The school

After last semester I changed my schedule quite a bit. Since I don't need the credits I now have as many creative classes as I can. This is what my schedule looks like now.

1st hour - Band:
This is instead of earth science that I had the first semester, and since I don't really play an orchestra instrument, our band teacher Mr. Wilkins told me to learn the trombone, and so I did. My friend Matthew is the other trombone player and he helped me get the basics of trombone down. I have been playing since Christmas and I'm pretty proud of how I'm doing. I'm nowhere near as good as the other people in the band and I don't get all the notes right in our songs, but I still think I'm doing pretty well for only having played for 3 months.

2nd hour - Creative Writing.
I had this class last semester as well. Last semester was fiction centered, and now we are learning about memoirs. Of course, since we are in creative writing, we make it very story like. I have Miss Francis for this class and she is a very fun teacher. She hasn't forgotten the little girl inside her, and have, among other things, hello kitty stuff in her classroom. Creative writing is always a fun and relaxed class and I think half of us are drama kids, which means fun time and a little bit of chaos ensures.

3rd hour - American History
Normally history classes can easily be boring, but not when you have Mr. Archembeu as your teacher. He is very passionate about his teaching. He makes the class interesting by mixing current affairs with history lessons. We are kept on our toes with sarcasm, joking and switching between serious and fun. All this is needed since this class is lecture based and we mostly listen and take notes, but thankfully it isn't boring. I really like this class.

4th hour - Art 1
I used to have ESL here and I also had it during the first two weeks of this senester, but then Maggie said that I don't really need the help with English, and she transferred me into art. I really dont mind. I have always dabbled with drawing, but never really learned how to, but now I am. We do a sketchbook each weekend on our own, and then have themes going on in class. Right now we are playing with clay. We are making ritual masks and small magnet masks. I have a lot of fun and I am so happy Maggie tranfered me.

Lunch
This is when we eat! The cafeteria is like in the movies where every group have their own table where they sit. Our table is the first one that is closest to the window, and often we have too many people of our table. The people sitting there changes a bit, but our core group is always the same; me, Aaron, Orion, riccie, Greta, bryceton and Adrian.

5th hour - English 10 Honor
This semester I switched out of normal English and are now taking the honors version which means its advanced English. This class is also taught by miss Francis, and we are just finishing up reading Julius Caesar. In this class we don't just read the plays, we act it out. By this I mean that we each get assigned a part and read it out dramatically.

Advisory.
This is an half hour class we have each day. For some reason I have Junior advisory. Every Monday and Wednesday we have DEAR drop everything and read. Tuesday we have actual advisory where we talk about college stuff, and then on Thursdays we have study hall.

6th hour - TA aka. Do-nothing-in-the-library-hour
A TA mean Teachers Assistant and I am it for Maggie, who very conveniently isn't at the school during this hour and so it pretty much works like a study hall/off hour. This is quite great for catching up on homework or for taking a nap. Most of the time I'm watching Aaron play video games whilst trying to make tumble work.

7th hour - Choir
In choir we sing. Simple as that. We are currently working on our choir concert (where I have a solo). I am so happy that I get to sing every day and expand my vocal skills. However it is a bit rough when when we have it first thing in the morning.

The way I wrote the schedule is how it is when it is on purple schedule. White schedule is the other way around and it changes every two weeks. We are currently on white achedule. The changes gets a bit confusing sometimes.

Until next time
-Malene

Winterfest

Winterfest 1/25-14

Since Isaac and I were no longer dating at the time of the dance, and it was a Sadie Hawkins (girls asking boys) I went with my then good friend Aaron (by the end of the dance we were dating :D).

The day started with Aaron and I joining Christi, the girls and two of their friends for rollerskating in Pueblo. The roller skating place was exactly like the kind you would see in That 70's Show and it was a lot of fun. We skated (that is I rented roller blades instead of skates, apparently there is a difference) and played some games at arcade. I set a new record for skee ball!

After roller skating I went home and got ready for the dance. Aaron was doing lights for Dance Salida Dance and Kyria was performing in it, so Orion, Greta, Adrian and I tagged along. I got to sit up in the light booth and I even got to play with the buttons once (I got to turn down the light). After the performance we stopped quickly at Aaron and Adrians house to take pictures.

We took the couple pictures, the group picture, the girls picture ad then, by Aarons request, all the people not wearing pants. Yes, it wasn't just us girls in dresses, Aaron wore a kilt. Normally that would seem weird, but knowing Aaron it wasn't so strange and I think we can all agree that he pulled it of quite well.

The dance it self was pretty much like homecoming, except that the music was a bit louder and a bit worse, but since there was dancing involved, us girls had a blast anyway, and I do think the boys enjoyed themselves from time to time as well.

Opening night with The Crucible

(Friday)
As my last post touched upon, tech week is tiring. The last week everybody in drama have been more or less ticked off and sleep deprived. I know I have had the thought "what am I doing here, why do I do this, can I please just go home and sleep?" Several times a day, and I doubt I'm the only one. Then at the assembly Thursday you the first taste of performing the play in front of the audience and all of a sudden I have energy enough for our newly scheduled Friday rehearsal!

And then suddenly, after a day of doing nothing besides re-dying my hair, it is 5:30 and call time for actors. Getting into hair and make-up wasn't nerve racking. Especially not with my boyfriend getting tortured with make-up by all the senior boys (I may or may not have contributed with the kiss marks and supplied the make-up), it was actually quite hilarious. 

I didn't start to get nervous until 10 mins before showtime. That's when I remembered how much we have been struggling with lines this past week, and even this morning, but thankfully I have perfected my calming ritual before going on stage.

I find the least crowded corner and sing the ABBA song "I have a dream". It is the only song I have found where both the lyrics and the melody have a calming get encouraging affect on me.

I'm nit on stage during the first scene, so I had a bit more time to ready myself. The last two minutes before going on stage are the worst. All the things that can go wrong run through my head, and I can't seem to remember a single line. I instantly regret not looking at my lines one last time, and then I get on stage. Suddenly all the fear goes away and I am Elizabeth Proctor, and I know exactly what to say next.

The last scene is supposed to be really emotional and hard, and every time we ran it I've tried to cry, but to no use. That was before we had an audience. Something about performing in front of people changes the energy on stage, and that was also true in this scene. Without really trying I started crying and really feeling what Elizabeth was supposed to feel. It was awesome.

Going off stage everybody was whooping and yelling, excites about our first show and that nobody had messed up. Before the show I had forgotten why I even acted, after I was completely sure of it. The rush I get from being in front of an audience is hard to explain, bet getting of that stage after doing a good show, I was so happy. Acting is frustrating and I hate it from time to time, but I couldn't live without it. 

Quick update

I don't even remember when I last updated, but a lot of things have happened since. The biggest things, in chronological order, were: a break up between Isaac and I, winterfest, I got a new boyfriend, valentines day, Tech week with The Crucible and TCAPs. I'm not gonna talk about all these things right now, but I just felt like writing a little bit.

I don't think I have mentioned the play the drama club is doing this spring, so I'll give you a quick synopsis. It is set in 16th hundred and about the Salem witch trials, as well as (if you read between the lines) about the Nuremberg trials and the red scare. I play Elizabeth proctor (the wife of the main character) and she is one of the two main female characters. It's great to be back with the drama club, but it is also a hard play with a lot of words and wording we aren't used to. On top of that we are trying to do a slight Massachusetts accent, since that is where the play takes place.

We started tech week (off book and tech stuff is added) last week and we are currently doing drama 5houra each day after school (4-9) so needless to say, I am quite exhausted. The play opens this weekend and we have three performances.

The thing about tech week is that it triggers a lot of different and often contradicting emotions. On one hand every body is tired which leads to stress which turns into frustration over the slightest thing gone wrong. On the other hand we are all excited to perform the play, and on the third (yes, during tech week you have at least three hands) it means drama club will be over last week, and for all the seniors and me, this will be our last play together, so we don't want it to end yet. It's very confusing.

On top of tech week all the freshmen and sophomores had to do TCAPs. It is state testing that all students have to do. So whilst my brain was slowly getting closer to explode with memorised lines and lyrics (we have a choir concert two days after the last performance) I also had to take two hour-long tests a day for 5 days. The language part wasn't bad at all, so it didn't take too much brain activity, but the math was horrible.
Before I left everybody told me that I should continue taking math over here, but since I don't really like numbers, I ignored it. I can now say that that was a really bad idea. The overall thought I had during the math teat was; I can't math.
I would stare at a problem and recognise that less than a year ago I was tutoring someone in this, and now all I can think is that the numbers look like hieroglyphics. I could even remember the excat class I learned this in, just not what I was supposed to do.

The only good thing about them were that we got these tickets if we worked for a certain amount of time, and by the end of all the tests there was a drawing where we could win grand prices and I won an iPod! So it wasn't all bad.

Today we are doing an assembly with a scene from our play for the entire school, and I'm slightly nervous since yesterday was the first time we were really off book with this scene, but I'm sure it'll be alright (we were supposed to be off book earlier, but like I said, there is a lot of words and weird wordings, so that didn't exactly happen)

I'll leave you with these pictures I have taken lately :)

Until next time
- Malene

Gunnison Community Center

Today we decided to go to the Gunnison Community Center as a family. Since Jeff is working it was just us girls. The center has a rock climbing wall, a pool, game hall and a tumbling/gymastic hall. Since it's winter we decided to not go in the pool.

Rock climbing is just as fun and harder than I remembered. I conquered the number 2 path (the easiest one, but let's not tell anyone that) so I felt very accomplished. After climbing we went in to the tumbling room were the girls met up with some of their friends and tumbled, and since we weren't allowed to play on the fun bars and beams, I decided to practice my ballet. Considering it starts up again tomorrow, it was probably a good idea.

When the girls were done with tumbling around, we went to a nearby ice rink and rented some skates. This was my favorite part of the day. It's been a while since I skated last, and I almost forgot how much I like it. Thankfully I haven't forgotten how to not fall. Riley and Audrey had never been ice skating before, and thanfully the rink had these help thingys so they could stay up. Audrey loved it, Riley not so much. We stayed for about an hour and then we went back to the center for a bit more tumbling.

After the girls were done tumbling, we went and got hot chocolate at a nearby cafe, and then we headed home.
- Malene

(This is written on the blogger app, so there may very well be typing mistakes since my phone keyboard is quite small)

Date night

Today I went to Mitchell's house with Isaac and had new years dinner. Mom (That is Mitchell's mom, but everybody calls her that) made stroodle (hope I spelled that right), roast and potatoes, and it was really good. While we were waiting for the food we played rock band, a game I haven't played since my SFO days, and it was really fun, right untill the x-box decided not to play anymore. Then we played some card games.

After food at Mitchell's me and Isaac went on a double date with Orion and Greta (the original dinner plans). We went to this asian restaurant in Buena Vista and had sushi. Now sushi isn't something you come across often in Colorado, especially not good sushi, so it was really great to have it again. At the restaurant their was a band playing this hapoy, dancey music anno 1950. They sounded really good, although they were a bit too loud for a small restaurant. After dinner we all went back to Isaac's and watched stand-up.
Today was a good day :-)
- Malene

New years eve

Happy new year everybody and welcome to 2014! Before I left I was told that new years eve isn't quite as a big deal here, so needless to say I wasn't all that excited for it. But my new years eve turned out to be really great. I spent it with my friends Aaron, Orion and Greta and of course Isaac.
I watched the boys play x-box (my walking skills in Skyrim are still questionable, so I let them do the playing), they tried to teach me Risk, and succesfully taught me a card game named Bullshit.
Because I am used to a bigger party we went and got partypoppers and sillystring from walmart, and Isaac's mom had a little bit of fireworks. A couple of minutes before midnight we all gathered in the living room and watched the countdown from times square and at 12 I got my first new years midnight kiss. Righy after we all went out and set of the fireworks (a very small battery and a smoke thingy) and then we watched Mariah Carey sing in the new year. My curfew had been extended to 1am and I went to bed around 2. Like I said in the beginning it was a pretty great new years eve, and if it has anything to say about 2014, then the next year is gonna be awesome!
- Malene