Dance, dance, dance.... and a nice break with familiar territory

July 18^th, 2006:

I don’t think I could dance another step. I haven’t trained this hard in years and I am definitely feeling it. I think I learned two or three dances today….in their entirety. When I was at New College we would take a SEMESTER to learn this much. The dance instructors, thankfully, recognize that there’s a lot of pressure on me. I guess I’ve been designated as the “token male dancer”. That feels nice; however, I’ve got so many dance steps in my head I can’t think straight. I found myself getting all sorts of jumbled up to the point where I was forgetting entire sections of dances. Not good! I’d say I know about 66% of each dance. Barely passing in my book. Hopefully I’ll be able to practice with some of the cast tomorrow.

Tonight, I work on my presentation for tomorrow. Julie (a massage therapist), Bob (a neuropsych major) and I will be talking about self care and stress management. I really hope it goes well and that everybody is able to really get some tools from us. I worry about people getting overly stressed. Lord knows I’m close to it myself.

Time to work on my displays. It’s likely going to look like one of my groups at Wayside: What is stress? What stresses you out? What does it look and feel like? How can you reduce it? We’ll be using a balloon analogy for this presentation. I can’t wait. I get to pop a balloon and scare people J

July 19^th, 2006:

The presentation went wonderfully! We even received positive feedback from the cast. I started off the presentation with my section about stress that I had mentioned in my last entry. So here are the responses we received from our multicultural crew:

• “What fills your (stress) balloon?”
• No alone time
• Body Aches
• Not Enough Sleep
• Procrastination
• Speaking English all the time
• Self image
• Missing & thinking of home
• Worrying about returning home
• Too much information
• Overanalyzing
• So many things to do
• Relationships
• Adjusting to new situations, including weather and foods
• Being sick
• Not enough time to exercise
• No transportation/ loss of mobility
• What happens as your (stress) balloon gets filled?
• Eating changes
• Less/more sleep
• Crazy dreams
• Cold sweats
• Pain (including muscle)
• Depression
• Insides Shaky
• Impatience
• Crying
• Emotional basket case
• Nausea
• “Letting the air (stress) out”
• Open communication
• Getting enough sleep on a regular basis
• Drinking enough water
• Alcohol in moderation
• Talking to someone
• Prayer/meditation
• Shopping
• Music
• Going with the flow
• Focusing on the positive
• Writing (journaling, poetry)
• Playing an instrument
• Games
• Organize
• Phone home
• Massage
• Physical contact with someone close

There were lots of great ideas from this crew. I just hope we all apply them. After my section was done, Julie gave a demonstration on ways to give yourself a massage and Bob offered us a meditation session; a great, mellow way to finish the presentation…versus focusing on stress.

Thankfully, the rest of the day remained on a mellow note. We discussed our upcoming Community Impact project for tomorrow and began preparations for our school presentations. Apparently we will be going into elementary, middle, and high schools to do some basic lessons on cultural identity and acceptance. I’m actually pretty excited about this. I gain a lot of energy from going into schools. Even today, after Wouter and I had walked home from the bus (for the first time) we were approached by elementary school aged children next door to purchase some lemonade. From this simple and very American interaction, Wouter and I were able to teach these children about lands outside of Colorado (i.e. Massachusetts and the Netherlands). I can’t wait to do this on a larger scale!

Got to get up at 5:45am tomorrow to be ready for C.I. ::breathing a deep breath:: It’ll be worth it.