Week #2 Lakeland Florida

Ok so we are onto week number #2 and I am still having a wonderful time. We had to go to the campus Monday- Saturday and I truly enjoyed every minute of the day and every moment of the week. This has to be saying something about this wonderful program. I am just so incredibly happy and content. I know I am in the perfect place for where I am right now in my life and my journey to finding out what I want to do next.

This was the first week of staging and orientation and it went by extremely fast. I think it is because I enjoyed every minute of it. The week’s activities included lots of educational workshops involving getting to know one another.  We explored many scenarios that we will most likely face quite often in our UWP semester. We also had tons of dance workshops, cast movement and vocal sessions. We had presentations on the UWP legacy and the Cast A 2013 tour and many other things as well. Overall this week was full of lots of learning, meeting new people and lots of exercise and singing. Because I love all of these things, I was in dog heaven despite how tired I was each day after being busy from 8am- 5:30 pm. Of course I had a few ups and downs. I had to work on my confidence when we did the modules (similar to auditions) and started competing for solos (both in music and dance) but for the most part I am having a ton of fun. I really enjoyed the dancing section of the week, which I did not fully expect. As a group of 100 we learned a country line dance and Jai Ho (a dance from India) from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I also learned a dance from Japan, which included many squats and moves very low to the ground. As a result my leg muscles are extremely sore. Sitting down on anything takes a lot of effort. As for the music, I started working with the vocal instructor on some of the medleys, which was very fun. Also as a cast we began working on the music for the show and boy do we move fast and furious. The music is quite amazing and I can only imagine how magnificent it will sound when it is all finished and ready to be performed.

            I also began to create many new friendships and learn about all the different cultures we have in our international cast. I think I have about 90 of the 100 names down. And yes I not only have the names memorized I can also match the name to the face. It is crazy that only after one week I already feel so close to everyone.  I can tell that I am going to be surrounded by wonderful people for the next 6 months and more importantly I will create lifetime friends from around the world. By the end of the semester I have no doubt that we will truly be a family, like it or not.

Now moving onto the host family portion. This week was very busy and  we only saw our host family in the evenings for a nightly dinner. Of course we were tired and they knew it so they made sure to feed us well, have lovely conversations and catch up on each of our days and then they would say… “Ok go get your stuff done and go to bed!” I am so lucky to have such a wonderful host family. They really are becoming like second parents. One day I came home and I had a bit of a rough afternoon and my host mom Maureen just gave me a huge squeeze and then my host dad said, “Guess what Misa? You are stuck with us for two extra weeks!” Originally we were going to transfer host families after the first 3 weeks but they decided to keep us. That was definitely one of the highlights of the week. The other highlight was last night when Maureen and Kevin took us out to eat alligator tail, frog legs and lots of other seafood like raw oysters and scallops! We went to a place called Gary’s and we had a wonderful time! It was totally southern style and we laughed the night away as we all tasted and tested the different fried seafood! The gator ended up being delicious and on the other side of the platter the frog legs were a little bland for my liking. The hardest thing to get down was the raw oyster, but I did it! Now I can check off those exotic foods from my bucket list of “things I must eat!” Our host parents are doing their best to give us a real taste of southern Florida. Next weekend we are hitting the beach and going to swim with manatees also known as “Sea Cows.” It will bring me right back to my homeland except I will be in an ocean instead of a Wisconsin pastureJ

Overall the week went well and the next time I write I am sure I will have many more fun stories to share! I feel so blessed and fortunate to be a part of such an amazing program and live with such a wonderful loving host family!