Faerie DivaBat On The Loose

The last Celebration in Japan went really well. I wasn't terribly woozy, the Circles actually made sense, and we had two people for Shima Uta (which was fun). People were gossiping about my homeless-person-ness (I wish I knew what they were saying exactly, it was kinda funny) and even Peder was laughing, calling me "my little homeless person".

Danni got stood up this time; Kara missed her cue. Usually it's the other way around. And while flinging my gloves away after the Work Dance, I hit an audience member (everyone was on the floor). Oops.

Tom had been watching my Statistics speech the past few weeks and was giving me feedback. This week he exclaimed "Yes!" (he asked me if I heard him from the stage - I didn't) because I apparently improved a lot and actually got it perfect. Too bad it's probably the last time I'll be doing Statistics, since the format is going to change when we arrive in Europe.

Speaking of Tom. He's become even more affectionate towards me - I didn't even think that was possible. He's now calling me "my love" and he has even told me "I love you". I told him Melissa would kill me - or us - and he told me not to worry because apparently Melissa is open about this kind of thing. Or something. Reminds me of this random conversation we had on a train in Tokyo:

Tom, Melissa, Brandy, Me: *something random about petting people - probably Brandy saying she doesn't like to be petted even though her host dad does it a lot*
Tom: *jokingly pets Brandy and tickles me*
Me: MEEP!
Brandy: That's probably illegal over here...*something about public displays of affection*
Melissa: Yeah, cheating on me while I'm there!
Tom: That's what turns me on, baby.

Melissa is awesome - or, using her word, "super". We get along very well too. And she is adorable. Huzzah polyamoury, or something. No one can really tell when Tom's kidding or when he's serious anyway, so no point worrying about it. Just play along.

Tom spent his school days being the only boy in a mainly girls' school. Now apparently he's the female in the relationship and Melissa's the male. Har.

There is another guy out there that likes me. He is reading this, most likely, so hello. This is all way too new an experience for me. Right now the only option I know of is to blush as red as a tomato. Heh.

My sister says I'm "growing up". Heh.

I FINALLY found a place in this whole prefecture that does binding. Now my stories are a book. Looks more professional, and hopefully loads more permanent.

Monday - EUROPE! My goodness the time has flown. Then it'll be over and I'll be extremely depressed and WAH. What shall I do with my life. But for now...new continent, new adventure. And Nina and Christie again! On Halloween too. Our first night is with everyone in a youth hostel - this should prove interesting.

Here I am in Abiko, Chiba.

It doesn't feel like a new week because we got here by train, not bus. It feels like some random CI or Regional Learning Day.

We had whale-weighing today - our luggages being those mysterious whales. Anything over 20kg and you get a Free Willy tag (which I painstakingly made!). My carryon, oddly enough, is heavier than my checkin...

Last week in Japan. Not sure what else to report, really. I'm not sure everyone is in the Japan spirit anymore, everyone wants to go to Europe now. And I miss Nina and Christie. Man.

I'll get to your questions soon! Keep them coming!

There seems to be quite a lot of magic here in Tama. Little surprises here and there.

My host mum shares a birthday with me.

Her English teacher is Malaysian (and still maintains a Malaysian accent).

I actually have a bed.

One of the intepreters in this city is Singaporean.

Reuben has started a cheer that is extremely Singaporean. ("WORLDSMART WORLDSMART IS SO SOLID! ACTUALLY EVERYBODY ALSO SOLID!")

The Lai Lai See Lai game of primary school days has gained popularity here.

I got partnered with Danni for one of the class CIs.

Tom actually does want to come to Malaysia.

Nina randomly comes up to me and we have a great heart-to-heart chat, just when I wished she would.

The heart-to-heart chat comes just when I really needed it and wished someone would spare the time for it.

I wish for food and it arrives.

I wish for a payphone and I find one - in a city where they are nearly extinct.

A long-lost friend from school days is looking for me, just after I tried looking for her.

Myongshin randomly comes up to me when I am alone and we chat for a while.

Jessica tells me that she wants to party with me someday soon.

We went to a university to see kendo and judo - we got to see sumo as an extra surprise.

We were greeted at the Parthenon building by groups of junior high school choirs.

We felt an earthquake for the first time in our Japan trip - in a country that's supposed to have them frequently.

I got to see the Ghibli Museum, housing Miyazai's works - so much Totoro.

Said museum also has a lot of bats. BATS!

We look for food along a street that doesn't have much restaurants - and find a very nice Chinese restaurant.

I get unagi and Malaysian-style tofu for me - and only me.

We finally get the NaNoWriMo ML thing sorted.

I wish for postcards - and find really cute ones of cats playing pianos.

My host mum sighs because she forgot her camera for the museum - no need to worry, since photography wasn't allowed anyway.

The museum requires advanced booking for entry. We get tickets the night before.

The Italian restaurant we went to has really nice rose tea.

We see a magic show in the welcome party.

We hear news from Nanu! She's practically moved into the hospital, she still has hope to return but she's not sure, she really misses us.

People love my little thank-you stories - they say I got them spot on.

The two busiest people in the crew, Bob and Anke, actually returned my surveys to me.

McDonalds gave us a plastic knife when we needed one but couldn't find one.

The Malaysian Prime Minister's wife has returned to God in the holiest month of her faith's year. Sure, this may not seem like the same class of magic as the rest; it is sad news, she seemed like a really nice lady and we were actually supposed to meet her (we got to meet the Prime Minister - her husband - last year).

But perhaps there can be grace and magic and miracles in everything, if we only just look.

I got lost this everning.

I was walking home from the train station to my house - initially I thought my host mum would walk me back, since it was my first time walking back (she followed me to the train station this morning) but she wasn't there so I just walked alone.

I followed the map she drew out for me. Turn at signal...walk past two signals...turn at first T-junction. I turned at the first T-Junction - not my road! Nothing was familiar. There were two big fact cats on bicycles; I couldn't figure out why.

I walked to the next T-junction - not familiar either. Now I was getting worried. There was no one I could stop to ask, I had no mobile phone, no real address, it was dark, I was alone. I remembered my best friend telling me to keep my head up and walk confidently - but inside I was thinking about tomorrow's morning announcement being "Tiara got kidnapped". I was scared.

I walked to a house and asked on the intercom if I could borrow their phone - they refused. They probably thought I was trying to sell something.

I retraced my steps and walked to a convenience store. I called my host mum on a payphone (one of the very few in Tokyo!) - thankfully she was there. I asked her to pick me up; she found me a few minutes later.

We drove home, and I found out that it wasn't the first T-junction. There were 2 T-junctions to go before reaching the one nearest to the house. Only difference is, this particular road was at the top half of the T. So much for confusing.

I'm sure my parents are most likely panicking right now. They worry about me travelling alone, relying on public transport. I worry too, especially in an unfamiliar city, and especially at night! Thank goodness I was safe and nothing of consequence happened. Too bad the people aren't exactly the friendliest - or perhaps it's just my language barrier in the way.

I think many of us will be lost tonight. A few of us are taking the trains and walking home and most of them don't know how to get back home exactly. I wonder how many will survive the trip?

The thank-you gifts got a good reaction. I was surprisingly accurate on some of them. I even managed to guess some traits; in Gaby's story I called him a "cyber MacGyver" but I didn't know that MacGyver actually was the inspiration for his name until he told me. Huh. Psychic writing.

I have a new special project! "Free Willy" - a project to lighten the load of our luggage before Europe. It was something done last year and Bob knew I was getting bored with nothing much to do so he gave me this to work on. I'm adding a twist; there will be a Stuff Swap, where people can contribute things to discard and they can either get swapped or donated. Noelle is also doing something baggage-related so let's see how that works.

I didn't have anything much to do for Project Time - the Yearbook team were involved in Advance Team training, and I didn't have any computer to work on (oh how I miss my laptop) so I got bored for a while. I ended up running errands for people - I bought oranges (well, one), string, and scissors for the crew's projects, hunted down a plastic knife, mailed postcards, and made copies of receipts. Now this is interning.

I miss being an intern.

The orange was for a Stone Soup presentation on conflict. Part of the presentation was a skit about different types of conflict - Nina and Yoshimi acted as two sisters fighting over an orange; Nina wanted it for a science project while Yoshimi was hungry. Tom and Anke were their "parents" - oh they were hilarious! Even down to "how come they are suddenly my children when there is a problem?!?" har. What an odd couple.

Nina's such a fussy nut ("I want the peel whole! Don't break it!") and Yoshimi's just plain silly...now I have this image of mini (chibi?) Nina and Yoshimi running around fighting over oranges. OH GOODNESS. (If you can draw this, please do...) I'm just worried about how they were when they were mini themselves...

Tomorrow, Community Impact. We'll be going to an elementary school to hang out with the kids. Should be fun.

The parade was pretty - you know the word - interesting.

We were all dressed in green - it was new for everyone, so I went around like a pixie and pinched everyone for good luck. (Got a few questions, and very much noticed!) Miho, Scott, and I volunteered to help carry our banner, while some other people went off on the tricycles (flower carts). The rest marched behind us; supposedly in lines of five, but it quickly turned into a jellyfish-like clump. We had Elizabeth's cousin from New Jersey (lived in Japan for 6 months and counting) join us so that was really nifty.

There were tons of other floats and marching groups besides ours, including a Brazillian samba group and a Korean float with a famous Korean actor on it. Yoshimi, the MC, and two Tsubomichans (the NGO mascot) were on the float proper, talking to the audience, while we walked behind them.

There were bubbles from our float. LOADS OF BUBBLES.

The banner people changed from time to time, and even the people in our group just moved around here and there. I saw quite a number of foreigners in the audience, even some I suspect to be Bangladeshi and Malaysian. I was yelling out "Shagatem" and "Selamat petang" to them...I wonder if they heard me.

Danni and I started singing Up With People a few times but stopped because Yoshimi was giving us the "O_O DON'T DO THAT" look. Oopsy. That would have been fun though.

We all got some flowers (looked plasticy to me but they were real) and I gave some to my host mum and her sister who came by. Her sister's a webdesigner too so it was really great to meet her. Cristy and Eli were supposed to follow us bhack to Kyoto for the bamboo festival but they decided to hang out with the rest of the crew at the Hard Rock Cafe instead. So my host family and I went back on our own...we had dinner - bento boxes with all sorts of random stuff - and then we went to the Bamboo Festival at the temple right in front of our house.

Basically, since the temple is right next to a bamboo forest, they cut chunks of bamboo and placed them all over the forest, with candles in them. The only light in the whole area are these bamboo candles (and some flashlights and cameras, which to be honest spoiled the effect). Some of these bamboo candles were arranged in the kanji for "dai" - if my memory serves me right I think it means "big". And it was definitely BIG.

In the middle of the dark bamboo forest was a taiko drum performance. After a while they stopped, and everyone was given a couple of thin bamboo sticks. The idea was that the drum would provide the bass sound of thunder, and our drumming on the bamboo stalks that were still up would sound like rain, thereby creating a musical storm. And oh what a storm it was! It was just like the drum circle in LA, but with a more natural, spiritual side. I honestly felt that we were calling down the rain.

(It didn't rain though. Perhaps soon.)

We then got to take one of the bamboo candles back home. The first one I carried blew out before we reached the exit, so I took another one and placed it in front of my host house.

My host family keep giving me things! They gave me their umbrella when they heard mine was broken. They gave me hurikake (flavourings for cooked rice - REALLY GOOD) when I said that I have to go buy some to take home. They even gave me ￥100 when I calculated my travel allowance and was that amount short (I probably overpaid a bus ticket). And it seemed so rude to refuse.

The next day was a bit chaotic - my period came that morning. Ack. Last minute laundry involving blowing a hairdryer on my clothes. My host mum showed up, understood what was going on, and gave my clothes a good wash. It's still not really 100% clean (I need bleach) and it's damp but it's better than nothing! But what timing, really.

OK, enough of the too much information.

We met up at the Osaka Riverside Hotel, said goodbye to Miho, Cristy and Marco (they'll be working in Tokyo) and left for Nara. I really felt that it was hard to leave this Osaka/Kyoto family; they were my favourite Japan family, so kind and funny and generous. They wrote in my book about how they felt that I was having a hard time because they didn't speak much English; I had an amazing time, really, it lifted me out of my culture shock phase.

Oddly enough, on the way to Nara we returned to Kyoto - nowhere near where I lived, but to another large temple, designated a World Heritage site. They mentioned the statue of Kannon (Kwan Yin) at the entrance but I'm not sure I saw her, unless she also has a form of being a red and black being.

There were quite a number of fortune things at the temple, such as prayer slabs (write a prayer on slabs of wood), bronze statues to be patted for good luck, even Japanese versions of worry dolls (write your worries on the doll, drop it in water; when the paper doll dissolves, so will your worries).

One of the more intriguing things were these two stones where you had to cross between them with eyes closed - if you make it to the other side, your wishes will come true. Gaby helped me across the first time - I made it through, but partway through the walk someone brushed past my right shoulder. I don't know if this means I'll acheive my dreams after some hard knocks or something. I helped Gaby back, his was much smoother. I felt a twinge in my heart afterwards, like something opened, and I could then feel the energy of the place.

The rocks were called "Love Fortune Telling Rocks" so I'm half wondering if there will be something between Gaby and I...har...

We left a bit later than expected because Katie was missing. I was really worried about her but she made it fine, thank goodness. Huning and I (we were bus buddies) spent the rest of the trip talking to Bob and Anke, who were right next to us. Interesting conversations; photos, accents, colonization. We have really fascinating program leaders, I tell you.

We had a bit of an incident reaching Murou - our bus wouldn't fit under the bridge. Bob and Anke were joking about my planned NaNoWriMo novel being true and how I should really take notes; I laughed it off but it got a bit weirder by a few minutes and I was starting to wonder if my muses were working overtime!

We made it through eventually, and met up with Jessica and Aya again. Yay! We had our schedules, styled like ancient Japanese scrolls; Jessica wrote positive appreciation messages for each of us in our schedules so that was an awesome surprise. Mine said "Thank you for your sparkling energy and positivity you bring! :)" - awww...

Rie's my roommate! Yay! I've been wanting to room with Rie for a while - she's such a sweetheart - so I'm glad I have my chance.

(ooo! The sirens went off! Around 8 am, noon, 5 pm, and 9 pm, sirens go off to tell the farmers when to start and stop. This will get interesting.)

There's 10 of us in the same general area - Rie & I, Chris, Che-Ri and Ana, Ah-Reum and Jessica, Tici, Elizabeth, and Danni. Oono people - either Uno (#1) or Oh No, depending on what happens. As Danni said, "It's the HOOD, yo."

Our host family meeting was once again ceremonial - and once again there were drums. And this was honestly the best, most entrancing drum performance I've ever seen. I could feel the communication and magic and energy being channeled; it was like they were trying to get access to another realm, then they were raising energy, then they were celebration and making loads of magic. Completely amazing.

Our host mum is the 2nd generation in 4 generations living around this area - her parents, her and her husband, her son and wife, and their 2 kids. Interesting.

Imagine this:

We are in a village barely touched by modern civilization.
We live on top of a mountain.
We live in a temple.
Very few host families have Internet access.
WE ARE ONE OF THESE FAMILIES.

It's dialup - just like back home in Malaysia. It took a while for the connection to work but the battery is dying so I have to be quick. But wow! Of all the random places to get online! We are so the envy of the group.

Tomorrow - new internships! Special Projects for me; NaNo doesn't start till November so I'll probably be working on the Yearbook. Or at least be Free For Hire.

I leave you all with a prayer.

I conducted a brass band. I got lost amongst strip clubs. I placed magical signs up on pillars. I ate eel. I played on taiko drums. I got lost again. I was a fish that became a dragon and went to heaven. I potted flowers. I was on Japanese news live. I spoke in Malay to a crowd of shoppers. I did the Chicken Dance. I did all sorts of dances.

All this in just one day.

Something interesting (in the Chinese sense of the word) happened to me yesterday night. I was taking the train to Nagaokakyo back to my host family, and I was in the Ladies Only compartment. One stop before mine, a guy came into our compartment. He sat there and looked intently at all the women remaining. I was standing; he was looking at me up and down a few times. We got off at the same station, and I was so afraid of him following me that I just ran out of the station - missing my host mum in the process. I didn't want him near me.

Today, while boarding the Ladies Only compartment, once again we were joined by a guy. No action taken; no police or anything. It felt so much more unsafe compared to the normal compartments because you (well, I) start to wonder about the guy: can he read? Is there a reason he's here? Can't he tell he's in the wrong place? What does he want from us? It's seriously creepy. I think I'll just go with the normal compartments from now on; at least you know what the men are there for.

We had the local news crew come film us today - some got picked for personal interviews, the rest of us just waved and greeted. It was live so I wonder if anyone eventually noticed us. We were potting plants and hanging them up (with some funky messages of hope and love written by us) on the pillars in the shopping street. Apparently it'll be there for ages. Yay for glamourbombing.

Some of us did recordings of a special message for shoppers in our language. I did mine in Malay; man have I forgotten the language. It took me a while to get simple words like "membeli-belah" out. We had to give out flyers and flower seeds for an event organized by an environmental NGO our group is working with this week; Danni and some others were super successful, while I just gave up halfway and gave the rest to Elizabeth. I'm sure there's some code word in Japanese that I'm missing.

Yoga shocked me today; he told me that I complain a lot about Malaysia and my faith. It's really odd because I'm not the sort to condemn other things (well perhaps my school but that's another story). I'm in a dilemma now; what did I say? When did "not for me" become "it sucks"? It's strange. huh.

We had a mini-Celebration today, with performances from a junior high school brass band, us (a way shortened version of our Whisks plus a fashion show and the Chicken Dance), a women's group, and a taiko drum group. The Taiko drum girls were really funny; they learnt the Chicken Dance and One To One very quickly! They're cool. We had flashing light rings today but the battery on mine was dead.

Speaking of the brass band - they had offered one UWP person to be a guest conductor for one song. I volunteered (well I had to play Scissors Paper Stone/Jan Kem Po with Peder to get it) and it was quite something. At first I looked at the kids and they looked at me because neither of us could figure out who starts first. With some prodding (in Japanese) from their teacher, I managed to do it. Fun! Not really as trancey as the Drum Circle but still cool.

I miss the Huddle.

And now I'm back. And I'm way sleepy. But I'm starting to like Osaka. It's fun.

By the time I get this posted, I will be 20 years old.

Finally legal in Japan - and oddly enough, right at this moment there is a birthday party going on on TV. Apparently there is a coming-of-age ceremony done earlier in the year for those turning 20...I missed it, but I'm sure I'll have a ceremony of sorts for my own.

My host family is waiting up for me, who knows why. They've been ultra sweet to me this past week, even though I've spent most of the week being ill and flu-ey and frustrated at not being completely capable at handling Japan. They keep giving Noelle and I things...fans, purses, toys, scarves, disposable cameras even.

They got me birthday cake! They thought I was turning 19 at first but then I explained my age and they were a lot happier. They plan on coming to see us in Nara, which is even cooler. So generous.

My sister called! Finally got to talk to her after about two months. I miss her voice, I miss talking to her. She was about two hours early but that's ok, at least I got to talk to her.

The article about me and my webmistressing has shown up in Seventeen's October issue back in Malaysia. If you can get your hands on it, please do. I haven't read it yet; I hope it's good! The day of the interview was really a series of mishaps so I'm a bit worried. If you have scans, do send them over.

Saturday was a really long day. A whole bunch of us went trekking around Nagoya - Nagoya Castle was quite nice, Zen-like almost. Unfortunately I grossly overestimated my health, and by the time we got downtown for lunch I was sick and dizzy. It didn't help that I had the worst time trying to figure out food (it took FOREVER to find something without pork and which was affordable - I still ended up paying through my nose), drinks (thank Goddess for an English-speaking person), and directions (why did the bookstore have to be one million miles away?!).

Everyone wanted to go for karaoke; I honestly wanted to go home, but I didn't want to be a wet blanket, and besides it didn't seem like they particularly cared about how I felt anyway. (Bally and Cristy were among the very, very few who cared enough to ask.) Karaoke wasn't too bad - they had Shima Uta, the Japanese song we're singing for the Celebration, so that made it funny.

We had all sorts of barbeque today at our host mum's sister's house - including cow tongue, which tastes like the rest of cow really. And Indian food! Of all the places to finish a glass of lassi, I had to do it in Japan. I normally avoid lassi since it's too sour for me, but the one I had today was actually quite nice.

This time period seems to be one of much change. There are people I know who have deep relationships broken. Some people are changing plans for life. Even I have made changes to plans; though really, it's not so much a change of plans as it is following my principle of taking the best opportunity that comes my way. (And I'm not a planner to boot.)

Before this trip I planned to finish off the second semester of my first year in college once I return from here. That's not likely to happen anymore. Right now the Up With People crew are looking out for people to return next semester as staff, and I am really looking forward to being one of those people. I can be Tom's assistant, since I keep doing the PR stuff anyway. Or some other External Relations thing. Or maybe something with Creative Productions or even Operations. Heck, make me the Official Webmistress, since that's part of my role at the moment (and I really have to buck up; I owe Tom an article. Oops.).

If I get offered a job, I'll take it - which means I won't be returning to LUCT. Most likely, if I get the job, I'll work there for a while and then continue college (or an even better opportunity) elsewhere. But not LUCT. Not the place that screwed me over at the worst time ever. I'm not giving them any more money.

Let's just hope I get offered a job, because Plan B doesn't look too inviting.

Ah, my host family has left for bed. Thank Goddess; I didn't want them to stay up late just because I'm following my tradition of staying up till it hits midnight September 26th, my birthday. (I'd like it if they'd join me, but I don't want to deprive them of sleep.) There's less than 10 minutes left...

Hopefully I'll get better at this Japan business. Hopefully I won't have to deal with even more illnesses. I suspect the humidity has much to do with this, since I get just as sick back home. Worse, even.

I wonder if it'll be weird to not be a teenager anymore. 20 is a strange sort of age; sure, it's the legal age in Japan, but in most places it's the in-between age. You're not quite adult but you're not a teenager either. It's like a trial year, with your actual initiation in 21.

There will be something quite interesting about 20, at least for me since I'm already on the road during it. It's the first time since I was about 4 that I've had a birthday overseas - as far as I remember anyway. And it's on a Travel Day to boot, so I'm moving around even more.

Miho's birthday is today! September 25th! We still have three minutes! We can both party on the bus, it'll be fun.

I wonder (yet, again) if anyone's sending me text messages on my birthday. I won't be able to check them since Japan's on a completely alien cell system. Too bad Maxis doesn't offer some sort of online text message checking service...they really should, it would be ultra useful.

One minute more. And even then it won't be my birthday officially. I was born at 11:07 AM Malaysian time - 12:07 PM Japan time. I still have half the day: maybe we'd already be in Maruko by then.

DING! DING! It's September 26th 2005; happy 20th birthday to ME!

The odd feeling I got when I came to Japan wasn't culture shock. It was a fever coming on.

Right now I'm at home resting - I'd rather rest now and miss a Community Impact day, than collapse again during our first Japanese Celebration. The CI project I signed up for was ratehr unpopular (cooking with international people) but hopefully it'll go well.

I'm not sure I mentioned this in my last entry, but Irina is here! Now we have a full group. She's quite cool, though understandably overwhelmed. Hopefully we'll be good friends.

We had an UWP corporate update yesterday from Bob. Our group was involved in quite a number of discussions regarding the program's future and from our feedback, some major changes are being implemented starting next semester.

1. The name of the program will be changed to Up With People Global Education Program. This takes advantage of the Up With People branding that has been established for over 40 years, and helps reconnect the program to alumni and anyone else involved with UWP's history. Also, there were tons of feedback from our group about the word "Leadership" being misleading (to the point that if anyone says "Let's talk about leadership" everyone starts laughing) so this name makes it more accurate.

2. There will not be any more college-style classes on the road. There will still be some form of education (a-la Stone Soup)but there will not be a split between those taking the classes and those doing internships. This allows for everyone to participate fully and gain the same experience together. Also, this allows for the internship opportunities to be spaced out during the week, not just during one day.

3. Because of the lack of classes, the partnership with University of Colorado - Denver has been mutually suspended. Instead, UWP will be looking for partnerships with international universities to recognize the program as a whole - for instance, their current partnership with Hawaii Pacific University allows students from there to gain credit for the whole trip. (Brandy, who is from HPU, and Christie from Northeartern, have this arrangement.)

4. Also because of the lack of classes, the tuition has been lowered to US$11,800 per person. I'm sure my parents are cursing me now.

5. The tour has been extended for 3 weeks - 4 weeks orientation in Denver, and a proper "on the road" city. Right now it's 2 weeks orientation and 1 "practice on the road" week in Denver. This allows for more teambuilding time and more time to fully understand the Celebration.

6. There will be efforts to make the Celebration more professionally produced. It will still very much be a student production, there won't be a sudden emphasis on recruiting performing arts students, and it won't be the major gala that UWP used to perform. But with the added time, there would be more opportunities to polish up the show.

This will be very interesting to watch, especially since I'm thinking of working on the road with them next semester if everything goes well. Hopefully this will bring greater benefits to the program and there won't be so many teething problems. It's great that they really listened to us and made the effort to incorporate our ideas.

World Expo tomorrow, lunch now. Woo!