Sorry, I didn't forget!

Sunday July 30^th, 2006

Eeeek! It’s Sunday night before Hell Week and I haven’t written in several days. You can’t imagine how busy I’ve been, especially with all the vocal and dance practices. It’s coming to crunch time and we perform in less than a week. I know we’ll pull it off, but cross you fingers just in case.

Here’s a brief review

• Tuesday July 25^th: Group discussion on culture shock. Seems many of the foreigners are already experiencing it. The biggest shock for me is the losses of transportations and freedoms. I would give up a lot (minus this experience) for a car, a night out at a club, and a tasty beverage. This experience is worth giving up those few things up for a while, so I’ll stop complaining here (hopefully). We also got to see a preview of our show. Man, if we can pull this off, it’s going to be “off tha’ hook”. I can’t wait. After lunch, we worked on cast vocals for a while, then had a workshop on self directed learning. This was a strange topic in my mind and I couldn’t quite understand the reasoning behind playing charades and pictionary to learn the essential traits/vocabulary terms describing someone who is a self directed learner. I think this was aimed at those from outside the US, but only the native English speakers could understand and describe the terms well enough to play the games…..wait, actually, even those who had to use their pocket or computer dictionaries held their own. I don’t know. I just didn’t quite see the point. Note to self: when running educational or psychoed groups, describe the point of the activity. Regardless, JC is a trip (he’s hilarious) and we had a fun, though extremely competitive, time
• Wednesday July 26^th: Celestial seasonings tour. Really interesting how tea is made in bulk. I could have lived in the mint room. It cleared out my nasal passages AND gave me a fun little feeling of euphoria. Let’s call it a “natural high”. From there we went to Boulder for our scavenger hunt. We were not without a little adventure prior to starting the hunt though. While eating lunch there were three gentlemen sharing the lawn with us while we ate. They were interesting characters with shabby clothes, unclean, one with tattoos all over his face. Some of us made conversation with them, while others continued on to converse with our fellow students. I chose to do the latter, though I listened in from time to time. At several points the conversations from the gentlemen became alarming. One man began singing a song filled with profanities, which I found unnecessary, but well, this is the land of free speech. Soon after, this gentleman began criticizing the students in Up With People for sitting upon his lawn (public space mind you…but something inside me told me that that was as close to his territory as anything was) and for eating around him (I was later informed that he had already been given meals by UWP staff). I was torn inside about this. My first impulse was to yell at him and tell him to hush up, though not likely in so proper terms. Yet, I tried to take his perspective. If I were sitting quietly with my friends and all of a sudden a large group of 80+ yuppy’ish twenty-somethings with food happened basically on top of me, I’d be pretty upset too. I decided to remain silent and thought, “next time, we introduce ourselves BEFORE we take over someone’s quiet space”. This would not be the only time this day that I would feel uncomfortable. As part of the scavenger hunt, in our small groups, we were to find “hippies” and have them help us with tasks, such as help us to figure out a recipe for tie dye shirts and help us to play in a mock band. As we approached what my peers determined as “hippies” I became nervous. I felt that this activity just encouraged stereotyping and would be interpreted by others as patronizing. Sure enough, the “hippies” were not too fond of our scavenger hunt, responding “so what are you rich kids going to do for us?” Our response….we moved onto the next set of “hippies”. What bothered me more was my response. I just held back and didn’t say anything. Hind sight is 20/20, but I really should have said something to my team…crap, to the person who organized the scavenger hunt. I think this is going to be a challenge for me, learning to speak up in the moment, rather than waiting until it’s “comfortable”. Otherwise…oy, we had a fun time with the scavenger hunt. We really got to see more of Boulder.
• Thursday July 27^th: Dance for 8 hours straight! I ached after this day. It’s been a few years since I’ve practiced like this. I just hope it pays off. Other than dancing, we did have a speaker come in by the name of Lance Descourouez. Interesting guy. He has a degree in, I think, mental health and cross-cultural communications. He is also an UWP alum. There were mixed reactions to his presentation, but I really found it fascinating how he turned his training in up with people into a money maker. He now does consulting for business execs that are planning to work with other execs from other countries. HOW SMART!!!

Most of his presentation was a review of my cross cultural counseling class, but I really enjoyed the review of collective and individualistic perspectives as well as communication styles (high context vs. low context)

· Friday July 28^th: Speaker: Bruce Erley on Life in the Fishbowl. This guy was great. He was another alum who, if I remember correctly, does PR work. He gave a great presentation on what to expect as far as being in the public eye as a large organization. This was an “eye opening” experience. We are part of a well known organization. The media is going to be interviewing us and watching us like hawks (especially since the organization had disappeared for 6 years). No worries Mom, I’ll always be presentable when in public J….and after…..MORE DANCE AND BLOCKING. After a bit of a fiasco (cell phone dying), I was able to meet up with old family friends from back in the days when I used to live in Shirley, Mass. I had dinner with Dru, John, and Max (the dachshund)…and their sons Matt, Connor, and Sam. It was great to reconnect and talk of “old times”. The boys really seemed to enjoy our stories of Buddy (another dachshund). I was impressed at how expressive the boys are. They already have their own political commentary! Man, kids are growing up fast these days. It’s clear that Dru and John are wonderful parents. I’m very happy for them.

· Saturday July 29^th: Blocking, Blocking, Blocking and some hanging out downtown.

· Sunday July 30^th: I SLEPT UNTIL 10:30am and it was wonderful! I was also able to make a few phone calls and get my haircut. Ahh, freedom is glorious. David, Wouter, and I then went to Red Rocks, an amazing amphitheatre created out of rock formations. Absolutely fantastic. Wouter and I dared ourselves to go onstage to perform the stomp piece to the show. On our way down, we heard voices singing the UWP song. Of course, we chimed in, completely surprising Anaiese (sp?) and Sarah. That night we attended Sarah F’s party. Oh, those daiquiris tasted so perfect.

· So here I am now. It’s about midnight and I think I’ve described most everything. I have about a week left here in Denver and it’s gonna be a DOOSEY. It’s going to be stressful and it’s going to go fast. Soon I will have to pack (and lose 10 pounds in my check-in luggage) and say goodbye to David and Thora, who have remained wonderful people throughout this experience. I do hope that we will keep in touch. Wouter and I have been fortunate to have them as our first host family.

· Tomorrow, CI with children diagnosed with cancer.

· Cross your fingers and wish me “Break a leg”. The show goes on this week.