Monday, February 27, 2012

Ghost Bike

Okay, so another week is down.  Let's see if I can remember everything that happened!

First of all, I guess I will say that I'm still dancing a lot.  The Spring dance show is coming up in a little less than two weeks and I feel pretty prepared for it.  Rehearsals are all going very well and I'm excited to perform them on stage (I think I've already said this before).  I've gotten the chance to do a contemporary routine this year, which is awesome for me because I love contemporary.  And the dance that I am in deals with the different stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance).  So, not only is it a physically tiring dance, but it's also kind of emotionally tiring.  The reason I'm telling you this is because I attended Carthage's play this weekend and it also dealt with loss and grief.  First off, the play was great!  It was called Ghost Bike and it was the story of a girl "who refuses to let go of her best friend Eddie after he is hit and killed by a car while riding his bike." (Here's a link to an article about the play:  Playwright offers students instant feedback) It was a pretty intense play and the way it was staged was amazing.  Also, for me, it showed that when you lose a loved one, you really would give anything to just see or talk to him/her one last time.  I'm not going to lie, the end brought tears to my eyes and it obviously got me thinking about all the loved ones that I have lost.  Anyway, it was really interesting to watch the play after knowing the stages of grief from the contemporary dance that I am in.  If you want to learn about the five stages of grief, go here.


Anyway, on to a less depressing subject... I helped my sister and her husband move in to a new apartment this weekend.  I don't really think I did much, but I was happy to see my family!!  Also, it's cool to see them start a new chapter in their lives.  Love you both!


Okay, on to school, thesis, homework stuff...  Classes are still going well.  I'm keeping busy with a lot.  My thesis isn't really coming along yet, but I'm going to start researching this week because we have to have four pages written by next week.  Also, I have my first 'exam' in Jazz II, which consists of performing a short routine in the style of Bob Fosse (choreographer of Chicago and Cabaret). :)  Other than that, all my other classes are going well.  I have a lot of big projects and all the due dates are making it difficult to keep track of everything, but luckily, I'm fairly organized.  Also, I'm meeting with a tutor four times a week to continue practicing Spanish.  So that's been great way to practice considering the United States isn't a Spanish-speaking country so I'm not speaking it everyday like I was in Peru.


Well, I have to get back to homework now.  I hope you have a wonderful week!!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Finde en Chicago

So I had an awesome weekend!  It started with spending time with my awesome college friends on Friday night and on Saturday I had two dance rehearsals, but the best part was going to Chicago to surprise one of my High school friends for her birthday.  Her fiancé was awesome and arranged for a ton of her friends to stay in a suite at the Hard Rock Hotel and we all made it a surprise for her!!!  The big surprise was actually on Friday, but since I had rehearsals on Saturday, I had to go late.  I was sad I missed the big surprise, but I'm glad I got to extra surprise her because she had no clue I was coming still.  I hopped on a train on Saturday and got to the Hard Rock Hotel just in time.  The whole group was getting back to the hotel from dinner when I showed up and I just jumped on the elevator with them!!  She was surprised to see me and I was happy to be there, too!!!!
Me and my six best friends!!
We just hung out at the hotel all night and it was great.  The next morning, we slept in and then everyone headed out.  It was a short lived weekend, but still so much fun!  My train didn't leave until the afternoon so I got to hang out with Jess for a little bit longer before I left.  We walked around Chicago and ate Panera and, most importantly, we took public transportation.  Man, I haven't taken public transportation or been in a city since Peru and let me tell you...it's really different and I kind of miss it.  Chicago public transportation and the traffic is so boring. :)  Where were the micros and the cobradors and why were the buses not packed full?  And what's up with using a prepaid card to get on the bus?!  I miss the soles.  And where was the Spanish music in the background or why were there no vendors coming on to the buses selling who knows what?!  Why was the sun out and why did it not have that Lima smell?  Needless to say, Chicago and Lima are two very different, but amazing cities!!  I love them both!  Both are unique in there own ways!!  Anyway, that's my weekend in a nutshell.  I guess I'll leave you with another picture from the city! :)
View from the 34th floor of the Hard Rock Hotel

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Más Cultura

Last week was our last Iluzion performance at a basketball game for this year.  We usually have other performances throughout the semester, like going to perform at local elementary schools, but we don't have any of those scheduled yet.  However, I do have a video of last week's performance, so here it is!!!!
Also, here's a picture of my team.  We're actually missing a few people in this picture, but it's still a good picture and I love all of them.
Okay, so now let's talk about other things that are going on in my life.  I'm still dancing a lot.  Our spring dance show is coming up in about a month and the dances that I am in for the concert are really coming along now.  I'm excited to take them to the stage. :)

Also, my thesis is actually coming along really well already.  We started researching today!  It's going to be an interesting topic and surprisingly, I'm excited to research it more. (I can't believe I just said that)  Actually, it's probably a good thing that I'm excited for it.  I have a feeling that my thesis will go more smoothly if it's something I'm interested in.  So, I guess I should tell you what it is now...

The monolingual teaching practices in the Andes of Peru is contributing to the destruction of the indigenous culture.

So, there's my thesis and what I have to do is research it and try to convince people that it is, in fact, true.  I will do this by writing a 15 page paper completely in Spanish and giving a 20 minute presentation in Spanish.  Although that may sound impossible to you, I'm pretty confident about it.  I mean, I did just spend a whole semester in a Spanish-speaking country.  Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty good about it so far.  We'll see how long this good feeling lasts. :)  Hopefully the whole semester!  If that's the case, then this thesis will be a breeze. :)

My other classes are still going well, too.  Jazz, of course, is awesome!!  Classroom management is obviously teaching me what to do when little Billy is poking Penny in my future classroom. :)  But for tonight's blog, I mostly want to talk about my Methods class.  It's a class that essentially is about how to go about teaching a foreign language (not necessarily Spanish).  In my class, there are 5 students (including me).  Four of us have a focus in Spanish, but the other is a TLE from China.  A TLE is a Teaching Language Expert.  Young adults come from different countries to teach some language courses here at Carthage.  So this student in my class is teaching lower level Chinese classes at Carthage and she just arrived in the U.S. about a month ago.  It's been awesome having her in my class because I know how she feels since I just experienced studying abroad last semester.  Plus, I've already learned sooo much about China and her language, which is really cool!!!

Things I've learned about China:

  • They are 14 hours ahead of us in time
  • There winters are the same
  • When a child is born they say that they are 1 year old and when that child turns 1 (in U.S. age), then they say the child is 2 years old.
  • In the language, they don't really have a lot of grammar.  They just add words to make sense of a sentence.  For example, in English we might say "he talked," but in Chinese they would say "he talk yesterday."  It's actually pretty cool.
  • Also, I've seen her write in Chinese many times already and she writes SO fast.  It looks so cool.
  • Finally, I learned how to count to 10 in Chinese, but I already don't remember.  It's hard and the pronunciations are interesting.
Outside of class, I have also been learning sign language.  Not actually, but I do watch an ABC Family T.V. show that has a lot of sign language in it, so I know some words here and there. :)  Obviously, I'm also keeping up with my other T.V. shows including Grey's Anatomy and Glee. :)  Also, because all of you know that I love movies, I'll tell you that I went and saw the movie The Vow the other day.  It was really good!  However, I will say that the movie theaters here are expensive compared to Peru. :)  And by expensive, I mean, only a few dollars off, but still those couple bills count. :)

Anyway, I guess you could say that my life is going pretty well right now here in the U.S.!  I still miss Peru every once in awhile, but I've been keeping in touch with several people that I met through my program, which is wonderful!  I always love talking to them!

Well, I hope you had a good week!  Keep smiling!



Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Tesis

So I started my second semester last week and it was terrible...haha..no actually it went really well!!  I danced every single day and sometimes two or three times a day!  I had Iluzion practices, I went to two ballet classes that I'm not even enrolled in (which was great!), I had Jazz (which is going to be really challenging, but I'm excited for it), I had a rehearsal for a contemporary dance, and I went to audition at Six Flags!!  All of that was so fun!  I actually auditioned for Six Flags last year, too, but didn't get the job.  However, even if I don't get the job, I love the experience of auditioning.  Plus, I got to hang out with my friends all day that auditioned as well!!  However, Six Flags is pretty dreary in the winter.  All the liveliness is gone, but, luckily, you can still smell a touch of fried food and fun in the air.
Barren Six Flags
As for my classes, they are going pretty well so far.  I have had my thesis class, which kind of makes me nervous.  I'm supposed to have a thesis picked by today's class and I've been brainstorming it a lot, but I'm still not sure about it.  However, I do have a lot of ideas, but I think I'm going to go with something that deals with the education system in Peru.  I'm sure that my thesis will change several times before I settle on something though.  I have also had my classroom management class, which is going pretty well so far, too.  It's a night class, so I only have it once a week and this week I will be teaching a lesson with a group of students on Teacher-Student Relationships.  I have another night class for the first time tonight as well, but I will actually be missing part of it because I have an Iluzion performance at the basketball game!  So watch for another video at some point! :)  The routine we are doing for Iluzion tonight is very high in energy and all of us dancers are out of breath by the time it's over so it should go well and the crowd should get into it!! :)

What else has happened this week?  Oh I went to a Superb Owl party on Sunday and ate delicious chili and hung out with awesome friends!  And the Giants won, which was who I was routing for!!  Also, if you watched the Superbowl, you probably saw some of the commercials, but just in case you missed it, I will share my favorite commercial with you...
Oh, also, I've moved into my old room with my awesome roommate Taylor!!!  I'm so excited about that!  I've had the same room since freshman year and plan to keep it until I graduate.  Plus, Taylor is pretty much the coolest person I know and, since she's my roommate, it makes me look cool, too. ;)  Not that you or I should worry about looking cool anyway, because we shouldn't and that's not what life is about!

Anyway, I'm definitely going to be busy this semester, but it's going to be a good one!  I'm dancing a lot, I have the best of friends, I have a supportive family, I have a job that's making me money, etc.  So, that's pretty much all I have to say for now, but I hope that you are having a good week so far and I will talk to you all soon!!!  Keep looking out for an Iluzion video!!!