The Final Adventures in Up with People...El Fin

Hello all!

Well, hopefully this will be the final entry – a conclusion to my Up with People adventures. I’ve got two weeks to get through, but I have a feeling my Hawaii weeks will be a bit easier than any Up with People weeks I’ve had to write about :)

Sunday, June 15th, 2008. A day that had been in our eyes avoidingly for the past five months. We’ve always known that it was out there, our final banquet day, but it is was always just a passive recognition – an event that was “out there” and most certainly not here. Well, the present caught up with “out there,” and it was finally time to draw everything to a close. It’s an amazing feeling, standing in one spot in time knowing that yours and a 100 other sets of eyes from both the past and our coming future are looking on this day and the events that would happen. The eyes from the past are looking onto this day with dread, indifference, and uncertainty, while the eyes of the future look back with fondness, smiles, and perhaps regret. And here I stand, in the present, with the one thing both are envious of – the power to act.

Sunday began early enough. My roommate, Mitch, and I weren’t sure when our host parents would be wanting us to hang out with them for the final time, so both Mitch and I rose early (regretfully) to finish packing our things away to prepare for our long travel day tomorrow back to the United States. I took the opportunity to clean out my suitcase a bit, which had managed to accumulate some trash over the past few weeks, and I found myself crossing my fingers in hope that my suitcase would make weight at the airport. What can I say – I picked up a few things in Thailand :) After Mitch and I had both packed up our stuff, our host family took us out to morning breakfast, and also presented us with some gifts. The first was a necklace/pendant with a picture of Buddha on the inside of a glass shell. The second was a moderately-sized picture of a Thai farm scene completely made out of straw. I have to admit that it was pretty cool, though I was worried about HOW I was going to get it home! After all, it had a frame and glass, and I had NO room on my carry-on. So I stuck it in my suitcase, and hoped for the best. (Don’t worry – it made it home. I know you all were worried) :) After breakfast, Mitch and I rounded up our stuff and loaded into our host family’s truck. Our final banquet was in a reception hall of a very nice hotel in Khon Kaen, so that is where out host family took us, dropped us off, and then said their goodbyes. After that, Mitch and I were free to relax while we waited for the afternoon to begin. By that time it was about 1:30 p.m., and the day wasn’t supposed to start until about 2:00. So we milled around, talking to people and enjoying our last day together, not really grasping the finality that was just around the corner. Meeting started promptly at two, and soon we were winding our way to the reception hall, since we had met in the lobby of the hotel. When we entered, I was floored by the amount of work that had gone into the afternoon and evening. Our final banquet committee had put together a fantastic display throughout the huge reception hall, with beautifully decorated tables, photos, etc. We all found places around the room at round tables, and not long after the afternoon activities began. Voting also began for cast representatives – the people who would be in charge of keeping the cast together once we all left for home the next day. There were four pairs up for cast reps – AJ from Wisconsin and Vivia from Chicago, Maiken from Denmark and Phil from Arizona, Beth from New Hampshire and Alice from Belgium, and Sofie from Sweden with myself. Everyone turned in slips of paper with their votes, and then went off to eat dinner – our LAST sampling of Thai food. Or perhaps just mine. I have to admit that I was excited to get back to Western food – or at least something WITHOUT rice! :) After dinner, we went through our list of cast awards we’d voted on earlier in the week – things like “most genuine” or “biggest flirt” or “cutest cast couple”….(Chris from Hawaii and Astrid from Mexico won the last one by the way). After that, and the laughing that went with it, we all rounded up our items to be put into the cast time capsule – a small suitcase that would be taken home with one of the cast reps to hold onto until the five year reunion, where it would then be opened. Once that was done, we migrated back to our tables for presentation of our “Certificates of Completion,” which were basically diplomas for our completion of the Up with People program. Along with that was a CD full of the culture presentations everyone had done throughout the year, a photo of the staff, and some other fun stuff that I can’t quite remember at this moment :) Once everyone made it through the presentation (which took a while, because there are almost a hundred of us), Andrew Lanham, our sound tech staff member, presented a project that he’d been working on for us for the past week, something he likes to do for the cast’s he’s traveled with. At the start of the city, he’d asked us to write down in a few short sentences what we’d be taking home from this program – from this experience. Once he collected all the responses, he photocopied them all onto consecutive sheets of paper and put them into a packet, which he handed out to us that evening. There were the responses everyone had made, all the little bits of strength and pieces of knowledge we’d be taking home with us the next day. Flipping through it, it was great to read all the different things everyone took away from their semester, and you couldn’t help but find yourself identifying with other people as you read what they wrote. The final copy of the packet also went into the time capsule, to be found again in five years. After Andrew’s presentation, the emotional fireworks began. Gabe, the staff member sort of leading the evenings events, cued up a slideshow of pictures collected from around the world – from the families of everyone in the cast. On the slideshow were baby pictures of us all, sent in my our parents and family and friends. Once that slideshow was passed through, Gabe cued up another made from photos from home as well – this time, it was of family members sending love and safe-travel wishes and see-you-soons. When the slideshow was over, Gabe came forward with the results of the cast rep elections, and Sofie and I were surprised when Gabe announced that WE would be the cast reps. We went up to the front and collected our new baby – the time capsule of Cast A 2008, and went back to our seats. Once that was done, however, there was nothing left to procrastinate with – nothing left to block our view of the end. The time had come. The evening was fast growing late, and we still needed to change into travel clothes and load the buses for our nine hour drive to Bangkok International Airport. So we gathered together for one last group talk and final, official goodbye.

Five minutes later, it was done, and we were alumni. Good thing I didn’t blink :)

Once we broke, the room became chaos again. I quickly changed and tried to get my stuff into order. We all said goodbye to Imm, who lived only 20 minutes from Khon Kaen and would not be riding down to Bangkok with us. The goodbyes had begun. Before long, we’d all boarded the buses and pulled out of the hotel and Khon Kaen, waving goodbye to Imm and our last city on the road. The bus ride to Bangkok was long and tiring. My bus date was Jessica Rojas and we took advantage of our sleepiness and did just that – sleep! Or we tried. It only kind of worked. We arrived at the airport, we all unloaded the buses and began to say goodbyes. Thankfully we had arrived with about an hour of leeway time, so we had time to make our rounds. Sofie and I, however, spent the first twenty minutes writing in a book that had been a gift to our cast from Cast C 2007 – Dr. Suess’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” In it, Cast C had written a message to us, which had been read to us in the Green Room of our first show. It was now our turn, Cast A 2008, to write our own message in here and pass it along to Cast B 2008. Like I said, it took Sofie and I about twenty minutes to figure something out, but we finally did and then put it into the book. Sorry, I’m not going to put WHAT we wrote in this blog because I’d hate to have a Cast B’er hear it prematurely. They will get to hear it in their first Green Room :) After Sofie and I finished, we made our rounds saying goodbye to everyone. I was able to delay my goodbyes to all the Americans since we’d be flying together to L.A., but that left a good amount of other to still say goodbye to, as well as the Americans staying in Thailand for a few weeks still. Even as I was saying goodbye, it wasn’t quite setting in that I wouldn’t see them soon, though. Finally, it came time to check luggage and get our boarding passes. I waved goodbye and walked away from two-thirds of my cast.

After about three hours of waiting in line, going through customs and carry-on inspection, I finally boarded my flight to Hong Kong. Our flight there was short and simple. We arrived there and waited for about an hour before boarding our next flight to L.A. That took about 14.5 hours, and I slept for about half of it. The flight was pretty comfortable, though. On board, we had our own personal media centers where we could choose from huge libraries of music to make playlists, movies ranging from classics to new releases, and T.V. shows new and old. It was pretty cool – and most importantly, free! When we arrived in L.A., it was about 11:30 in morning on June 16th. We had left at 8:00 in the morning on the 16th. There was that day we’d lost a few weeks back! :) I grabbed my luggage from the terminal (including the time capsule which I had decided to take home). Kelsey O’Keefe, one of our cast members who lives in L.A., and her family rounded together all the people staying at her place and we hopped onto a large bus that her uncle owns. We loaded our suitcases and climbed aboard, feeling strangely like Up with People hadn’t ended at all! The feel would only intensify – Kelsey had made us schedules for the week that people would be there, along with host allocations and host codes. We even had morning meetings and wrap-ups! Once we got away from the airport, the group of us (which was about 12 people) went to Tasty’s to have some good ol’ American fast food goodness. It was sooo good. After that, we traveled to one of Kelsey’s friend’s place (who would be hosting a few of us there) and there we were able to sit back and relax and just swim in their pool. Very nice! After a grill out later, we all sat down and watched parts of the Cast DVD. Before long, it was 10:30 p.m. and somehow I was still awake. I paired up with my roommate – Brandon – and we rode with our host family back to their place. We quickly found our beds and crashed.

Tuesday brought a day at the beach. All of us loaded up into the bus and drove to the Santa Monica beach. There, we sat on the beach and caught some sun and waves, just enjoying the fact that we didn’t have to do anything but sit there. It was quite nice. We even saw Eddie Murphy shooting a film on the pier at Santa Monica. After a full day of this, we drove back to L.A., and Brandon and I got picked up by our host family. Before we left though, we said goodbye to everyone there, since Brandon and I were leaving for Hawaii the next day. Afterwards, we ate at a Mexican restaurant, and then went home to re-pack for Hawaii. I went to bed moderately early, feeling sort of sick still from the past couple days, and hoping to get a good night’s sleep so that I could enjoy Hawaii.

The next morning began simple enough. I finished packing my suitcase for my trip to Hawaii. I also packed together a box to send home so that I wouldn’t have to worry as much about being overweight. It ended up being 15 lbs – definitely much better!! :) I and Brandon’s host dad took us to LAX, and there we parted ways – Brandon was flying on American Airlines to a different Hawaiian island, while I was flying on Hawaiian Airlines to Oahu. I checked my luggage, and eventually boarded my flight to Hawaii at 5:00 p.m. With the time zone switch and flight time, I arrived at Hawaii in the night at about 8:30 p.m. By that point, by internal clock was so messed up that one more time change really wasn’t about to phase me. On the approach, I was able to see the sparkling city of Hawaii in a sea of night-blackness, which actually was the sea since Hawaii is an island. I hopped off the plane, grabbed my luggage there, and met up with Chris’ grandmother and grandfather (Chris is my castmate from Hawaii that was hosting myself and about 8 others). We drove in the dark through the busy streets on Honolulu to a military base that we all would be staying at for the next couple days. We arrived about a half hour after we left the airport, I grabbed my stuff, and Chris’ grandparents were off. I settled in and hung out with everyone before I crashed for the evening – the time shift had made the day a lot longer than it normally would have been.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of the rolling ocean. I walked out the back door of our cabin to be greeted by the great blue expanse of Pacific Ocean, line along the coast by trees, sand, and rock. I literally had to walk about fifty steps before I was in the ocean. It was SO beautiful! For the next two days, we spent our time hanging out at the beach on the military base, which made it a lot less crowded than anywhere else we went in Hawaii. The base itself had everything – a grocery store, a cafeteria/restaurant, a place to rent movies, and a souvenir shop. We even built a sand castle – moat and all. But our time there ended soon, and we packed up our stuff on Friday and migrated back to Chris’ place. We spent Friday afternoon at Waikiki beach on the south shore, swimming, touring, and just relaxing (a common theme so far). Friday also happened to be my 23rd birthday, and everyone treated me to dinner along Waikiki beach. Overall, it was a good day.

Over the nine days, we did a lot of things. And in an effort to streamline this for you a bit, I’ll list them off. We went to Pearl Harbor twice. Chris used to be a tour guide there, so he gave us a personal tour of the U.S.S. Missouri, and got us to different places not normally shown on a tour. Our second visit took us to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, which was very cool to see, onto an active naval frigate, and finally a tour on the active portion of Pearl Harbor. On that last part, we got to see some of the places they filmed the movie “Pearl Harbor” at – including the airfield, and that tower in that one scene (I’m sure you know what I’m talking about) :) We also, over the course of our time, went to Waikiki beach a few more times, as well as a few other beaches in the area. One day, we went to Hunama Bay, which is an old volcano caldera which fell beneath the crashing ocean and became a bay. The bay is full of coral reef and fish and different marine life. We all took turns going snorkeling, and just enjoying the view. We also took an entire day to drive around all of Oahu – we even saw the place they filmed “Jurassic Park” and the T.V. show “Lost.” And to top it all off, it was with a bunch of good people from Cast A 2008. A great way to end my Up with People experience.

I flew out of Honolulu Airport at about 1:30 p.m. I happened to have a window seat on the right side of the plane to see the entire island of Oahu as we took off. It was really cool to see it all and pick out all the places I’d been to and seen over the past week and a half. The flight lasted about 4.5 hours, landing me in L.A. at about 9:00 p.m. at night, local time. I grabbed my luggage and made my way to the international terminal where I waiting for my 6:00 a.m. flight to Denver. Yes. I got to wait in L.A. for about nine hours. Woo hoo. Thankfully I didn’t have to do it alone. One of the people from our crew in Hawaii – Kristen Ditges – was flying back home to Denver on the same flight. So we, waited out our long layover in the International Terminal, grabbing McDonald’s and other random food to tide us over. Finally, 6:00 a.m. came and with it we were on a flight to Denver. I arrived with twenty minutes to spare before my next flight, so I said a quick goodbye to Kristen, and walked quickly to my terminal, catching the hostess as they were closing the terminal door. I sat down on my final flight – to Omaha – and my final flight as part of Up with People. Sort of fitting that I was flying home from Denver – the place I started this journey on nearly six months before.

July 1st, 2008, 12:30 p.m. – My flight touches down in Omaha, Nebraska. The world hasn’t looked this flat since Texas :) Still, it’s slightly comforting to be somewhere familiar for once. But at the same time, no matter how much I said to myself that I recognized everything, it all felt strange somehow. I was missing something. A very large something. A hundred-plus persons something. For the first time in almost six months, I was by myself, away from Up with People and the natural support it gives. But for the first time in nearly six months, the road ahead was an open one and ready for my OWN personal touch. NOW was the time for me to find out what I’d learned over the past five and a half months, to learn how I’ve changed, and to figure out where I’m going from here.

And so I stepped off the plane…

The Final Adventures in Up with People, Part 1

Hello all!

Well. This will be my final post as part of my Up with People journey. We’ve come a long way since January, huh? Anyways. I left off with my last host family day in Up with People, so I’ll continue on from there.

But, before I begin, I want to send out a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my host sister, Libby, from Denver. Libby traveled in Cast C 2007, and she was part of my first host family. She definitely gave Kristian and I the scoop on what to expect throughout this tour! Happy birthday Libby!!

Okay – the final week in Thailand.

Monday brought another return to the Daughters of Charity, our CI site for Khon Kaen. As in the last week, Molly, Tucker, and I went out to the playground to continue painting playground equipment and such, and the other four in our CI group (Mitch, Anna, Nina, and Katy) played and helped the children there at the school. Lunch came and went, and we all decided to switch up tasks. Those four went out to the playground to find things to paint while Molly, Tucker, and I went to the garden to do some weeding. Thankfully there wasn’t much left to do: our fellow Uppies had done a great job the last week tearing up most of the foul greenery (sorry, that sounds like something from a 1960’s Batman episode). Either way, we were quickly done with what was left, which only left us with some raking to do, which wasn’t very difficult work – especially nice since it was particularly warm that day. We finished up for the day and then went home.

Tuesday brought our last real day of work at our CI site, even though we were still coming the next day. The sister who runs the school insisted that Wednesday would not be a day for working, but instead a day to celebrate us coming and working with them. So really, Tuesday was our last CI day. As with previous mornings, Tucker, Molly, and I went to work painting at the playground. By that time, we were really scrounging to find things to paint, since we had managed to really dominate anything else in the playground. So the sister as us to paint fun decorations on their sandbox-gazebo, which had nine pillars going around its square frame to support the roof. We decided to paint vines to wind around the pillars, and then add flowers to them afterward. The final product turned out really good – I wish I had a picture to post here to show you. You’ll just have to take my word for it :) After lunch, the three of us migrated back to the garden, but there wasn’t anything to there but rake some more – which didn’t take long. So, we ended up finishing early and then being able to relax a bit before we all headed over the Khon Kaen Hospital for a large cast meeting – our last, in fact. When we arrived at the hospital, we had dinner and then were ushered into one of the meeting rooms were a gallery was set up: the Final Gallery of Cast A 2008. Inside was an array of sights, sounds, tastes, and smells from our travels this past semester. There were photos everywhere throughout the room from everywhere in our journey. There was a table set up with different kinds of food we’d had along the way – including pizza!! Ah! I was SO happy. There was also a table with covered bottles that we could smell (if we dared). I do remember some of them being cigarette butts, something quite sweaty, and then nothing. And then throughout the entire room was music playing that had been a part of our travels. Another cool thing was a list of comments sent in by all of our U.S. host families. I was even able to find one from my MAQUOKETA host family, who praised me and Up with People for the time we spent there. That was really cool to read…thanks guys! I miss you! We were given a good half hour to wander around the room and look at the many different things – it was a great way to look at the semester in a short glance. Then we sat down and watched a slideshow that had photos which singled each one of us out – it was really cool to see individual pictures of us all that had come throughout the semester. After that, we migrated into another room, where we all got a chance to write on sheets of paper with all our names on them. There, we all went around and wrote what we thought those people would be doing in five years – which is when our cast reunion will be. After that, we wrapped up for the night and went home.

Wednesday came, and with it my last CI day in Up with People. The morning was spent with everyone at the Daughters of Charity – the students and the staff. The students performed some dances they’d been working on all week, and the staff presented us with gifts and thank you cards. After that, everyone lined up and they all wrapped strings around our wrists – a tradition in Thailand as a way to ward off bad luck and ill-spirits. By the end of the ceremony, we all had about 25 strings tied to our wrists! :) After lunch, we spent the afternoon all together hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. The day ended soon, and we went home.

Thursday brought our final rehearsal day for our final set of shows. We spent most of the morning, actually, with some free time, which gave a lot of us some time to go around and have others right contact info and goodbyes in notebooks and journals and the like. After lunch, we ran through everything and worked out a lot of kinks, getting use to the new stage for us, as well as the different entrances. The venue that we were set to perform in was a domed stadium, which thankfully meant that it wouldn’t be out in the midday sun, but it also meant that it would be indoors and full of stifling body heat and more. But, its Thailand – we didn’t expect any less. Our stage was a large constructed stage about five feet off the ground, and thankfully huge. We had plenty of room for EVERYONE to be on stage, which was good since no one wanted to miss any part of the last show coming up on Saturday. A lot of Thursday was also spent working out the technical side of the show, since the audio system was not ours. It definitely took a while to get everything in working order, and even then it wasn’t quite right. For instance, we had a lot of trouble with the on-stage monitors which allows us to hear ourselves in the microphone groups, and lets the soloist hear themselves as well. They didn’t work very well, and kept getting muted out by the open drums and echo-back from the speakers pointed towards the audience. Something to get use to anyway. I rehearsed “It Takes A Whole Village to Raise a Child” again, and I tried to get used to not being able to hear myself, which sort of worked. Either way, we made it through all of rehearsal, and ended the day.

Friday was our first show day of two in Khon Kaen. We were set to have two shows that day – one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The first show wasn’t one open to the public, but instead it was for the many schools and children we’d been working with the past two weeks at our CI sites all over Khon Kaen. Even the children we’d been working with at the Daughters of Charity were there! The stadium was packed to the BRIM! We were told that there were 6,000 people there in attendance. Unbelievable! We ended up having to perform in a sort of U fashion so as to personalize the show for everyone that were practically surrounding us. And when they cheered, it was a high-pitch scream that reverberated around in the metal-roofed dome. Almost ear-splitting. But let me tell you – it was still the coolest thing ever! But, I’m getting ahead of myself. We spent the morning running through the show again, hitting different entrances and transitions and such. Once we finished, Gabe (our show manager) decided to cut into lunch a bit and let us have some fun. The sound board cued up the Mexican Medley and we all performed it for one last time. Ah, it was SOOO cool!!! For me, it had been since Mexico City since I had done it last, and for the cast it’d been since San Luis Potosi. Either way, it’d been a while, and we all had grown extremely fond of that 7.5 minutes of Spanish madness. And the crazy thing was that we all still knew exactly what to do. Talk about the best way to get everyone pumped up for the first show! After the medley, we all went to lunch, got ready for the show, and dove right into it. It went off great! As I mentioned, the cheers were near ear-splitting, and the crowd really seemed to enjoy it. After the show, we all found ourselves, however, drenched in sweat. I had two shirts on underneath my show shirt, hoping that it would help buffer the sweat from getting to my show shirt. I was wrong. We all quickly changed out of our show costumes and hung them up to dry before the next show. Backstage, there was a door to get outside and catch some sort of a breeze, but it was surrounded by a lot of the children that had just seen the show and were now looking for autographs and pictures. I can honestly say that I have never signed so many random pieces of paper, and taken pictures with so many random people. It definitely inflated our egos :) We all hung out between the shows, grabbing some dinner and just relaxing. Finally, as the evening’s show time was approaching, the show list was put up, and I found myself as the soloist for “It Takes a Whole Village…” Whew. Um, yeah, I suddenly wanted to throw up just a bit. I was just a bit nervous. Thankfully, I found people to hang out with to distract me for the next hour instead of think about it constantly (thanks Kristen and Wouter!). I was up on microphone groups for the first two songs – “Ayiko” and “Step Into the World” – thankfully, which let me warm up a bit and loosen up, too. Finally, “I Can Believe” got done and it was my time to climb up on stage. I took a deep breath and did it. On reflection, I am VERY happy that it was an evening show and the audience was dark, leaving me blinded for the most part by the spotlight and unable to see many of any faces. I think it made it easier. And it went alright. I fumbled the words on the second verse just a bit, but you could only tell if you knew the song/spoke English. Being that I was in Thailand, I think I was alright :) I did, also, have Mitch (my roommate, and one of our Education staff members) video record my solo for me, but I really don’t want to publicize that one any more than necessary. I listened to part of it, and despite what anyone told me in Khon Kaen, I don’t think it sounds that good. So that’s not going up here – sorry :-p But I knew that family would want to see it, otherwise I would never have taped it. After my solo, I flowed right into the rest of the show, and it went off great. One funny moment that I really enjoyed was during “Keep the Beat.” I was up on microphone groups, so I had a great view of the whole stage. Brittany, from Colorado, was singing the solo for this song for the first time. She was nervous, but she did an AMAZING job. But, at the end of the song, there is a short emcee transition into a break. She wrote the emcee (which was in Thai) on her hand so that she’d be able to read it stealthily and make the transition. When it came time to read it, the sweat from her performing (and probably being nervous) caused the ink on her hand to run and smear, leaving her making up Thai words during the emcee transition. It was all I could do not to chuckle. Don’t get me wrong, I felt bad for her – but come on! That kind of stuff only happens in the movies! It was kind of amusing.

Saturday, June 15th, 2008 – Cast A 2008’s final show day. It’s hard to think back to Denver on arrival day when I thought that the show was going to be the hardest thing for me. And now I knew it was one of the things I looked forward to every week. We started off the day with some general rehearsal again, and then we all climbed on stage in a circle. Over the course of the semester, one particular song had grown to be an emotional hook for all of us – able to tug at our heartstrings whenever it wanted to. Well, it was our last show day, and our last time we’d perform “We’ll Be There” together. So, hoping let our some of that emotion early and not in the final show tonight on stage, our show staff gathered us all into one large circle on stage to sing “We’ll Be There” to each other. By the end, there was not a dry eye in the stadium. It was the end. It had caught up with all of us. And it was time to face it.

Our afternoon show went by normally – just as sweaty as the day before, though. I brought I towel along, though, so I was able to take advantage of the showers they had at the sports stadium. It. Was. Amazing. We all hung out again after the show, chatting and savoring the calm before the emotional storm that would surely hit as soon as our last show started. Finally, it came to get ready for our final show and our last Green Room. We all walked to our final Green Room and were asked to sit down. When we did, it began. The song “Right Now” by Van Halen started playing, and staff members began walking across the stage silently, holding signs with different things written on them and all the while a sign stood lonely on the stage: “Right Now…” Some of the different signs said things like, “…your final audience is taking their seats,” and “…Cast B 2008 is packing THEIR bags,” and “…your family is waiting for you at home.” It definitely put things into perspective – right now isn’t necessarily right here. After that, the staff talked a bit, then we played some games (like we usually do), and Andrew Lanham (our sound tech staff member) gave us his last circle talk – probably his most powerful. We then went into a showcase of everyone in their final roles for the night – who was doing what during the show. And then we were off to the stadium and our final show. I changed into my specialty costume since I was set to do the frontline for “Step into the World,” which besides the show earlier that day I hadn’t done since The Woodlands. It was nice to have my last show include this frontline dance that I had done in my first show. So since I was in my costume, I had to wait backstage during “Ayiko” just as I normally do, which let Chris Ota and I jam out to the song like we use to always do – man was that fun! Then “Step into the World” came on and we all poured out onto the stage. Hans and Brandon (who had solo-ed the song for most of the year) were reunited for the show and really took it up a notch, almost to the point of going insane on stage. You couldn’t miss the energy. It was fun to do the dance one last time. We transitioned to “Village,” and I got to do cast movement for that. Overall, there had been three soloists for “Village” – Johan from Sweden, François from Namibia, and myself. I did the show Friday night, François did the show this afternoon, and Johan did the final show. It wasn’t any surprise to me that I only did the solo once, and really I was happy with that. So I was on cast movement for “Village” and that went just fine. We transitioned into “Sound of Peace” where we all form “clumps” on stage, some people kneeling and others standing. It’s a beautiful song. What wasn’t so beautiful was the dripping sweat rolling down off of everyone during the song. Eww. One person even said that they thought it was raining and the roof was leaking until they realized that someone was dripping sweat onto them – yuck. Glad that wasn’t me! :-s We moved from “Sound” to “Chang,” which was one of the Thai songs we performed in the show. The crowd really seemed to enjoy that. After that, it was “Power With,” “Ounce,” “Rhythm/Stomp,” and “Keep the Beat.” But before intermission, the staff from the hospital that had been sponsoring us in Khon Kaen came on stage and performed a song for us as a thank you. It was pretty cool! We didn’t quite understand it, since it was in Thai, but that didn’t matter – we got the gist. After that, intermission came and went, and soon “Shine the Light” was starting. I found my way to the front of the stage for our final time doing the song, and I really felt like the crowd was starting to feel our energy. Because let’s face it – as gracious as our Thai crowd was, they were still watching and listening to a show that primarily was in English. But it felt like they were picking up on our outpouring of energy – that unrestricted flow stemming from our final moments on stage as Cast A 2008. We transitioned to “One to One” – I found myself on stage doing the signing as the cast was out in the crowded audience. After that, our final “I Can Believe” and transition to “World Celebration,” followed by our culture jam. When the Mariachi segment came, and with it Jessica Rojas’ amazing long note, Jessica pulled out the big guns and carried her note one of the longest times I’d ever heard. There is no question that she knew it was her last show. As the Mariachi segment was winding down, Hans (the soloist for “Oye el Boom”) was getting ready for his solo coming up next, and he decided to unbutton his most of the way, leaving only a few buttoned and most of his bare chest showing. When he exploded onto the stage with his first lyrics, he ripped his shirt open and flowed right into the song. What I would have given to see the face of our show manager, Gabe. But it worked well and everyone really got into “Oye el Boom.” After that, we filtered off stage to do our change into Thai shirts. After I got that done, I made my way for my walk-on for microphone groups. There, I was able to watch our “We’ll Be There” video one final time with the other mic group people. As I looked around, I saw that a few people were openly very sad – they knew it was their last time. It was my last time. But as I watched the video, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride as I read the words: “The world has also witnessed the power of people working together, sharing a common vision; a vision that together we can change the world.” That’s what I’d been a part of this past five months. Sure I traveled around to many places, lived with different host families, and met some amazing people. But I also had been an example to all the people that I’d met that it is possible. Whether it be working with people from different backgrounds or cultures; whether it be making a difference in a local community, and giving back to others; whether it be spreading a message of hope through a show – I had been a part of a vision that together we can change the world for the better.

The music for “We’ll Be There” began, and lights focused down on Molly Robertson doing her solo. I was up on microphone groups, so I could see both the stage and crowd well. Up ahead of us, in a balcony, stood the staff and the tech board. And while it was dark, the lights from the stage illuminated the stadium enough so that I pick out staff standing up there. AJ walked on stage for his entrance, joining Molly on the first refrain and then moving into his solo. The second refrain came and the cast members with culture costumes moved on stage. The refrain drew to its end and Jessica Rojas came on stage for the third and final verse. Most of the microphone groups by that point were misty, and Jessica only made it worse. As her verse ended, the cast’s cue to move on stage came. I looked up into the balcony and saw the staff raise up signs from our Green Room: “You can do it Cast A!” “We believe in you!” “This is YOUR final show!” The a capela refrain came, and the crowd pulled out white pieces of cloth they began to sway in the air, something else the staff had arranged. Our final refrain. I found myself panting and with a stupid grin on my face at the end – any sadness at this being our last time on stage singing this song fading under the amazing adrenaline and energy we’d just thrown out to the audience. A standing ovation.

The show continued on to our last Thai song. That was over quickly, and there were a few more emcee comments to wrap up the show and lead us into our final number: “Up with People.” As the music kicked in, however, an explosion ripped through the air, and confetti and streamers soared across the stage. The look on our faces must have been priceless, because we were NOT expecting any sort of confetti canon or fireworks. But we recovered quickly and went right into a powerful and energetic “Up with People,” the last time we’d be on stage singing it as castmembers and not alumni. It ended quickly and with it our final show. We moved off stage and about every emotion you can think of was found there: crying, laughing, solemn silence. Two things were constants, however: were all dripping with sweat, and we would never again do that show together. Whoa.

We all gathered outside after about fifteen minutes, where the sound crew and rigged up some speakers to an iPod. The clicked it on and we jammed out to our strike song one last time. People leaving the stadium stopped and looked at us with what could only be described as confusion and oddity. After all, we must have looked crazy. After that it was truly done. There was nothing left of the show but the sweaty costumes we needed to pack up into bags and suitcases to take home to the U.S. in a day. I found the bag that I’d need to take home with me, and found my host family. We drove home mostly in silence, still in kind of a lull and trying to process the night. I packed my suitcase a bit when I got home, but for the most part went straight to bed.

And I'll finish the rest in the next few days...haha, sorry to cut this into parts, but I guess that's what happens. The next part soon to come!

Until my next post!

Dan