“Ugh. You play ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!’ don’t you?”

I just found out about The Tempest and I’m one of the three Ariels!!!! I can’t wait to start rehearsing!

Say What?

My Thursdays are awful. I have Italian from 9-9:50am, work 10:30-12:30, Comparative Politics 1:30-2:45, Fencing 3:10-4:25, an Italian Drill session 5-6, and then choir 6:30-8. Convenient that my birthday falls on a Thursday this year, huh?
That being said, my day today (ok, technically yesterday for me…) was unexpectedly enjoyable.
Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day and all of the sudden I just really felt like Vassar was 100% the right decision and I realized just exactly how much I love it here.
I got to Italian early this morning and my professor complemented me on my Italian. She actually asked if I had taken Italian before and was very surprised when she found out I hadn’t. That was really nice to hear considering that’s my hardest class and I never really feel prepared for it despite the fact that I spend more time on that homework than for any other class.
Work was fine. Not great, but there were only 6 kids, and it went quickly.
My lunch was delicious, and I had time to finish reading the play that the scene I’m performing came from. The play, and indeed the scene, is absolutely absurd and is going to be a total blast to perform! I can’t wait!
Comparative Politics was a mess, as usual. We get really caught up on method and don’t spend much time on politics, which is rather frustrating. Today we got into a huge debate about whether or not the author of an article had a hidden Protestant agenda… despite the fact that we looked the author up online and he’s Jewish. So yeah, it was pointless. That class is kinda driving me crazy.
Fencing was cancelled today because it’s Rosh Hashana and my professor is Jewish, so that was a nice break and I got my homework started.
The drill session for Italian was terrifying. But it ended half an hour early, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. I grabbed a quick dinner, sat with my friend Peter, who is also in choir and in my IPA class, and found out that he home schooled.
It’s kind of amazing how 1.5 hours of choir here goes ten times faster then my 45 min. of choir at Fort High ever went. The choir is seriously incredible. And I’m actually really enjoying singing alto. I still definitely prefer singing soprano, but altos do get some very cool harmony stuff. I’m getting better at finding my part, too. Although today, while the conductor was working with the men I spaced out, and then she said “ok, now let’s try the sopranos!” and I straightened up and got ready to sing… then I realized I wasn’t a soprano and felt silly. I’m really happy, though, because I now have someone to talk to/laugh with during choir. Her name is Crystal and she’s really nice and funny. She really makes me miss Erica and Savannah, though, because it’s just not quite the same.
Then, the event that really made today fun: Tempest call-backs! Oh yeah, I told you I’d let you know as soon as I found out, so Hey! I got called back for The Tempest!
So I went to the call-backs, and this adaptation of The Tempest is going to be absolutely ridiculous and most likely awesome! There are going to be 3 different people playing Ariel, which is how me and two other people auditioned. We were given a scene and told to split up Ariel’s lines however it felt right and interpret the scene anyway we liked and then come back and perform it. So we went in another room, split up the lines so that we were pretty much all talking over one another, then stood on chairs, cuz we’re spirits after all, and basically acted completely insane. Then we went back and performed it, and it was one of the most fun auditions I’ve ever done! The director seemed really pleased, and I should find out the results tomorrow. I really, really, hope I get in! I think it’s going to be an incredible show!!!!!!
Now I should be going to bed…. But I’m very hyper, so maybe I’ll actually get some homework done…

Beyond Therapy

My auditions for the one-act plays went really well and I’ve been cast in a play called “Beyond Therapy” I know absolutely nothing about it, beyond the fact that there are only two characters and their names are Bruce and Prudence. I assume I’m gonna be Prudence, but my friend Andi (short for Andrea…) got cast as a gay boy… so I could be Bruce I suppose. I hope not, tho, cuz if I’m Prudence I’m gonna add a line and say “Have a doughnut Brucie!” Kudos to those of you who followed that.

Auditions for The Tempest were last night, also, and I think those went really well, too! Of course, every time I think that I end up NOT getting into whatever I thought I was going to get into. So knock on wood, I guess. But I find out about call-backs on Thursday. I’ll let you all know what’s going on there as soon as I do.
I had my first Fencing class today and it is soooo much fun! I’m really glad I joined the class! And, completely unbeknownst to me, my friend from Eau Claire (Bianca) is also in the class! So that was a really nice surprise and she’s been catching me up on what I missed.
I think that’s all my exciting news…
Please let me know if you would rather not receive these updates, I know they’re rather long and there are a lot of them. I just like to feel that I still have some connection to you all. But if you’d rather not get them, I completely understand!!!

Domino

Well...

i didn't get into any of the four a capella groups i auditioned for, and i didn't get cast in the musical. so that's a little disappointing. but there are audtitions for a bunch of one-act plays tonight, and for the tempest, so wish me luck!

Home again in Big Bend

Good Morning to all,

Glad to be back safely and to have had phone visits or left a message with each family.

Our itinerary after leaving Boise was basically the same as we wrote in our last entry. We were in nice motel in Kalispell Sunday evening. Spent Monday in Glacier. Drove over the Highway to the Sun and had lunch at the Many Glaciers Lodge and returned over the same road. Stayed in a RV reserved at a private campground by the Outdoor Recreation group from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls on Monday. Drove to Spokane on Tuesday night an stayed at transient quarters at Fairchild AFB. On to McChord AFB near Tacoma again in transient quarters. About 28 miles to the Seattle airport on Thursday AM. Flight left about 30 minutes late, but arrived in Milwaukee only 20 minutes late--3 hrs and 20 minutes in the air.

Lots of phone messages, but we didn't check them.
Had agreed to join Whitnall retirees at Sutherland's
home near Antigo, WI so left early and when we
arrived learned that the golf outing had been cancelled(because of severe weather predictions). We hadn't checked our phone messages yesterday before departing! Had a good visit with the S's and drove a few more miles north to visit Donna and Jack Risch before heading back.

Using the lap top for this today. Desktop is down--
the on/off button isn't working so will have it checked next week. We can see e-mail here but have no address book in this machine so will have to rebuild
some how after we have the desktop checked. Probably no outgoing e-mail right right away!

Told Kevin we will try to observe a Mount Holyoke regatta the last weekend in September. No specific
plans yet.

Glad for the blog entries from Domino. Reads like a continuing whirlwind.

Love and prayers, Gma and Gpa

help! the gangrene's got me!

It's the end of my first full week of classes, and wow, they warn you that college is harder than high school, but no one ever specifies exactly how much! it's not so much that everything's more difficult, i guess, just that so much more is expected of you. i have huge readings every night and papers due all the time. and i have fairly easy classes! i really don't know how my friends with science and math courses are dealing.
so, this week has been very busy. i've had classes and home work, obviously, but then i've also had work every day. work is actually really pretty fun. there have been a couple days when the kids are all really cranky, and when i was functioning on little sleep, that was not a good experience, but mostly they are adorable.
then, since this is the first full week back, all the meetings for all the clubs have been happening. and, because i am interested in almost every single club, i've been running from meeting to meeting every night. i know i can;t keep it up, i'm going to have to choose a couple clubs and let the rest go, because otherwise i'll be entirely ineffectual in all my clubs, but it's really hard to pick! debate or vassar greens? unicef or democracy matters? theater or a capella?
speaking of, i'm auditioning for 4 a capella groups today, and i've been called back for the musical i auditioned for, and that's also today.
oh, and i got into choir! but i'm an alto... so that's a little odd. but i think choir's gonna be really fun! we have a concert in october with a professional orchestra and they're bringing in singers from the Met!!!
i think i'm going to drop my linguistics and anthropology class because i really don't like it. it's long, boring, and, from everything i've been hearing, deals with phonemes until like the last 2 weeks when it finally deals with how linguistics deals with anthropology. which is the part i was actually interested in. plus, if i drop anthro, i get to take fencing!!!! and i really really wanna take fencing!!! i think i'd also add a 6-week class about the first professional female author in english literature that sounds really fascinating. so i think it'll all be for the best!
last night was really fun, there was an all-campus, freshman (and sophomore and junior unofficially) vs. senior food fight that was a ton of fun! my friend Teo painted himself green, tho, and it never dried, so there's green paint EVERYWHERE and you have to be really careful what you lean against ... i've been calling him Elphaba. i don;t think he appreciates it. but everyone else keeps getting green, too, so we say that you've caught gangrene. it's a good 4th-floor inside joke. then there was a bar-b-que, fireworks, a ben lee concert, and a bon fire. it was a great friday night!

Happy September!!!

Happy September everyone!!!
Just thought I'd add a few things to my previous novel of a post...
I've been called back for a second choir audition, which is really exciting! I go in for that audition tomorrow at noon. Wish me luck!
I met another Wisconsinite today. His name is Max and he's from Middleton. That makes 4 freshman from Wisco as far as I know. And I've met all of them, so that's pretty cool.
Last night was a huge Freshman event called the Brewer Games. Basically it was a bunch of crazy events that the Freshmen from each dorm competed against each other in. Noyes, my dorm, only had about 8 people show up, so we teamed up with our oft-times rivals, Cushing, and became "Noyeshing". Noyes was the 
defending champ from last year, 
so we had a bit tolive up to. And 
we ended up in 2nd place overall, 
which we were quite happy with.
It was a ton of fun. I can't wait for 
more all-campus events like it!
And now I'm procrastinating because I don't feel like doing my reading. But I really should. So I guess I'll go do that.

Sorry I forgot about making the text bigger in my last post, Grandma.