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)
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
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
Thursday the 31st of October it was Halloween. Since we don't celebrate it in Denmark, it was my first time and it was awesome. At school it was allowed to wear costumes, which of course me and my friends took full advantage of. I was a vampire (I found cheap teeth at Safeway and a cheap dress at Walmart) and I seriously think that there should be more days where you can wear costumes to school.
After school I went home for a bit and then we went to one of Christi's friend's house for a halloween party. Seeing all those little kids in their costumes really made my night. Especially a mini Captain America and Spiderman who repeatedly tried to kill me. Their lack of wood bullets and stakes made this a hard task. I guess that's what you get for dressing up as a bad guy :-)
After the party trick-or-treated a bit with Riley and Audrey, and then I walked to safeway to meet my friends. We ended up being a much bigger group than originally, which just made it that more fun. We also went trick-or-treating, and though it was a bit awkward at first, I soon realized that it wasn't frowned upon, and joines the fun.
A tradition in Salida is the Thriller flashmob where a bunch of citizens (including my choir teacher) dress up as zombies and do a dance to the Michael Jackson song Thriller in the middle of the street. It was pretty cool.
After we finished getting candy from strangers, we went to Aaron's house to watch Rocky Horror Picture Show. Since I have only watched this alone before, watching it with other people (especially people who know all the responses and words to the songs) was pretty awesome. We sang along, Aaron's mom told when to say/do what and everbody got up to do the time warp. One of the beat things though was heckling the storyteller/crime investigator guy with neck jokes. At first we all did it, but in the end we realized that nobody could beat Adrian, and we all just listened to his great, and quite inventive, heckling :-)
This was another one of those nights where I just sat among all these people I get along with so well, and thought how happy and lucky I am to be here. It truly was a great first and last halloween.
-Malene
(I have pictures and they will be uploaded when I get on my computer again)
On the (insert date I am no longer sure
of because I am really bad at updating this blog) we had a district
wide assembly in our high school gym. Up until everybody was in the
bleachers, no one really knew what was going on. The teachers had
just been told to make sure that their students were present, and
that second hour would start late. It was referred to as “The
mystery assembly”. It turned out that the entire school district
had been judged to be in the top 10 or 16 % (or something like that)
of Colorado school districts. To be honest, I wasn't completely
paying attention, there was a lot of people saying a lot of things,
but the gist is that the all the teachers are really good at
teaching, and the students are either clever or good at learning. One
of the speakers made each school yell out “I am a student of
distinction” the teachers had to yell “I am a teacher of
distinction” and then finally everybody yelled “We are a school
district of distinction”. This means that if you really wanna
understand the effect of the ! In the title, imagine a gym full of
kids from age 3 to 18 occupying all the seats on the bleachers and
the floor screaming at the top of their lungs.
I must say that this distinction of our
school doesn't really come as a surprise for me. At some point before
the district assembly, we had an assembly for the school. We have had
a couple of those so far, every time to honor the sports. This
assembly was however for the academics. By the end of each quarter
honor roll is announced. There is two different “levels”. The
first is when you had a GPA (Grade Point Average) of 3 -3.4 and that
is called honor roll. The second is called Honor distinction roll
which is when you have a GPA between 3.5 and 4.0. About ¼ of the
school was on the honor roll, and got called up to the stage to get
their diploma. This seemed like a lot to me, but as it turned out, it
was nothing. More than half the school was on the honor distinction
roll, me included. I think that it's great that so many people have
good grades (A 4.0 is straight
A's) but it seems like it kinda
defeats the purpose of Distinction if most people get it.
If anyone is interested (Hello, mom,
dad, grandma and granddad) my grades as I'm writing this are straight
A's. Don't worry, event though I don't need the credits, I still care
about my grades and do my schoolwork ;D
Thursday (many Thursdays ago) in choir instead of singing like normally, we went to the auditorium to watch a string quartet perform. It was eight people (Two quartets) from Colorado symphony that cam and performed for us. It was really a middle school performance, but since we are in choir we got to watch as well. They played two songs each and then a song all together. Before each song the woman explained a bit about the composer and the history of the song, and how they were different from each other, which was interesting but probably a bit too much information. The songs they played were really good and it sounded very beautiful. I was very amazed at how fast they can move their fingers!
My creative writing class and I (and some more people from the school) went to Western State university for a poetry day. We were divided up into groups with other schools, and then we went out to 4 different workshops. It was the creative writing class at the college who taught us, and they performed some of their poetry too. It was really fun and we learnt a lot about different types of writing.
The college students performing poetry
Me and Tylea got a bit creative in one of the workshops
Hi there. So some stuff happened since I typed the last post and I actually uploaded it, So I thought I'd do one more.
Radio Drama:
The first thing is that I have started doing a radio drama. Avery works at the radio station, and he has been doing these dramas for a while, and when he asked if any of the drama club member wanted to join, I jumped at the chance.
Wee are about 7 people who go to the radio station. Avery is in charge so he decides who does what, and then we pretty much just take turns recording. It's very on the spot and a great voice acting exercise. When we aren't recording, we are talking in another room. It is a lot of fun. Right now we are doing a radio drama called "Yours truly, Johnny Dollar" which was very popular in the 50's. When we are done with that we will do Avery's original radio drama called "Eddie Mackin, Privat eye". Once we are done with Johnny Dollar the episodes will be uploaded to youtube, so I will link to them so you guys can hear them.
Shooting Range:
A Sunday Isaac took me to the shooting range close to town, to get the full 'Murica experience. We shot with his granddad's 0.22 rifle (I still find it a little bizarre that people just have guns laying around ;D) I think I hit the target about 3 out 0f 40 times, so needless to say, my guns skills aren't that good. It was however extremely fun and I will definitely be going back. I also did the whole pointing and shooting all the bullets really fast, and it was very exhilarating;D
Drama:
We are getting better and better at doing our play in school. We went off book (No manuscript) last week and are trying to get through the transitions more smoothly. Today we voted on posters and decided that we are going to film the play, so to my family, you will get to see it;D The last couple of days I have been out fund raising for Thescon. Thescon is the second biggest drama convention in the US and we are going to it! we each need to pay/fund raise 150 dollars, which I have managed to do. At first going into stores and asking for donations seemed a bit daunting, but it really wasn't that bad, and it is a good way to see more shops from downtown. And of course doing it with friendsmakes it fun.
I also got a part in the christmas play which our town theatre is doing. It is the velveteen rabbit and I play the mother. The director is the same as the one for our drama club at school. I am quite excited.
Last weekend Isaac was invited to Mitchell's mom's wedding so I went with him as his date. It was a beautiful wedding and it was fun to experience the differences. The vows were different (The whole I do thing like you see on movies) and they did the throwing of the bouquet (I did participate, though I didn't catch it XD) and of the garter. Mitchell's brothers taught me some swing dance step and we danced a bit, and I waltzed with Isaac ;D
On Friday I had a busy day. I started out with hanging out with Isaac and then I did ballet. I had just been sick and had barely eaten anything for 3 days, so the ballet probably wasn't my best idea ever, but I got through it. Then I chilled with Isaac and Orion, and when Isaac went to football practice, I spend about an hour with Orion. We watched "What not to wear" which is much more entertaining when you are sitting next to a boy with interesting opinions ;D Then we did a recording for the radio drama. After we finished recording Riccie (Michael), James, Orion, Avery and I went to the football game. When we got there we decided to have a little fun, so we stopped at safeway to get rearranged. James for some reason really likes being in the trunk of Orion's car so we made it look like we had kidnapped him. His hand got tied up with a shirt and his mouth covered with my hat, and then we drove to the game. At the school we stopped the car right were people get in and opened the trunk from the car, and James stumbled out. Then Riccie and Avery got out of the car and chased him around the parking lot, before getting back into the car and driving away. We met up in the front parking lot, and James told us how people had looked very weirdly at our little scene. It was hilarious! and this is one of the big differences between having a group of boy friends and girl friends, because girls just wouldn't think of something like this.
The game was good, but freezing, so we spent a lot of time inside. It was the last home game and we won 53-27 (Go spartans!)
After football we all went back to eat at Isaacs place. That was a really good day.
Today I just auditioned for Honor Choir. The audition consists of a solo, "America the beautiful" acapella, melodic and rythmic sight reading and aural recall. I think it went good, except for the sight reading part. I have never really done that before, so I messed up. I will know if I got in sometime next month. Fingers crossed ;D
This is it for now. At some point I will make a post about the town and the school (I have a lot of pictures for that) but for now I will leave you with this song ;D It is being qouted daily, and is a spoof on America. I will however say that they curse a lot (every second word is fuck yeah) so if you don't like that kind of language, don't listen to it ;D
