A really phenomenal day!

So I know that for the first week of anything new is always the cliche "amazing" great phenomenal and every other awe inspiring word that can be thought up but it's true. Today was another one of those days and if the program is even half as great as today was then this program will be everything and more that I hoped to get from it.

Today we started our day with the daily morning meeting. Then we had our "experiential learning" activity. One of our first activities was to break into groups and try to make an origami crane. The catch was that each of these groups had a different amount of information they were given on how to make the crane. One group had Madoka from Japan give a demonstration (obviously easy) the next group was just given picture instructions but with no words and no prior information, the next was given just written instructions with no pictures or prior information and my group was not given anything...AT ALL and we were all told to make the crane. Obviously our group had the most difficulty (check out my pictures to see how our "crane" turned out) The object of the activity was to teach the importance of visual learning and how it is so much more helpful to convey a message when not everyone has the same way of learning. Ex. something said in English to a Spanish speaking person. Afterwords we did an activity that dealt with how to use tools that we learn through life to overcome obstacles or things that we want to change in our life. We were told to write about something that we have had trouble getting our of the habit (An example used was constantly getting into bad relationships and never learning how to change that) I wrote about my experience with Applebee's and how I have worked at three over the last 5 years. I wrote that even though I have moved quite a bit in the last 5 years I never seem to leave the Applebee's atmosphere. I concluded that it wasn't because it was a GREAT place (although it's not terrible) but because I was comfortable and not willing to make a change outside my comfort zone even though for years I had hoped to broaden my horizons and do something else more directed towards what I really wanted to do career-wise. We then were challenged to see if there was something that we did that broke the chain of monotony. I think Up With People is that break for me. I also realized that choosing to participate in UWP will help (I hope) to break the cycle of other things not so positive in my life in Wisconsin.

After that activity we listened to a presentation on the basics of performance. We covered everything from Greek performance to 20th century interpretive theatre. We then went to lunch. Afterwords, we had a presentation on what our tour in the States and Thailand will be like. The States sound very busy and very impactful and I'm very excited to see what Thailand holds for us and can't wait to get there in May.

After the presentation we had vocal practice. We learned a new song today and reveiwed two others. I did better today with the singing. After singing we had our movement practice which was great! We warmed up with a bit of Mambo and Cha Cha. Very fun and relly got the blood going! Then we grabbed partners to practice "Boom Boom Boom" again. Gabe, from Tucson, Arizona and I partnered up again and had a blast. We work together really well and Gabe is a very encouraging and helpful teacher. (He has danced before). That pretty much wrapped up our day.

It's getting cold here now and Colorado is expecting another snow storm. It's supposed to be about -3 F (-20 C) on Saturday!

We went out to dinner tonight at the Cracker Barrel and had some yummy food (I had chicken and dumplings).

I'm having a really great time with my first host family. They are wonderful and really sociable. We have had some great conversations with Sandra (my roommate) about Chinese culture vs the culture in Colorado (where our family lives) and the culture in Wisconsin (where I grew up). Rosie is adopted from China and it was really interesting to hear our family's story on how they got Rosie and their tradition they creaed when they got Rosie to give her a gift from China every year for her birthday so she can embrace her culture. It has also been fun then to hear Sandra's response to it as well. We have covered light subjects as well from our host mom getting stuck in one of the snow storms for 7 hours to Rosie's day at school.

Snadra my roommate is also great. We also have shared some nice conversations and some funny moments. The first night Sandra was dealing with jetlag and my snoring certainly didn't help (even though she swears it wasn't a problem). The next night my snoring stopped and Sandra adjusted and got some sleep...And instead of the snoring by me Sandra filled the silence by talking in her sleep (very funny as it was about a subject we talked about during the day!- Recording Rosie's party) we have both adjusted now and it's fun to live with a stranger and have to adjust.

Tomorrow will mark the end of our first week here. Saturday we might be going to a party put on by one of the host families and Sunday our family is taking us to the Rodeo!

Questions answered: Hey Tigan! There are 55 students from 19 different countries representing Up With People. There are 13 students from the USA and then it varies from there- like 4 Mexicans, 5 Belgians, a couple from Sweden, a bunch from Canada, some from China and Japan, some from other parts of Scandenavia, a guy from New Zealand, Brazil, Curacao, Venezuela, Denmark, a girl from Ireland, Panama, Singapore, and I think I'm missing some but for the most part that's our cast.

Cindy, thank you for your interest and compliments on my blog! Here's the truth...I know almost nothing about computers! I use a site called Photobucket to upload my pictures, and then follow the prompts to create a slideshow. Then I cut and paste the HTML code that the site gives me into my blog and whala! I have pictures! It's really super simple!

Thanks, Ange for the acomplishment card! I acomplished something great today!

Thank you to everyone interested in reading my blog it means a lot that you are willing to read my random comments and then make comments back!

Love you all! Good night!