July 27-29

What a great week so far! I am finally getting used to the schedule and am not as tired as the past two weeks. The show is really coming together. We have pretty much learned all of the dances and songs, so now we just have to put it all together on stage! We started trying on costumes this week, and tomorrow and Friday we are doing full run throughs so we know where to go on stage. It’s so exciting!
On Monday we did a very cool workshop on the topic of diversity. We did an activity called, “cross the line”. We all stood on one side of the room, and there was a line drawn down the middle of the room. One of our education leaders, JC, read statements, and if that statement applied to us we were asked to cross the line. For example he would say, “cross the line if you consider yourself religious”. The statements were personal, ranging from what ethnicity you associate with, to if you think you are attractive, to if you have ever been discriminated against, to if you are gay. The point of the activity was to emphasize how diverse a group we are, and that diversity goes much deeper than skin color. What I took from the activity is that we need to take our unique situation and learn as much from each other as possible. When will I ever get be with a group of people from 17 countries again? When will I be able to have lunch with five people from all different countries again? We have so much to learn from each other! Haruna and I watched Star Wars Episode V that night. So awesome.
On Tuesday, we had an alumni roundtable. We were able to talk in small groups with 8 or so alumni about their experiences, and what advice they had for us. All of them seemed to have been forever impacted by their Up with People experience. We also did a news activity, in which we brought in newspapers from all over the world and shared news. The staff realizes that it is easy to get in an “up with people bubble” while we are here staging, so they want us to remember that life around us is still going on! I definitely agree with that, because since we are practicing all day and working so hard, it is hard to find time to know what else is going on in the world. So send me news if you have any!
Today we went over a lot of the choreography we have learned, and learned a little bit more. A lady from our European sponsor was here, so we put on a little sample show for her to see. I hope she liked it! For those who don’t know, a huge energy company in Europe is sponsoring us to have shows for their employees for their 100th anniversary. So, most of our shows in Europe are for this company. Tonight we did a globalization workshop. I won’t bore you with all the details, but we got to discuss issues like war, poverty, water, fair trade coffee, child labor, etc. Sounds intense, but the whole point of it was to realize how interconnected all of those issues are to the whole world, not just where they happen. We will be having presentations throughout the semester on these topics and more. I think that’s pretty cool and I’m interested in learning so much more! And of course doing something about it!