Where to start this time?

So the show went amazingly. Rhubini's White Flowers act made half the audience cry, the other half stood up and started swaying side to side. It was really a unique experience as a performer, to see the audience getting that involved. Above is a photo of all of the act ... it's the only photo I can find on this computer of National Day. The Afghani song didn't go so well ... but I wasn't expecting anything great from that number. Rhubini's Movie was also fabulous. The audience laughed soooo much. I love interactive audiences. It makes the show so much more fun.

Anyways, on Monday Outdoor Fitness went to an indoor rock climbing wall. It was a lot of fun, though I was so disappointed to realize that my dancers legs have left me. I wasn't able to push myself up the wall anymore. So sad. Tuesday was an interesting day as well. It happened to be day 5 on our academic rotation, which means that after lunch we don't have a class, instead we have International Affairs. Sometimes a guest speaker comes in, other times students do a presentation. This time, in the flavour of Middle East and Indian subcontinent National Day, there was a presentation by students on the Israeli Palestine conflict. Also, there was a photojournalist who was meant to come in and share the time with them. Unfortunately, he got stuck behind a car accident on the way into Victoria and didn't make it on time. It was no big deal though, the students managed to fill all the time. I was meant to be interviewing this guy for the radio at 3:00 though. Jon Elmer his name was, anyways, he was meant to be doing a presentation in the evening as well, so he was still coming out to the college. So I waited around, got the station set-up, waited some more. Jon didn't show. Sean, my housefellow who was supposed to be looking after the 'guest' eventually had to go collect Jasmine from daycare, so he left me in the Admin building with the instructions that if Jon showed I was to take him to the guest house, then the caf, and then do the interview. So he did finally make it, but then the guest house was locked and one thing led to another. We did eventually get the interview done though. It was phenomenal. In everything he does, he has a goal and is very clear and aware of what that goal is. It was really interesting. Later that night I went to his presentation, he went over a bunch of the same stuff, but there was new stuff there as well. Rather than explain everything, I'll just post the link when the show is up. It'll be tonnes easier ... 'cause its all about being lazy and minimizing effort!

Anyways, Tuesday led to Wednesday. But this was no ordinary Wednesday, rahter, it was Jack Matthews day. Jack was our college founder and really an eclectic fellow from what we learnt. Anyways, everyone in the community (students, teachers, etc.) were meant to complete a personal challenge. We had two hours to do so. Chit and I were going to learn how to play guitar, but there are only so many guitars on campus and a lot of people were already using them. Sarah's personal challenge was to swim from the maintenance dock to the floating building, but she needed a safety boat, so I volunteered to paddle a canoe. When I arrived on the docks at 8:00 in the morning there was a whole crew of people who were swimming across the bay without wetsuits. Crazy people is all I can say. Anyways, they hadn't arranged a safety boat so I volunteered to paddle them across before Sarah went in. As we were preparing on the dock, teh shoremaster for the mornign (Mark) came and asked me what 'qualified' me for the paddling job. The conversation went as follows:

Mark: so ... you're going to make sure they make it across?

Claire: uh ... I guess so.

Mark: D'you know your water safety signals?

Claire: no

Mark: D'you have your water boat operators license?

Claire: no

Mark: Are you in a waterfronr activity?

Claire: no

Mark: D'you know how to pull someone into the boat if they need to get out of the water?

Claire: definitely not

Mark: D'you know first aid?

Claire: no

Mark: So you didn't do the first aid course?

Claire: oh that, yeah I did that

Despite my obvious underqualification he still let me do the job, I suppose there was no one else! As I was climbing into the canoe, he asks, "have you canoed before?" Well that just made me laugh. I gleefully told him that I hadn't, that learning was my personal challenge! In fact, Clare and I (yes, they let Cla(i)re squared commandeer a boat!) did have to emergency rescue one of the swimmers who felt his chest was constricting. Thankfully, he made it to the other side of the bay and scrambled up on some rocks so we managed to get him in the boat without capsizing.

After that, Sarah went in with her wetsuit and swam a longer way. It was unfortunate, seh forgot to bring a weight belf and so, due to the wetsuit, was unable to get her butt in the water, this made for some challenging swimming. Anyways, the morning was bizarre and crazy. A bunch of people went out in sailboats. When they got back, I was still on the docks taking pictures for the Link, our online newspaper. Theresa was wearing a sailing wetsuit and wanted to jump in the bay. She asked Anouk, who blantantly refused. Somehow I got roped into it. I honestly don't know how, but I sure had no time to think. Theresa grabbed my hand, ran and suddenly I was in the bay. Which reminds me, my clothes are still drying in the laundry room ...

It was bizarre though, usually when one jumps in the bay its a miracle and people are highly impressed. When one jumps in the bay on Jack Matthews day the common reply was, 'you jumped and did what?'. Anyways, the day was much longer but I should really go. Later.

And for the visuals ...

Alright, my chem lab is long overdue so I will just leave you with these few pictures. Today was a post owrthy day though, so definitely expect soem news tomorrow or the next day. Anyways, here we go:

Vivien and I demonstrating the basic move in the Indian Stick dance.

The obligatory room picture, Ashley is once again sporting a hand made dress fabricated from fabric scraps found on the art room floor ...

Here's the three of us ... all making an attempt at "cultural dress".

Cla(i)re squared.

The results of the head scarf workshop. Can you find me?

Me and Colin, the blind date my roomies found for me.

This is from our "pranking excursion". These random garbs were meant to disguise our identities .... ?

Rhubini demonstrating her joy at finding peppernuts in the care package from the church.

ta.

Alright ... here we go ...

So this past week has bee pretty crazy. There have been daily rehearsals for the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent National Day show, which is tonight. I'm only dancing in one act this time, but I'm singing in two others. Uh ... I have no idea where to start, so I may as well start with today. Today is Middle East and Indian Subcontinent Day so theres a lot of awesome stuff going on. As we speak, I'm wearin g a Muslim veil/head covering thinger as part of a workshop. Basically they taught us how to put on the head scarfs and now we're supposed to spend at least an hour wearing them so that we get an idea of how it feels to be a minority/Muslim girl. It's pretty cool, but this being Pearson, people aren't all that surprised that random people are walking arounf wearing head scarfs ... some people look really strikingly good in theirs, as for me, my dreads add a number of lumps and bumps to my skull and slightly ruin the effect! It's tradition on National Days that the members of that region of the world wake up their housemates. Unfortunately, my student job is to light the fire in the cafeteria (that's right, they trust that I won't burn down the cafeteria with my pyro-ness !) and it just so happened to fall this morning. So I woke up at 7, headed to the caf. Lit the fire and ran back to bed and fell asleep. Wow ... backwards isn't really working. So let me rewind a bit....

Yesterday after classes the sun showed its face (finally!). It being a Friday and sunny, I didn't want to waste the day. So Tadhg and I headed out to the soccer field (a ten minute walk) and climbed trees. It was sooo cool, the trees here are really quite excellent for climbing. In total we only climbed two trees, but we got a good 20 feet from the ground in both cases. And then we just sat in the tree and chatted for an hour. It was cool. But really quite cold. We realized that we hadbetter climb down before our hads got completely numb and we were no longer able to climb down at all! When we got back to Calgary house, Rhubini and Aparna were cooking indian food in Sean and Laura (our housefellows) kitchen. So I dropped in for taste testing/moral support. It was fun, we listened to music, danced, cooked, talked. The food was for a house breakfast tomorrow in honour of National Day. That night, I had a bass lesson and then there was the final dress rehearsal for the show. Unfortunately, my lesson ran late so I missed one of the acts I was supposed to be in, but no big deal. Afterwards a bunch of us got together in the LLT (little lecture theatre) to watch the Matrix, which I had never seen before. It was interesting, but not as phenomenal as everyone claims it to be. Then, seeing as which it was two and I had to get up at 7 the next morning, I went to bed.

That takes me to waking up, lighting the fire, and going back to bed. About an hour after I had returned to bed the Calgary House Middle east/indian representatives came in with hot mugs of fresh coffee. I took it, and then rolled over and fell back asleep. Rhubini came in awhile later to wake us all up again, but we convinced here to climb into bed as well ... Finally, Yarin came in and briskly told me (and I quote) : In the middle east we have two ways to wake you up. The first is to bring you coffee, the second is to shoot you. Well let me tell you, that got me out of bed. In the day room were last night's cooking efforts, really quite fabulous if you ask me. Since then, I've been hanging out in the workshops that are randomly scattered all over campus.

Anyways, thats the recent stuff, but what about the past two weeks I have been out of contact? It's been a lot of work really, school, rehearsals, etc. On Monday I had Outdoor Fitness, the activity in which somethine ineveitably goes wrong every week. This week we were supposed to run around a lagoon. The scenery was beautiful, the ari was fresh, the trail was questionably sign posted. The cool thing about this activity is that we go at our own pace and just meet up at the end. Unfortunaely, in this instance, the sporatic sign postage meant that I didn't meet up with everyone at the end. In fact. I never even reached the end. Instead, I followed the path to some dead end road, which I ran down until I found another path leading into teh bush, believing this to simply be a continuation of the trail, I followed it. I ended up on teh edge of the lagoon, which was what we were supposed to be circlign around nayways, unfortunatly, there was no longer any trail. In the end, I backtracked. Thank goodness I ran into Astrid, completing the circuit for her third time. She showed me where I had goen wrong. So, in the end everything turned otu alright, as is the case every week. Next week we're going rock climbing, I can only imagine what the results might be ...

Oh, the theatre production. It was fabulous! I had honestly never seen theatre to such an extreme before in my life. The show was called Girls on Top and was a compilation of scenes from various plays in which girls dominated. It was emotional and definitely a job well done. Now the first year music concert has to match up, thank goodness we have till the end of the year to prepare! As for my classes, they are going well. In music we're doing a lot of analysis. It's definitely time consuming and I often get frustrated with it, but I'm learning so much from the work. I get to start work on my composition soon, should be an intersting new endeavour for myself. On Wednesday is Jack Mathew's day. Jack Mathews was the guy who founded Pearson college. He chose the location, and was our first director for many years. So on Wednesday to honour him every student is going to complete a personal challenge. They range from math homework, to swimming, to writing poetry, to getting to know one's roommates better. Chit and I are going to learn how to play the guitar. It was either that or climb trees, but I got that in yesterday. So yeah, we're either just going to collaborate our knowledge of music and instruments and figure it out ourselves (with the help of a chord chart) or we may get Marina to help us out. Either way, it's bound to be fun.

As for tonight's dinner, it is tradition that one takes a date to National Day dinners. My roommates and I decided to do a blind date thing for each other. We're all going to sit at a table together. It should be fun. I'm interested to see who my roomies found for me. Ireceived a random note signed "your national day date" this week. It was basically a drawing of a moose ... supposedly thats supposed to make it highly obvious as to who my date is. I still can't figure it out!

So today I can offically wash my hair as its been a month since tme impletmentation of my dreads. However, I only got around to ordering the special shampoo on Thursday, so my hair is going to have to wait a few more days. The bizarre thing is thats its not greasy at all! Anyways, I should get soem homework done before my next workshop. By the way, my first radio show is up on the internet now : http://pcradio.ca my show is entitled Talking to Lofties. There was a super cool interview in the middle of the show that Michelle and ?I put a voice effect on. Unfortunately when we uploaded the show to the web that track got muted somehow. So there's a huge silence in the middle of the show. We're hoping to get it fixed sometime this week, as well as record a new show. On Tuesday, we have an international affairs session adn this week theres a guest speaker coming in. John Helmer I think his name is. He's a photojournalist who has spent a lot of time in the Middle East. Anyways, I may get to have a one on one interview with him for the radio. I'm super excited and definitely hoping it works out.

I've been getting up to a lot of pranking lately. Sarah has been receiving gifts in her room from her "secret buddies" who are in actual fact not so secret. So we played a return prank, we took the tree from the student common room adn placed it in Cagan's room. It's really quite a heavy tree and they couldn't figure out how to get rid of it. On Wednesday afternoon we removed it and replaced it with a log, a few ferns and an apple. A few weeks ago I also helped Siyu play a prank. She had a secret buddie for her advisee gruop. So we snuck into his room one night and stole all his shoes. Now let me tell you, he had a lot of shoes for a guy!! Anyways, we smuggled them our of the house in a garbage bag. We decided to hang them on the tree outside East house. So we were climbing the tree and hanging these shoes but people kept walking by adn recognizing us, despite the dark. So Sarah ran into her room and grabbed us three random hats and scarfs. So adorned with there unique items we continued our quest. I have a great photo of us ... I'll post it sometime. Anyways, now I haven't got an homework done adn its just about time for the workshop on Israeli military service. Bye!

I have Ugly Feet

So .. it's been a crazy week or so here! On top of the "post project week work loard", I've had dinner dish duty which takes from 5:00 till 8:00 pm. It's fun ... but has resulted in my bedtime being pushed back till two in the morning most nights.

Rehearsals have started for Middle East and Indian Sub Continent Day. I'm dancing in Rhubini's mock bollywood mini-musical, performing a traditional Afghani dance and participating in teh Indian Stick dance. I fell bad for my dance partner, the other Clare, I have whacked her fingers so many times they must be black and blue! So our last student has arrived on campus now. There is only oen student who didn't make it and that was due to VISA problems, she'll be offered the scholarship again next year though so hopefully the issues will be sorted out by then and she can make it.

Whats been going on around here? A lot of work on my part. It's all more or less interesting though so I have no complaints. The first year theatre performance is on Saturday night, so the theatre students are havign ridiculous rehearsal schedules ... think a,ong the lines of 7:00 - 12:30 every night. It's intense, but I'm super excited to see the show. Rhubini is a theatre student and so has been participating in this ridiculous rehearsal schedule ... but today she got put on official voice rest. That's right ... she's losing her voice!

(to be continued, I forgot abotu my recording session!!!)