The First (and Last) Free Weekend

Hello all!

It has been a fun and exciting past few days here in Denver, albeit busy. Friday was full of more staging and training for the show. We spent the entire afternoon doing vocals for the show (learning music and lyrics), and then also working on dancing. We finished learning the dance moves for "Keep the Beat," which is the dance we were learning all Thursday (and the source of much of my frustration). Rafa (one of our dance coaches) taught us the last 8-12 beats and then we were done, which was a relief. This dance is the toughest one to learn, and it is a relief to know that I've got it done. Not quite DOWN, but I've got it learned anyway. After that, we learned the dance for "It Takes A Whole Village...," which consisted of about five different moves. Simple. Especially compared to the last dance. No crazy salsa moves. No pencil turns or Russain leaps. Just a couple side-steps and arm movements. Nice. The vocal side is going well, too. We learned a song whose lyrics are all Spanish, and I've made good progress on getting it down. Definately a fun song to sing once you can say the lyrics!

Friday morning (yes, I realize I was just talking about the afternoon and I'm now going backwards), we talked about a couple things: journaling (or "documenting your semester" as they put it), and internships/advanced work. In journaling, we discussed different ways of journaling...as I'm sure you could guess. In the internship/advanced work session, we discussed the different opportunities for learning with Up with People. Every semester, there are different areas of the program (which put together the amazing experience for the students) that take on three interns throughout the semester. As an intern, you assist with that area's operations and such, and work with the staff member in charge of that. Areas that I'm interested in applying to are education, video, and stage managing (perhaps others). Advanced work is different sort of opportunity. In this, you travel with a staff member or two ahead of the cast to a city coming up and set up the city for the cast. In most cases, you are in the city two weeks before the cast will arrive. With this, you arrange media coverage for the cast (to attract people to the show), arrange host families for the cast to stay with, set up community impact sites, etc. The better you make the city, the better experience the cast will have when they arrive. It's a lot of work, but a great experience. As for me, I'm not sure whether I'll do it. Leaving the cast for two weeks wouldn't be ideal, and missing a couple of the cities on the cast tour would also suck (especially the cities we have lined up). So, I'm still deciding whether or not to apply for advanced work.

On Saturday, one of the host-dads arranged a sledding day for whomever wanted to come in the cast. My roommate, Kristian, and I went, and had a great time! We sledded for about an hour, and then went back to a nearby church for a potluck and other fun times. There were about 20 of us there at any one time, sometimes more sometimes less. People sang karaoke, played games, and just took the opportunity to hang out. The host-dad who put on the party also gave us a tour of his basement which held a nationally-known model train set that he has been working on for the past 40 years! It was really cool to see.After the party, Kristian and I went back to our host family's place, ate pizza, and watched "Superbad," which my Danish friend had never seen. It was a fun time.

Today, we're just taking it easy, watching the Chargers lose to the Patriots (which was pretty much expected), and enjoying some relaxation. Tomorrow, staging kicks in again and time to do what I'm doing today will be tough to find.

Until my next post!

Dan

"Karaoke -- Lady Marmalade"