August 24th, 2006: Information overload and Loteria

• Presentation upon presentation: Information overload. We watched a movie, Crash, which was amazing! Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to process it before we had a panel discussion with local cultural leaders in the Minneapolis area. By the time we were given a presentation by a rep from Target, I was fried. I couldn’t listen any more and the rest of the cast was getting restless and refusing to listen to anyone. I now understand why even the most patient of clients at work begins to get chatty at the end of the day after going from group to group. You just get to a point where you want to run around and scream. Thankfully I wasn’t alone in this. One of the staff noted my body language and informed me that she was feeling the same. That certainly helped.
• What really helped was just before our rehearsal for our next BTS, Mikey put on some dancing tunes and we all rocked out. Two words became blatantly clear: COPING SKILL. I danced as hard as I could to get all my energy out, which I’m sure created a rather amusing scene. I think it would have been more noticeable if there hadn’t been 40 other cast members doing the exact same thing.
• Loteria: Tonight we had the fortune of surviving a monsoon and sharing dinner with Rachel (from Canada) and Carolina (from Germany). Yamil engaged us in a fun game called “Loteria”, which seemed like Mexican version of Bingo, only you match words and images instead of numbers. This was a great way to learn Spanish AND get a group of people to socialize. Go Yamil, “you’re a gentleman and a scholar” (as my Dad likes to say)
• Chat with Tyler: I finally got to chat with Tyler for a bit tonight. Great guy. Hopefully Yamil and I will get more chances to chat with him.