrong word, I'm not an expert on the terminology of pedophilia.

JESS: Hey, maybe if more people were familiar the book, they'd know not to name their kid Lolita!

QUINN: Maybe that will save her. Maybe none of the kids will make fun of her because they don't recognize why it's awful.

JESS: Oh, come on, that's the one thing everybody knows about Lolita.

QUINN: So they'll torment her, but their mocking will be really uninformed.

JESS: Okay, how awesome would it be if kids started reading Nabokov just so they could properly make fun of her?

QUINN: Imagine the notes that will get left on her locker!

JESS: Light of my life!

QUINN: Fire of my loins!

JESS: My sin!

QUINN: My soul!

BOTH: Lolita!

(They snigger.)

QUINN: Jesus, Jess. We're quoting a pedophile to make fun of a little kid. We're pervs.

JESS: We're not pervs, we're English majors! And maybe in reading one great book to torment their classmate, they'll be inspired to read other great books so they can better mock other classmates.

QUINN: So ultimately society is improved.

JESS: I think so.

QUINN: That's awful.

JESS: Look at this tangle of thorns.

(QUINN stares.)

JESS: That's a quote too, stupid.

QUINN: Oh, shut up, light of my life.

JESS: You shut up, fire of my loins.