Day...I've forgotten.

Today we began as usual with a morning meeting. (This was of course after Louvisa and I survived our crazy bus ride with a driver who had to ask us for directions.) Then we had a session called People's Barcodes. It was all about stereotypes. We walked around the room and wrote on each country's piece of paper a stereotype we've heard of the country. We then split into countries and read the stereotypes. It was very interesting to see what the other countries thought of the US. It was said many times that we are a fat country. That wasn't surprising. The one that surprised me was that the US was generous. I'm surprised that other countries saw that in us. I know that we as a country give to disaster stricken countries, but I'm not sure if that's out of generosity or because of some ulterior motive. It's an interesting thing to think about. I think I will have to reflect on this. It was also said that the US is ill educated. While I think we have a good educational system I would agree that we are ill educated as a country about the rest of the world. As Americans we tend to have a very independent view. I think we tend to overlook things that are happening in other countries. Or at least I know I have. This experience is already in the first few days forcing me to open my eyes and see that there is so much more out there that I've overlooked. I hope that during these next six months I will be able to hear first hand from others what is happening in their countries and what needs to be done to improve it.

Anyway, continuing on. Next we talked about documenting the semester and because of this talk I ended up talking to Joel Mauney and am going to be the UWP official blogger for Planet Gap Year. Check it out on www.planetgapyear.com I'm not going to lie, I'm not really sure what it is yet, but I'll learn along with you! I'm just excited to be able to share my UWP experience with even more people!

Next we had vocals and we learned 3 of our show songs in our 2 hour time block. I was pulled out at the very end to do some second round solo audition stuff. Again, I was incredibly nervous but I feel like it went well. Then we moved on to dancing. We learned 3 more dances today and of course that was fun. I ended up getting a bit frustrated just because the staging style was so different to what I'm used to. It was hard to make levels and I felt like we were just standing in clumps and of course coming from NWU and Jack pounding "Picture!!" into our heads I knew it was coming. Now that it's happened I can let it go and just relax and not worry about it, I mean that's what my education prepared me for right. Also, I got pulled out of dancing to go down for 3rd round of solo auditions. This time it was for a specialized solo, so we'll see how that goes later. It's a very rock and roll improv type solo, just the kind of thing I really like. I'm very excited to see what the rest of the week holds.

My host family remains well. Tim and Cherryl are awesome! They are taking Louvisa and I hot air ballooning on Sunday and to a Martina McBride concert on August 2nd. I got to move into my real room tonight as their son Ryan left for school. It's nice to have drawers to put my clothes in. And a way to separate the clean from the dirty. Well, it's time for me to shower and put my new room together. I hope you are all having a wonderful July! I miss you!