Help a high school damaged by Hurricane Sandy rebuild it's theater...

Message from a co-worker, whose son's high school, Lawrence High School, suffered sever damage from hurricane sandy, and hopes to rebuild it with founds from NBC's - SMASH - MAke A Muscial Theater - Constructed By Loews Contest:

Lawrence High School) sustained a lot of damage with Sandy and is one of 30 semi-finalists in NBC’s “SMASH” MAKE A MUSICAL contest to build a new musical theater for the high school sponsored by LOWES.
AS OF THIS MORNING THEY ARE IN 5TH PLACE.
Voting is currently limited to one (1) vote per person per day during the Voting Period. Please vote from home or your personal mobile device since multiple users using a single IP address will be counted as a single vote, per 24 hour period.
o Voting ends on April 10, 2013
o The top five winners receive the Grand Prize to help rebuild their theater
The next 5 winners receive a showcase package
Winners will be announced on April 11, 2013
If you have a moment, they could use your vote. Please click on the following link and click on
“Time to Vote” : and vote for Lawrence High School.

VOTE HERE.


Please vote so they can win. Co-worker's son lost his home and most of his belongings in Hurricane Sandy. As did many of those kids.

Here's the synopsis on the site:

Lawrence High School – Cedarhurst, NY

Hurricane Sandy destroyed the one space where students forget their differences and join together to express creativity as one! Help us rebuild, restore and revive.

(no subject)

1. Back sciatia is better, apparently steroid shots do work in relieving this. Lower back is still a problem, but hey, one step at a time, right?

2. Reading meme, which I haven't been doing....

Currently reading?

A Dance With Dragons - yes, still, a page-turner, it's not. Plus it's quite on the grim edge of the fence. Made it to...( spoilers )

Also reading Anne Rice's Exit to Eden more or less as an anti-dote.

Just finished reading The Captive Prince -- Volumes I & 2 - which was better than I expected. Like reading a really good I Claudius meets Lymond slash fanfic.

3. I need to stop reading the Metro newspaper on the way to work. It's starting to annoy me.
Apparently personnel assistants are just for the wealthy any longer - anyone can hire a personnel assistant for one day - to do everything from taking out the trash, shopping to sitting around for a repair guy or the Time Warner Cable guy to show up.

4. Been considering story tropes...but I have no idea what my favorites are. They seem to change like the wind. Or the weather...which went from the 80s to the 50s in less than two days. We had a brilliant thunder storm to announce the dip.

Story tropes I tend to like?

* reluctant hero who has a bit of an attitude, preferably snarky.
* rogue with a heart of gold (prefer male variety, but like female too - but more of a Xenia fan than a Faith fan)
* messiah complex or savior complex - this fascinates me for some reason, possibly because a dear friend had it in college and he died far too young of leukemia.
* super-powers - someone who had no power, who discovers suddenly they do.
* Redemption arcs - again depends, and mainly because I was a criminal defense attorney once upon a time, if that doesn't do it to you, nothing will
* outsider tales - people who feel like they are outside the group, excluded for some reason
* abusive relationships - because I want to understand how people get entangled in them and how they resolve them
* survival tales - surviving against incredible odds
* Female hero/male damsel - or gender flips - where the girl save the guy - I call it the Snow Queen trope.
* group of people who face a disaster and have to survive it working together
* anti-war tropes
* voyages
* memory loss
* back from the dead
* personality change or metamphorsis

Tropes am sort of sick of:

* anti-hero who can't ever be redeemed and his downfall - ie. Macbeth
* star-crossed lovers
* moralistic heroes who sacrifice themselves in christ-like fashion.
* Cinderella stories
* Nerds get the pretty popular girl
* last survivor female/male trope
* sacrificial girl....or guy trope for evil religion
* redeemed rapist
* mad scientist

There's more, but time for bed.