Catching up already

Wednesday night we had a Culture Jam. Cast members were invited to share something from their culture, whether it be a poem, a dance, a song, or a story. The group from Sweden did a traditional Sankta Lucia procession. The Danes did an anniversary song. There was an amazing dance from Mexico, an incredible song from the Netherlands, and plenty of other unique displays of talent.

Thursday began vocals and cast movement - a.k.a. dance. Cast movement ended up being an hour of conditioning, including push-ups and sit-ups, followed by two hours of learning a fairly simple dance combination for one of the songs.

Friday we had a presentation on ways to document our semester, including journaling, photography, and video. We'll see how well I do in keeping up-to-date on things. I found my camera's USB cable, so new pictures are uploaded. After lunch, I was assigned to a dance workshop instead of joining vocals with everyone else. Cast movement was planned again for an hour and a half that afternoon, so I was anticipating a double dose of dance. Little did I know we would stay in our workshop room dancing continuously from 1:00 to 5:15. That is officially the longest I have danced without some sort of significant break. We had a few 2-5 minute water breaks, but that was it. About halfway through it was apparent that I was already sore (partially due to Thursday's conditioning and the rest due to the quick pace of Friday's dancing). By the time I got home, my face, wrists/hands, calves and ankles were the only parts of my body that weren't sore.

My host mom took Miwa and me to the mall to get dinner from the food court and we encountered some strange sights. We passed three different groups of people wearing crazy hats. Two people were wearing hats that looked like they had plush spikes coming out of them. A group of 6 younger girls had rainbow-striped "Cat in the hat" style hats. A couple of girls sitting at a table were wearing tiaras. We felt as though we'd missed the crazy hat day memo.

Saturday, my host mom and I got some lessons in Japanese and laughed harder than we had in a long time. We went to see 27 Dresses - a lot more dramatic than I expected - and then sang and danced in the car on the way home. Apparently, Dancing Queen is one of our host mom's favorite songs. We came home, played with the cat, and watched The Nanny Diaries on Pay Per View.

It's Sunday already, and my host mom is very ill. I'm hoping not to catch anything, as that would severely alter this week. I already go to bed exhausted at 10:00 every night, and being sick would make staying awake even that long harder. I volunteered myself to cook this week, as host mom will be out of town most of the week and I guess my roommate doesn't cook. Here's to hoping everything turns out all right.

Hope your week was well,
~Molly