The Forgotten Carols

My second show in college has come to an end. Along with one of the busiest weeks ever. Seriously, here's how my week went:

Sunday: I had to come back from Thanksgiving week early for final dress rehearsal of The Messiah
Monday: Choir concert
Tuesday: Tech rehearsal (for Forgotten Carols)
Wednesday: Final dress
Thursday: Opening night
Friday: Choir concert thing during the day (which were at the same time as my Acting class mock audition callbacks that I also had to be at) and Forgotten Carols at night
Saturday: Closing night
Sunday: The Messiah

This was all the week before finals, mind you. I had two big things in psych due, mock auditions for Acting, various math assignments, a tap final, and studying to do. It was a tough week.

Anyway, this show was a much different experience than Charley's Aunt. I loved it, but in a very different way. It was a lot of fun to make fun of this awful script so often. It was interesting to watch the choir and dancers suddenly join. It was amazing to watch people adjust as we only had four days on the actual stage before opening night.

Now, everyone's favorite part of a Dr. K production, DR K QUOTES!

"Let's get on the track!"
"I can't stand unorginized-ness out in the world"
"We'll start with the short ones first and then you can go frolic and play."
" 'I've had a lot of experience'. Good thing it's his wife saying that"
(Adam) "Where did this happen?" (Dr. K) "Bethlehem."
"Don't put the hat on him. It looks stupid."
"By their nuts ye shall know them."
"Go right...BOOM...meet Haskle or whatever his name is."
"You'll carry a...No wait. You'll carry a...No wait. You'll carry a...No wait. You'll carry a...No wait."
(Dr. K) "Why are you all dressed up?" (Nashelle) "I wore this all day!" (Dr. K) "That's disgusting."
(Dr. K) "What's his name?" (Adam) "Halifax" (Dr. K) "I don't care."
(Adam dancing on rehearsal table) "This...is a Sacred Place of Theatre!"
" 'He corrected YOUR english. That's funny!' ...I'll get him."
"Starting with virgins is good."
"Feel the Spirit...You see the Spirit? Feel the spirit?"
"You're a Heavenly Haskle"
"Take a tinkle break and come back and we'll float on a cloud!"
"If that means we have to overturn the world and reinvent the wheel, we'll do it."
"I'm not going to say anything smart."
"When I die, I want you to cremate me, put me in my grandma's music box, and put me on a shelf in the prop closet. Then every time you open it I can go 'Poof!'"
"I'm going to dance it for you"
"Imagine you're on drugs. And happy about it."
"It looks like underwear is going to jump out of there!"
"Make me tingle!"
"Run your sick scene lines."
"In this particular show, people just walk around and look stupid."
"I'm going to start sending you all nasty little messages of Facebook!"
"Shut up! I'm acting! ... Shut up! I'll kill you!"
"At first I thought it was a dry booger and you were trying to arrange it."
"I'm being irreligious."
(Dr. K) "I've got a hot...bath Sunday" (Alex) "You have a hot date Sunday! I'm coming over!" (Dr. K) "That's why I have to take a bath."
"Take a few pee minutes."
"You're awestruck, baby. Well, fakely"
"It's not crying, it's crying...wait."
"Get in there, kick ***, and take some names!"
"It was the devil punishing you for being jolly."
"Lets start this party you weirdos. You...special weirdos."
"Come on! I'm the old person and you're sitting around like the elderly in wheel chairs!"
"Are you tired? ...Coffee?"
"Any times the energy starts to drop, I'm going to sing church songs to punish you!"
"Stop playing with her...thingies"

Yay, Dr. K. He sure is entertaining to work with.

Anyway, on Friday night I ended up smacking my face against a pole. After the curtain call, we have a little song (which was a surprise to the actors. We all ended up standing there and mouthing "ding" and trying to look like we knew what we were doing) and then the lights go out. We had to get off the stage quickly so we could let the audience out, but to do that we had to go up the five-foot high platform of stairs we were standing on, go down the back side, and go between the two platforms the choir had been sitting on. The choir was hidden behind a scrim that we would have to duck under to get onto and off of the stairs.
Now, when those lights go out, I am totally lost without my glasses. I can't see anything. The first night, I almost fell off the platform. So, on Friday, the moment the lights went out, Alex grabbed my hand and was trying to lead me down the stairs. Once he was already under the bar weighing down the end of the scrim, he was afraid I was going to run into the choir platform and quickly pulled me behind him. As he did, my forehead right down close to my nose met the bar to a loud DONG!
It still hurts, but I've been trying to pretend it didn't so Alex would stop feeling so bad.

Friday night, after the show, we decided to have a 'girl's night sleepover' at Jenifer's apartment. It was sooo much fun. We got there right after the cast party and literally talked the whole night through. I got home at about 7 in the morning and hadn't slept a wink. There isn't much I can add to this story because, literally, we just talked. and talked. and talked. But it made me glad I know these people.

Then, Saturday it snowed. We have a tradition of driving the Denny's a few towns away after striking the set, but we decided it was probably too dangerous in the snow. So, we brought Denny's to us by cooking pancakes and bacon at Belinda's apartment.





We had to rehearse in the scene shop for a while. It was entertaining.



Several cast members got sick. This is me at the Saturday rehearsal during my turn.



I felt important having my name on the dressing room door.

Bus Stop and The Forgotten Carols and more Charley's Aunt

So! Updates. I auditioned for a play called Bus Stop. I read the script before I went in and didn't like it a whole lot, but was still excited to see what happened. Bus Stop has officially become the first play I've ever auditioned for that I didn't make call backs for. I was disappointed at first, but then I remembered how long it's been since I've had the chance to do tech. When I tried to to tech at ISB, Miss Hanson somehow conned me into playing a small role instead. So, when I went to check the call board to check if Tech assignments had been made (they asked on the audition form if we'd be interested in tech if we didn't make the show), I saw a poster proclaiming "AUDITIONS FOR FORGOTTEN CAROLS". When I heard of the show the first time, I thought it was just a choir thing, but I guess it's kind of a musical type thing.

Apparently I'm the only person in this state who doesn't know the show backwards and forwards. I went into Dr. K's office to get audition material and he was like "Which song would you like?" I was like "Uh...song?" He looked at me for a moment and said, "How well do you know this show?" I told him that I had never heard of it before this. He seemed pretty surprised but handed me a song and sent me off to learn it. The song was pretty, but really really repetitive.

Now, many of you know auditions scare the ever living daylights out of me. Singing in front of people scares the ever living daylights out of me. So, mix the two together in front of a whole bunch of people I respect, and I was just about ready to turn around and run out the door. But, I sat down, tried to breath, and waited for the process to begin. Much to my surprise, Alex soon walked in and sat next to me with his audition material. Now, this kind of shocked me because anyone who made Bus Stop couldn't audition and Alex is one of the most talented actors I've ever met. I felt a bit better about not making Bus Stop at that point.

Dr. K did not help my nerves when he sat in front of us and said "You only have one short shot at this. Make it count because I won't give you another chance. Oh, also, you're auditioning for West Side with this too." The atmosphere in the room thickened very suddenly.

One by one he called people up to sing their excerpts. I was pretty mad when I realized the other female song was not only a prettier song with more opportunity for acting, but also the one the lead sings. But I waited for what felt like an eternity before he called on me to sing (yes, I was the second to last person). Putting on my brave 'acting' face, I walked up trying to look confident and trying not to let Dr. K see my legs wiggling like Jello. I took a deep breath (which was actually bad because I had tap earlier that day and my asthma freaked out so every time I tried to take a deep breath I would cough...) and sang what I could.

The next day, I spent quite a while standing just beyond where I could see the call board (of course it's at the end of this ridiculously long hallway. There is a door next to it, but it's always locked so we have to go the long way) and reminded myself how excited I was about tech. I took a few steps forward and, sure enough, there was my name.

The next day I was feeling much more confident. He had called back 5 boys and 13 girls (there are three roles of each gender). Though most of the girls weren't those I was used to seeing. Most of them were vocal majors. Now we were doing reading. Now we were in my territory! Though, much to my (and Dr. K's) surprise, most of those vocal majors had quite a bit of acting ability. He only had me read for the tiny role that I had sung the next day so I was sure I hadn't made it.

That night, I reminded myself again how excited I was about tech and went out and had a fun night (I saw two improv shows, went on a Denny's run, and watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit with my friends. I didn't get back until 4:30 in the morning). The weekend didn't last as long as I was afraid it would. On Monday, I was in my choir class when the realization that the list was probably up hit me. I kept trying to sing, but then I thought about how several people in that class had made callbacks and how much I hate looking at lists when other people are around. I excused myself to 'go to the bathroom' and ran to the call board.

There, in large letters, was my name. I got the part of Sarah. I'm only on stage for all of two double spaced pages, but I get a song. I'm also going to see if he'll let me play some of the extra roles. He might not just so he can let the choir do stuff, but we'll see.

Now, changing subjects, here are the production photos from Charley's Aunt! Yay!

Act I



Act II



Act III

Charlie's Aunt ... and my first kiss?

It's been a long time since I've been this saddened by the end of a show. At ISB, the end just meant I was done being berated by Miss Hanson for a couple of weeks. It meant it was time to get ready for the next show. It didn't matter what it was. It was going to be a bad show anyway. But here, I learned what theatre is really supposed to be.

College theatre isn't easy. It started at auditions. I felt my heart beat fast as I realized there were only four female roles and about forty girls auditioning. Stressed, I did what I could and, to my surprise, got a role! Then things got really stressful. We put this show on in a very small number of weeks. For each scene, we had one rehearsal to block it. Dr. K, my director, is very specific about blocking. He would stop us every other line or so and tell us what he wanted us to do. To my surprise, however, even though he had very very specific things he wanted us to do, he still left the character to us. We had total creative freedom as actors. That felt great. After our blocking rehearsal, we would run it once. The next day we moved onto the next scene. Once we were done blocking, we moved straight into Act runthroughs. By then we were expected to be off script. After a week of running the acts, we were into full runthroughs. Needless to say, we were all a bit panicked by the fast pace that all of this happened at. But...it was fun! I loved the whirlwind of theatre that surrounded me through the whole process!

With one possible exception, the cast was amazing. Since there were so few of us, we very quickly became the best of friends. We laughed together as Anita mentioned how odd it was to help her ex-boyfriend into his skirt. We watched out for each other and made sure no one walked home alone, even if it was just from Alex's apartment across the street. We jokingly teased each other for anything that we possibly could. And we spent hours playing Murder in the Dark in the Blackbox. I haven't had a cast that unified since, well, ever.

And the show! Holy cow, what a show! It was a show of real professional quality! Our closing night we felt the audience was so dead compared to the other nights. In all actuality, at ISB we would have been thrilled with that 'dead' audience. The other three nights I was afraid we were going to have some casualties from too much laughter! They laughed at EVERYTHING! I even got laughs and I'm not a funny character!

And I can't even describe with how professionally this theatre runs. It's insane. When I get backstage, there are always people waiting for me with props, to make sure my skirt is on straight, or to do whatever I may ask. If I try to help backstage, I end up being in the way. Everyone has a job and everyone follows that job. I act. Then I get out of the techie's hair. It's kind of weird. If something goes wrong, you mention it and it's fixed without hesitation. I say, "I'm having a bit of a hard time reaching the wrap when I go backstage. Could we just hang it on the other side of the cage so it's closer to me?" and they do better. They assign someone to make sure I have the wrap. Cathleen, the costume lady, says she wants the stage mopped before the show because the trains on the skirts are getting dirty, and the girl in charge of set crew says, "My crew come in an hour early tomorrow and we'll mop it" and all of them agree without question.



It was so sad to watch them tear apart one of the most incredible sets I've ever acted on board by board leaving us on an empty stage.



These costumes are insane. That red one weighs, like, ten pounds. You can't see very well because of the angle of the pictures, but we're all wearing insane bustles. Those are surprisingly hard to work with. I slammed mine in the door twice.



Getting ready. My hair was such a process. It took about two and a half hours. First Amanda (the girl ratting my hair in the first picture) got it all wet and blow dried it so that it would stand up at the roots. Then we ratted the ever living daylights out of it. That took FOREVER! It had to be super ratted so that it would have enough body to fit the time period and so that it would be strong enough to hold Matthew Jonathan (my hair piece). Then she would curl each of those little bits at the front. We would spray it with hair spray until it was soaked and hold the curling iron in there for about a minute. It was very monotonous.

They gave us a list of funny quotes by my director. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my list so I'm going to write my favorites here. Cuz, dang. A lot of them are really funny.

"I want to see your face as my face, okay?"
"Act like your undies are riding up your rear-end or something."
"What are you doing? Making love on stage?"
"You're sophisticated objects on drugs"
Nothing makes sense! It doesn't make sense! Make sense?"
"You're only as good as your best mucker"
"Be bushy eyed tomorrow or I'll be ready to kick some hind-enders!"
"Trust me. I've worn lipstick before"
"Dude, Frisco. It's a toast."
"It's too rumbly and bumbly and rich. It's like God having a cold"
"Pork chop? Cot port? No, Cork pop. Good"
"We all need some sleepy peepy deepy deepies"
"Evencio and Alex, you look like two wasps ready to mate!"
"Show me enchanting! No, that's not enchanting! I'll show you enchanting!"
"You just made my blocking look elegant!" (that was directed at me!)
"Well, do this!" *suddenly picks Tasha up, spins her around, and makes kissing noises*
"Adam, you smell good again."
"Be fat and pregnant!" (to Alex. Yes, Alex is a boy. Which plays into the next quote)
"Alex! Put your skirt down and stop playing with yourself!"
"I can see you are someon who will date Jack, not sell Girl Scout cookies! and they're not good Girl Scout cookies either."
"Knock it off or I'll have to teach you both how to stage kiss! You can decide who goes first."
"You look like Mother Oats or something. You're so cute it's disgusting" (also directed at me)




Now, the story of my first kiss

It all began on opening night. The show ends with Alex and I standing in a spotlight right after he announces that I've agreed to marry him. As the light faded with us staring awkwardly at each other, it became painfully clear to all involved that the audience was expecting a kiss. Not having the kiss made the end of the show too weak. It needed to be there. So, after the show, Alex and I had a very professional conversation between two actors about adding a kiss. We both agreed it would help the integrity of the show and he told me, "I'll talk to Dr. K tomorrow. If he's all right with it, we'll work it before the show."

The next day, I'm sitting in the dressing room having my hair done when I hear Alex's distinctive knock on the door. After establishing that everyone was decent, he walks in, grabs me, kisses me, and says "That's gunna happen on stage."

The entire room falls silent as everyone turns slowly to look at the two of us. After a pause, I say "My first kiss...how romantic." Suddenly everyone explodes. All the girls start punching him and telling him what a jerk he is. He starts freaking out and apologizing "I'm so sorry! I didn't know!" and I stand in the center of the chaos laughing. Cuz, dang. It was funny.

So have I ever told you how ridiculously cute my niece and nephews are? Because, dang it's true.


I don't have a good picture of Miles. But he's cute too. Trust me.

McKenzie is way too smart for her own good. That little girl asks questions and expects real answers. It's a problem because a lot of the time I don't know the real answer. Like when we were driving back from the beach. Dave's GPS lost the satelite reception. Kenzie wanted to know what a satelite was. Cue long discussion. She kept asking questions until she understood. Which was hard because we didn't really understand what we were saying. Some of my favorite quotes from that conversation:

McKenzie: So, they're just floating in the sky?
Michelle: Yep. They're way high up in the sky.
McKenzie: Oh my heck. I can see them.

McKenzie: Well, what else do they do?
Michelle: Lots of things. They make your TV work (she mentioned some other things that satellites make work but I can't remember what)
McKenzie: So they just make things work? That's so not cool.

McKenzie: Well, how do they know where we are if they can't see?
Me: And now we're getting into rocket science...

McKenzie: But why didn't the box (GPS) get the messages?
Me: Sometimes the messages get stuck. Like, if we drive under a bridge, the messages might get stuck up there and not get to the box.
McKenzie: Huh? There's a bridge around here with a bunch of messages stuck on it?





And Carson is in the cutest phase right now. He has the most adorable speech impediment ever. And he is always on stage. It's so cute! Some of my favorite Carson quotes (ah, I wish I could put how he said everything into text. That was the funniest part):

During the whole GPS discussion, Carson took it upon himself to tell us everything the box said. But he could only remember part of it so it would come out something like this:
GPS: Exit left.
Carson: Daddy! Daddy! Eciz weft!

GPS: Drive point six miles then turn left.
Carson: Drive point!

GPS: Drive point nine miles then turn right.
Carson: Drive point again!\

-x-

Playing old Maid:
Brian: Okay, Kenz. You take one of my cards and hope you don't get the Old Maid. You don't know if I have it or not!
Carson: *rips card out of Brian's hand* OLD MAID!

-x-

After the kids were in bed, Lindsay made a cake. As we were taking it out of the oven, we turned around to see Carson hovering in the hallway peering shyly behind his white bangs. Lindsay went over and picked him up and asked him what was the matter. He whispered something to her and she had him tell us too.
Carson: *whispering* Can I have some cake?

-x-

We had filled the kiddy pool with water and were throwing wet things at each other. Carson was tired of playing and wanted to go inside. He told me to get out of the kiddy pool so he could dump it out. I ignored him for a while until he shouted, "I'm gunna dump this out. WITH YOU IN IT!"

-x-

After dumping the kiddy pool out, the kids started playing in the mud. Carson began piling the mud into a big lump.
Lindsay: What are you making Carson?
Carson: A pirate.
Lindsay: A pirate?
Carson: With long feet.

-x-

He had a peice of paper in front of his face.
Michelle: Where'd Carson go?
Carson: *swishing his hips back and forth* Do you see mine pants? Moving?

-x-

Kenzie said the prayer one night (the prayer itself was funny becauuse Kenz was eating as she said it). After the prayer:
Carson: Kenzie not clos-ed her eyes!
Brian: Did you close yours?
Carson: No. And I not folded mine arms either.

-x-

He's in that phase where you have to watch everything he does. All the time he goes "Watch" and you have to watch him do something or other. On Sunday his shirt was the same color as Daves.
Michelle: Carson! You and Dave match!
Carson: Watch...MATCH!
Dave: Woah, did you see it?




Miles is an adorable baby. He always has his little brow furrowed like he's mad at something. He smiled for the first time when we were on our way to the Cold Play concert. Michelle said it was because he was excited to see Cold Play.




So...now I'm in college. Weird. I'm getting tired of typing so I'll just skip to the part that's mostly on my mind now. Theatre.

Auditions for the show started on Monday. I did all the usual audition things: freak about cold reading, freak about what I was going to wear, freak about how early I should be, and freak. When I got there, I saw waaaay more kids in that audition than I was comfortable with. There are only four female parts so seeing the room so full made me nervous.
The director would call us up and have us cold read a bit. Since there were so many of us, I only got to read about half a scene. Which was discouraging. And the boy next to me wouldn't stop flirting with me. Okay, auditions are really not the time for that.

The callback list seemed to take all day to go up. I could hardly sit still through the entire day. Finally, my last class, Tap, rolled around. One of the boys who had done spectacularly the night before is in that class and after class he ran straight to the board to check. I was too nervous and wanted to look at it alone so I got a drink of water before heading over there. I ran into him coming back from the board. He told me my name was on the list.

So, callbacks came around. Thirteen girls. Still more than I was comfortable with. But I did my best. He had me read for the part of Ela several times. I started feeling pretty confident near the end that he had decided on me. He seemed to be double checking and making sure the cast he had chosen worked well together when he called me and another girl up to read one scene and stopped us almost immediatly. Then he had the other girl start another scene with a guy and stopped them almost immediatly. I was feeling cautiously optimistic when the girl next to me whispered that she thought I got the part. Then he said "Since there are so many of you, it's possible I missed something. If you want to read for a role that you haven't read for, I'll let you do that now." EVERYONE wanted to read for Ela! I don't know why they considered her such a desirable role. She doesn't even show up until half way through act II. But, unfortunatly, many of them were really good at it.

The next day I tried to convince myself that I wouldn't look until after my last class so that if I didn't make it I could just go home. The nerves were too much and I literally ended up sprinting from my first class to look. I scanned down the list and felt my heart sinking. Until I hit the very last name.

Ela Dellahay --- Amber Dodge

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Well, I've done it again. I've let my blogging get away from me.

Now I'm in Utah, feeling almost like Thailand was a dream. Midway's basically the same. Heather's still Heather, the Zurmatt's still ugly, and people are still more concerned about Swiss Days than anything else. But I...I am different. Something just doesn't feel the same in me. I find myself unable to explain to my friends what I've seen. That a world does exist outside of Midway. That the centerpiece for relief society isn't at the forefront of the world's mind. Somehow, people just don't seem to understand. I've been asked multiple times how my "trip" was. I can't find the words to explain that it wasn't a "trip". It was home.

Of course, Midway has it's benefits. Even though the news reporters are spewing nonstop about how incredibly hot it is, the night air is cool and refreshing. The stars twinkle brightly in the sky, waiting for me to pick out constellations. The food has such flavor! And this funny little neighborhood is still one of the oddest place I've ever been. I've been watching Gilmore Girls and every time the town does something quirky that seems like it would only exist on TV, I'm reminded of Midway. We have our funny cast of characters. People seem to think decorating and dressing up are the most important things in the world for little town things (Swiss Days. Seriously, guys. It's not the most important thing on this earth and you're not actually Swiss). I laughed when I saw the police truck driving, once again, to the Kelsons. No...things really haven't changed other than a few new buildings and a poorly designed new High School.

But I will never be the same.

Miles

Just a quick update on my life. I'm an aunt...again. My sister just had a super adorable little boy to go with her other super adorable little kids. These pictures are from her blog.



Love you, Linds! And your super adorable family!

In the service of her fellow beings

I generally don't like to blog about sad things. I don't like to share my troubles with the entire interweb. But this seems more important than my usual frivolous worries.

Last week, my wonderful Grandma passed away after a wonderful 93 year long life. I'm not as good of a writer as Lindsay, so it's hard for me to do justice to this loving woman. Impossible even. But she enriched everyone's lives she ever touched. No one I've talked to can ever remember her committing a harsh act or speaking an unkind word. I know I can't. Every time we went to visit she would fill to the brim with smiles and run to the kitchen for ice cream. Even being as old as she was, she would always find feed us rather than having us feed ourselves. In fact, at times the way she fed us was a bit hard to swallow (Vinegar spinach salad anyone?) Sometimes she'd try so hard to make me comfortable I felt bad ("Do you want some strawberries?" "No thanks, Grandma. I'm fine." "I'll cut some up for you!" "Uh...I don't need them cut up." "They taste better that way *cuts up strawberries*" "Oh...thanks" "How about some melon?" "No thanks." "I'll cut some up for you")

One thing that always shocked me about my Grandma was the way her mind never dimmed in the least. At 93 years old, she put my memory to shame. I remember the time she was talking to Michelle about college. She proceeded to list every class she took her first semester of college. When she couldn't remember one, she exclaimed "I know there was one more...my mind is really going!" ...I can't remember the classes I took last semester.

The point of my rambling is that Grandma was the kindest woman I'd ever met. Every moment of her life was spent in service of others. She selflessly gave everything she had if she could just make one person a bit happier.



On Monday my friends and I went to see Up, Pixar's new movie (by the way, Up is amazing. One of the best movies I've seen in years). My sister warned me that there was a death of an old woman in the beginning, but because it was the last time my group would get together, I decided I couldn't miss it. I was suspecting the death. I wasn't suspecting how beautifully it would be done. I was in tears long before we ever saw the coffin. The montague of this couple's life reminded me so strongly of my Grandma and Grandpa.

For most people, a love like the one Ellie and Carl Fredrickson shared is only the kind that exists in movies. But for Clara and Arvid Dodge, it was real. Every time I saw them, they were together. They laughed with eachother, danced with eachother, and helped eachother with everything. If they were apart, then both of them would be waiting patiently for the time they'd be together again. Thanks to the Plan of Salvation, that's the case now. The parting is only temporary, and both of them know it and are waiting patiently for their reunion.

I love my Grandma more than words can express. I'm so grateful for the truth of the gospel so that I know I'll be sitting on her lap listening to her fascinating stories soon again.

And I can't wait.

Just a quick dream

Kay, I just woke up from an awesome dream. I need to write it somewhere, so here we go!

The setting was the best part. This place was AWESOME! It was, like, never ending LARP. These people had built a gigantic fortress ruins thing in a forest...okay, there's no way I can describe the total utter 1337ness of this place. But it was awesome. Trust me. So, a bunch of us decided to go LARP. We walked in and the enterance kind of felt like a Renecance fair. But LARPier. We pulled on costumes and walked on in. There were swords inside for us to take (they were actually giant pixie sticks...). So,we each grabbed a sword and headed on in.

As we were walking through the first area, which was all forest and increadibly creepy, these people started coming in from the other side. An epic sword fight commenced until everyone was laying on the ground laughing. "You guys are pretty good for beginners!" our foes shouted. "You want to teach us?" Brian asked. Apparently they didn't because they left. I noticed that at some point during the battle, my Pixie sword had gotten a hole in it. So, I ate the delicious sugar pouring out. Then I realized the case wasn't strong enough to be a sword alone.

At some point we ended up doubling back and going to the observation area because Brian wanted to do something with his sword (I'm still not sure what). As we were heading in, one of the guys was like, "Remind Brian that this is only supposed to be an OBSERVATION area and not to climb down." I was like, "Kay" and followed. Then I looked at the edge of the observation area. A huge wall dropped in a sheer cliff. I was like, "How the heck would we climb down?" Then I realized this was a really crappy place for an observation area because the part of the forest it was overlooking was really secluded. Then a racoon/badger ran by (I couldn't decide in the dream if it was a racoon or a badger. It kind of looked like some kind of freaky mix). There was some guy playing this weird bass type instrument in the corner. It had four strings and was really tall, but each of the strings ran down its own pole. Then I noticed that the pole was kind of a bell. You could pull it out and drop it on a supporting bar and it would make a pretty sound. I was like, "that's cool." then we left the observation area.

As we were walking, we found ourselves in an odd area that seemed like some kind of fair. There were children getting their faces painted, children playing carnival games, children running around. I was like, "Children's area" and we kept moving. That's when I saw it. Possibly the biggest inflatable slide in existance. I wanted to go down it, but I figured no one else would so I didn't say anything. Then Pie was like, "I'm going on that" and started walking toward it. I was like "Me too!" and followed him, happy that someone else was responsible for holding up the rest of our group and I was just a tagalong. We went to the side were you climb up when one child seemed to have gotten confused and came flying down that side. The guy in charge was like, "Woah! Lucky no one got hit coming up!" Then I began to climb. Pie was behind me as I climbed up these twising metal stairs. Finally I reached the top. To make it more 'safe', there was this weird metal contraption. You opened the door on this side to get in, then you open the door on the other side to get out. Just as I was climbing in the contraption (which was too small by the way), I heard a commercial playing at the bottom. It was for Full House. Apparently Stephanie was in trouble with the law for having taken a beach ball from the beach that she thought was hers. The announcer was like, "Can you imagine yourself at the summit?" (like, summit of the law or something). I was like, "Oh, I can imagine myself at the summit pretty well." Pie didn't say anything so I was like, "Did you hear that commercial?" He was like, "yeah" then he climbed into the little contraption. Now, please note I'm terrified of heights. I was holding on for dear life so I asked Pie to open the door. He opened it about half way and I realized he probably couldn't reach to open my half. Just as I was trying to figure out how to menuver myself to open the door, I woke up.

When childhood nostalgia doesn't quite turn out how you expect...

Have you ever had that yearning to reminisce in your childhood? When you want to drag out that old movie you watched over and over and over again as a child and pop it in the VCR? Well, for me that favorite movie was The Brave Little Toaster.

So, ready for some childhood memories I stirred myself some warm apple cider (okay, maybe it was apple juice put in the microwave with some cinnamon in it), locked myself in my room, and began the movie.

The smile was warm on my face as I watched the five little appliances dance around the house having the time of their lives. But it began to slip as the air conditioner freaked out about how the master was never coming back and they had all been abandoned. It had been completely replaced with an 0_o expression when he actually blew up and died.

I shook my head and kept watching. But the movie kept getting more and more disturbing. I felt sorry for the flower that tried to make friends with the toaster and was left to wither. I was frightened when the vacuum seemed to have a seizure on the edge of a cliff. I was disturbed by the 'new' appliances convincing our heroes that they were obsolete. It seemed to out do itself at every turn!

You also have the opportunity to watch a little blender being torn apart for it's motor. You see sinister shadows of a man stabbing the thing with a screwdriver, ripping out chords, and snipping pieces off with our friends watching in horror the entire time. When the man leaves, you're left with the image of the screwdriver hanging off the counter and dripping oil. And who can forget the scene in the junk yard? You're able to witness cars singing about their glory days and then being graphically crushed into little tiny squares of scrap metal.

Though, by far, the most disturbing scene is the Toaster's dream sequence. There's no way to give this justice in words alone. You just have to see it.

Longpost is long.

I've gotten into a rather vicious cycle when it comes to my blog entries. I keep finding things to blog about and putting them at the end of a list that has grown far too long. I keep thinking, "Yes, I'll blog about that once I'm done blogging about this". I keep trying to find fantastic ways to word my stories. Now, I've decided I'm going to ignore this want for eloquently worded entries and just post what I've been wanting to post.

Singapore
Once I finally got my Japan entry up (which was also cut down from my original shining ideas for it), Singapore tripped me up. I wanted to explain how fascinating Singapore is. How they fine you more for chewing gum then they do for smoking. How they fumigated the entire country so there are no more mosquitos. I wanted to describe how beautiful, yet empty, it felt. I wanted to tell you about my first glimpse of Singapore. How there were hundreds of ships on the sea. How the sky was so blue that, if you focused on the horizon, the waves blurred into the sky and the ships appeared to soar away.
I wanted to tell you all that in some way that was less redundant and more articulate. But you get the idea.

Much to my surprise this year, the other schools loved our show. It was arguably the best show there. Singapore's show also rocked, which is funny because last year we were the worst of the worst and Singapore was right behind us. The workshops, however, were awful. We had to listen to the workshop leader sing every day. Then we would play clapping games. The one time he let us actually try and put toghether a scene, he talked so long about it none of us had a chance to do anything.

And poor Marian was sick as sick can be. She couldn't keep anything in her stomach and actually ended up passing out one morning. When they took her to the doctor, without any tests or anything, he told her she was pregnant. We all got a good laugh out of that.

Chaing Mai
Then I went to Chaing Mai with my siblings. I missed out on the beginning of the trip because of that stupid school thing, but the day I got there, we went to Muay Thai. It was brutal and boring at the same time. It was fun watching the guys behind us get drunker and drunker as the night went on. I kind of wanted to shoot the musicians by the end. There was a drum, a little symbol type thing, and some kind of instrument that reminded me of a clarinet, but a lot more painful. It made the most hideous noises with no melody through the entire night. The last guy to fight, though, was amazing. He was this white guy who had so much muscle! He beat the other guy all the way to Timbuctu. At one point he did this kick that I swear was only possible in movies. He jumped in a kind of circle and kicked the guy in the face, then his other foot followed and kicked the guy in the face again. It was amazing. I had no idea that would work in practice.

The next day we went on a zipline thing through the forest. It was rediculously fun. And scary. At the highest point we were 300 meters up from the ground. Yes. That's very high up. As we were getting hooked into harnesses, I hear this conversation between David (our guide. The guy who was supposed to keep us from dying) and Whitney.

Whitney: So, how long have you been doing this?
David: This is my second day!
All of us: 0_o

Anyway, it ended up being way fun. Though I did have some problems with my height. I'd get to the end of the rope and I couldn't reach the platform. The people would grab me and try and pull the rope down to unhook me, but a lot of times they thought it was funny to let me slide back toward someone else coming on the line.

Here are some pictures shamelessly stolen from Michelle's blog:


Also, apparently I look like Harry Potter. One of our guides on Flight of the Gibbons was attaching my glasses to a rope so if they fell of they wouldn't fall all the way and he gave them back and was like, "Here Harry Potter!" (But it's always pronounced Hall-EE Pott_EH). I was like, "Oh, cuz I have glasses. Clever". He kept calling me that through the entire thing. He'd be like. "Whitney go! Okay, Harry Potter!" But later we were getting a foot massage. The lady kept kind of smiling at me and finally turned to the lady next to her and said "Harry Potter". Then, a while later, we were in Phukett and some guy working at the breakfast place at the hotel was telling everyone 'Good morning'. When I walked in he was like, "Good morning Hally Potter!"

So, anyway, after all of this it was time to go back to Bangkok. Being the smart kids we are, we decided to take the train. We ended up getting there an hour early because we thought it was farther away than it was. Then, of course, the train was two hours late. Yes. We waited for three hours. We went and found a bench to hang out on. As we were sitting there, this creepy guy kept coming up to us and talking. At first we thought he was just trying to practice his english since we were the only Farangs there. But there was something about the way he stared at our bags the entire way he talked to us that was a bit unsettling. And he KEPT COMING BACK. To ask us stupid things. At one point he started asking about our Passports and Visas. We were like, "Uhh...*grab bags*"

Then at one point Michelle and Whitney went to the bathroom while Brian and I guarded our bags against creepy guy. Whitney came out to wash her hands while Michelle was still in the stall. She looked up and saw some creepy guy (a different creepy guy, mind you) staring at her in the mirror. She kind of ignored it and, when she looked up again, it kind of looked like he was flashing her multiple times. But she didn't have her glasses on so she tried to convince herself he was fanning himself. All the same, she asked Michelle to hurry. That's when creepy guy #2 started walking into the bathroom. She turned to the stall and was like, "Michelle, we are leaving NOW!" When he realized she was talking to someone in the stall and was, indeed, not alone he left.

You can imagine how creeped out we were by the end of these three hours. We wanted to be first in line to get on the train so we could have our bags directly above us. So, when the train pulled up we RAN to the end. We were in cart three. So, we ran to the cart farthest away from us that had a big 3 on it. Just as we got there, some worker came and flipped the card around so it said 1. We were like, "GAH!" and turned around and ran back to the one that used to say one and now said three. Proud of ourselves for getting the front of line, we waited while they cleaned out the train. We stood there...and stood there...and stood there. Finally, about half an hour later the people finished cleaning the train. And then, of course, the train drove away.

We were like, 'Uhhh...maybe they're just turning it around on a different track?' So, we didn't want to go sit down and give up our first place status. So we stood there...and stood there...and stood there. At one point every single Farang (who were not all in the same group) got up and left simultaniously. We were like, 'What are we missing here?". A full hour later, the train comes back and lets us on. Yes. We waited at the train station for four and a half hours so we could get on the stupid train. Finally, we all found our seats and sat down, relieved. Of course, Brian's food tray didn't work, Whitney's food tray kept falling open on her, and Michelle's seat leaning was broken. Like, she could lean it back if she pushed, but if she took any pressure off of it, it would SLAM forward with a loud CHUNK! Any time she'd start falling asleep, it would CHUNK and wake all of us up. So she tried for a while to sleep on Whitney's lap, but the food tray kept falling on her head. Hah.

Anyway, I was worried about the heat since, apparently, the ride there by the three of them was very hot. But, let me tell you, heat was the last thing I needed to worry about. They had a very nice air conditioner. A VERY NICE air conditioner. That was CRANKED to full. And it was night so there was no sun peeping through the windows. It was FREEZING. I have never been in temperatures that cold without some clothes made for playing in the snow. Seriously. I honestly don't think it ever hit higher than 40 degrees farenheit. I have literally never been that cold before. They gave us 'blankets' that were really just towels. I've never been so glad to have a jacket. I pulled the strings on my hood so that the minimum amount of skin would be revealed. And I kept trying to huddle in a little ball on the seat to try and trap some body heat, but the seat was so tiny I didn't fit. So, I kept sitting on my feet and rocking forward onto the back of Whitney's chair. After about five hours of this my legs and feet were in a lot of pain. So I'd try and put them down, but the cold air would bite my toes. The entire train looked like some refugee movie. Everyone was huddled together under their meager blankets shivering like crazy. It was too cold to sleep, so we just had to sit there and suffer. Finally, as the sun started coming up and the train started at least being BEARABLE, though not comfortable, some worker came down the aisle and took away all of our blankets! She would not let us keep them. We were like, D:


Also, the food. When the lady came down the aisle with food, Brian handed her his little "Nuts will kill me. Are there any?" paper. She turned to the people sitting across from us and asked them if they tasted any nuts. Yeah. That's comforting. Not to mention it was so hot I couldn't even try to eat it. The very smell made me nausous. So, between the four of us, we had six dewberry cookies, half a pack of mentos, and a sprite. Let me emphasize this was not a short trip. It was about thirteen hours.

Phuket/Krabbi
Okay, I'm getting sick of typing and I'm sure you're getting sick of reading, so I'm just going to tell you the biggest thing that happened to me in Phuket.

I got lost Scuba Diving.

Yeah, that's not scary at all. Visibility was horrible. We could barely see one meter. I was having a bit of trouble equalizing, and nobody saw me motioning to slow down since, you know, visibility was so bad. So, I just contented to follow a bit above everyone else and decend slowly. After a while, I lost all sight of people and was just following the bubbles. After a while of that, I lost track of the bubbles. I looked around for a bit and saw a flash of yellow. Great! Brian was wearing yellow flippers! So, I started following the yellow. About five minutes later I realized I was following a fish. You can imagine the sudden panick. I was in the middle of an ocean. Alone. I floated there for about ten minutes listening and watching. But, no matter how hard I listened or how hard I watched, the only bubbles and breathing I could see or hear were my own. Finally, I decided to surface and look around. I was next to this huge rock. And by rock I mean island. The kind you can't get onto because it's just a cliff shooting out of the water. At the other side of the island there were all these fishing boats that looked exactly like the one I had been on. I didn't have my glasses on so all I could see was that they were brown. Yeah, that was going to help me find my boat. I swam and swam and swam against the current until I finally got to the three fishing boats I had been swimming toward. None of them were mine and no one spoke english. So, I turned around and swam and swam and swam toward this huge snorkling group. I figured some of them must speak english. But they all looked like they were heading to their boat so I had to go FAST. I was wiped by the time I got over there. As I was trying to work up the courage to talk to them, I heard a voice behind me that was like, "You okay?" I turned around and, glory! It was my boat! "I got lost" I explained climbing on. About half a minute later I spotted the rest of the group swimming toward the boat.