Daniel Rohmiller -- Up with People, Cast A 2008

Afterword -- Cast B 2008's Green Room Torch Pass

2008-08-12T21:55:00.002-06:00

Hello all!

So this past weekend, I journeyed out to Denver to see Cast B 2008's Rehearsal Show. If you remember, one of the first duties Sofie and I had to do was write a dedication to Cast B in the "Oh the Places You'll Go" book our cast was given in our first Green Room. Well, since I was going to be in Denver, Martin (the new cast's manager) gave me the opportunity to read the dedication to Cast B, which I took him up on. Green Room came, and I read the dedication. I thought that I would post it here as a final sidenote to my Up with People adventure.

Dear Cast B 2008,

You're at the beginning, we're near the end
You're surrounded by strangers, we call that stranger a friend
You're going crazy, did you pack all you need?
Our time to unpack -- how to succeed?
We're two points on a circle, different yet same
And that is what binds us to all those who came
We stood in your place only six months ago
And here you are, ready for your first show
The road lies ahead -- you ready to begin
a journey to help you look 'round and within?
But before we depart, we leave some advice
Words of wisdom in the form of thrice:

Stetch yourself
Unlimit yourself
Enjoy yourself -- GROW!

You are Cast B 2008
Now is YOUR time to celebrate!

With love and support,
Cast A 2008

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

2008-07-17T20:27:00.002-06:00

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

2008-07-07T22:20:00.003-06:00

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

The Thai Adventure Begins!

2008-06-09T04:12:00.004-06:00

Hello all!

Well, it’s been an interesting past two and a half weeks here in Thailand. We arrived at about 9:30 in the morning, local time Thailand. Of course it was 9:30 P.M. back home, but that’s neither here nor there. We all made our way through customs, which was a two minute process for me. After that, we wheeled our luggage through the airport, and then onto the buses waiting for us outside. We drove for about twelve hours from Bangkok to Chiang Rai, which is in the north of Thailand. We arrived at a Buddhist temple, where we’d be staying at for the night. We couldn’t really see much of the place then, but there were hints of Thai all around us. The trees – more tropical. The wall decorations, too. When we awoke the next morning, we got a rude awakening to Thailand – squatty-potties. Yes. I’m sure you can use your imagination to decipher what I mean. Needless to say, this Buddhist temple did NOT have a Western toilet or shower. Your show was a bucket to fill with water and pour over your head. The same bucket that you used to flush the squatty-potty with. Yes. Fun times. But what’s more cultural than a bathroom experience? We gathered together for morning meeting, a welcoming ceremony, and then broke into our CI groups so that we could prepare for the week. The people selected to go into hill tribes left in the afternoon, set to enjoy the “rustic” experience for a week away from the cast. The rest of us worked on our own CI projects to be sure we’d be ready for the five days of CI. For most of the days, we would be only meeting with our groups and not with the cast as a whole, which was a change for us since we’d pretty much been inseparable since staging. Good practice for the end of the semester. Finally, host family pick-up time came and I met my wonderful host family. I was also roomed with Leo Martinez from Venezuela again (my roommate from both Brenham and The Woodlands). We went to a restaurant and ate what seemed to be traditional Thai food – rice, fish, vegetables, and such. The first phrase that I learned quickly was “mai ped,” which means “no spicy”. Came in handy :) After dinner, we went to their home and settled in for the night. I quickly learned that hard sleeping surfaces is prevalent in Thailand, not something just limited to our Buddhist temple experience. My bed for the next week and a half was, basically, a wooden table with a thin mattress (half-inch thick) on top. This wasn’t something thrown together for me – this was what Thai people slept on normally. Hmmmmmm. Cultural experience #2.

I woke up the next morning, Friday, quite early (about 5:45) so that we could leave and eat breakfast before going to our first CI site – World Vision. Leo, my roommate, really enjoys coffee in the morning, and adds quite a bit of sugar to his cup. Like, dump sugar in for five seconds. The look on my host mother’s face every time he did that over the next week and a half was enough to brighten my day. She would give him this genuinely aghast look, surprised that ANYONE could have that much sugar in their coffee, and then shudder at the thought of tasting that herself. We all laughed about it before too long. Her son, Peal (pronounced pee-el), speaks amazing English, which made all the meal experiences and general communication a lot easier. I was very grateful for that. He also is a BIG fan of Friends, the T.V. show, and so we ended up watching that every night, since it was a routine of his. Pretty sure he has all the seasons. It was quite strange, though, to find myself watching Friends in Thailand. Anyway. Back to Friday. After breakfast, Leo and I went to our CI site, World Vision, which is a Christian organization that, I believe, works all over the world providing social services to those who need it. They set up an English camp for Thai hill tribe children to attend since we, Up with People, were going to be in Chiang Rai. I was crew leader for this CI site, which meant that I was the liaison between our crew and World Vision, and I was also in charge of our crew managerially. Our job was to decide on subjects to teach three classes of Thai children, figure out a lesson plan that would work for the different times allotted, and then put into action these plans, teaching children who don’t speak any English something that will be useful for them. We decided on a few different subjects. My group (myself, Tyler from California, and Veronica from Norway) taught body parts, clothes, and if we needed it animals. Another group (Mitch from Ohio, Linn from Sweden, and Mira from Bulgaria) taught numbers, the alphabet, colors, and shapes. The final group (Leo from Venezuela, Rachel from the U.S., and Jessica K. from the U.S.) taught simple verbs, nouns, and directions. Our class schedule on Friday wasn’t too bad: six, 45 minute classes starting at about 9 and ending at 3:30 with lunch in the middle. The three groups would rotate around to the three different classrooms so that they could all each get our different lesson plans. We rotated around twice, so we ended up teaching each class for about an hour and a half. At the end of the day, the nine of us walked to a ice cream shop nearby and had some amazing ice cream while we did a wrap-up of the day and also began a discussion of the stages of loss, led by our staff member Mitch. For future reference, there are five stages of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. We were discussing this, of course, because we were three and half weeks from the end of the semester – a semester where we’ve slept, ate, danced, sang, hugged, cried, and experienced the world together as a cast and now we’ll be soon going our separate ways. An appropriate discussion. We discussed denial, and then walked back to World Vision to be picked up by our host family. I and Leo’s host family picked us up and took us to the White Temple – a beautiful temple in Chiang Rai. See attached pictures. Wow. After that, we had dinner and I called it a night. I was exhausted from the culture shift, the culture experiences, and from teaching English to people who couldn’t speak a word.

Saturday came, our Regional Learning Day for Chiang Rai. Unfortunately, we were not an entire cast for this regional learning day – the thirty-some people in the hill tribes would not be joining us. But, we were still sixty-some strong and we were going to represent! :) We started off the day with an hour boat ride down the Kok river, the main river through Chiang Rai. It provided us with some great scenery and just a relaxing beginning to what would become a long and amazing day. We arrived at the shores of a hill tribe market along the river where we disembarked from the boats and got a chance to mill around. There were animal displays, too, where you could pay 100 bat, for example, and have a huge python wrapped around your neck to take pictures. I elected to not, but there were those who paid the 100 bat (about $3 in the U.S.) to do it. After that, we all paired up and climbed some stairs to ride ELEPHANTS! Woo hoo!! It was a crazy and different experience. We rode atop them for about forty-five minutes and traveled up into some hill tribes and then waded through the river to arrive back where we started. I rode with Mira from Bulgaria, who was freaking out for the first five minutes, but was then able to control herself for the rest of the ride if I could provide some distracting discussion. It was a fun experience that really made a lot of people’s day – many had been hoping to ride elephants in Thailand and this had been a surprise the staff had kept from us. After the elephant rides and lunch, we boarded the boats again for a short ride upriver to a landing site and sort-of hill tribe area. It was there that we set out on a road to lead us up into the hills to a beautiful waterfall where we would be able to swim and relax and enjoy ourselves. We were told that the trek would be about 900 meters – about half a mile. I, myself, never really thought about the walking there. For the first forty-five minutes, I spent the time talking to different people as I walked, just enjoying the chance to have social time while we were going to the waterfall. But soon the paved road turned into a dirt road, and then that dirt road got steeper. And then that dirt road disappeared into a walking trail. At different points, all sixty of us found ourselves stopping in the shade to rest for a moment and catch our breath and just step out of the sun. The water we were carrying turned hot quickly, but it soon didn’t matter as the sweat rolled off us in currents. Many of us were exhausted. Some of us nearly collapsed. A couple of us puked. Not a pretty sight. But we pressed on. This waterfall was going to be amazing, we kept telling ourselves. A hour elapsed since we left. Then an hour and a half. All the while, the sun wasn’t getting any more merciful, though our water was getting lighter – comes from drinking a bunch of it! :) Finally, we reached a point in the thick, lush trees where the entire cast stopped there to let everyone catch up who had fallen behind and give the group a collective break. We had figured out by then that this was no mere half mile, but we still didn’t know how far we had to go yet. But, after about 20 minutes of rest, we picked up again and kept climbing what had turned into a rough trail. We passed through several hill tribe villages, and after the rest I was better able to appreciate them. After about a half hour, we arrive and the beautifully majestic waterfall that cascaded down about 50-70 feet over rough rocks and trees into a glorious pool below. We all cheered with a relief and joy I thought none of us could summon at that point. It was truly an amazing experience and ordeal to have gone through. What was supposed to be a mild half mile walk turned into a 2 km climb through hot and rough terrain. I cannot hardly describe the immense feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction we all had when we reached the waterfall. We all celebrated by switching into bathing suits and jumping into the waterfall pool, enjoying the crisp and cool water. A-MAZING! :) We were able to swim and lounge around for about forty minutes, and then we continued on the path downhill to a clearing where vehicles picked us up and brought us back to the hill tribe we started at. By that point, we had already dubbed the day as the best Regional Learning Day ever, which is a lot to say after days like the pyramids in Mexico and the Alamo in San Antonio. We drove for about an hour back into Chiang Rai to a restaurant that served us all dinner and had a two person band playing music for us. The singer must have known we speak English because most of the songs he sang were covers of U.S. songs. He did a great acoustic rendition of Linkin Park’s “Numb” and “What I’ve Done.” We all relaxed, enjoyed dinner and each other’s company, taking in what all we had done that day. I and Leo’s host family picked us up that evening, and as soon as we got back home I went straight to bed. I surprised I was able to stay awake for the ride home :)

Sunday brought the first of two host family days in Chiang Rai. We got up early and left the house at about 5 a.m. to head to the farmer’s market (or something like that) where we picked up breakfast and took it to a friend of our host family’s house, who happened to be Scott and Ellen Enebo’s host family. We ate breakfast, which consisted of rice, eggs, and toast, and then Leo and I went into their T.V. room to wait for Ellen and Scott to join us. They turned on the T.V. for us, which was satellite, and I was able to flip through the channels to see if I could find anything worth watching. By happenstance, I stumbled onto the ESPN channel and the NBA Eastern Conference series between the Boston Celtics and the Detroit Pistons. I couldn’t believe it. And the game was live! It was 7:30 in the morning, I was sitting in Thailand, and I was watching the NBA live. Just weird. I was able to watch the first half of the game (which was Game 3, by the way) and see that the Celtics had taken a considerable led into the half. I can only imagine that they won, even though it was at Detroit. We all left soon enough and journeyed to the house of the King’s Mother – a beautiful home up in the high hills of Thailand. Gorgeous. After that, we toured the King’s Mother’s huge garden, which flowed around the foothills of her home – a beautifully huge area with hundreds of different kinds of flowers and plants that have been excellently maintained. So cool to see. After we looked at all of this, we all drove to another friend of our host families’ home – a beautiful house a good distance outside of Chiang Rai. There, we had lunch and played games with each other just enjoyed the beautiful afternoon. Leo and I caught a small nap, since the day before had been crazy-long and we’d gotten up so early. After a few hours, we all gathered back together and drove to Chiang Rai’s largest university, which was absolutely beautiful and provided for some great photo opps :) Soon enough, though, the day ended and we all parted. Leo and I went to bed, ready to start our four days in a row of CI.

In terms of CI, Monday through Thursday were basically the same. In the morning we had two, hour and a half classes with about 25 children, and we taught them English based on the areas we had chosen to focus on. After lunch, we had another hour and a half class, followed by a half hour, outdoor large-group activity, which we usually spent playing games like duck duck goose and red light/green light. We had the same kids on Monday and Tuesday, then a new set for Wednesday and Thursday, which meant we needed to have lesson plans ready for three hours of collective teaching. We basically used the first day as a introduction to our subjects, gauging how much they were absorbing to decide how much we should teach them in the first day. The second day was spent reviewing what we’d done the first day, adding on some new lessons should they be needed (which they always were). These were some bright kids. After each day, we walked to that ice cream shop down the street, spent 30 bat on some ice cream (which was about a dollar), and did a wrap-up of the day, prepared for tomorrow, and went of the stages of loss. Monday was anger. Tuesday was bargaining. Wednesday was depression. Thursday was acceptance. During the week, however, after CI, Leo and I were toured around to different places around Chiang Rai by our host family, seeing different sights, and getting opportunities for photo opps. Good times.

Friday brought cast rehearsal day, and the first day we’d all be together for a week, since the hill tribe people returned to Chiang Rai the night before, as did some of the other different allocations. All of us greeted each other with open arms in the morning, over-exuberantly happy to see one another. You would have thought it was a five year reunion :) Soon we all jumped right into a large CI overview, which gave us all an opportunity to see what everyone else had been doing all week long. After that, we all split into large groups of what we’d be doing after Up with People. My group was the “Returning to School” group, since I’m planning on attending the University of Nebraska at Omaha in the fall. It was cool to hear about some of the plans everyone had for after Up with People, and a keen reminder that the semester’s end was drawing near. After lunch, we jumped right into rehearsal, which was different since we weren’t doing it on the actual stage we’d be performing. Really, it was just an opportunity for us to work out show kinks before we arrived at the show facility the next day and had to work out all the technical kinks. It was obvious that the cast had missed doing the show for two weeks. The level of energy put into that rehearsal was huge! Our best rehearsal yet! I even got my hand in a solo opportunity, and practiced “It Takes a Whole Village to Raise a Child.” I thought I did a decent job, but in all honesty I couldn’t hear myself that well because of the poor speaker quality and sound meshing. In other words, it was very noisy in that room! :) After rehearsal, we got together for wrap-up and then broke for the day. Our host family was waiting for Leo and I, and took us straight after to a restaurant for dinner party in our honor. We had a special room all to ourselves, and our host family invited some of their friends, and we hung out while eating and laughing and even singing karaoke! I even had a pork chop for dinner – and it was amazing!!! By the end of the night, we’d been there for about five hours and we were all exhausted, but in a good way. We drove home, and Leo and I crashed.

Show day came we ran through the normal day routines. But since set up was done by a Thai crew, we had some presentations in the morning, followed by lunch. After lunch, rehearsal kicked in on our custom-built stage. We ran through the show, working out the technical kinks, and finally we were ready for our first Thai show. As we glanced out into the audience floor, we kept seeing the room fill and fill and fill. Finally, Martin came backstage and said we were going to start the show, and that they’ve been turning away people at the door! The room was packed – FAR more than would ever be legally allowed in the U.S.!! We the show started, a deafening scream raced through the room. Think of the most high-pitched, junior-high girl scream and then multiply it by fifty. That’s what it was like. Piercing. But, instead of being painful, it was only FUEL for us. All throughout the show, the screams and cheers spurred us on, and by the end of the night we felt like we’d put on an amazing show. Without needing to do strike, I was able to change and then go home right away with my host family. I turned in quickly, and fell quickly to sleep.

Sunday brought our last day in Chiang Rai, and our host family day as well. We were able to sleep in a bit (until about 7:30 – woo hoo!) and then we were off to join Scott and Ellen’s host family for a day of Thailand exploration and adventure! We all loaded onto a eleven-passenger bus and toured to the northernmost point of Thailand, what’s known as the Golden Triangle. If you don’t know the historical significance, I’ll explain it here in a bit. Basically, the Golden Triangle is where Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar all meet. The first place we went to was a museum created by the King’s Mother (whose home we visited last host family day) called the Hall of Opium. It is a historical museum aimed at educating people about drugs, particularly opium, and then hopefully deterring people from becoming addicted to them. The tour, which was self-guided, began with us walking through a tunnel through the side of a mountain. In the tunnel, wispy and blissful-like music played, but the tunnel itself was dark and shadowy with artistic murals at points that depicted tortured and agonized faces seeming to “push” themselves out of the rock. In a pamphlet we got, this walk was explained to be a representation of opium addiction – the music representing the blissful, euphoric feeling one gets from the drug, while the murals represented the harsh, concrete reality of the addiction and its harmful results. Very interesting start. Once to the other side of the tunnel, we were given a very brief overview of the facility through a English video and then “set loose” in the museum, free to wander through its directed and interactive path. Along the way, it had signs and exhibits that detailed the history of opium and how opium got to be such a terrible addiction in Thailand. While I’m sure the story is MUCH more complex, the nuts and bolts of it is this: England had acquired a strong taste for tea in the 1600s, which could only be found and made in China. At the time, and because of China’s export tariffs, England could not afford the price it was costing to satisfy the huge demand for the product. They simply did not have enough precious metals to trade. But, since at this time they had colonized India, they had plenty of opium, and began trading it for tea. This ended up being a great trade for England since the Chinese quickly became addicted to the drug and soon demanded more of it, which England loved because then it could get more tea. The Chinese government, however, did not think opium was such a great idea. So they placed high tariffs on its import, and then finally outlawed it. England didn’t much like this, which led to the two Opium Wars, which both ended in England’s favor. This led to unfair treaty negotiations, placing opium as a nearly untaxed item in China. Opium’s influence later spread south into Thailand, which the northern hill tribes there and in Laos and Myanmar used as a cash crop to feed a huge demand worldwide. Whew.

After about halfway through this long exhibit that was the Hall of Opium, we reached a point where it turned into an emotional appeal instead of a historical documentary. More stories of people’s lives, whole peoples, and countries being drastically affected by opium surfaced and were the main display. By the end, I found that this museum had been an amazing experience that both taught me something and touched me. It was very powerful.

After the Hall of Opium, we all packed back into the van and drove to a large market and tourist area where we had lunch and then toured around to see some great architecture and statues and the like. This was right on the border of Thailand and Laos. The restaurant we ate at overlooked a river that was the border between the two countries. Beyond this, there were a lot of photogenic places. And my host family LOVES taking pictures. So needless to say I have a LOT of pictures :) After we toured this, we drove further north to the border of Thailand and Myanmar where we took some more pictures, saw some cool temples and statues, and toured through some Thai marketplaces. Its amazing how much I DON’T blend in here in Asia :) After we toured around here for a bit, we all clamored back into the van and drove back to Chiang Ria – about an hour drive. We dropped of Scott and Ellen and their host family, and then went to eat dinner ourselves. After this, we drove back home and Leo and I started to pack and say our goodbyes, since tomorrow would be departure day from Chiang Rai. After packing for hours and handing out host family gifts, we said goodnight and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up early and drove to our drop off point. Leo and I said goodbye to our wonderful host family and then boarded the buses for Khon Kaen. My bus date for the trip was Erin from Indiana, but we didn’t really hang out until the end of the drive since we both slept for most of the drive. Our bus wasn’t equipped with a DVD player, but it did have a V-CD player. Yes, that’s right. A VIDEO COMPACT DISC player. Shooting it back to lost technology. So we couldn’t watch anything on the bus since no one had a V-CD movie. However, at a gas station stop, Nicole from California bought a copy of “Sweeny Todd” on V-CD for a cheap price, and we were able to watch it on our bus. Unfortunately for us, the dialogue was in Thai. BUT, the music (because it is a musical) was still in English with Thai subtitles. Since I’d seen it already, I was able to explain to those who hadn’t what was going on in the movie when the English cut out, and overall it was an amusing experience for all. We were also able to listen to a CD copy of Carolyn Lee’s speech she’d given us at the beginning of our year about the Up with People experience. I’m pretty sure I blogged about this back in January or early February. It was really cool to listen to it again and give ourselves perspective of how far we’ve come and where we are now. It was a good focuser for the last two weeks to come. We arrived at about 8-8:30 in the evening after about a 12 hour bus ride over and through the mountains of Thailand to Khon Kaen. At times, we were all afraid we were going to die because our bus drive was driving our bus like a Indy racer around the curves of the mountain hills, but we arrived safe and sound, albeit with a few more grey hairs. Allocation ensued and I was paired up in my last city with Mitch McVicker, one of the Education Team staff members. I was pretty excited since I had thought to myself that he’d been one of those people I hadn’t gotten to know that well these past five months, so I was excited for the next two weeks, even though they would be my last on the road. After some fun trying to find our right host family, we were off to their home in Khon Kaen for a good night’s rest.

Tuesday was orientation day for the cast, and it was filled with welcoming ceremonies done by both dignitaries in Khon Kaen, and Khon Kaen University students. We also had some internal time that was used by Martin, our cast manager, to talk to us about how to use Up with People on your résumé and in interviews effectively, and by Dave, our Admissions Coordinator, on how to spread the word to people about Up with People when we get back. Overall, it was a great cast day.

Wednesday brought our first day of CI in Khon Kaen. I was placed at a Christian mission school for special needs children. There we were going to be working with the children, as well as working on weeding their gardens and painting their playground equipment. Seven of us were allocated to the place: Tucker from Denver, Mitch from Ohio, Molly from Ohio/California, Anna from Denmark, myself, Katy from Denver, and Nina from Finland. Mitch, Anna, Nina, and Katy worked with the children in the morning and then gardened in the afternoon, while Molly, Tucker, and I began painting all of the playground equipment the mission had, which became the routine for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The two head sisters at the mission are Philippine women who can speak Philippine, Thai, and English – all very well! Amazing. They’ve been working at the mission for about 30 years, helping the children there. It’s difficult work since in Thailand there is a traditional thought that if your child is born with an sort of disorder or handicap, it is because of a sin of the grandfather of that child – a punishment. The children have traditionally been seen as outcasts of society, and even though it is 2008 the sisters still must work against this stigma.

Saturday brought our only regional learning day in Khon Kaen, and our last of the tour. We started off by visited a huge Buddhist temple, which was absolutely beautiful! After that, we drove and visited a museum of Khon Kaen, which laid out some historical points of the region and also some modern and local attractions to see in the area. We then all loaded some trucks and drove to a neighboring town, Nam Phong, which Cast C 2007 visited on their tour last year. We were welcome by people there and had some great lunch provided by the local Rotary Club. After lunch, we all gathered up again and drove to Boystown in Nam Phong, where we would be spending the rest of the afternoon. The boys who lived there performed for us with some traditional musical instruments, and then we were given free reign of the facility, for which we the cast had some plans. Lucas, one of our Field Managers for the city, took the entire staff aside for a moment to tell them some harsh news – our show facility was currently under three feet of water and the power was completely out. There was no way we could have our final shows there next week. Immediately the staff began to brainstorm to find some last minute places, but it was looking pretty bleak. There were some anxious and, frankly, angry people in that meeting. Lucas then led the staff back over to the cast, who then surprised them with STAFF APPRECIATION!! Haha – so our show facility is not under water, and everything is okay for our final shows, but I’m told that it was an amazingly tense moment in that circle of staff members and some great acting by Lucas, who was in on the trick. We led the staff to front row seats, were personal attendants were waiting to get them water and massages while they enjoyed a mock awards show for their benefit. One by one, awards were given out to all the staff members with great appreciation notes attached to them. To receive them were members of the cast playing the respective staff members. Some of the imitations were HILARIOUS! Brandon had an amazing mimicking of Scott Enebo – I wish I’d video taped it! After all the awards were handed out, the staff got a chance to bid on some cast members who were willing to be their “slaves” for a day. It was quite amusing. Kristen Ditges was easily the most sought after “slave,” with multiple staff members bidding on her with money they didn’t really have (each staff member was given 100 fake dollars – Kristen was getting bids of about $120-$130!) After this, the entire cast handed out appreciate letters to the staff members, and then had the move to the center of a large circle we created. Once we surrounded them all, we sang “We’ll Be There” to them, one of the most powerful songs in show. While yes it was cliché, we could tell it meant a lot to staff. Many of them were quite misty-eyed by the end.

After staff appreciation, we moved into Hometeam Olympics, part 2. The first round of Hometeam Olympics took place in Puebla while I was on advanced work in New Braunfels (just like Cast Appreciation happened in San Luis Potosi). In the first Hometeam Olympics, Hometeam #5 – the Huggies – won, and were definitely being rooted against during the entire competition. My hometeam – Hometeam #2 – had placed last in the last Olympics, so we something to prove. Unfortunately, we didn’t get very far. We placed last again, and the Huggies won again, which in my mind seriously draws into question the refereeing of the event ;) haha, just kidding. We all had a good time. After the Olympics, we had wrap-up and the cast boarded trucks to head to Khon Kaen. Our host family, who also has a home in Nam Phong, had Mitch and I stay there with them. We joined Imm, who’s from Thailand and part of our cast, and her family for dinner, and got to hang out with all of her roommates as well: Sofie from Sweden, Gift from Thailand, Miwa from Japan, and Natalya from Uzbekistan. It was an Asian household :) After dinner, Mitch and I settled into a cabin-like room our host family prepared for us that had AC – woo hoo! We slept well, almost a bit COLD for once :)

Sunday brought our only host family day in Khon Kaen, and our LAST host family day on tour. We woke up at about 6:45 a.m. and quickly got dressed, had breakfast, and then drove out to meet a friend of our host family – a man named Martin, who is originally from England, but moved to Thailand, found his wife in Bangkok, and has since moved to the northeast of Thailand to raise rice and other crops while raising his three children. I have to admit that it was great to speak in full-out English again. Our host family only speaks limited English, even though the work very hard to communicate. So English, even British English, was great to hear. He had some interesting things to talk about, and Mitch and I did a lot of listening. He picked up two languages while he was here: Thai and another local language of the area. He showed us around his farm, which he plants and maintains himself. Coming from a farm myself, it was interesting to see the amount of work he has to do to prepare the fields for planting. He doesn’t use any chemicals to get rid of weeds and such – only a two-wheeled tractor that the Thai call a “Japanese Buffalo.” Think of it as a very large push, self-propelled lawn mower that you can hook things up to, like plows and discs and such. You can also jimmy-rig it to pump water into rice sections so that they’re control-irrigated, and I’m sure there are other uses for the tractor engine. Much like farmers use to do years ago in the U.S., these tractors are multi-purpose tools that last decades with good maintenance. And also like how it use to be in the U.S., neighbors come round to help each other out when harvest season comes around, since they know none of them can harvest all their crop by themselves. Rice, while it can be planted anytime with the even weather in Thailand, has a short amount of time in can be harvested. Too late, and the rice stems will droop over and the rice seeds will begin to trickle our and onto the ground, ruining the harvest and cutting yields. Basically, there is a two-week window to harvest. After that, yield starts to drop off. Overall, we spent about an hour or two at Martin’s place, and it was well worth it. He was definitely one of those people you remember meeting.

After leaving Martin’s place, we drove to the nearby damn that is also a hydro-electric plant for the Khon Kaen Province. There, we had lunch and got to take some pictures. Afterward, we drove to a nearby Thai massage place and received a Thai massage for about two hours. It. Was. Amazing. After that, we gathered all of our things that we still had in Nam Phong and then drove back to Khon Kaen where Mitch and I could do some clothes shopping for our final banquet coming up in a week. The theme, we were told, was strictly white and red. Unfortunately this meant we had buy a completely new outfit. A couple hours later, we each had one, but it wasn’t easy or cheap, sadly. We drove back to the home we were staying at in Khon Kaen, ate dinner, and then rounded out the evening with the movie “The Great Debaters,” starring Denzel Washington. It was very good.

As I sit now, there are seven days left of my tour in Up with People. It’s sort of hard to imagine where the past five months have gone. In fact, it is almost five months exactly since this adventure started back in Denver. Doesn’t seem that long ago that I put my first entry into this blog. But never fear – I’ve got a few more to come. Right after Up with People concludes, I’m spending a few days in L.A. followed by a week and a half in Hawaii – woo hoo! Can’t complain about celebrating your 23rd birthday on a sandy beach in Hawaii. And then, of course, it’s back home to prepare for life after Up with People. So like any good story, there will need to be an “epilogue” chapter this Up with People tale.

Until my next post!

Dan

Because I've Become TERRIBLE at Posting.....

2008-06-06T05:53:00.003-06:00

Hello all!

Okay. I'm SORRY! I haven't posted in a while. And it's really not going to change for the next 24 hours at least. So. I'm going to post a bunch of pictures and see where this goes :) I hope you enjoy until I can get some words to go with the pictures. Just look at it like this: pictures are worth a thousand words, right??

Until my next post! (Hopefully soon)

Dan

Picture 1: A large display pretty much in the center of Chiang Rai that our host family took us to the first Saturday we were there.
Picture 2: Me, pointing at a display on the border of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar -- the Golden Triangle!
Picture 3: A waterfall that we hiked about 2 hours to in the hot, afternoon sun -- and it was NOT level ground (think mountain).
Picture 4: Some beautiful statues at the Golden Triangle.
Picture 5: Some of the elephants we rode on our Regional Learning Day in Chiang Rai. Amazing!

The End of the North American Tour

2008-05-20T17:38:00.001-06:00

Hello all!

Oh dear. So I’ve totally slacked and not updated in a while. I’m sitting right now in the Los Angeles airport, waiting for our flight to Hong Kong, which will then take us to Bangkok, Thailand. Fun times. But, while I’m waiting, I’m going to update everyone on the comings and goings of myself for the past week and a half.

So Wednesday and Thursday went well in the Woodlands. I continued with deck project on Wednesday, and we managed to get the frame almost all constructed, which left only the deck floor boards to be put on for Thursday. I, however, was not able to return the next day – I was signed out for vocals, catching back up from my advanced work break from the show and sort of “re-learning” the vocal parts for the show. That went well.

Friday was our regional learning day for The Woodlands. We went to a local lake and had a beach day all day. We played volleyball and ultimate Frisbee and swam for a while. It was great. The cast, however, didn’t quite take to heart the advice our staff gave about sunscreen, so a lot of us (including myself) found ourselves burnt. Thankfully, I wasn’t NEAR as burnt as I had been in Acapulco, so I got over it quickly. Overall, however, the day was an amazing time for us – a block of relaxation in an usually hectic schedule.

Saturday was show day for the cast, and for me the first show I had done since Mexico City. Needless to say, I was EXCITED! The entire day went by fast. I discovered Jamba Juice somewhere along the way, and had a fun talk with our assistant cast manager Scott Enebo. Rehearsal zoomed by, and soon it was time for the show. For me, it was a great show. We had about 1,500 people there, which I thought was a good turn out. We were only allowed to sell 3,000 tickets, and the facility was gorgeous – a HUGE amphitheatre. It was great to get back onto stage and re-engage into the show – a show that I thought was going to be the biggest challenge of this Up with People experience.

Sunday brought our host family day in The Woodlands. I spent the morning catching up on some z’s, and then the afternoon relaxing (obviously not updating my blog because here I am a week later). That evening, Leo and I went with our host family for some dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant in Houston, which was delicious. After that, we went to “The Wedding Singer” the nationally traveling Broadway production. It was amazing!! I really enjoyed it, even though I haven’t seen the movie. The music was great, I after being in Up with People I could really appreciate the technical side of putting a production like that on.

Monday brought travel day to Plano, which was fun and uneventful. When we arrived, we were able to spend an hour and a half at the local YMCA swimming and working or just relaxing. It was great. After that, we changed into our nice clothes and took out some blind folds. For our allocation in this city, we were going to experience it all blindfolded. From getting our luggage off the bus to finding our host families, it all had to be done without the use of our crutch sight. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. Thankfully, I did not run into anything and hurt myself. And I was able to find my host family with relative ease. But it did make the entire process a LOT longer, and far more educational than it normally is. Once I arrived at my host family’s place, I got to take off my blindfold and “meet” them. My host mom’s name is Mary Reeves, and her husband is Steve. They both are amazing people and really made our last U.S. city experience amazing. I was roomed with Kyle DeGraff, the son of the Up with People Midwest Coordinator. I found out once I got there that Kyle’s parents would be joining us for the week at our host family’s home, making it one full house!

Tuesday was Regional Learning day in Dallas. We toured around the art district in downtown Dallas, and learned about its history. After that, an afternoon-long presentation on world hunger and poverty. While the presentation was long, and full of some amazing and ghastly information, some statistics that stuck in my head were that 1.2 BILLION people live on less than a $1 a day, and 1.6 BILLION people live on less than $2 a day. That is staggering to think about. We hear about stuff like this all the time, but its not often when the information sets in like it did on Tuesday. Just how widespread world hunger and poverty really is. Just how PREVENTABLE it all is. The top 20% in the world use 80% of the world’s resources. While I believe in people working for their own, there’s a point where we all must say that something’s wrong here when we look at this statistic. We finished the afternoon/evening with a hunger banquet, where half of our group had nothing but salt water and cold rice to eat, a third had warm rice and beans to eat with juice, and the rest had a full-out restaurant-style meal, after which all the extra food was thrown away. We all sat and ate this meal together, all next to each other (though segregated into our groups). It an interesting experience, one that I had done before at the University of South Dakota Newman Center. I could tell that it really made people think about how much they order and then DON’T eat at restaurants.

Wednesday and Thursday were CI days for the cast. I was on Stand For Peace, working in 4th grade classrooms. I had fun there, and it was fun to get back to that form of CI since I hadn’t done it in a long while. The afternoons on both days had BTS’s for the students at the school, which went great. On Wednesday, the entire staff were in a day-long meeting so we had to run the BTS by ourselves. I, personally, enjoyed this because I felt like I could take some personal initiative in all of this instead of just taking directions from the staff and carrying them out. It was fun! We did, however, find out that one of our staff members, Kristina Henry, would not be joining us on our trip to Thailand. She had interviewed for a position at Cirque de Sole and was offered the job. The only catch was that it would start on Tuesday. So, with regretful tears, she informed the cast that she would be seeing us off on Monday morning when we took our flight to Thailand, and she would get on her own flight to join Cirque de Sole.

Friday and Saturday were show days for the cast, and for us the last chance to make Kristina proud of us. Not that she wasn’t proud before, but I’m sure you get the picture. As Gabe, our show manager, put it once, Kristina is like our coach cheering us on, guiding us along, and giving us feedback to be better. So our Friday show came together nicely, but it still lacked a certain flare of passion. The message was there, since its part of the show, but the feeling behind it wasn’t quite on. Saturday came, and we spent the morning putting on an expression session – a chance for the cast to show off their talents and abilities they haven’t been able to before. That went off well, and really gave the cast a chance to relax and appreciate one another. Rehearsal came and went in the afternoon, and before we knew it Green Room was upon us. After we welcomed our guests and played some games, the mood turned emotionally serious. First, we invited Stan, our North American bus driver, to come to the center of the room so we could recognize him and say our goodbyes. Since we’d be going to Thailand, he wouldn’t be able to come with us. It was hard for both us and him to say goodbye. Many people have coined us the “welcoming cast” because we try and do just that – welcome everyone in. Stan wasn’t just our bus driver – he was a part of our cast. And we had to say goodbye.

After a large hug and gift presentation to Stan, we invited Kristina Henry to the center of the room. The air quickly thickened with the tears of many, especially the staff who had not only worked with her for the past few years but TRAVELED with her in A06. After a moment of emotion, Kristina said that she had been asked to read a poem of hers that she had written a few years ago when she was a student in Up with People – a poem she had read to us during staging but I had forgotten about. That poem was the one used in the song “Power With” we perform during our show. She then read her poem in its full-version, since the one we use in the show is abbreviated for its length. The words rang sharply in our ears, and I for the first time really heard the feeling behind it. Perhaps it was because the author was reading it, but it was a powerful moment. We broke from Green Room, determined to make Kristina cry by the end of the show (one of our little goals). I went through my normal progressions in the show, and soon enough I found myself out on stage for “Power With,” which is where we are miming people in verbal arguments with each other. I remember at one point looking behind me and seeing Kristina on stage, and I thought myself how cool that was that she got to be ON STAGE to perform one last time with Up with People. We progressed through the song, and during a break dance interlude, I found myself looking around for Vivia to come up onto the risers and give the poem lines after the break dance, but I couldn’t find her. I turned back towards the audience, silently worrying that something was wrong, but then turned back to see Kristina standing powerfully on the top riser, microphone in hand. And as her voice began to speak the words, “We’ve been walking through life blind…” a wonderful sensation of irony filled me and I tried my best not to smile. After all, who best to speak these words than the author herself?

“We’ve been walking through life blind, suffering of seclusion from other mankind, can we ask the questions to find the answers to bring this world back together, we are all mankind, a mammal so divine, we are one and strong we can be, if we open up our eyes and let our hearts be free.”

This was surely one of the most powerful moments I have ever been a part of.

The show ended as quickly as it always does. Kristina found her way back to her tech position at the back of the house right after “Power With,” but not before being hugged or congratulated by nearly everyone in the cast. We all realized how great of a moment that was – how special that was.

Strike and interviews came. I did an interview and finished the paperwork for it in time to lend a hand on the last strike of Cast A. In Thailand, we’re not allowed to do any set-up or strike for our show – only direct Thai workers – so this show was our last strike. After we loaded up the truck, and Kristina ceremoniously locked the door, the three tech staff climbed to the top of the truck and gave a beautiful speech to us all and each other. Then they popped open three bottles of champagne and sprayed all of us below. Fun times. But, we did get our revenge. As I mentioned before, Gabe considered Kristina to be our coach, so we did to her what many championship teams do to THEIR coaches – we filled up a water cooler and doused her with it. I’ll attach a video of it as soon as I can – perhaps its there already. Look below. Needless to say, it gave us all a great way to end the evening with warm smiles and strong laughs.

Host family day came, my roommate Kyle and I spent the morning in church with our host mom and dad. After that, we went to see the new movie “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”. I thought it was good – three out of four stars, I think. Definitely better than the first. After a great dinner of Mexican food, we went back and I began packing for my next big adventure – Thailand! After packing everything up, we loaded up our family’s vehicle and went to the Plano Chamber of Commerce at about 9:30 p.m. After some warm goodbyes, we unloaded our stuff, and went inside for Thailand prep and North American wrap-up. After a few hours of all this, we loaded the buses up at 3:30 a.m. and headed to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. We said goodbye once more to Stan, and proceeded through bag check-in and carry-on check in. We boarded our plane to Denver and took off at about 6:40 a.m., arriving there about an hour or so later. Flying into Denver was a bit surreal and nostalgic. I had the same approach as what I did back in January when I was first arriving – it was hard to imagine that so much had happened in between then and now. After we landed in Denver, we hopped right back onto a connecting flight to L.A., which lasted a couple hours. I tried to sleep a bit, but it didn’t work too well. Once we arrived, we had to grab our luggage and then hang out at the airport for about 13 hrs. before our next flight took off at 11:30 p.m. This was a relaxing, though sleepless experience. Still, I was able to get my taste of American food satisfied – I had McDonald’s for lunch, and some meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner. Mmmmm. And now I’m sitting in Gate 120 at L.A., waiting for our flight to leave. Our flight will last about 12 hrs. and put us in Hong Kong. From there, we get a connecting flight to Bangkok. We’ll go through customs, and then climb aboard buses to drive about 10 hrs. to Chang Rai, Thailand – which is in the far north. Honestly, I have NO idea what time of day it will be, but I have a bad feeling it will be during the hot, humid day when we’re on the bus, which will not make for a fun ride. Still, though, we’ll be in Thailand finally – and that’ll make it worth it.

I’m not sure what internet access will be like in Thailand. In fact, I’m hoping I can get this up sometime before I arrive, but its looking doubtful. But still, I’ll hope for Hong Kong. Either way, I’ll do my best to blog about the wrap up of Cast A’s tour around the world. June 16th marks the day we all go our separate ways from Thailand, and I have no doubt that it will come too soon.

Until my next post!

Dan

The Longest Day Ever

2008-05-06T22:53:00.005-06:00

Hello all!

I know it's only been a few days, but I'm going to post again straight-away before I get bogged down again with something else that keeps me away from this blog! After all, who knows what posting will be like in Thailand, and it is fast approaching, so I'd best post while I can!

Well, even though I posted on Friday, I last talked about what happened on Wednesday of the week, so I'll pick up with Thursday. Thursday, as mentioned earlier, was a CI day, and for me it was at St. Jude's Children's Ranch again. We finished up the room that we'd been working on the day before, and we also organized some other things around that building. In between all of this, we cleaned all around the building -- sinks, bathrooms, etc. Two of the bathrooms we cleaned hadn't been touched in a couple years, I was told, so we cleaned that all up. After an amazing lunch of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, we tidied up a few other things and then were able to just sit back and relax. We ended up leaving a bit early, picking up the other St. Jude's site people, and stopping off at a Walgreen's for some packaged ice cream -- a perfect way to end the day. Mmmmm.

Friday was show day for the cast, and I was especially excited for this because I was going to be able to watch the show for the first time! A perk of being on Advanced Work. While the cast was moving through the regular motions of set-up, workshops, fitness, and rehearsal, I was working with the advanced team putting together show flyers, surveys for the audience, and making sure meals arrived alright. In the end, it was a fairly lazy day for myself. Green room came and went; it definitely reminded me of how much I missed show days! Finally the show started with all its pomp and energy...wow! It was SO cool to watch everyone filter in during the opening of Ayiko, to see the entire song and such. I'm always backstage for this song, getting ready to come on for the next song, "Step into the World," so it was VERY cool to see how this song looks. Definitely jazzes up the room!! The rest of the show proceeded amazing; I found myself extremely entertained throughout it, and almost feeling like a proud parent watching their children strutting their stuff. Odd feeling, but I spose the analogy gives you a sense of my pride. There was one awkward moment in the show where our cast manager, Martin, forgot to come on a give the verbal transition for the cast. So, the cast ended up standing on the stage awkwardly, until Jared (our lighting tech guy) cued the lights out for the cast so they could get off :) After the show, the cast did a superstrike in attempts to beat their record previously set in the semester, but fell short about three minutes. However, I was told that the strike crew was not near as full as it had been last time, so they still accomplished a lot by getting that good of a time -- 57 minutes, I believe.

Saturday followed Friday, starting off a bit later since it was coming after a show day. We were all a bit thankful for that, though it was still tough to get out of bed. We took off for CI soon enough, and I returned to St. Jude's again, ready to wash their vehicles. But when we arrived, they told us we would be going with them to their barbeque and returning at about 1:30 to wash the vehicles. We were happy to comply, never one to turn down food. But after an amazing lunch of BBQ'd chicken and corn and sausages and the like, we didn't leave for St. Jude's until about 3 pm, putting us late for our return to the cast and no time to wash vehicles. I think we were all a bit disappointed by this, but there wasn't really much we could do about it, unfortunately. We still had a fun CI day, but it didn't feel very productive for us.

Sunday brought host family day for me, and since I was staying with my friend Annette, we had been talking throughout the week on what we could do. We decided, eventually, to take a roadtrip to watch one of Annette's favorite things -- NHL hockey. The Dallas Stars were playing at home in Dallas, in a quarter final playoff game. They were ahead 3-2 in the seven game series, which meant that if they won the game they would move on to face the Red Wings. The trip to Dallas was between 3.5 to 4 hrs, so we left for the game at about 3 pm, stopping once for some Sonic dinner. Mmmm. We arrived to the crazy scene at the American Airlines Arena, found our seats at the very top of the building, and settled in for the game. It opened with an amazing show of sound, light, and pyrotechnics, and before long the game the started at 8 pm. For those who don't know, there are 3 periods in hockey, each lasting 20 minutes long with 18 minute breaks in between. So a regular game of hockey lasts about two hours between time outs, penalties, and such. Neither team scored until the third period, and then they both scored one goal, sending the game into overtime. In overtime, the clock works about the same: 20 minute periods with 15 minute breaks in between periods should more be needed. The game extended out not one, not two, not three, but FOUR overtime periods!!! The Stars finally scored a goal in the middle of the fourth overtime period (the seventh in the game) to end it and send them forward in the playoff race for the Stanley Cup. The arena went crazy! Streamers flew, the crowd cheered, people danced. Nuts. Unfortunately for Annette and I, we did not get out of the stadium and on the road back to San Marcos until about 2 am. If you do the math, adding in the 3.5 drive, we did not get back home until 5:30 am. I had to be up to leave at 6:30. So. There was no point in going to bed. I stayed up and packed and wrote cards and other odd ends. Annette crashed for about an hour, and then woke up to drop me off. We said our goodbyes, realizing this would be the last time we'd see each other for the next 2.5 years (she's leaving for the Peace Corps in June), and then I hopped on the bus. We all got on the road at about 8:30, all set for the three hour drive to The Woodlands. I dozed off in my seat for about 45 minutes before my neck could no longer take the odd angle it had to rest at if I was to sleep. I ended up watching "Juno" for a while and then talking with my bus date, Sara Persson from Sweden. We arrived in The Woodlands, a planned community (not a city), at about 1:30-2 pm, toured a welcome center to get a better idea of the community, and then went to our allocation site to watch a speaker. The speaker, who's name I sadly do not remember, was a man working in NASA on designing space suits for the Constellation project NASA is doing. Basically, he's trying to combine a bunch of the different suits that NASA uses on its astronauts into just one suit. A tall order, I realized, after he explained some of the basic mechanics of all the suits. In the end, it was a facinating lecture. Finally, we all deciphered our host code (which was the answer to a space oriented crossword clue) and found our host families. I found mine with my roommate, Leo from Venezuela, and we drove back to their place to have dinner and settle in. I surprisingly, was still able to carry on conversation and be presentable, despite the fact I'd been up for about 33 hrs at that point. After dinner, however, I did excuse myself from them and I crashed in my room. Needless to say, it did not take me long to fall asleep. All in all, though, I was surprised at how long I was able to go without sleep. No doubt, I felt very goofy at points, but I still managed through everything.

Today was our first CI day here in The Woodlands, and I was at a site tearing out a deck. We tore it out, leveled up the foundation a bit, and begun digging trenches for the "foundation" to sit on. Long story short: because of different licensing things, we have make the deck very low to the ground and thus build it the hard way. It's sort of hard to describe. I'll try and get picks to add to this :) On top of digging this, we had to cut through the webbing roots that were interwoven throughout the ground. For those who've tried to cut through thick roots with a shovel understand my pain. But, by the end of the day we'd made some progress, and we'll be going back to finish the job tomorrow and Thursday. I definitely want to finish this project with time to spare -- it's kind of UWP's em-oh to do more than our CI's think we can. So. That's our goal.

Tomorrow, as I mentioned, will be CI day, as will Thursday. Friday is our regional learning day, and we're traveling to Galveston, Texas to check out the beach along the Gulf Coast, which the cast is absolutely stoked about!!! Myself included! Saturday will be our show day, set in the amazing amphatheatre here in The Woodlands, which can hold 17,000 people. So. Kinda big. And finally, Sunday will be our host family day. Plenty of fun things to do in the next week, so I'll be sure to keep you all up to date!

Until my next post!

Dan

And the Adventure Continues....

2008-05-02T09:06:00.005-06:00

Hello all!

Well, as promised, now that the cast has arrived, I will continue posting in my blog, and also fill you all in with the comings and goings of the past few weeks. In order to keep this posting manageable in length, you’ll get a brief summary of advanced work, and a back to the different things we set up for the cast as they happen. I think the story will tell better that way anyway :)

Okay, so I last left off with I and Maiken’s arrival in New Braunfels, Texas, after waiting in customs and splitting up our luggage and other things. Fun times. But, we went right to work the next day (Tuesday, April 15th) with a meeting with the Key Club of Canyon High School in New Braunfels. We talked to them about our program, trying to get them interested in it (admissions work) as well as soliciting some help from them to put up posters for our show. They were more than welcome to help us, so that started off my visit in New Braunfels with a positive note! After this meeting, which sadly was quite early in the morning, the four of us (Karen, Ryan, Maiken, and I) went back to our temporary office in Peace Lutheran Church and went to work on different things. We split up tasks – I took on a couple CI sites, as well as Admissions and Promotions. I really don’t know how much it really meant for me to take these – in the end I was just helping out with them, not really in charge of them. Anyways – Maiken took a hold of the schedule and went to work on it. By the middle of the next week, it was looking very fancy. It had a laminated cover with windows for a picture of our faces on the next page to show through. Quite fancy. Throughout the next two weeks, the four of us pulled together the different elements of the week – admissions, logistics, schedule, host families, allocation, facilities, food donations, and so on and so on. One of the host families, the Wiggins, donated the use of a private island for the cast to arrive at on the 28th after crossing the border from Mexico, where they could swim, relax, canoe, play volleyball, just to name a few things. It was an amazingly beautiful location on the Comal River, one of the two natural spring rivers in New Braunfels. The river was shallow and had a slow, SLOW current to it, so it allowed for perfect conditions to tube on it (and natural lazy river) and the temperature was at about 70-75 degrees. Beautiful! We were all really excited to have the cast come.

Arrival day came. After two weeks away from the cast, I found myself antsy. The night before, it took me a few hours to get to sleep. You know how a little kid is so excited about Christmas on Dec. 24th that he/she can’t go to sleep, won’t settle down, and is extremely impatient? Yeah, that was me the day before, and all throughout arrival day. Pretty sure I was getting on people’s nerves. The cast was set to arrive at 3 pm so as to have about 3 hours to swim and hang out before host families started showing up and food began to be served. However, it took the cast a lot longer to get out of Mexico than anyone had planned. Three hours longer, in fact. So, the Americans didn’t get to New Braunfels until about 5 pm (which was because they could cross the border with relative ease), and the other bus full of international students didn’t arrive until about 6:30. The first bus, thankfully was able to swim and relax for a while, but the second bus was not so lucky. It was really disappointing for me since I was looking forward SO much for the cast to enjoy some much needed R & R – heck, they’d just been on a bus for over 12 hours! And, this place was absolutely amazing – one of our best arrival sites. To not be able to have the cast enjoy that was a big disappointment and frustrating. But. That’s how it goes I suppose. The cast did still have a good time when they got here, and I was on such a high from being reunited with them. I don’t think I quite realized just how high until it fell away :) It was SO good to see them again. There’s a certain amount of energy, I realized, that is gleaned from the group as a whole – something we all feed off of and add to, a strange symbiotic relationship where its members receive back ten-fold what they put in. It’s hard to explain, and so I’m left with cliché and overdone adjectives like, “amazing” and “awesome.” Perhaps you, the reader, understand what I’m talking about, or perhaps you don’t. Our tour guide today at the caves made the comment, “Ya’ll are sure energetic,” which gives you, perhaps, a sense of how infectious and far-reaching this feeling is.

I moved out of the host family I’d been staying with for the past couple weeks into a new one on arrival day as well. A friend of mine, Annette Hunthrop, lives only 20 minutes from New Braunfels on the Texas State University campus, and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to live with her for a week – especially since she’s starting an adventure of her in own in the Peace Corps before I get done with Up with People. And while the host family I’d been living with were amazing – Georgia, David, John Ross, and Ricky – like I said, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to hang out with Annette. So here I am!

Today was the cast’s first FULL day in New Braunfels, which actually was mostly spent in the nearby city of San Antonio. We all visited the Alamo in the downtown area, getting to watch the 45 minute IMAX movie about the Alamo beforehand, which was cool. Then we got about three hours to tour around the area, check out the Alamo and the nearby Riverwalk – a shopping and restaurant area that is very popular in San Antonio. After this, we all loaded the buses and went to the Natural Bridge Caverns, which is located between San Antonio and New Braunfels. We went on an hour tour of the place and got to see all the cool formations of stalagmites and stalactites in the caves. Very cool.

The next few days will be busy for the cast, and for me as well since this is mine and my fellow advance teamer’s city. Tomorrow and Thursday will both be CI days, working at the four different CI locations. Friday is show day, which will be cool. I get a chance to watch the Up with People show for the first time, which I’m extremely excited about. Saturday will be another CI day for the cast, and Sunday will be host family day where who knows what will happen? Should be fun, and I’ll be sure to keep everyone up to date on it all!

Until my next post!

Dan

Mexico City and the Return to the States

2008-04-19T00:35:00.008-06:00

Hello all!

Unfortunately, it’s been a while since I’ve posted…sorry about that. It’s been a busy last week and a half, so I’ll try and streamline it for you so you (and I) aren’t up forever reading and writing this :)

So I left off at with my first Thursday in Mexico City. Friday came as Fridays usually do, and we took a trip to see President’s residence – Los Pinos. We took a great tour of the facility and learned a lot about Mexican history through the view of the presidential office. We even got to meet the First Lady of Mexico for about fifteen minutes. She was one of the most humble people I’ve ever met! Kind, warm, and seemed almost intimidated in meeting Viva la Gente. We got to sing “Viva la Gente” to her, which was cool, and then she had to get back to work. We finished our tour of Los Pinos, and made our way back to our facility for the day, where we had a BTS lined up for some press. We arrived in short order and changed into costume, and put on the best BTS we’d ever done (according to the staff). Two of our staff members were brought to tears! After the BTS, we called it a day and went home.

Saturday came – our first host family day in Mexico. AJ and I’s host dad, however, had surgery all day, which meant we were left to ourselves all day. This was not a bad thing – free time is ALWAYS welcome! Our host dad was about to step away for a while to take us to lunch, where I had some Mexican pizza – which was a corn tortilla crust, with cheese and sauce and some black stuff. Our host dad wouldn’t tell us what the black stuff was until we tried it. After AJ and I did, he told us that, essentially, it was corn mold. Mmmmm. I thought it kind of looked like it, but tried it anyway. After lunch, I spent most of the day relaxing and watching “The Office” on my computer – it was great!

Sunday was our first show day in Mexico City – and it was a double show day to boot. But it sped along nice and fast, and the crowds in both were explosively amazing! They reacted just as much or more to the entire show as Monterrey – it was SO cool! They called for an encore quickly (by shouting “otra!”), and we delivered with a medley of our songs from throughout the show – “Ayiko,” “Mexico,” and “Estaremos.” Both shows were nearly sold out, an amazing thing to see while performing!

Monday brought a shift in my schedule from the rest of the cast. I had been asked on Friday if I would be interested in doing advanced work for Up with People in New Braunfels, Texas – the first city after our tour in Mexico. I thought about it over the weekend and decided to accept the opportunity. I found out on Monday it was confirmed that I could get to do it. I would leave a week from that day, and Monday was spent doing advanced work training. For those who don’t remember from my earlier posts, advanced work is where students leave the cast to go ahead of them and set up a city. Usually they leave two weeks before the cast is scheduled to arrive, which is why I was set to leave the next Monday. My castmate I would be working with is Maiken from Denmark, a quirky and amazing girl who makes anything fun! So anyway – I did advanced work training all day long. We learned about different things we’d need to focus on – Community Impact, Admissions, Promotion, Facilities, etc. Basically everything. Many of the staff members sat down with us and gave us their spiel on there needs and wants for each city. Between all of this, I also did a BTS since we were all at DIF doing CI. Good times.

Tuesday brought another Regional Learning day for the cast. We took a tour of Chapultepec Castle (see website for historical info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapultepec_Castle), which was cool to see, although we could take many pictures inside the place. So, took them from the outside and called it good. After that, we walked from the castle to the Angel of Independence in along Reforma in downtown Mexico City. Beautiful. We had a large cast picture with a sponsor, who refurbished the statue for the city. It was a good time. Especially crossing the roundabout the surrounds the statue – we had to run in between light changes in groups, since there was no crosswalk, and no one stops for pedestrians in Mexico. We all made it across and back, though, safe and sound.

Wednesday was another regional learning day for the cast – this time it was a guided tour around to different spots in downtown Mexico City. We saw some large, old government buildings, some churches, and what was left of the ancient Aztec pyramid located in downtown Mexico City (which was built upon its ruins after the conquest of Cortez). Unfortunately, I was not feeling so hot that day – I think I ate something wrong, or didn’t drink enough fluids the day before. I was exhausted all day long, and the pounding sun with walking all around the city didn’t help much. By the end of the day, I crashed in my bed, slept from 8-10, at dinner, then fell asleep again and slept until about 9:30 the next morning. BUT! I felt a lot better the next day, so perhaps I was just really tired.

Thursday brought a departure from the cast for myself and my roommate, AJ. Our host dad, Luis Enrique, had mentioned wanting to take us to Acapulco while we were in Mexico. So, with permission from the cast staff, we departed Thursday morning for a three-day stay in Acapulco, which was about three hours away. So while the cast was having an internal day on Thursday, and a CI day on Friday, we were relaxing in Acapulco! Our trip over to Acapulco went mostly uneventful, until we reached a small city (the last one before Acapulco) where we were stopped in the middle of the high in the beginnings of the town by a protest line who had stopped all traffic. What a mess! The group was a bunch of workers protesting low wages, but in Mexico (like the U.S.) protests and strikes are only legal so long as they are peaceful and unobstructive. This was most DEFINITELY obstructive!! Cars immediately started turning around and going backward on the highway to try and detour around, traffic was backed up for miles. What was a few minute drive through a city turned into a forty minute detour. Our host dad tried to talk some sense into them, but some guy on a megaphone started shouting at the all of the protesters that we were trying to get through, so they all started to surround our car. A few of them started pounding on it, and messing with it, so finally we had to back off and go around. A police car showed up, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Let’s face it – he’s only one guy against, essentially, a mob. And armed or not, a mob acts differently than any single person would. They are far bolder, and situations are far more explosive. So the cop sat there – about all he could do. We detoured around, like I said, somehow we’ve through the city to get our way back to Acapulco. Eventually, we arrived at the city, which didn’t look much different from Mexico City to me. Perhaps more like Monterrey, on reflection, because it is a bit more commercialized than Mexico City, but still – the Mexican culture showed through in everything. We drove to our hotel, grabbed our room key, and made our way up. We opened the door, and my jaw dropped. Our balcony window had a view that captured the entire length of beach within a cove at Acapulco. All along the beach were hotels and apartments, accenting the touristy feel of the place. It was absolutely gorgeous. And, the first time I had ever seen the ocean. Beautiful! We settled in and took advantage of the great weather by swimming for the remainder of the afternoon. For the next couple days, we all slept in only to finally get up and go down to the beach to lay some more. Needless to say, I got a sunburn. But, it wasn’t nearly as bad as AJ’s :) Overall Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were full of relaxation, sun, and swimming. It was great!

We arrived back into Mexico City Saturday evening, settled back into our host dad’s apartment and got ready for our show day tomorrow. Sunday morning came earlier than it should (or perhaps it just seemed that way because we’d been able to sleep in the days before). We traveled for about two hours to get to our show facility, and did a super-set up because the truck broke down and showed up late. Plus, the facility had a lot of stairs and no way to get equipment to the stage without traversing them. So, we got to carry a lot of heavy things down stairs. Thankfully I wasn’t on strike, because then I would have had to carry them back up :) After our super set up, the cast broke into their different groups for a few hours, came back together for lunch, then began rehearsal in the afternoon. All went well, and showtime came right on schedule. The show itself went well, I thought – my last Mexican show since I was set to leave the next day for New Braunfels, Texas. It was fun doing the Mexican Medley one last time. We wrapped the show up nice with an encore, and broke into our different tasks for the evening. I did an interview, then spent the evening saying quiet goodbyes to people – many of whom didn’t realize I was leaving the next day.

Monday morning came far quicker than the morning before, probably because I was up a few hours after host pick-up packing my suitcase just right for the plane flight back to the States. I got dropped off at the same place as the rest of the cast, so I was able to say goodbye to some of the others in the cast. AJ and Katie Mears sang Maiken and I a goodbye song, which was really cool. We waved goodbye, hopped into the Up with People van, and took off for the Mexico City airport. When we finally arrived (which took a while because of traffic and the simple difficulty of finding it – there are no signs in Mexico), Maiken and I found out we were both 5 kilos overweight (about 10 pounds)! The overage charge for each of us would have been $120, but thankfully we were able to check two suitcases, and vendor in the airport sold large bags that we could buy, fill, then seran-wrap for flight. We both dumped out extra weight in the bag, which put our suitcases under the weight maximum, and check our three bags. The extra bag cost $36 -- $18 each! So I think we saved a bit of money. We made our way through security, and eventually onto our flight out of Mexico City. As we took off, I was really able to see the VASTNESS of the city – it is huge!! We landed on time in Houston, Texas, and made our way to the customs line to officially enter into the U.S. The process went smoothly; however, since the line was so long, we missed our connecting flight to San Antonio. But once we were through customs, we went to the flight counter and got booked for another flight (which was only in another hour) and got a chance to relax until then. Eventually we got onto our second flight, took off, and landed nearly as soon as we were up. We gathered our luggage and found Ryan, one of our Field Managers (FM) in New Braunfels. He greeted us warmly and we left San Antonio for the much smaller town of New Braunfels. We met up with Karen (our other FM), who was meeting with the New Braunfels City Council, and they both took us to our host family in New Braunfels. We all had an amazing dinner of beef, ribs, and fish – mmmm! After that, Ryan and Karen left for their host family for the night, and Maiken and I hit the sack.

So. I’ve been here in New Braunfels for about a week now, and I’ve been doing a lot of stuff. Really. I’ve been working on getting this city ready for the cast. We’ve got some pretty cool stuff up our sleeves, and I think that the cast will be excited when the get here. But to protect the surprises we have in store, I’m not going to talk about anything more. In short, I’m not really going to be posting for the next few days. Don’t worry though – I’ll keep notes down so that I can relay everything AFTER the cast gets here and such; but until then, you’ll just have to wait :)

Until my next post!

Dan

La Ciudad de Mexico!

2008-04-03T21:31:00.005-06:00

Hello all!

Here's what's been happening for the past few days in Mexico!

Our Sunday started quite early -- at about 7:30 a.m. in fact. We had a long list of items to take of to be sure the show was ready for 4 p.m. After morning meeting, we quickly moved straight into rehearsal of the new Mexican Medley -- blocking, entrance cues, exitting cues, overall transitions, etc. It was a logistical mess in the sense of trying to coordinate that many people in that short amount of time -- but our staff but their best effort out there. We ran a bit late into our lunchtime, which was okay since our lunch was late, but that meant sacrificing some prep time before the show. But, by the end of our rehearsal, we were far more ready than we had been before. Lunch came and went, and we all prepared for the show. Our green room went well, and soon I found myself backstage listening to our opening song "Ayiko" and waiting for my entrance on "Step into the World." The first big difference for us as a cast to get use to was that all the emcees were in Spanish. This totally makes sense, but suddenly we couldn't listen to the emcees for our cues to come on or leave. This made it slightly more difficult, but then again we're all smart people so we figured it out :) The show moved along great, and the crowd really seemed to be getting into it. By the time we reached the Mexican Medley in the second half of the show, we could really feel the crowd responding to us. After the medley we moved straight into "Estaremos," or "We'll Be There" and finished with our "Up with People" number -- "Viva la Gente" here in Mexico. When we finished, the crowd called for an encore, and we greatly abliged with "De Que Color Es la Piel de Dios" -- "What Color is God's Skin," a classic Viva la Gente song that all of Mexico loves. So, they enjoyed that :) After the first show, some of us were put onto admissions for those people interested in joining Up with People. I, fortunately, was not on admissions, so I had about a half hour to relax before our next green room. We got our minds in the right place for the show, and went out ready to go. I have to admit that it was strange doing another show so quickly. But, at the same time, it provided a great opportunity to fix any personal mistakes from the first show. I, personally, thought the second show went better. The crowd seemed EXTREMELY into it. In the second half of the show, I’m up on microphone groups for the second poet moment/ “I Can Believe” and halfway through it people in the crowd pulled out their cell phones and started swaying them in the air like lighters. By the end of the song, I was staring out into a sea of blue lights swaying all around in a pitch black void the crowd was seated in. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. In that moment, I wished I had had a camera to take a picture or video to show everyone what I saw. It was unbelievably beautiful and motivating. It was as if in that moment everyone in the audience felt the emotion that song was conveying. They were with us, and we were with them – a moment of connectivity. I was so amazingly energized from that moment, I cannot even begin to describe it. It is safe to say, however, that I rocked out the most I ever have in the next song “World Celebration.” It was so cool! That moment really set the tone of the cast. When we reached the Mexican Medley, we were all completely energized, and the crowd responded, fueling us even more. They all seemed to LOVE the medley we put together for them. It was cool to look out and see the different age generations react to the different songs. Absolutely invigorating! After the show finished, I was assigned to admissions/interviews, so that’s what I did. I ended up only having to do one interview, even though we had over twenty applications. After I finished, I ended up helping strike load the truck until we all had to leave with our host families. Once I got back to my host family’s place, I had to pack my suitcase yet and make sure all was ready for our trip to Mexico City. Needless to say, I did not get to bed until about 3:30 a.m. And we had to get up the next morning at about 5:45. Ugh. I was a bit out of it the next morning when we all loaded the buses for Mexico City. But, I was able to sleep a bit. Our drive lasted about 12 hours – our longest yet on tour. The sad part was that our AC cut out a bit four hours into the ride, making it a bit warm and adding to our discomfort. But, we arrived safe and sound. One other thing of interest on our trip – whenever we made a bathroom stop along the way, we were all surprised to find that we had to pay 2 pesos to use the public restroom – something very common Mexico. Needless to say, after a warm, uncomfortable ride, some of us were not happy to have to pay to use a bathroom :) Once we arrived at our allocation point, I found out that I was living in the south part of Mexico City. Since Mexico is the largest city in the world (in area) and the second largest in population, we were all split up into two groups: north and south. I was, as I mentioned, in the south, and roomed with AJ from Wisconsin, which has been working out great. Our host dad, a facial surgeon, picked us up at the south drop off point, and both AJ and I unpacked a bit for our two week stay in Mexico City. We’re staying in this city for two weeks because Acapulco was dropped from our tour. This works out alright because there is SO much to see in Mexico City, and now we have more of a chance to see it all.

Tuesday brought our first day in Mexico City, and it was also our first Regional Learning day there. We started off the morning a bit early, since we had to all take into account the crazy and ever-busy traffic in Mexico City, but eventually we were off to our regional learning location – Teotihuacán, the pyramid site just outside of Mexico City. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan. It took us about an hour to get there, but once we arrived, we were all kept silent in awe – it was SO cool!! There were two main pyramids, the Sun Pyramid and the Moon Pyramid, the taller of the two being the Sun Pyramid. It didn’t take too long to climb either, though we were definitely winded by the time we got up there – after all, Mexico City is about a mile and a half above sea level! I took a TON of pictures, and plenty of video as well. I’m posting some up here, but the rest will just have to be viewed when get home – yes? :) We were able to stay there for about two and a half hours, exploring the ruins and such. I’ll let the pictures explain… After Teotihuacán, we all boarded our buses again and went to downtown Mexico City to see Munal – the Museum of Art in Mexico City. That was another AMAZING place, with brilliant paintings, some about four or five hundred years old. We toured the museum for a couple hours, and the boarded the buses again to head home for the day.

Wednesday was our first CI day in Mexico City. We were divided up between north and south again – the south going to Xochitla, an ecological park, and the north doing Stand for Peace in bilingual schools. Since I was on the south, I did Xochitla, a beautiful oasis in the pavement desert of Mexico City. There were trees accented by gorgeous flowers of all different kinds, open grass spaces, and ponds. Xochitla is an environmental organization that has been working in their area on water conservation (a very serious problem in Mexico City) as well as plant and wildlife preservation. We spent most of the morning learning about the organization and their difficult process of cleaning water to be used just for maintaining their plant life. After that, we worked for a few hours potting plants to be put in the greenhouses, and also planting flowers ready to leave the greenhouse. Overall, the day was extremely educational – it was amazing to learn the extremely difficult and expensive processes one must go through to purify water just to be used by plant life. That water isn’t quite good enough for humans! And the water they were purifying was the “cleanest” dirty water, known as grey water (water that’s been used in showers, dishwashers, clothes washers, etc.)

Today was a promotion day for our show on Sunday. We spent the day at a local university – Anahuac, a private Catholic university. We spent the morning rehearsing our mini show, and then performed the show in the early afternoon. Before we got to perform, however, the university put on a small mariachi presentation for us – demonstrating the music and dance of Mexico. After our mini show, we all joined about 200 students from the university in their cafeteria for a lunch full of traditional Mexican dishes – delicious! After lunch, we socialized with the students, describing what Up with People was and encouraging them to come to our show on Sunday. At about 4, we went back to their auditorium for our wrap up, and then enjoyed a version of “Romeo and Juliet,” performed by the students of the college entirely in Spanish, which was very interesting. The play itself had a slightly modern twist to it, and it also had music accompanying it, turning it into more of a musical. It was VERY good!!

Tomorrow, the cast is traveling to meet the President of Mexico in his home in Mexico City. We will also be meeting his wife, and other prominent members of the Mexican government. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am! It’s not every day one can say their going to meet a president!! Hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures and post them up later. I’m not sure how security will work, but one can hope!!

Until my next post!

Dan

Momentous Moments in Monterrey, Mexico!!

2008-03-29T23:06:00.007-06:00

Hello all!

First week in Mexico! Woo hoo! So many things have happened in this past week that, unfortunately, this will be another long post, so bear with me as I guide across the winding landscape that is my memory of this past week.

We left Brenham, Texas bright and early Monday morning – 7:30 a.m. The drive itself to the border was about five hours, but we needed to allow for our border crossing time (which we didn’t know how long that was going to take), and then also the couple hour drive from the border to Monterrey. The drive to the border was uneventful, as always. We arrived in the border town Laredo (I believe) and unloaded ourselves from the bus. Our plan was to walk across the border and get onto another bus, but we were prepared for an entire cast search. Thankfully, however, the entire cast (all 100+ of us) made through customs and such in about two hours – not bad! After that, we loaded up onto our new buses, made a pit stop to load another truck with our excess luggage (since these new buses had half the cargo space as our American buses), and then we were on our way to Monterrey. When we hopped onto the other side of the border, I could immediately feel the difference between the two countries – just that feeling you get from your surroundings. It wasn’t an eerie feeling or anything, just a feeling of foreignness. Once we got onto the road to Monterrey, I took advantage of our comfortable seats and fell asleep for a while. When I woke up about an hour later, I did a double-take when I looked out the window – we were surrounded by mountains! I knew that the Rocky Mountains extended all the way from Canada into Mexico, but I didn’t realize they extended eastward. But these mountains, too, seemed alien compared to the Rockies in Colorado. These mountains had a beginning and an end, as opposed to the ever-stretching Rockies. I later learned that “Monterrey” means “king of mountain”, and for good reason. Even though it was dark, I could see that the city was surrounded by gorgeous, towering mountains. Beautiful. It took us about a half hour to tour through the city and arrived at our allocation point, which was also the theatre we would be performing at. We stepped off to a large welcoming of people, ranging from alumni to volunteers to news crews, etc. It was crazy! We all went inside and grabbed our allocation sheets. After, we watched dancers perform traditional Mexican numbers, which was cool, and then we went to find our host families. Mine, sadly, did not show up, so I was re-allocated to another family, and became hosted with Brandon from Colorado, and Gift from Thailand. Both have been great to hang out with! I left with my host brother Julio and went back to their home to meet the rest of the family. Besides Julio’s parents, he also has a sister named Ale, short for Alejandra. Both are in the college here in Monterrey, and both speak English very well, which makes life a lot easier for me. Their parents speak a bit of English, but its still very broken and haphazard. Even though it’s a lot better than my Spanish, it’s still difficult to communicate, which is why it’s great to have Julio and Ale. We all went out to dinner at Sirloin Stockade, which I hadn’t eaten at in a long time. However, the name was the only thing I recognized because all the food inside was Mexican, save a few American dishes. This was fine by me because I got a chance to sample a bunch of different Mexican dishes, buffet-style. They were all pretty good, too. A bit spicy, but good. After dinner, we went back and went to bed.

Tuesday was our first full day in Monterrey, and it was also our first CI day there. I was allocated to the DIF community impact project along with five others. We rode in a van with a rep from DIF to the site on the other side of the city, about forty-five minutes away. After a few wrong turns and a stop to pick up supplies, we arrived and set out to clean up the area that had become overgrown with weeds, grass, and trash. The weeds and grass were so rooted into the ground that we had to use pick-axes to rake them out of the ground before using a hoe to finish the job, and then a rake to pile it all together. It was hard work, let me tell you. We also had to had to paint the buildings that had become overridden with graffiti, which ended up being the easy job, especially when the sun reached high in the sky. Some different reps from local media came to our site in the morning, too, and Paul did a T.V. interview completely in Spanish – it was pretty cool. We broke for lunch at about 1:30, and had a home-cooked, authentic Mexican meal – gorditas. Mmmm. After lunch, we went back to work on the different stuff to do, and then left for wrap-up at about 4 p.m.

Wednesday started off well -- we have a cast appreciation book that gets passed around between people of the cast, someone bequething it to someone else they appreciate, continuing around the cast. Wednesday morning, durning our opening meeting, it was passed onto me. I took a picture of what it said so that you may all read its virbous flattery. Needless to say, it was nice to receive it. Wednesday was also our second day CI of the week, and I went back to the same DIF site with about four other cast members. We had the same driver to the site, a DIF rep named Oscar who knew only a few words in English. We had, just like the day before, a castmember with us who could speak Spanish, but it was fun to talk with Oscar and work on our Spanish while he worked on our English. When we arrived at DIF, we continued cleaning up the surrounding area of garbage and weeds. After lunch of some delicious gorditas and tuna macaroni salad, we worked on a mural to represent our work together. It turned out pretty nice – we had our Viva la Gente/Up with People star with the DIF logo, trimmed with the nations flags who worked on the project, Mexico’s in the center. It was pretty cool, especially in the hot afternoon sun, which avoided by being inside. After we said goodbye to all the children and volunteers at DIF, we went back to our wrap-up location. We did a small discussion of our CI stuff, but then moved into a discussion of high-performance teams. This discussion was facilitated through an activity that I and a few others participated in while the rest of the cast observed. Basically, the activity put us in a time crunch situation that requires efficiency and teamwork. We all learned the value of trusting the people in your team, putting the pride of your team ahead of your own, communicating efficiently and honestly, and willingness to try new ideas/think outside the box. It was a great experience to be a part of, one that I don’t really want to spoil by walking through what exactly happened. Suffice it to say, I learn a lot by participating. After this activity, we met up with our host families and went home for the day.

Thursday brought our last CI day of the week, but I was signed out of CI to do a BTS mini show on the college campus we had been working at. The twenty of us that were signed out for the mini show had rehearsal in the morning, and then made our way to a courtyard to block the show on our stage, which was a bunch of risers set up on the grass in front of the courtyard. We blocked the show and then changed into our costumes, which we were all sad to do since it was about 95 degrees outside with absolutely no shade. It is hot normally while doing a mini show, but this was just crazy. We started our BTS off just like normal with “Keep the Beat,” but three-quarters through the song the riser I was on dropped about three inches down, tilting all weird and wobbling. I, of course, moseyed my way off the riser and advised people around me to do the same, all while trying to keep my stage face and get someone from the staff to come fix it before it collapsed and some got hurt. Yeah. Fun :) After the second song in the BTS, someone had fixed the stage, but sweat had made its way into my eye, and I couldn’t really wipe it out. More fun :) But we made it through the mini show, and people really seemed to enjoy it, which was reassuring. Afterwards, our admissions team took a bunch of applications, did some interviews, etc. while I was able to relax a bit in the shade and be on call in case they needed help with interviews. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon. After we finished all that stuff, we all came back to our wrap-up location, discussed our three days of CI, and did a general wrap-up of the day. After that, we had a half hour break for a bite to eat and to relax a bit before a panel came to talk to us at 6:30. When they arrived, they all talked about the different things they did after Up with People, and how they applied what they learned in the program to their lives after. It was really cool to listen to, and the time seemed to go by fast.

Friday was our regional learning day in Monterrey, and we had a tight schedule that took us around to different parts of the city. I started off in the Macroplaza, which is either the largest or near the largest in the world. Really cool to see! I definitely took a lot of pictures :) After that, my group took a boat ride down a canal, which took us through a bunch of cool different things in Monterrey. After this, went to an old ironworks factory that had been recently converted into a science museum. It has a lift that takes you all the way to the top where you get a great panoramic view of the city. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, so we couldn’t get a very good view of the mountains surrounding Monterrey, but it still was really cool to look at the entire city from that point. After this, we grabbed a quick lunch as we walked over to a local attraction, roughly translated “Dialogue in the Darkness.” Basically, it was a blind experience. We were taken through this activity in groups of about 8 people or so, one of which who could speak Spanish since our guides could only speak Spanish. It took about an hour. It is called a “Dialogue in the Darkness” because you are walking through many different rooms that are in complete darkness. Absolutely no light. We had a walking stick to use to guide ourselves, and of course our guide, but that was it. All we had besides that were our other four senses. We went through a nature room, a grocery store room, a dockside room, a street room, and finally a coffee shop room where we could actually buy things to drink from the worker. It was there we found out that our guide was actually blind, and so were all of the other people we met throughout the tour inside. When we paid for our drinks, they got us change without any help. They were completely self-sufficient inside. When we reached the end and stepped back into the light, we were finally able to visually meet our guide. She told us that she lost her vision about twenty years ago to glaucoma, but she only wishes she could have her sight back so that she could see her children and now her grandchildren. It was such an amazing experience, one that I wish we could have continued on beyond just an hour. It was doubly interesting because we have a blind girl in our cast – Jessica Rojas – and I think this experience really helped us to all “see” the world through her eyes. Definitely very cool. After the blind experience, we all went to another DIF center that works with displaced children. All of the children were ones taken from their homes because of the abusive situations they had all been in while legal action was pending. Some of the children themselves had not been abused (they were just in an abusive home), but others had been abused, both physically and sexually. Their ages ranged anywhere from newborns to eighteen year olds. Absolutely crushing to hear their stories. I found it interesting, however, to find that despite being in a different country there were the same sad things happening. The United States had its own major problem with domestic abuse, something I learned a bit about while working at the Woodbury County Court House. I found it interesting that while culturally the United States and Mexico are quite different, we are linked by this one tragic sadness – a common pain between us. No matter where you’re from, hurt people hurt people. Children who had no doubt grown up with abuse in their families are now passing the terrible legacy to their children. A vicious circle of pain. Our task in visiting this center was to hang out with the children there. All of the ones there were those who didn’t have relatives to visit over the holiday week (the week after Holy Week is also considered part of vacation for school and sometimes work). These were the children who normally have no stories to tell to the other children when they return from vacation. But this time they did have a story – they got to hang out with Viva la Gente! We played games, tossed a Frisbee around, and kicked a soccer ball back and forth. Our time together went by very fast, and before we knew it, we were saying goodbye and giving warm hugs. We returned to the university we’ve been operating out of all week, and dropped off some people who were to be picked up by their host families. The rest of us took a ride out to a host family’s weekend home for a party and barbeque. We hung out with host families and alumni and members of our cast all night long, enjoying great food and even better music. It was a great time, a good culmination of a great day!

Today was host family day here in Monterrey, which meant I was able to sleep in until about 10:30 – amazing! After that, and some breakfast, Brandon, Gift, and myself joined our host mom and went to a mall to do some shopping and looking around. After that, Brandon and I had to go to the theatre we’ll be performing at and help set up the stage. We’re doing it the day before the show because tomorrow we’re putting on two performances – one in the afternoon and one in the evening. This means that the morning will be spent rehearsing, which means that we had to have the stage ready first thing. No morning set up. So we set up the stage quickly and efficiently, and were able to leave at about six. After that, Brandon and I went back to our host family’s home and grilled out on the beautiful Saturday evening.

Tomorrow is show day, and as I mentioned earlier it is a double show day – as all show days will be in Mexico. I’ve been told that one show has pretty much sold out and the other one is nearly there as well. Needless to say, we’re all a bit nervous, but definitely excited, too. It is our first show in Mexico! And Viva la Gente is such a big deal to many people in Mexico. And, the next cast (B08) will be traveling through Mexico, too, so we’re setting the tone for their tour as well. If we do well, they will have a receptive tour. If we don’t, well… So. No pressure, right? It’s going to be a long day tomorrow. With rehearsal all morning long, leading into a show at 4 p.m., which will last until about 6:30; then we’ll eat quickly while doing interviews and admissions stuff for that show. After that we have another show at 8 p.m. which admissions, interviews, and strike to follow. Where the show doesn’t get done until about 10:30, we won’t get out until about 12:30, and then we still have to go home and pack so that we’re ready to be on the bus later that morning for our travel day to Mexico City. And the bus leaves at 6:30 a.m. Fun fun fun!!! Yes. A bit of sarcasm. I’m sure you heard it. But, it’s all pretty exciting, too.

Until my next post!

Dan

Brenham, Texas!

2008-03-23T16:58:00.009-06:00

Hello all!

Well, it has been a CRAZY week here in Brenham, Texas! So much has happened that this is going to be a LONG post, so I hope you’re all ready for the long haul! As a side note before I delve into the week’s activities, I just want to share how truly amazing pop is. Yes indeed…Easter has come finally and I can drink pop again! Not going to lie, I was up past midnight this morning so I was able to enjoy the sweet goodness that is Coca-Cola. In fact, I am right now enjoying one…mmmm! Okay. Back to Brenham…

We arrived in Brenham, Texas after about an eight and a half hour drive from Enid. For the most part, the drive was uneventful, and by that I mean I don’t remember anything significant happening on the bus worth mentioning :) When we arrived, we stopped off at a small parking lot on the outside of town where we met up with our Advanced Team and Field Managers who had a small surprise lined up for us……..an escort through the town by the Brenham Police and Fire Departments! The police had intersections blocked off for us as a huge fire truck paraded us through Brenham on our way to our allocation site at the Brenham High School. It. Was. So. Cool!! I can’t even describe to you how stoked we all were to be in Brenham! Besides the fact that it was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit outside, it was just incredible to be paraded through Brenham like we were stars. Ah! So cool! Once we arrived, we unloaded our suitcases off the buses and grabbed our allocation sheets like normal. Little did I realize that I had another surprise in store for myself – I was allocated to a country bed-and-breakfast with 11 other people about a half hour outside of Brenham! I was SO incredibly excited! Normally, people are only roomed with one or two other people. Maybe three. While this is fun, you just can’t socialize on a comparable level as it is with about 12 people. Needless to say, all twelve of us were extremely excited to be spending a week with each other. I was staying with Cody from Colorado, Leo from Venezuela, Pepe from Sweden, Nina from Finland, Erin from Indiana, Jessica from Pennsylvania, Zaire from Bermuda, Meraf from Ethopia, Fanny from Sweden, Katie from Colorado, Eilis from Georgia, and Stan our bus driver, who would serve as our “host dad.” Our host, a 78 year old woman named Carol was the owner and runner of this bed-and-breakfast, called “The Front Porch.” We all didn’t really know what to expect when we took the bus out to the bed-and-breakfast. When we arrived, it was pitch black out because of thick clouds, but we were amazed at what we saw. The bed-and-breakfast is on a picturesque Texan landscape, surrounded by soft hills, whispering trees, and green pastures. So gorgeous! Unfortunately we couldn’t see how gorgeous until morning, but this was definitely a change of pace from what we were all used to. The guys were allocated to a small cabin-like house, which had one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. Oh, and a porch, too! Stan took the bedroom and the guys took the two fold-out couches in the living room, which worked well. It was a strange feeling to have this kind of autonomy on tour, but definitely welcome.

Tuesday came and we had a regional learning day in Brenham, so we went to one of the biggest companies in the town (if not THE biggest) – Blue Bell Creamery, which is the third largest ice cream company in the United States. We got to tour the factory, learn the history of the company, and sample some free ice cream from their freezers. Mmmmm. After lunch, we as a cast went through some more preparation for our Mexican numbers we’ll be adding to our show. We spent all of the time working on lyrics and notes, and next to nothing on dance – which was fine by me since I think we have that pretty much down. After all of that, we had wrap up for the day and our bed-and-breakfast crew (which we’ve dubbed ourselves Camp Carol’s Wilderness Adventure, or CWA for short) made our way back to our place. Carol had dinner ready for us, an amazing meal donated by a member of her church. All of our meals, in fact, were donations by members of her church – and let me tell you, they SPOILED us! So many of the meals and desserts were amazing. I could definitely tell that they pulled out all the stops on the meals. Mmmm. It had rained all afternoon, so we didn’t do too much after dinner besides carefully walk up to our cabin/house and go to bed.

The next day was our first CI day, and I was allocated to the Brenham School District Maintenance Crew, and we spent the first day repainted an entire gymnasium. Their bleachers there were made entirely our of wood, and its paint was chipping and loosing its luster. So, the fifteen of us that were there sanded down the entire thing and repainted it. After that, we repainted some of the railings, doorways, and then finally restrooms so that everything had a bright new sparkle to it. I have to admit that it was fun working on a lot of this. I ended up stepping into a leadership role and allocating people into different spots so that the jobs could get done more efficiently, which was a different role for me. But it was fun at the same time. After CI, the cast did a wrap up and went over a few more things which I can’t honestly remember at the moment :S After cast wrap up, our CWA crew headed back to Carol’s, where we were greeted by yet another amazing dinner, and we all enjoyed each other’s company with conversation. We it got dark, we made a campfire and roasted some marshmallows for s’mores. Some of the people staying with had NEVER had any before, so it was a great experience for them, and we were able to have fun together outside in the gorgeous weather.

Thursday was another CI day for me, and I was working with the Maintenance Crew again, this time at a middle school repainting a very long guard rail. We had about thirty of us there again, and I stepped up again into a logistics role and delegated people into different roles to make the job more efficient. After that, I grabbed a brush myself and just started painting. The railing itself ran pretty around the entire school, which included the football field, tennis courts, etc. making it VERY long. We knew we weren’t going to get it all done, but we ended up getting at least a third of it done, which I was happy about. The process itself was the same: we had to sand the railing first, smooth off and rough spots, and then repaint. The sanders were able to zoom ahead and I found that the painting was what took time. That, and we couldn’t have as many painters as sanders because of equipment shortages. Oh well. We had fun still. After morning CI, we all regrouped together for an education session in the afternoon called Jahari’s Window. Essentially, and perhaps too succinctly, it is a feedback tool. We ended up breaking into small hometeam groups and wrote feedback comments for each other, sharing our observations and thoughts about each other – both good and bad. The two qualifications were that the comments had to be constructive, and you must own it – i.e. put your name on it. It was an interesting exercise, and a necessary one I think to air out feelings and problems that inevitably fester in large groups such as Up with People. I, myself, received all positive feedback, which was nice to hear, but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed as well because I know that I am not perfect and there is much I could improve on as a person – yet I got no feedback to help me with that. Slightly disappointing. But, that’s how it goes, and it just means I have to read more into the comments I did receive. After wrap up for the day, the CWA crew traveled back to Carol’s, had an amazing meatloaf dinner, and relaxed.

Show day arrived next, but this day was slightly abnormal to the common goings and comings show day routine. Thursday afternoon held a bunch of different workshops that are normally done the morning of the show, and the tech crew also did set-up Thursday afternoon, so everything was ready to go Friday morning. We started off the morning with our typical morning meeting, however, but this morning meeting held the announcement of second round internships! Since each round of internships last only six weeks, Brenham was the final week for the first round. I had applied for two internships: video (like last round) and logistics. I, unfortunately, did not receive either and I was disappointed about this. While I don’t think I should have beaten out any of the people who DID get the internships, because every one of them fit the role completely and will do awesome, I just was disappointed to have not gotten one the second time around. I suppose in the end I want a way to contribute to the program, and I don’t think I can do that through the show since there are far more talented dancers and singers, etc. Internships I think I could contribute to. But, it won’t happen this round. Perhaps the next! :) After morning meeting, we spent the morning doing small, fifteen minute workshops with different parts of the show – anywhere from lights to sound to video to dance to vocals to truck loading, etc. The first round interns ran the sessions, and basically it was a way for them to step into a teaching role and for us to see what the different parts of technical theatre do. It was very interesting! After lunch, the cast did warm-ups and made our way onto stage to work on blocking for our Mexican Medley. Michael and Eric (our guru’s from staging) had traveled to Brenham to help with the medley, and they were there to coordinate the process along with our staff. After a few hours of it, we moved on to the actual show rehearsal for the night, broke for dinner, and then got ready for the show. After green room (which was amazing by the way – the interns led it and Abby played “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen to sike us up for the show), we mingled with the incoming audience, and I met a really cool little girl sitting in the front row (who was four, by the way). I was able to come back to her throughout the night, and even shoot her winks during the show, which she enjoyed. It was a good time. After the show – which went amazing! – I helped on the strike crew and we finished by about 11:30. Not too bad. After the CWA crew made it back Carol’s, we all crashed hard in our beds.

Saturday for the cast was an internal day (which means we spent it with each other), and we worked basically on educational stuff. The two education interns, Erin from Indiana and Johanna from Sweden, did a personal mission and vision presentation that focused on self-examination and reflection. The tool they used, which I thought went very well, was a brochure metaphor. This brochure had spaces for a personal mission statement, applicable skills, amazing experiences, and personal challenges. It was a great activity that whole cast seemed to enjoy. Lunch came soon after, and we finished that time up with a news presentation by myself and Chris (from Canada). We tried to make it a fun presentation, so we turned it into a game – Who Wants to be a Newsillionaire? A couple of the cast got to come up and compete for prizes, answering questions whose answers could be found in the news. The information the cast came away with was current events, and they had fun with it, too. It was Chris and I’s last news activity, since new news assistants were chosen for the second round, but we had fun with it. After our news thingy, we continued on with some other cast interactive projects, doing different things and such. Before we knew it, it was near time to go. But before we could, we got a rundown of our logistical crossing into Mexico! Woo-hoo! We’re all pretty excited to go to Mexico, and I especially am since it’ll be my first stamp in my passport. Can’t wait! After cast wrap-up, the CWA crew went back to Carol’s, ate dinner, and prepared for another nearby bed-and-breakfast crew to come over to our place and have a bonfire. I cut some stick for marshmallows, and before long the other crew arrived. Some other castmates found their way to Carol’s, too, and there was about thirty to forty people there! It was SO much fun! Ultan, my roommate from Des Moines and Maquoketa, showed a few of us how to find satellites in orbit, and we all in general just enjoyed some unstructured conversation/hang out time. The night went by quick, and I ended up staying up until about 2:30 talking with Erin from Indiana and Jessica from Pennsylvania about anything and everything, which was a fun, but rare moment – which is probably why we stayed up so long!

Sunday came around too early it seemed, and we all were out the door by 8:00 a.m. to go to Carol’s church for Easter, partly because it was an opportunity for us all to meet the people who had been feeding us all week. There was a pre-church brunch we all enjoyed, and then we all got together and worked on a thank-you song for the church some of us had written the night before. After we worked out all the kinks, we got up in front of the church before mass had started and sang it to them, and they seemed to really enjoy it. After mass, we all went to the other bed-and-breakfast crew’s place and had an Easter lunch, which was of course amazing! I especially enjoyed the fact that I could drink pop, and I did several times! We all enjoyed hanging out with all of the different people there, and it made for a great last day in Brenham.

Tomorrow will begin early, unfortunately. We leave Brenham at about 7:30 for Mexico, and we’re expected to arrive at the border at about noon. Our logistics people think it will take about two and a half hours to get processed through (if nothing goes wrong) and then we’ll be back on the road to Monterrey, which is about two hours away. I have to admit that I am VERY excited to begin really traveling. While going to Texas and Oklahoma was fun because they’re both states I’ve never been to, they’re still in the United States. Tomorrow, the real culture shock and experience begins!

Until my next post!

Dan

Enid, Oklahoma -- the Next Windy City

2008-03-16T22:06:00.002-06:00

Hello all!

Sorry to disappoint, but I haven't got any pictures from this city either. I've gotten lazy this past week, and I haven't had my camera with me as much so hence -- no pictures. I'll make up for it I'm sure over the next month and a half. We're leaving for Brenham, Texas, tomorrow morning (bright and early), and after a week there we will be crossing the border into MEXICO! Woo hoo! For me, the culture shock and culture shift will begin! While all my castmates from outside of America have been going through their own culture shift since staging in Denver, I've been in the lap of "comfort" that is mainstream America. Should be interesting once I step foot into a place where Spanish is the main language and hardly no one will understand me. Definitely going to appreciate those four years of high school Spanish -- thanks Mrs. Hoch! :)

We left St. Joseph, Missouri, at about 11 a.m. after a presentation about environmental awareness. During this presentation, the entire cast was given a challenge that would last from that point until we arrived in Brenham, Texas. The challenge was simple -- we were not allowed to throw any of our trash away. Any trash we made, whether recyclable or not, would be stored in our own personalized garbage sack that we were to keep track of throughout our stay in Enid. Bottles, napkins, paper towls, wrappers -- anything! Needless to say, we suddenly became very conscious of everything we were throwing away. Trash also included banana peels, uneaten food, etc. If that doesn't make you aware, nothing will. Of course this challenge was totally reliant on the honor system, but I trust our cast. And we're all pretty good about keep each other honest as well. Anyway, after this presentation, we loaded the buses and took off on our six hour drive to Enid, Oklahoma. I was on bus #1 and we watched three different movies -- Beauty and the Beast, Happy Feet, and Superstar. That certainly entertained those who didn't want to sleep, and didn't pester those who did. All in all, an enjoyable and relaxing trip. When we arrived, I found out that I was to be rooming with three other people -- Gabe, our show manager; Britta, from Sweden; and Eilis, from Georgia/Ireland. In short, I've really enjoyed hanging out with all of them, and its been especially fun getting to know Gabe outside of his staff role. Our host family, too, is pretty cool -- they're Mike and Michelle Jansen. Mike is an Air Force pilot, so they are a military family -- often traveling around. They just moved to Enid about 10 weeks ago, so they knew as much about the city as we did. But they were definitely excited to have us. They also have three children: Beau, Jack, and Julie -- all of them under eight years old. Julie, the youngest, is three years old.

Friday was our show day, which makes our Enid visit a bit backwards since we are doing our show BEFORE we do our CI work. I was assigned to dance workshops in the morning, and I worked on "A World Celebration" frontline dance. Probably the one song that I hate dancing to. Ugh. If anything, it is SO hard on my shoulder sockets. But I worked through it, and I have the dance down a bit better now. We were able to practice the song outside, too, in the nice weather, which was nice even though the wind made our scarves go everywhere. I have to admit, that Enid IS a windy city -- just as much as Chicago! After lunch (where we had to keep our plates and napkins and utensils in our own trash bags), the cast as a whole continued to work on our Mexican Medley dancing. We've got about all of it learned now, but its just getting it memorized. After this, we did our normal rehearsal, and I found myself in the same spots as in the last show -- mike groups for the most part, but in the cast stage for "We'll Be There" and "Up with People." Rehearsal ended, and dinner came and went. We gathered for our Green Room, and broke to begint he show. It went off well. Definitely cannot complain about anything. Afterward, I was on Cast University again, and we didn't have much to do, so a few of us walked to a gas station and grabbed some food. Fun times. Because there wasn't too many interviews to do, most of the people on admissions moved to strike and they did a "super-strike" -- basically, try and take down the set as quick as possible. For the United States, the fastest UWP has taken down the set in the past was 1 hr. and 1 minute. They got the set down on Friday in 53 minutes. Though they had to add two, 1 minute penalties for opening the trucks up again, they still did a great job beating that record with extra equipment compared to past years.

Saturday was our CI day. While there were plenty of different spots around Enid, Oklahoma for the cast to go, I went to our beneficiary's location, a place called Leonardo's. Basically, it seemed to be a community children's museum that is completely intereactive, where kids can let there imaginations run wild in two primary areas -- art and science. The fifteen of us that went spent the morning working up on the third floor, cleaning up their supply room, which was basically items that they've saved or been donated to them over the years and that had piled up to an unsiftable, unorganized mess. So we helped organize it for them. After lunch, we split in half, some going out to their adventure land to clean leaves and weed their park area, while the rest went back upstairs to continue sorting. I took advantage of the opprotunity to go outside, and spent my time cleaning up a ton of leaves and dirt and such. Overall, we filled 35 gallon trash bags with leaves, and we filled 22 bags full of this stuff in about an hour and a half. Good amount of work, I felt like. After CI was complete, the whole cast regrouped and did a wrap-up discussion about everyone's experience. After this, we returned once again to our Mexican Medley practice, working on lyrics for the different songs, and then going over the dances. I would say that we're about half way there. This next week in Brenham will be all we need, I think, to be ready for Mexico. And I can't wait!

Today was our free day/host family day. We got to sleep in and then Eilis, Britta, and I went to Catholic Palm Sunday mass at 11 a.m. Afterwards, we came back and had lunch, and then Mike took us all on a tour of the Air Force base. We also went bowling there, we I scraped up a score of 129 and 133. Not too impressive. But it was still fun. After bowling, we all came back to our host family's home, and was joined by another host family with their students. We grilled out and just had a good time, which seemed to go quickly. While our stay in Enid was short, it definitely left an impression, it seems like!

Until my next post!

Dan

A Brief Stay in St. Joseph

2008-03-13T21:13:00.002-06:00

Hello all!

I’m trying get my posts out quicker so that I have more time (and energy) to write about more than just “this happen here, and that happened there.” So, this is my attempt at started a mid-week posting trend…wish me luck! :) I will apologize ahead of time -- there are no pictures in this post. Sad day, I know.

Monday was travel day for the cast, and we were daunted with a nine hour trip ahead of us. But, I suppose in a way we were all looking forward to it because it meant that we had nine hours of unstructured, work-free time we could use to sleep, read, relax, and just plain hang out. Because I was living on the south side of Chicago, I got to sleep in a bit longer than normal. While the north side had to be on the buses by 7:15, we didn’t have to be on them until 8:30 – they had to get up before us for once! My roommate Johan, however, did not join us. My host mother, Mary Ellen, took him to the airport where he left for Monterrey, Mexico to start his advanced work for the cast. We’ll be meeting up with him there in about two weeks! I know that he was excited to go, but he was also nervous – after all, he’s not very fluent in Spanish. Try persuading people to become host families in a language you’re not too fluent in! After the cast loaded up on the bus, we set out on the road to St. Joseph, Missouri, which is located about a half hour north of Kansas City, Missouri. To be honest, I forgot I was so close to Kansas City, until I saw all the Kansas City Chiefs stuff that is everywhere here. Had to say, I was excited! :)

So our bus ride went – that about all I can say there. My bus (bus #2) watched a couple movies along the way: Grandma’s Boy and Elizabethtown. Elizabethtown was alright, though kind of long. Grandma’s Boy was stupid, even though I was asleep for most of it. What’s that say about it? Anyway, so the trip went. It was a relaxing change to the hectic week we had in Chicago. We arrived on time in St. Joseph, had our allocation meeting, and met our new host families. I am now roomed with another Johan – Johan Petri from Sweden – and Martha from Ethiopia. Both of them are great roommates! My host family is Mike and Donna Moseman, and they’re both great people. Sadly we haven’t had much time to hang out with them (which is often the cast in half cities), but we’re enjoying the time we have.

Tuesday was our CI day in the community, and half of the cast went to Tiny Tots Town, which is an organization that puts on a yearly event that allows kids to “live” in a tiny tot town. The event aims to get kids thinking about being independent and self-sufficient, as well as learn how to find the necessities in life. So the organization builds a small town, complete with a post office, grocery store, and more to give the kids an opportunity to “live” in a town of their own. The part of the cast that went worked all day constructing the different buildings the organization will use for their fall event. The other half of the cast was split into two school groups, one going to Cathedral Elementary School and the other going to St. Xavier Elementary School. There, we did our “Stand for Peace” presentation to a class, and then also performed a “BTS,” which is a mini-show for the kids so they can get a taste of what the show will be like. I went to St. Xavier School and had a 7th grade class – Mrs. Meyers 7th grade class to be exact. They. Were. Awesome! We had a great time together, and plenty of extra time to discuss other stuff outside of the presentation. My group partners, Zaire from Bermuda and Veronika from Norway, were able to talk about their countries and how they differ from the United States. We also were able to play a game called “Human Knot” where everyone stands in a tight circle and grabs each others’ hands, creating a human knot. After that, they have to try and get out. It’s always a fun game. After our morning presentation, we had our BTS in the afternoon, which went off well. We pumped up the kids when they came into the performance area, dancing along with background music we had going. After that, we did the BTS, which everyone seemed to like, and then we cleaned up and went back to our cast meeting place. After everyone got back, the cast worked some more on our Mexico medley, and we started learning some of the dances for it. They don’t seem difficult as of now, but I reserve the right to change my opinion :) Once we finished wrap-up for the day, myself and my roommates went with my host mother on a small tour of St. Joseph. One thing that I’m impressed with in this city is the architecture. It is SO beautiful! Very ornate stuff. Always has detailed trim, and vaulted spacing, etc. And the houses are so big! Very cool. We showed Johan and Martha the Missouri River, which unfortunately was mostly blocked by a casino, but oh well. I’m sure they’ll get over it :) After our tour, the four of us went to Famous Dave’s to sample some local American cuisine – BBQ! I love Famous Dave’s, so I was not complaining…and I wasn’t disappointed either. Yum! Once we finished dinner, I stopped at Target and picked up a box so I could mail home some of my stuff – including my winter coat!! Yes, that’s right. It is WARM here in Missouri! AND, it’s going to stay that way for the rest of the tour! It got up to 65 degrees Tuesday – we were ALL excited about that one!

Show day arrived the next morning, bright and early like always. My roommate Johan, who hadn’t been feeling good the day before, decided to call in sick. He had a fever and was having other terrible symptoms, so he’s not here today. Unfortunately, he’s not alone – the past week and a half has been marked by sickness. I think it has a lot to do with our long schedules coupled the large group of people we’re constantly around. Our bodies are constantly bombarded with germs, so our immune systems have their work cut out for them. Luckily, the worst I have gotten has been a cold, which I’m aiming to have as my worst illness for the tour. We’ll see how it goes! This morning I was signed up for Vocals, and spent all the time working on parts for our Mexican Medley, which went well. We made it through all the songs in about two hours. I’m not sure how much of it stuck, but we made it through at least. After lunch (which was pizza), we did some cast dance work for our Mexican Medley, and we almost got done with it but fell a bit short near the end of our time. After working on this, we moved to rehearsal for the show. I found myself on a little bit less mike groups, but I was still up there a fair amount of the show. We hit a snafu with the speakers during rehearsal, but our amazing tech staff ironed that out before long and we were back working again, and we didn’t have any problems during the show at all. The show itself went very well. I felt like I had a great emotional infusion in the show tonight, which makes it easier to get up there when you’re tired. I got to be on stage for “We’ll Be There,” which I liked since I had normally been on mike groups for the song. I can really throw the emotion in when I’m on stage and not hid away in a corner. After the show, I was on “Cast University,” which is basically time we get to take with different members of our cast and focus on different things we want to learn more of, or something like that. We had a good time hanging out with one another, so I definitely can’t complain.

Thursday morning we are heading out again on the road, this time bound for Enid, Oklahoma. It’s about a five and a half hour drive, which is about the right amount. Long enough to relax; short enough to not get sick of the seats :).

Until my next post!

Dan

Chicago!!

2008-03-09T22:35:00.012-06:00

Hello all!

Wow! This week has blown by faster than I had thought it would. But, of course, this is the Windy City! Our week in Chicago was full of many fun, busy, and exciting things, so many that this will be a LONG post – hope you’re all buckled down to read it, because I know its going to be a long one to type! :)

We arrived in Chicago late Monday morning, and our two tour buses headed straight for a well known attraction in the city – Navy Pier. If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say that it was picturesque. I took SO many pictures of the Navy Pier area! There is a great view of the downtown area from the pier, and there were many different attractions to see as well. They had a large rainforest/tropical tree area/thing near the center of the complex which was cool to check out. A bunch of us also went outside to the actual pier and took a TON of pictures of each other doing crazy stuff. We wandered around the Pier for the rest of the morning, checking out the different shops and taking the Chicagoan flavor. At about 1:30, we made our way back to the buses and went to our show venue – the Copernicus Theatre, which was a renovated movie theatre built back in the 1920s. We had a roundtable discussion activity set up for us with some of the local Chicago leaders which was interesting and educational. We rounded out the day by separating into two separate groups – the northsiders and the southsiders. Chicago is such a big city that we had two Host Pick-Up places to make it more convenient. I was allocated to the southside, so I hopped onto a bus and headed that way. Once we arrived there, I met with one of my castmate’s hosts, who told us he was taking us back because my roommate and I’s host mother had a meeting that evening and couldn’t pick us up. The only problem was, we had to walk. With our luggage. Which, despite having wheels, was heavy. We walked about ten blocks with all our stuff – thankfully in the nice Chicago evening. It was about 30 outside, so I couldn’t complain at all. Once we arrived at my host family’s place, we all ordered a true Chicago deep-dish pizza. Mmmmmm! Twas good. After an hour or so, Johan (my roommate who is from the Netherlands) and I’s host mother arrived home – an awesome woman named Mary Ellen Duffy. We all hung out for a while before we closed out the night for some sleep.

Tuesday came and with it an early rise. Since I was living on the southside, we had to catch a train in the morning that would take us to downtown Chicago, where we were catching the UWP bus to our morning location. We had to be downtown at or before 7:15 a.m., which mean we had to catch the 6:15 train from 103rd street, which meant Johan and I had to be up at 5:00 a.m. Every. Morning. Ugh. So, as I was saying, it was an early rise on Tuesday. We caught our train with ease and met up with all the other southsiders soon enough. We walked the five blocks to Union Station (our rendezvous point) and got a chance to check out downtown Chicago. Not going to lie, I thought Denver had a big downtown. Chicago dwarfed it. Wow! We all caught our bus, and arrived at a local high school for our morning meeting. We all got divvyed up into groups and went out in Chicago, split up over three or four high schools. I was placed in Foreman High School, and got a chance to meet some great students there. The entire school was SO diverse! I did get a reality check, however, when I arrived and had to go through metal detectors and a sign-in process. I was telling some of my castmates that this school had more security than the County Courthouse I interned at a couple summers ago. Crazy! Anyway, I worked in three different class periods, doing an abbreviated version of the “Stand for Peace” project, focusing more on the Card Identification activity and the Take a Stand activity. They all seemed to be received well, and we also got many students interesting in our program and show. After all the school projects finished, the cast regrouped and went over the day.

In the interest of time, I’ll combine Wednesday and Thursday into shorter segments :) On both days, the cast was split into different Community Involvement groups, some still working in local high schools, other doing workshops for the show, still other doing internship duties, and others doing different CI activities. On both days, I was assigned to high schools, and I went to Eisenhower High School and Wendell Phillips High School, where I found myself a sure minority. At Eisenhower, the ration of students was 40% Hispanic, 40% Black, 17% White, and 3% Asian. Coming from Iowa, where diversity can be lacking, it was a cultural shift for my – definitely! After doing CI most of the day, we all gathered together afterwards to do wrap-up and work on other things. In Burlington, WI, we began working on our Spanish medley for Mexico, and we continued that on Wednesday, making it through most of the songs. On Thursday, we did a group workshop where we had an auction for a list of values. This was a very interesting way to discover what values we held important to ourselves, and how far we were willing to go to “have” them. Some people spent all of the fake money on one value because it was THAT important!

Friday brought show day for the cast, and, like always, people were divided up into different groups – workshops, strike, and fitness. I was on the fitness crew along with about 10 others, so we worked together and made a great fitness session of games, workouts, and stretches. We even ended with a small massage session – it was great! After a great Polish lunch, we did rehearsal for the show, and went over all the special conditions we had to work with the stage. Since this venue used to be an old movie theatre, it had NO backstage to speak of. None. We had to set up curtains on the sides so we could enter on the stage, and there were only two entrances on stage instead of the normal four, which made for many traffic jams during rehearsal. But, we worked through the difficulties and made the show one of our best. And, the audience LOVED it! I didn’t realize the large Hispanic crowd we had until Jessica Rojas, my castmate, got up on stage to do the Spanish portion of our show. We she began the mariachi long-note, the crowd went WILD!! The “Oye El Boom” came next and they just erupted! It was SO cool! The show ended well, and we all moved into our post-show stage. I had admissions work again, and did an interview before I caught a bus to the southside of Chicago for the evening. By the time I got done and in bed, it was 12:30 a.m., and after a day that started at 5 a.m. it was definitely a long day!!

Saturday brought a morning CI at the Field Museum, where the Illinois PTA (our beneficiary) was holding a parent summit, so we served as guides and watchers for the parents’ kids and we took them around the museum. I had seven 4-8 year olds that I took around the museum for about two hours. While I know they had fun, they were also quite hungry and tired by the time lunchtime rolled around. After we dropped the kids off, we were given the rest of the afternoon off to explore downtown Chicago. I joined up with some of my castmembers and we walked around, ate some lunch, and finally made our way to the Sears Tower. After riding up the super-fast elevator, we were awed by the amazing view on the skydeck. It. Was. Awesome! We took SO many pictures, I can’t even come close to throwing them all up on this blog. Sorry! :)

Sunday morning started later than the rest, at about 10 a.m. The southside of Chicago was having their annual (and HUGE) St. Patrick’s Day Parade, arguably larger than the more popular northside parade where they dye the river green. It was SO cool!! After the parade, which was a bit chilly and snowy, we went over to our city-setter-upper’s place (Patrick) for a party where we hung out and relaxed after a very long week. Safe to say, we had a good time! :)

Tomorrow, we’re leaving for St. Joseph, MO, and it is supposed to be about a nine hour drive, which will be a great time to rest. AND, its supposed to be 50 degrees when we get there!! Woot!!

Until my next post!

Dan

Muscatine and Burlington -- Separated at Birth?

2008-03-02T22:55:00.010-07:00

Hello all!

This week started off in Muscatine, Iowa, a quaint town on the eastern side of Iowa that represented our last city in my fair state. While I have to admit that it was nice being back near my own Iowan culture, I am VERY much looking forward to traveling somewhere outside of the Midwest. Chicago, I think, represents that step outward, even though it still is considered in the Midwest. Still, Chicago is its own unique culture, I would expect. Anyways, our stay in Muscatine, like Lincoln, was short. We arrived on Sunday evening, met our host families, and went our separate ways. My roommate for this city was Johan from the Netherlands (see left), one of the few in our cast who traveled last semester with UWP. Our host family was Rick and Peggy Decker. Both of their children were off on their own, so Johan and I had the entire basement to ourselves. I took the air mattress in the “family room” and Johan took the bedroom. I have to say that the air mattress was especially comfortable! And, I was sleeping right next to a big screen T.V. which I used a couple times. Nice. Our first full day in Muscatine, Monday, was filled with “Stand for Peace” projects. I matched up with Eilis and Carolina (from Maryland and Sweden, respectively), and we all worked with 5th graders in the morning and 6th graders in the afternoon. It was a good time! For lunch, we ate at Madison Elementary School and had pork tenderloin sandwiches….mmmmmmm!! They were amazing!! Our next day in Muscatine was show day, and I was put on a vocal workshop for the morning. We spent all morning long going over songs and such in the high school, which was where our performance was to take place at. Before lunch, the high school choir class invited us to come watch them on a couple songs, and we took them up on the offer. They were amazing! I’d forgotten how much fun high school choir was until then. I mean, sure, we sing and stuff in UWP, but not like that. They have that choir sound, a sound we try and avoid in our show since we are not a choir. We got a chance to introduce ourselves, and I was quite surprised that I got a huge cheer when I said I was from Iowa. But I suppose I’m doing a bit of “representin,” so that explains it. Still…cool.

After lunch, we had rehearsal that lasted all afternoon. Because the stage was a smaller one, we divided the cast in half again for the bulk of the songs. I, however, was on mike groups for most of the show, so I was on stage pretty much the entire time. Fine with me. We finished rehearsal and had a wrap up before dinner, which is when we got some of the best news in a while. As I mentioned before, AJ from Wisconsin had to leave us because of medical reasons and while he was going to visit us in Burlington, WI, we knew he would not be able to rejoin us. During wrap up, we learned that AJ’s doctor had cleared him and given him the green light to rejoin UWP! I can’t tell you how pumped up this made the cast. For once, we’d gotten some GOOD news! I think this news reflected in our show, because it seemed to me that it stepped up a notch and it went off great. We had a good time. After the show, I was assigned to admissions interviews, where interview people who are applying to UWP from the city we’re in. It was an interesting experience for me, being on the other side of the interview process. I’d like to say that I reached back to my Interviewing class I took last spring at USD, but I know that I didn’t. Oh well. The interview seemed to go well anyway. After I finished with that, I helped with the remainder of strike, which is the photo you see above.

Wednesday brought the end of our Muscatine visit and another travel day. After some morning discussions and lectures, we left on our four-hour drive to Burlington, Wisconsin. Along the way, we watched “Wedding Crashers,” one of comedy’s greats, and most of “Once Upon A Time in Mexico,” an interesting movie that the verdict is still out on for me. I’d never seen it before, and it’s hard to catch nuances of movies on a bus. We arrived in cold Burlington, and I quickly found out that I didn’t have a roommate I would be staying with, a first for me in the “on the road” experience. I met my host family, Paul and Rhonda Sullivan and their two kids Jake and Alex. They even had another host sibling – Jorge from Paraguay. We went over to another host family’s (they were hosting Chris from Hawaii and Tucker from Denver) house to have a combined dinner. They host dad is an amazing recreational chef, and he cooked us tossed up lasagna and spaghetti and Italian sausage and cheese garlic bread. Mmmmmmm. I pretty sure I ate too much. After that, we all went back to my host family’s place and settled in for the night.

Thursday brought Community Impact day for the cast, and we worked most of the day with our beneficiary – Love, Inc., which is (simply put) a food pantry, thrift store, and transitional housing shelter. Some of the other cast also went to Mount Carmel, a senior living home, and worked with residents there. I, on the other hand, was on the sign-out list for the day, and worked on dance in the morning and then vocals in the afternoon. For dance, we worked on “World Celebration,” which involves swaying and scarves. Fun. (Yes, yes. There was sarcasm there.) Honestly, I’m not a big fan of the dance for the song, but hey that how it goes sometimes, right? Right. In the afternoon, as I mentioned, I worked on vocals, which I liked considering all the mike group work I had to do in the last show.

Friday was show day in Burlington, and we spent the entire day in high school there, setting up our stage in the gymnasium since their auditorium simply was not big enough. This brought an interesting challenge from a set up perspective because of the openness of the venue. We had to use a LOT of curtains so that the Burlingtonians didn’t get a peep show instead of an UWP show :) While most people were either on set-up or workshops, I was on the fitness crew – basically a fill time for people extra people in the cast. Since they didn’t need more people on set-up, and I had done dance and vocal workshops the day before, that squarely put me in fitness. We were left to lead our own fitness, the fifteen of us that were on it. Cody from Denver led some of us in an ab workout that I’m regretting right now. After that, we played a few games and then meditated (also known as sleeping). It was great really. Relaxing. Care-free. I like it. The afternoon brought rehearsal, just like always, and I found myself again in mike groups for most of the show. Soon, rehearsal was over and the show was beginning. AJ stopped in and said hello to the cast, and we were all very happy to see him. He got to sit in the first row and watch the show. The first half of the show went smoothly, all up until the last song of the half – “Keep the Beat.” I was standing on mike groups when all the sound suddenly kicked out. No band. No vocals. Nothing. The cast, however, didn’t miss a beat. We kept right on going. Our tempo never wavered, we filled what was suppose to be an instrumental interlude with cheers and such, and picked the vocals back up all on cue. It was AMAZING to see us all pull together in that sudden, unexpected moment. Even as I was standing up on the mike group platform, I could see everyone’s game faces stay on and their dancing keep together. It. Was. Great. We broke for intermission, fixed the sound problem, and came back to re-perform “Keep the Beat” with no problems. After that, show went on great, without any other hitches. After the show, I was on admissions interviews again, which went rather quickly. Once I finished, I joined a fitness/yoga group (again, a group of extra people from the cast) and had fun with them, talking and such.

Saturday was a regional learning day, at least for the morning. We spent our pre-lunch time at a local dairy farm, learning about the dairy business and seeing all the different parts of the process. For the many people who had never been on the farm, the most common comment was, “I never realized cows were so big!” I had to laugh a couple times when people commented on the manure smell, mainly because that same smell reminded me of being back home. The silage helped with that, too. The cast also got a chance to see a bunch of the newborn calves as well, which everyone enjoyed. I sort of started something when I had a calf suck on my finger. After that, others joined in and then peer-pressured others into doing it. Quite fun. After the dairy farm tour, we went back to Burlington and had a few meetings and group discussions, the last one about the five stages of group dynamics, which I thought was a well-received discussion that made people think about how we, as a cast, want to interact with each other, as well as put a name to the different dynamics we are experiencing as a large group. After all of that, my host family picked me up from the Veteran’s Community Center, and we all went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant. I had never had Japanese food, so I knew right away this would be an interesting experience, but one I should challenge myself to experience. When we got there, I ordered a dish whose name I can’t remember but basically it was a steak stir-fry. It was good. But before we got our main entrees, we had some appetizers – sushi. I’d never had sushi before, so it was definitely an interesting experience. I ended up trying about five different kinds of sushi, most of which I enjoyed. In fact, I don’t think I hated any of them. During the night, I even learned how to eat with chopsticks, and I also had fried ice cream – which I’m a new fan of. Yum. After that, we all went back to their place and watch “American Gangster” – an interesting, albeit long film.

Today was host family day, which meant I could sleep in and I did. Once I got up, we all went to Milwaukee, which wasn’t too far away, and to the famous art museum that is there. The building itself was designed by a famous architect who had never designed a building in the United States before this one. It was such a cool building. It had a large triangle portion of windows that would be covered up by sails during the evening and then opened up like sails during the day to let in the light. It was very cool to look at, as well as the art that was inside. Some of it was a little boring, which artwork can be sometimes, but other parts were cool too. After the art museum, we all went to “Vantage Point” in the theatres, which was an intriguing mystery/action movie. Afterwards, we went back to Burlington and ate at Fred’s Burgers (?) home of the “World’s Best Burger.” Honestly, it was a good burger, but I’m not sure it was the best. Eh :) After dinner and evening church, we went over to Chris and Tucker’s host family’s place where I learned how to play a couple guitar chords and we at some amazing chocolate, macadamia nut pie. Delicious.

Tomorrow, we’re leaving for Chicago at about 8:30 am. It’s only about an hour and a half drive, but we’re playing to spend the rest of the day at Navy Pier and do some regional learning/tourism stuff. It should be really interesting!

Until my next post!

Dan

Des Moines, and Beyond

2008-02-24T19:46:00.004-07:00

Hello all!

I just wanted to take this rare free evening to post a blog while I could. Unfortunately, I won't be able to put up pictures just yet because I'm not using my computer, but instead my host family's. But, never fear! I'll be sure to add them in! :) Also, before I forget, I want to give a shout out to all the cast parents and alumni and random readers of my blog. I've been hearing that my blog has become popular to some, and I want to thank you for your interest and you compliments I've been getting via my castmates. Thank you, and you're all welcome to leave comments!

Our show in Des Moines went off well. The stage was immense -- nearly as big as the one in Denver! The audience, too, was amazing! So full of energy, though I don't think as reactive as the one in we had in Denver -- but I do have a caveat to that! The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Denver show was a unique experience. There were SOOO many alumni in that audience, that I think we get spoiled by the immediate and overwhelming reaction. It's not that I think the audience in the other cities are less impressed or enjoy the show less...I just think they don't know what to expect. Perhaps kicked back in their seats a bit by our energy? And, of course, UWP alumni tend to be very passionate in the audience and reflect that in their applause. The Denver show was about half full of alumni while most other shows there are only a few handfuls. The one great thing about performing to so many who have never seen an UWP show is the opprotunity to set a precedent with them. Every time they think of UWP, they will think of OUR show! Sure, that adds a bit of pressure, but that's also exciting to think about! Anyway, as I was saying, the show went off well. My family drove 3.5 hours from Sioux City to see it and had great seats in the third row. From what they told me, they were impressed! Besides that though, it was good to see them all again -- it has been about six weeks! Strange to think that it'll be June until I see them (and Iowa) again!

After a speedy set strike, we all went home for the night to catch up on much needed sleep. My host mother was amazing and stopped by a McDonald's to let me eat some terribly-bad-for-you Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese and french fries. Mmmmm. Quite good! Saturday brought our free day/host family day, and Ultan and I slept in until about noon (which was AMAZING!). After that, our host family had a bunch of activities going on with their children so they dropped us off at a large mall in Des Moines, leaving us to meet up with a bunch of other UWP people. We met up with about 20 of them throughout the day, and went to two movies -- "Jumper" and "Fool's Gold." I enjoyed "Fool's Gold" a bit more than "Jumper" if only because the dialogue was much better done. Then again, a comedy doesn't have to do too much to have good dialogue. "Jumper" like most movies of its like has a great premise, but fails to deliver captivating characters, or engaging dialogue. Makes for a cheesy movie.

Today was a travel day, but since Muscatine, Iowa is only about three hours away, we spent the morning working on a public speaking workshop which was interesting. After a quick lunch, we were on the road. We did, however, have to say goodbye to another member of our cast -- Ellen, from Sweden, who has decided to leave for personal reasons. The cast was and still is completely in support of her and her decision, but we're going to miss her greatly. She makes the third person to leave our cast. Tim Floro, who was only with us for about a week in staging, and AJ, who because of medical reasons, had to leave us after the Maquoketa show. We also found out this week that the sponsor for our Acopoco destination has pulled out and we are no longer going to that city. All of the cast was equally disappointed to hear this. Overall, it has been a slightly depressing week. But, despite all of this, we are EXCITED to be in Muscatine. Vivia, the advanced team member in Muscatine, has rejoined us, and she has so much positive energy that cannot help but rub off on the cast. So we're excited and looking forward. Burlington, Wisconsin is coming up later this week, and I know the cast is looking forward to see AJ again, who will be coming to watch our show there. After that will be Chicago, a city that I personally cannot WAIT to see. Fun times!

Until my next post!

Dan

The Road Continues...

2008-02-22T06:12:00.005-07:00

Hello all!

Maquoketa has come and gone, leaving us smack-dab in the middle of Iowa and its capital – Des Moines. We arrived in the early evening of Monday after a seven hour drive from Maquoketa. This traditionally three hour drive turned into the seven hour monotony because of the terrible winter storm that ran through the eastern half of Iowa the day before – our show day in Maquoketa. That story will come later. There were times on our drive to Des Moines that our bus was at a full stop on the interstate because of the traffic. As we drove along, we saw dozens of trucks, cars, and SUVs rolled, stuck, and discombobulated in the interstate median. I learned later that over a hundred vehicles were thrown off the road between Maquoketa and Des Moines, resulting in four deaths. Crazy! I do have to admit that the extra down time on the bus was a welcome turn of events, even if it was uncomfortable for me. Time that is unblocked and unscripted is something ALWAYS welcome, I think. We arrived just in time to be welcomed by the mayor of Des Moines and receive an official proclamation from him. After that, we met up with our host family’s and headed towards their homes. I was lucky enough to be roomed with Ultan Courtney from Ireland again. I was his roommate in Maquoketa, but he’s definitely one of those people you want to be around a lot. He’s got so much energy!

Okay, for those who love continuity, I’m going to mess with your sense of direction. I’m going to backtrack to Maquoketa and finish that story before I continue on with Des Moines – sound cool? Because I don’t want to hear that I didn’t give you fair warning. If memory serves, my last entry about Maquoketa talked about my arrival there, so I’ll pick up there. The first day in Maquoketa was a CI day (community involvement), but I was on the sign-out list for performing arts/dance, so I was stuck in the local community center working on different songs, which made for a disappointing and long day. But, the next day brought our first host day on the road – an opportunity to sleep in…YES! :) Unfortunately the night before we were up until about 3 a.m., which negated much of the sleeping in. Our host family took myself, Ultan, and Mark (from England) bowling in a local alley, which was an experience for my foreign roommates. We met up with another host family, which were hosting three girls from our cast, and we all bowled together. After bowling and playing pool for a couple hours, we went to the girls’ host family’s place and hung out until three, sipping on orange julius’ and chatting. It was a great time. Saturday, our free day, followed and we spent most of it relaxing about the house. I played PS2 with my host brother, Jacob – mostly playing Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2, which I had been craving a bit of for a while. In the evening, another host family who lived two houses down came over and we all hung out, watching T.V. and playing cards. Fun times. Sunday, show day in Maquoketa, was highlighted by the terrible weather moving through the area. It started off by raining on the area all morning, which turned instantly to a wet ice on anything with snow on it. Most back roads had not been cleared of all the snow, so those turned instantly to impassable ice – stranding a few of our castmates in their host family’s homes until later in the day. After about noon, snow started falling, making travel a bit more manageable, but cutting down on visibility. As a result of the weather, our audience wasn’t near as big as it could have been. The auditorium holds about 850 people, and I don’t think it was half full. BUT, the people who were there were an amazing audience. It was great! AND, most (if not all) of the audience were first-time viewers of the show – what a way to make an impression! :) We had a great time, and everyone seemed to be impressed with the show. The next morning we said our goodbyes and left for Des Moines, which leads me back to what I was saying above.

Our first day in Des Moines was spent working with our beneficiary for our show on Friday – Kids Against Hunger. This organization packages meals specially formulated for malnourished children and then ships them to countries in need. Each package we make is the equivalent of six meals. We had about a hundred people working with the organization from about 8 a.m. to 6:30 at night. Our goal was to package 200,000 meals – a lofty goal. By the end of the day, we packaged 251,600 meals – and absolutely impressive feat! It was amazing! Though I have to admit that I was dreaming of dried vegetables and rice all night long. Wednesday brought a trip to the Pioneer Hy-Bred Seed Company where we were able to visit many of the scientists that work there and also talk to many of the people who work there. I have to admit that I found the entire tour interesting. They had a bean plant in a glass case in the lobby that was part of a plot that produced 154 bushels/acre – a good average would 54 bushels/acre! The plant was literally covered with bean pods…it was unbelievable! After the Pioneer campus tour, the cast had an afternoon to hang out and roller skate in a local rink. I, unfortunately, had to do a mini-show performance at a Des Moines mall for promotions for the show. While the few of us had fun, it was something else I didn’t get to do with the rest of the cast. We returned back to our base of operations in Des Moines only to find out that we were to get the evening to hang out and have a dance/karaoke event – sort of a lazy, social evening. However, much akin to earlier in the day, I had work on some stuff and was unable to participate. We finished the evening at about nine and went back home, where I continued to work on my project until about midnight. Sidenote – my project was a news presentation for the cast on Thursday morning. The bad thing about Up with People sometimes is that you are so busy doing stuff that it becomes hard to keep up with news going on outside of the program. So, a few people are in charge of presenting some news to the cast and one of those persons happen to be me. Since I got selected for the position, I haven’t had any time to work on this presentation and finally I just told my host family that I had to work on it and forego any socialization. But I got it done and it went off well! Today brought another CI day, and I was involved with the Stand for Peace project again, this time working with an 8th grade class. I was surprised at the amount of intelligent questions they all had. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think they were stupid or anything, but I sort of had a level of expectation after working with two 6th grade classes in Lincoln, Nebraska, and I was surprised at the level of advancement between the two school years. It was a noticeable difference. After the school project in the morning, we put on another mini-show for the school in the afternoon. It. Was. A. Blast. Before the show, we were all dancing with the students while we waited to get the show started. Then we did the show, and they all seemed to have a blast. And then after, they all rushed us and started dancing with us again, climbing up on the stage and such, wanting us to sign autographs, etc. It was SO much fun! Ah!

Tomorrow is set to bring our Des Moines performance in the Civic Center. The center holds about 2,500 people, and I’ve been told that the stage is big and beautiful – I’m definitely looking forward to it. Also, my family is trekking down from Sioux City to the show, and it will be great to see all them again after the past six weeks – its sort of hard to imagine that its only been that long. It seems like FOREVER, really! After Friday’s show, we’re set to have a host family day on Saturday, in which we’re definitely going to sleep in and we may possibly also see “Jumper.” We’ll see how it goes! We take off from Des Moines on Sunday afternoon and we’ll arrive in Muscatine, Iowa, in the evening. After a few days, we’ll continue on to Burlington, Wisconsin. Should be good!

Until my next post!

Dan

First Week on the Road

2008-02-16T12:36:00.006-07:00

Hello all!

It’s been a busy past few days. We’ve been traveling around so much that its seems like we’re trying to make up for the LACK of traveling we’ve been doing the past four weeks! We left Denver on Monday morning, bright and early, leaving our teary-eyed host families behind for the promise of a great adventure ahead on the road. We drove for about eight hours on the road to Lincoln, Nebraska, where we arrived at a local church and parish center for our city arrival meeting and orientation. Along the way, we made two stops, the last of which was in Kearney, Nebraska. I have to admit it was nice being in a town whose name I knew. The stops were about fifteen minutes – and not a minute later! If we were late to get back onto the buses, we might as well wave at the bus as it drives by because it will not stop. Some of this learn this the hard way on the trip to Maquoketa, but that’s a story for later. After some going back and forth in the Lincoln arrival building, I finally figured out that I was to be roomed with Ren-Horng Wang for Taiwan/USA, one of the guys I had been riding the bus with during our Denver orientation. Together we met our new host family, Les and Paula Schultz. We grabbed our luggage and made the short drive back to their home. There we had a great Midwestern meal of roast beef and potatoes with carrots. It. Was. Great. Ah! :)

We spent the few days in Lincoln – sadly only two full days. The first full day we spent doing the "Stand for Peace" program in some local elementary and middle schools. I spent the morning and afternoon with two different 6th grade classes. In the morning I was with a class from Lux Middle School, and in the afternoon I was with a class from Scott Middle School. It was an exciting time, though a bit challenging to do. It was the first time for me to actually do this program, so a bit of trial and error was in order. But, overall, I think it went well. I was with Eilis from Georgia/Maryland/Ireland, and Carolina from Sweden. We each took different sections of the presentation, which made it easier to do.

On Wednesday, we spent the entire day prepping the stage for the show, doing dance workshops, and also vocal prep. The first thing that I noticed about the theatre we were set to perform in was that it was significantly smaller than the Buell. Don’t get me wrong – I knew that we were being spoiled by the Buell, but it still surprised me by its size. Definitely small. In fact, for most of the numbers, we had to split the cast in half for the show, having only half the numbers come on the stage on any given song. Only on a few songs did we have the ENTIRE cast on the stage at the same time, as opposed to the Buell performance where EVERYONE was on the stage for nearly every number. We spent the afternoon rehearsing these changes and the show in general. After that run-through, we had some dinner (Runza), and did our own preparation for the show before Green Room. After Green Room, we made our way into the crowd of people swarming into the O’Donnell Auditorium, and I happened to catch a glance of my grandparents and a couple of my aunts in the lobby. I was able to talk with them throughout the pre-show, intermission, and post-show, and it was GREAT to see them. It really gave me a boost of energy for the show, especially when I could look out on the stage and see them staring back. Overall, I thought the show went well, though I do know that it wasn’t up to my performance at the Buell. I just think not having practiced those dances for so long and then picking them back up a couple hours before the show really dulled the once sharp edge I had on them. But, I’ll take that experience and learn from it.

After the show, I spent the entire evening (about two and a half hours) striking the set and restoring the auditorium to the way we found it, which included replacing the front row of seats that had been removed so the front stage lights could be set up. That was a fun task. Or not. :) We finished at about midnight, and then I spent the next couple hours packing my stuff up again for the morning’s trip to Maquoketa, Iowa. We departed at around 8:30 a.m., and the bus ride was scheduled for about nine hours. But by the time we reached Iowa City, we were making great time, so we stopped at the large mall there and spent an hour meandering around, shopping and eating and such. This is, of course, where some of us learned to be on time for the bus the hard way. Four of my castmates did NOT make it back to the bus on time and were subsequently left at the mall. The staff was kind and graciously picked them up in the vans that follow closely behind the buses, but in any normal circumstance they would have been left to their own means of finding a way back to the cast. All said and done, it was slightly funny.
We arrived at a Comfort Inn for our arrival meeting, only to be greeted by mountains of snow that had been pushed away not long before our arrival. I was told that it had snowed 11 out of the past 13 days in Maquoketa, the big dump happening last Wednesday – 15 inches! We soon met our host families, and our roommates, getting a chance to get to know both. I’m now rooming with one of the staff members, Marc, from England, and also a castmate, Ultan, from Ireland. Both men are energetic and swell chaps (can you tell their language is rubbing off on me?) My new host family, too, are great people. My host mom’s name is Susanna, and she has a twelve-year-old son whose name is Jacob, and a 19-month-old daughter named Carly. All of them are great people to be around. They have made us all feel like kings or czars or someone else supremely important. It’s been great so far. Our family is good friends with another host family, so we’re already planning some joint activities on our host family day on Saturday. Should be a good time, and I can’t wait! If only for the idea of a free day! Sleep in – haha!!
We have a show coming up in Maquoketa on Sunday afternoon that will be amazing to put on. I guess that not many people in this town have heard of Up with People, so we have so many people that we have a chance to impress, which is an exciting prospect. I can’t wait to show them what we’ve got!

Until my next post!

Dan

Our First Show!

2008-02-11T01:00:00.001-07:00

Hello all!

My final week in Denver has finally come and gone. The ultimate goal of the past four weeks has as well – our performance in the Temple Buell Theatre. In short – it was an amazing performance and experience. Many of the people I talked to about the show had nothing but praise for the show. But perhaps I should start at the beginning of the week to adequately explain how great it was to hear this.

Our week started off in the Temple Events Center, an old temple in downtown Denver which we used in interim until we could get into the Temple Buell Theatre. We spent the first day listening to a few speeches and items, ranging from the Up with People experience to our travels through Mexico and the United States. I’m especially excited for our travels through Mexico. From what our coordinators have said, Viva la Gente (as Up with People is known in Mexico) is a VERY big deal in Mexico. There has been a representative from Mexico in EVERY cast of Up with People. Viva la Gente is a household name, as are the songs. We also got a rundown of the places we’re going to visit, and what they will have to offer from a travel perspective. It looks amazing! Every one of the cities is STEEPED in history and culture. It should be an exciting experience.

On Tuesday we worked through the entire show piece by piece, working on vocals, dance, and blocking (though only slightly for the latter because of the limitations we had at our location). It was a long, but productive day. Wednesday brought our arrival at the Temple Buell Theatre – a gorgeous and amazing facility. All week long, we had to use the backstage entrance to the building, which made us feel like rock stars. We had dressing rooms that have been used by casts of Broadway plays, city orchestras, and the like. All along the backstage walls of the building were paintings of all the shows that have graced the Buell’s stage. At the end of the week, our own painting was right next to all of the rest, with our signatures all across it. The Buell Theatre is one of the premier venues in all of Colorado, if not THE premier venue. It holds over 2,000 people and has amazing acoustics. (I don’t think I can say amazing enough).

Friday held our official dress rehearsal show, where we invite our host family to see what we have to offer. It also gives us a chance to run through the show in front of a crowd that is not part of our show staff. It went well! We really stepped our game, according to the staff. Going into Saturday, we didn’t have much sleep, but we were still feeling energized from the night before. We started the morning off by meeting the FOUNDER of Up with People. He spoke to us for about an hour, and I found it amazing to listen to his story of seeing a need and fulfilling it. He said the 1960’s were full of young people who had so much passion for something (mostly against The Man – the establishment). Most of the passion resulted in negative forms, and UWP founder decided that there should be another way to harness this energy. He held a conference to discuss possibilities, with the 1,200 young people who showed up. Out of the conference came Up with People. Amazing.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a stop-and-go rehearsal, running through the show but stopping to correct things as we went. It went well. Finally, dinner came – Dominoes pizza. Yum. I spent a good twenty minutes centering myself before I went into Green Room, which is our pre-show meeting place and talk. Andrew, our sound technician, gave us a great speech that reminded us why we were there – why the Up with People show was there. Up with People’s motto is that we can change the world for the better. That is the message we’re trying to convey with our show, but its so easy to forget in the every day functions and learnings of orientation/staging. We ended Green Room and went out into the house, meeting and greeting people who had taken time to see our show. A friend of mine, also, decided to come down from Rapid City to see the show, but I wasn’t able to find her until intermission. (Donna, thanks again for braving a flat tire and ticketing cops to see my show! You’re amazing!) :) Soon the show started and there was a palpable feeling of adrenaline and anticipation. This was the moment we had been waiting for for the past four weeks. This was the culmination of our staging process – getting to stand in front of over 2,000 people (a full house) and convey our message, as well as shine the light on local heroes of Denver. I think our excitement showed, but the show kicked off with a power greater than the dress rehearsal. It was fantastic. It was intense. It was powerful. By the end of Saturday night, I was sore and I was tired, but I was on a high so great that it was hard to get sleep for a while. Such a unique experience that I get to be a part of for the next four months.

Today, my host family and I spent time together, traveling to Boulder to have brunch and enjoy each other’s company for the last time. After that, we picked up a few things that Kristian and I needed before we hit the road, and then came back home. We had dinner, and exchanged gifts of appreciation for each other. No tears yet, but I have no doubt that tomorrow will be soggy. Tomorrow officially marks the beginning of our travels across the world to bring the message of Up with People and I confess myself excited. It is going to be an amazing experience and here I stand on the edge of it, knowing that it will be amazing but having no clue how it will be that. And interesting prospect.

Until my next post!

Dan

One More Week in Denver

2008-02-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

Another week down, another one closer to our opening performance! It is crazy (and a bit nerve-wracking) to think that we will be performing in front of over 2,000 people in SIX days, in one of the biggest and coolest theatres in Denver. Whew! Honestly, though, I’m excited to get this first show underneath my, and cast’s, belt. It’s exciting to think about the show, which is slightly strange since that was the one thing I wasn’t looking forward to in this experience. But, it is looking amazing, and it’ll be great performing it for real for once and not just for our staff.

This week has been full of preparation for the show. Plenty of blocking, cast movement, and cast vocals. Beyond that, microphone groups (or mike groups) have been picked and they’ve begun working on their notes. I’ve been placed in the mike group, so I’ve been right there with them trying to learn all the tenor lines for the songs. As a mike person, you have to know all the songs for a couple different reasons: 1) in case someone gets sick/injured/etc. and you have to step into their spot for the show to go on; and 2) the different parts in the show are constantly changing. One moment you could be on mike groups for a song and then you could be on a different song. It’s all about versatility.

Beyond mike groups, I’ve been refining and learning more dance moves for the few remaining songs. None have them have been too challenging, but I did have to do a dance workshop yesterday for “Step into the World,” which was kind of a challenging dance, but nothing terrible. We worked on it for about three hours and I had the steps down by the end. Now I’ve just got to be able to DO them on time. Besides that, though, we’ve run through the show a few different times, the last being with costumes. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about that aspect on Thursday, but who knows if that’ll stay the same?

On Friday, the cast had a CI day (community impact), and there were many different options available to the cast. Some groups worked with homeless people at different centers, others packaged food again for needy families, and some others visited a center for people with mental health problems. However, there were some students that had to remain behind to work on a few things: lead dance, band, and mike vocals. I was part of the mike groups, so I didn’t get to go out with the rest of the cast. There were about thirty of us that had to remain behind and work on different aspects of the show. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy I got to work on vocals – God knows I needed to get the different parts down and I was really able to do that Friday, but I was a bit disappointed with missing out on a CI. But, we haven’t even begun to travel yet and there will be plenty of CIs along the way. We did, however, still all go out to eat together again at the end of Friday. About 12 of us made it to the Hard Rock Cafe, and we has some amazing food. I, myself, had some BBQ brisket which was delicious. We had a great time, and got a chance to really hang out with each other in an unstructured setting. Some of the others went to a place called "Johnny Rockets," a 50's themed fast food place. About 27 of them went, and as soon as they walked in, they heard the song "Twist." Of course, someone jumped up and started to dance to it. Soon the ENTIRE group of them were up dancing away in this tiny fast food place along the 16th Street Mall. They even had the staff of the place dancing away. People were walking by the restaurant and stopping to look through the window at all the crazy people dancing in a fast food place. It was a good time, I hear.

With the end of this week came the last day at our beloved Sherman Center, the place we’ve been staging at for the past three weeks. It is strange to think that the next time I step into the building (if ever) I will be an alum of the Up with People program. I’m not really sure where the past three weeks have gone. The first week seemed to drag by, but now every day seems to kick itself into high gear, speeding by faster than I can appreciate it. In another week, the cast will be LEAVING Denver and our host families that have graciously allowed us into their homes for the past four weeks. It’s going to be a sad going away. I’ve REALLY enjoyed my host family, and I feel I’ve started to find a place here, but now we’re going to be picking up and moving again. It’s exciting to get on the road, but it’s sad to leave all the friendships here in Denver. But I suppose we’ll all have to get used to it because that is what our lives will be highlighted by for the next five months.

Today, our host family is having a small Superbowl party, and I think Kristian is a bit excited to see this one-of-a-kind American event. While it’s not an official holiday in the United States, it might as well be. Beyond that, I’m hoping that another Manning can ruin Brady’s hopes for a Superbowl win. While I appreciate the talent and skill of the New England Patriots, they’ve still won it four times in the past seven years. Time for a new champion.

Until my next post!

Dan

A Week Full of Work...and Fun!

2008-01-27T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

This week has been crazy-busy, often leaving me enough time after I eat to check my email and then hit the sack. So, needless to say, I haven’t post on the blog for about a week. I’m going to fix that now.

The most of this week has been spent in “movement” sections and other random meetings. We’ve been working hard to learn the show we’ll be performing in less than two weeks…ah! So, I am sore. Quite sore, actually. Most of the songs require a lot of movement, but the song “Ayiko” really did me in with all the different lunges and quick movements, etc. Added with this was a nasty sinus cold that hit me, making the days even longer. Ugh. But, Friday and Saturday brought “blocking,” which is where we started running through the show to find our cues in and out for the show, etc. It has been a lot of work for that, but it has given us a sense of continuity for all the parts that have been thrown at us the past week and a half. In that sense, it has been great!

On Thursday, we took part in our first Community Involvement project (CI). There were three choices for us to choose from: working at a Habitat for Humanity home, helping relocate a African Refuge program office, or putting together food packages for the needy. I chose the Habitat for Humanity home, so we took a half-hour bus ride to the site and got a fun safety speech from the supervisors there. After that, we divided up into groups, some of us going outside and some of us staying inside. I ended up being inside all day long, working on the upstairs of a duplex, hanging sheetrock. If any of you have ever hung sheetrock, you know how fun it is. BUT, the plus side to this was working inside on a day that wasn’t too warm. And, the sheetrock we had to hang was all on the lower half of the rooms, which made the job ten-times easier. So there were about six to nine of us working upstairs, some measuring and cutting sheetrock panels to hang, others holding up the panels while others screwed them in. I was lucky enough to have experience with sheetrock and the screw gun, which made it easier for me. For others, it was a true learning experience trying to figure out the nuances of a power drill. We worked from about 9:30 in the morning til about 3:30 in the afternoon, not quite long enough to get the job done which bugged me for a while. The supervisors of the Habitat house had an inspection lined up for the next day, and they needed all the sheetrock hung before that, which meant that our supervisor, Allison, had to finish up what we didn’t get done – three walls in one room. Not cool. Hopefully she was able to get it done.

As for the cast, everyone is growing closer and closer. Friendships are flourishing everywhere and between everyone, it seems, with no signs of drama or dislike (which a great sign). While I’m not foolish enough to believe that it will forever remain like this, it is still great not to have it spring up too quickly! With blocking now in full swing, names are being dropped for solos and speaking parts and lead dancers, which surely has those involved excited. I, myself, had no such involvement, which was what I expected. I enjoy singing, but I know that I’m not great at it. I can speak in public, but there are those more natural at it. And dancing…well, I was HAPPY to know that I’m not a front line dancer! Though at the moment I’m on the top riser for the most complicated dance, “Keep the Beat”…hopefully that doesn’t keep! I don’t mind dancing it, but I’m not good enough to be so center stage. Advanced positions were handed out also this week, which means that soon some of our castmates will be leaving for Lincoln, Maquoqueta, Des Moines, Muscatine, and Burlington. Sad. But I am excited for them as well – they’ll be working to prepare cities and growing exponentially in the process. It’ll be great to see them again when we arrive in the city – THEIR city.

Since our Saturday was full of blocking, we were only left with one day for relaxation, sleeping in, and exploration of Denver. Our host family graciously left Kristian and I to sleep in for a few more hours than normal. Normally, we get up at about 6:20 in the morning, but we got to sleep in until 9:30, which was great! After we got up, we had a great breakfast with bacon, eggs, sausage, and Danish rolls (made by Pillsbury, so who knows how Danish they actually are). After breakfast, we suited up with warm clothes and made our way up to the mountains to Winter Park, and did a bunch of snow tubing – which was a blast! The hill was insanely steep and fast, and we tubed for about an hour (since they rent out the tubes for hour increments). It was a great time, and the trip up and back made for great sight-seeing since we had to wind all the way to the place (see video below for our tubing experience).

This next week will surely bring more and more blocking and rehearsal, since our first performance will be a week from Saturday. But, we’ll also get a bunch more time to spend with each other. Its always a big ta-do when we all leave for the evening, full of hugs from cast members and anxious waitings til we meet again. It’s hard to imagine that in a few months, we’ll be saying goodbye for good. But let’s not think about that just yet, yes?

Until my next post!

Dan

"Tubing in Denver"

Meet Some of the Cast of A2008

2008-01-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

I thought I'd take some time to introduce some of the cast I feel I know decently enough (and I have pictures of). First, I'll start off by introducing my roommate from Denmark -- Kristian (see left). He's never been to American before last week, and seems to be having a great time so far. I've been trying to teach him American Football with the playoffs going on right now, but it hasn't been going so well (mainly because of my teaching ability). Anyway, we've been taking time to explore the differences and similarities between our two cultures, and having a blast at the same time. The picture to the left is him eating his first cheeseburger in America (which was at Old Chicago). We also went and saw "Cloverfield" in the theatre last Friday. Kristian had never seen a movie in an American "cinema," so that was a fun experience.

In the picture to the right, we have five of my castmates, all from a variety of places. Starting left and moving right, we have Phil, from Arizona. Then we have Alice and then Cecile, both from Belgium. And then there is Andre, from Canada. And finally there is Amadine from Belgium. All of them are fun people, and its been great to get to know them. Cecile is 26, and teaches high school language classes in Belgium. She quit her job to join Up with People, so she's not sure if she'll take back her job after or not, but it surely was a leap of faith on her part. I haven't gotten much of a chance to know Phil, Alice, Andre, or Amadine, but as I said -- they all are amazing people from our small discussions.

On the left is Brittany and Noa. Brittany is a sophomore at a college here in Colorado, and Noa is from Belgium and is a pop singer. Noa has sold many CDs in Belgium and France, as well as many other places. This picture was taken with the spirit of Brittany being in awe of a Noa's presence. Of course Brittany has never heard of Noa, BUT Noa has many fans who would be jealous of the picture. Brittany herself is a fun person (as this picture would suggest), but I haven't gotten much of a chance to know her either. Still, it's only been a week. Give me a break!!

Finally, I've got one more picture to share (on right). On the left is AJ, from Wisconsin, and Hans, from South Dakota. I actually went to college with Hans at the University of South Dakota, though I never had really met him before we both joined Up with People. He's having a blast now that he's graduated from USD, using Up with People as a break between college and "the real world." Hans was also part of a barbershop quartet back at USD, so the show portion of the UWP has really been up his alley. AJ, as I mentioned, is from Wisconsin, and has brought a great amount of energy to our UWP cast. He's an amazing singer and dancer, not to mention has become a great many people's good friend.

Well, that's some of my castmates for now. I'm sure I'll post many more pictures of them in time, so until then!

Dan

The First (and Last) Free Weekend

2008-01-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

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"

The First Few Days in Denver

2008-01-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

Well, today Staging kicked into full gear, sending us hurtling into vocal practice and cast movement (aka dancing). Let it be offically known that I suck at dancing. But, I'm making progress still, and its still fun overall (though I did want to punch a wall because I was getting so frustrated). Anyway, the past few days have been fun. We've been getting a lot of time to meet people, and I've been trying to take advantage of it. As I mentioned earlier, there are about 95 people from 27 different countries, some as crazy as Nabibia and Mongolia. I've done well on getting names and hometowns down, but I've still got some people to go. Overall though, it has been fun the past couple days. Conversations between people have been slowly progressing deeper, going beyond the superficial, "What's your name?" "Where you from?" "How did you get involved with UWP?", etc. We've been slowly getting into cultural norms and such.

Yesterday, I was discussing college life with a Swede, and how they don't have to pay tuition to go to college (but, they do have 50% taxes tho). Today, we were discussing marriage and family life in Sweden, which is a very interesting subject.

Yesterday, I explored Denver a bit more with people from our cast, and took a tour of the state Capitol. I even stood on the Mile-High step on the building's step! Beyond that, we've been doing "modules" which are opprotunties for us to demonstrate our abilities in four different areas -- speaking, technical, vocal, and dance. The speaking went the best for me, and technical was cool; vocals was alright, and dance sucked. I made a complete fool of myself, but eh.

Tomorrow, we're going to work on vocals and dance, as well as journaling and internships with the tour. Later that night, we're going to go see "Cloverfield" because my roommate, Kristian, has never been to an American "cinema". So that will be fun. Saturday, depending ont the weather, we'll either be going hiking in the mountains, or going to a group UWP thing. I'll prolly try to watch football on Sunday, but we'll see if that happens :). Mostly, I'm going to try and catch up with sleep this weekend -- something I've been missing the past few days.

Overall, the people are just amazing. It is amazing what a philisophy like what Up with People has can do to create a positive, truly accepting culture where you feel comfortable to share anything and do anything. Friendships are blossoming everywhere between people, and it has only been the first week. I can only imagine what will happen after six months!! Pretty soon, we'll be on the road and truly living out of a suitcase.

Until my next post!

Also, check out upwithpeople.org for my tour schedule. We'll be in Lincoln for three days it looks like, so I'm sure the show will be on the last day or second to last day.

Dan