Catch Up!

Looong week! Grrrrreeaat week! Lots of stuff! So I guess Monday was the last time I posted something. Sorry about that, I'v been a bit tired. Okay, A LOT!

Here's a quick bit about the last couple days to give you all a catch up...

Tuesday: We danced. And danced. And danced! During this time the staff took students in and out to look over and try on costumes. I got mine and can't wait to wear it in the show! And at the end of the day we had a speaker, Dr. Stevens, from Hawaii University come in and do a cultural presentation with us. It was an interactive game *PAUSE* I just want to tell you all really quick before I go on with Tuesday's events what is going on right now as I'm typing... I am sitting here typing while Sandra is talking to her boyfriend over Skype (the computer phone) in Chinese and Donny (our Host family's old exchange student that is visiting from Hungary) talking to a friend on the phone in Hungarian. It is soooo interesting and I am incredibly confused right now trying to think in English! This is exactly what I signed up for! I love it! How funny! Anyways, at the end of the day we played this interactive game that taught a big lesson on culture. The name of the game was called Barnga. In short without giving the game away we learned that just because you think you are right about something doesn't mean that the other person is wrong.


Wednesday: We started the morning with a debriefing of Barnga from the night before. Then we had an Admissions Lecture and learned how and what the process was so that we can easily tell others about UWP including our experiences we have had so far in case we run into someone who is interested in learning about UWP. After lunch, the staff gave a little performance from one of the numbers from the show. I can't wait to look like them! Then we sang. And sang. And sang. For 3 hours! By the end we knew the show (for the most part) and at least had an idea of how every song should sound. After singing we finished up with some more dancing. The singing for me is getting better and I'm feeling a lot more confident about my parts. I still need A LOT of work but I get better everytime. Practice definitley makes PERFECT! The dancing is the same, but I think I'm picking that up a little faster than the singing. I'm having a lot of fun doing both and I love having the opportunity to learn something that I may not have had the opportunity to do back home. P.S. Forrest and Carol- I heard we might be exploring some communal dances sometime this semester...I brought my CD's from class and hope to maybe teach others one or two of the dances. During wrap up at the end of our day my hometeam, the "Na Na's," performed "Happy Birthday" for my roommate Sandra in a round (cannon) in Swedish, French, Belgian, Japanese, Spanish, and finally English. (Her birthday was really today (Thursday), but because we had a field trip today we needed to do the song a day early) We also celebrated her acceptance into Harvard! Cool, huh?!

That brings us to today! We (the Cast, Flat Stanley and I) went on a field trip today to Boulder, Colorado!!! We had our first bus dates today on our way to Boulder. My "date" today was David from Belgium. On this 45 minute ride we shared pictures of our loved ones, our likes in music, future career ideas- I learned that David would like to be a street performer, an acrobat in the circus, or a gym teacher- I learned a few words in French and the next thing we knew we were in Boulder! So. What did we do in Boulder you ask? Well, let me tell you... First we went on a scavenger hunt in Boulder with tasks and questions ranging from getting our picture taken with a local citizen and police officer to findig a good tie-dye recipe to finding out several history questions about the mining city. Our team of six got ALMOST all the questions (missing only one part to one question) and we find out tomorrow which team got the most right! After our hunt we toured the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory. Wow! It was amazing! We first watched a video on how the tea is made and packaged (like Mr. Rogers) and then we went into the factory and saw it for real. We all had to wear a hair net (even Flat Stanley) for sanitation purposes. One of the very interesting things about the Celestial Seasonings Factory and the history and story of how and where they get thier tea leaves is that Celestial Seasonings is socially conscious, which means that people from Boulder, Colorado frequently visit the areas where the plants (teas) are grown to make sure that the working conditions are safe and healthy. They also make sure that the children of the workers have an education and are taken care of. This is incredibly important because many of the countries that the tea comes from are still developing regions and many workers harvesting other products are taken advantage of with poor working conditions. This made me feel really proud that there are businesses in the States that do thier best to stay conscious of the conditions in other areas of the world. We then went to the gift shop and I may have bought one or two things... On the bus ride home I had a "date" with My (pronounced ME) from Swenden, and then Aoife (pronounced E FA) from Ireland. Aoife and I mostly shared music on the way home as Mitch from Ohio DJed music through his IPod.

The day ended with a surprise party that my host family and I set up for Sandra for her 25th birthday. We invited a few of the cast members (Kaylee from Minnisota, Pepe from Mexico, Jeff from California, Yulin from China, and Charlotte from Belgium) that we ride with in the morning to the University and had a wonderful dinner cooked by Dad. Our night was entertained by a million and half giggles that filled the entire house over and over. Donny from Hungary baked Sandra a chocolate cake and we had ice cream to go with. So much food, so much fun! So tomorrow is Friday, but not the end of the week... we still have Saturday!

This is from Thursday morning:

Pictures from the bus ride to Boulder, Colorado:

Our Scavenger Hunt:

The Scavenger Hunt continues and so does the bus ride to Celestial Seasonings:

Celestial Seasonings:

Goin' home:

So there are the pictures for you all. I took about 100 today alone but one of the UWP staff had my memory card to copy my pictures to his computer that's why it took so long to pot 'em. Have a great night!!!