My OperaDecember 8th - Climate Change Day
Sunday, December 9, 2007 6:25:00 PM
Yesterday was a long day with several mixed emotions. We made it to the president of Costa Rica's house, along with the local elementary school kids who all dressed in green. The press was waiting there. Pictures taking, interviewing, filming, shouting... Marijose and Monique told a joke about "UWC answers". Strong feeling as it had been, when back at the bus to Santa Ana, everybody fell asleep. I guess we were all overwhelmed in one or another way.
The most worthy thing to see was the kids' attitude when they walked out the bus, keeping on shouting "se nota, se siente, el futuro esta caliente". I'm not sure if they really felt and understood what it meant, but this was definitely a great first step to become people who care. With UWCCR right in their neighborhood, as they would grow up they would definitely learn to do. It would have been much different if I had all of these in my childhood.
Then it was lunch. Then it was the rehearsal. Mattia registered for a performance in the school's presentation in the evening, but somehow didn't want to place. So I helped him out, I played his part. And we had 3 hours to came up with something and rehearse altogether - Quique, Juani, Nadim, Ken and me. This was the second time - the first time when we had started rehearsing something just a couple of hours before the actual performance was with Edgardo, Eleanor Rigby. But this one sounded great (as it should be).
I forgot the second keyboard's (Ken's) power adapter. Dauti brought that keyboard out, and I think I forgot to check if the power adapter was on the bus. The ironic thing was that I realized it 2 hours before I had to perform, but couldn't go back to get it. [Not going to detail here : you, how could you say that. I knew it was my fault, but you were sorry and I should have brought it from the beginning was all you wanted to tell me? I asked you for a favor you could do, and all you could tell me was that it was my fault, and there wasn't anything we could do about it.]
If Paola hadn't told me not to, I could have gone back to school by my own and taken it. But forget it. I just felt bad.
Ken went back to school early; Quique said that he had a bad conversation with somebody. Maybe.
Quique told me if I didn't enjoy it, no one in the band could, because it was a group work. I told him it was an average concept, and the effect of one on a whole shouldn't be that big. But maybe it was just an excuse. I'm mathematical enough to know that it was.
So did I enjoy it or not, I didn't really know. Playing music has been a habit for me, and I didn't think about anything else except for what we were playing - if you call that 'enjoy', then yeah I did.
(Just some funny thing: we were introduced as "Mattia y los companeros")
Nadim's guitar decided to stop working in the middle of his solo, so he went of the stage. So in the second half of the second time, there were only Quique, Juani and me. I tried to do something more dynamic with the keyboard, but the keyboard wasn't loud enough although I had put everything to the maximum. And beside, I didn't really have the gust either, since we were playing in a key which I didn't feel too comfortable with. Btw, the sound's quality was bad too.
Nadim didn't feel too happy about it either (he made a gesture of hammering his guitar). We went to cheer him up. Quique said "Something has to happen"; and when I thought of it, it was true. Murphy's law and whatever, I don't know, but something had to happen at some point. It was all about how we dealt with it.
But we did great, he said. We put everything together in a couple of hours, when Juani was tired and hungry, Ken was busy, I was frustrated and unreasonable. But we did our parts well on stage, Juani and I got each other in the ending. The quality of the sound was not our fault. And we performed on an unfamiliar stage, to an unfamiliar audience.
Maybe. I guess.
So overall, I'm not sure about how I felt yesterday. Coming back to school, I told Leila that I would be back for the residence party - but I decided not to. At check-in, I met Chase whose funny emails for the A2s I always enjoyed reading (although I'm not an A2s). Just exactly the kind of person I would like to spend time with now. So I stayed and did the check-in, while taking time decorating the check-in sheets, as I had done with the previous ones (this time with somewhat abstract concepts). It felt good when Yam saw it and said "so you were the one who had been drawing all those!".
Chase asked me what was wrong, and that I was not my cheerful self as usual. Long day, maybe. Ken said that I had a fight with him, as I did everyday. Well, maybe. True in some ways. Then Chase said something; well, he's not very trustworthy when it comes to keeping something secret.
It was an 11 hour sleep.
I woke up today at 10, not quite recovered yet. But recovered from what? I don't know.
I have another rehearsal today, for the CAS reflection day - don't know when though. And I'm supposed to go shopping with Yukiko to buy Sushi ingredients for the Christmas dinner on Tuesday.
Well, it's better than having nothing to do. In fact, I love being busy.
The most worthy thing to see was the kids' attitude when they walked out the bus, keeping on shouting "se nota, se siente, el futuro esta caliente". I'm not sure if they really felt and understood what it meant, but this was definitely a great first step to become people who care. With UWCCR right in their neighborhood, as they would grow up they would definitely learn to do. It would have been much different if I had all of these in my childhood.
Then it was lunch. Then it was the rehearsal. Mattia registered for a performance in the school's presentation in the evening, but somehow didn't want to place. So I helped him out, I played his part. And we had 3 hours to came up with something and rehearse altogether - Quique, Juani, Nadim, Ken and me. This was the second time - the first time when we had started rehearsing something just a couple of hours before the actual performance was with Edgardo, Eleanor Rigby. But this one sounded great (as it should be).
I forgot the second keyboard's (Ken's) power adapter. Dauti brought that keyboard out, and I think I forgot to check if the power adapter was on the bus. The ironic thing was that I realized it 2 hours before I had to perform, but couldn't go back to get it. [Not going to detail here : you, how could you say that. I knew it was my fault, but you were sorry and I should have brought it from the beginning was all you wanted to tell me? I asked you for a favor you could do, and all you could tell me was that it was my fault, and there wasn't anything we could do about it.]
If Paola hadn't told me not to, I could have gone back to school by my own and taken it. But forget it. I just felt bad.
Ken went back to school early; Quique said that he had a bad conversation with somebody. Maybe.
Quique told me if I didn't enjoy it, no one in the band could, because it was a group work. I told him it was an average concept, and the effect of one on a whole shouldn't be that big. But maybe it was just an excuse. I'm mathematical enough to know that it was.
So did I enjoy it or not, I didn't really know. Playing music has been a habit for me, and I didn't think about anything else except for what we were playing - if you call that 'enjoy', then yeah I did.
(Just some funny thing: we were introduced as "Mattia y los companeros")
Nadim's guitar decided to stop working in the middle of his solo, so he went of the stage. So in the second half of the second time, there were only Quique, Juani and me. I tried to do something more dynamic with the keyboard, but the keyboard wasn't loud enough although I had put everything to the maximum. And beside, I didn't really have the gust either, since we were playing in a key which I didn't feel too comfortable with. Btw, the sound's quality was bad too.
Nadim didn't feel too happy about it either (he made a gesture of hammering his guitar). We went to cheer him up. Quique said "Something has to happen"; and when I thought of it, it was true. Murphy's law and whatever, I don't know, but something had to happen at some point. It was all about how we dealt with it.
But we did great, he said. We put everything together in a couple of hours, when Juani was tired and hungry, Ken was busy, I was frustrated and unreasonable. But we did our parts well on stage, Juani and I got each other in the ending. The quality of the sound was not our fault. And we performed on an unfamiliar stage, to an unfamiliar audience.
Maybe. I guess.
So overall, I'm not sure about how I felt yesterday. Coming back to school, I told Leila that I would be back for the residence party - but I decided not to. At check-in, I met Chase whose funny emails for the A2s I always enjoyed reading (although I'm not an A2s). Just exactly the kind of person I would like to spend time with now. So I stayed and did the check-in, while taking time decorating the check-in sheets, as I had done with the previous ones (this time with somewhat abstract concepts). It felt good when Yam saw it and said "so you were the one who had been drawing all those!".
Chase asked me what was wrong, and that I was not my cheerful self as usual. Long day, maybe. Ken said that I had a fight with him, as I did everyday. Well, maybe. True in some ways. Then Chase said something; well, he's not very trustworthy when it comes to keeping something secret.
It was an 11 hour sleep.
I woke up today at 10, not quite recovered yet. But recovered from what? I don't know.
I have another rehearsal today, for the CAS reflection day - don't know when though. And I'm supposed to go shopping with Yukiko to buy Sushi ingredients for the Christmas dinner on Tuesday.
Well, it's better than having nothing to do. In fact, I love being busy.
Unregistered user # Sunday, December 9, 2007 7:27:12 PM