Okay, so this will be my finale blog entry ever on this blog. Let's make it a good one. So after being with this program since November, the experience has been exhilarating! After being in this program for quite some time (years), it was the first time where I actually had this much followup to the initial field trip. My initial feels on the program were like how all other field trips went to the Neilson Park Centre. Honestly, I felt that it was a snooze-fest (no offense). I knew what was coming; I knew that we were going to make some oil pastel drawings and we were going to discuss them. I thought that was it. What I didn't anticipate was this whole big performance and this blogging thing that came later. Frankly, I thought it was a nice experience and something different. I've already talked about how I felt with the initial thoughts on the trip, but now, let's talk about the whole spoken word process!
The first thing we did was choose a human right from a list. My group had some difficulty choosing a right due to some indecisive people *cough*. So like any group of wise men, or should I say 'wise guys', we decided to take a vote. Eventually, we chose the right: Everyone has the right to a fair and public trial. We choose to this right because my group thought it would be the easiest to write about and take the least amount of time. However, due to time constraints, we actually took the longest time to write than any other group. I actually found that ironic how in our effort to try to find the right which would save the most time, we actually took the most time to write our poem. Funny ain't it? Heh...
Over the next weeks, I got assigned to a poem with my partner, Adrian. Our poem that we had to recite was about the right: Everyone is equal despite differences in skin colour, sex, religion, and language. Much to my dismay, it turned out that this poem just somehow ended up being twice as long as any other poem. Thanks Brian... We learned the to coordinate our voices to deliver the poem more effectively, which is quite hard; harder than you'd expect. Not only getting the timing down was hard, but you'd also have to do this in sync with the movers of your group. Speaking of which, our movers were Sion, Sabhat, and Jaedan. I think they did a good job conveying the poem, but occasionally, they requested us to slow down parts, but other than that, reading was pretty straight forward. One of the most problematic parts was at "Whether black or white, it doesn't matter." That seemed to be where I would mess up a lot. I had slow down at that part but also pause before reading it. I felt that this would often through me off balance and completely change up the pace of the poem. Another controversial part of the poem is at the line "I may be a female." This would initially always get a chuckle. I think its due to the little kid in all of us. Eventually we got over this (we had to), and got our routine pretty down pat.
Later on when we were ready, we did some rehearsals. The first couple of times were just by ourselves and we ended with Mrs Walton doing a final nit-picking session (where she stops us multiple times during our performance to make it perfect). I didn't like that part very much, mainly due to the fact that I GOT STOPPED THE MOST TIMES OUT OF ANY OTHER GROUP! Argh, I nearly had a heart attack! Anyways, with that aside, the next rehearsal we did was with all the other classes. My class was the last performance which gave me time to study the script. At first we did everything like normal but then Mrs. Walton decided to have all the speakers say the last line for effect. I personally thought that this added to the performance and ended it with a 'boom'. Overall, I think the performance was pretty good.
Well, now's the time for the big performance. When we arrived, it was like a blast of nostalgia right in my face. I don't know if you can relate though? So basically long story short, we bummed around, played ninja, had a coaching session for the speakers, and ate pizza. Until the big performance where we had get real and clean up our act. But before that, we also did 2 rehearsals. The second of which was not my finest moment... Basically at the end, me and Adrian were supposed to say the last word (vanity) together, however, I missed it and it sounded like "Vanity-ity." Shortly after, I whispered "Dammit," and it got picked up by the microphone... So... Yeah... Enough about that, on the actual performance though, thankfully, I didn't repeat the same mistake. Could you imagine what would've happened?! I was so relieved that it actually felt like time sped up, as it seemed like moments later I was back at school.
Overall, I thought that this experience as a whole was certainly good. It took a little time for me to get into it but once I did, it was rewarding. This performance to me was one of those moments where I don't want to do it, but I'm happy about myself that I did it. If you gave me another chance to do this, I certainly would. Seeing the whole performance come together was certainly something to remark and I don't think that the moment could be captured again. It was like watching the end of a good movie or something like that. Where you feel completed that you watched it all but sad that its over. I can relate because the movie "Wreck-it Ralph" gave me the same feeling. I loved the quote: "I'm bad, and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one that I'd rather be than me..." Anyways, as I'm writing this, I'm wondering, what is one quote that you strive to live by? I'd love to get some interesting results! Anyways, I'm getting off topic, but to all reading this, cheers!
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