NAD 2010

When I left off, I believe I had just finished covering Thursday. As Friday started, I felt like a total zombie. I hadn't clawed my way into bed until after 1...making me very tired. I did make it through my classes though and at the end of the day, I felt quite pleased with myself for making it through the week. Friday afternoons are always something that I look forward to. For the past 5-6 weeks, I have gone into town every Friday afternoon. Rather than go into town for shopping, I go to Traveler's Cafe. It's very reminiscent of some coffee shops at home. It's a very comfortable spot to go and relax for a couple of hours and it has reasonably fast internet, something that can never be underestimated. When I got back to campus, it was time for a brief rest while I ate dinner, then it was off to NAD Global Issues. Every cultural day runs Global Issues the day before to raise awareness about a pressing issue within that region. For our global issues, we had three presentations, one about immigration in America, another about finding identity as a minority in America, and finally about marginalization and oppression in modern American society. While I attended the presentation about immigration, I hear that all three were enlightening and very constructive. The global issue that I attended was actually a movie about an immigration battle in Prince William County, Virginia. The movie was very interesting and extremely representative of what is going on in Arizona at the moment.

After Global Issues, I dashed back to my dorm to get checked, at which point I returned to the theater once more to play the NAD movie for that evening--Back to the Future. The show theme was very closely based on that film, so we played the movie to ensure that everyone would understand the show theme. Everyone enjoyed the movie and I was just about to lock up the booth and leave for the night when Kevin, the Lighting CAS leader, came sprinting up the stairs. Apparently, the lighting cues for the show still hadn't been programmed into the board, so we needed get them in...fast. For the next 2.5 hours, we sat in the booth, in a totally dark theater, programming the cues into the board. Needless to say, the security guard was quite surprised when he saw us working on lighting. It was a necessary sacrifice, however, to ensure that the show had good lighting...not that I saw it that way as I crawled into bed at 3 AM.

I was up bright and early Saturday morning (well, for me), in anticipation of a busy schedule. My schedule on Saturday started at 11 AM, and ended at 2 AM Sunday morning. That's how insanely busy I was. First up, at 11, was setting up the after-NAD party. Most parties here are held in the student center, a pretty big room underneath the dining hall in the castle. For NAD, however, we really wanted to do a "house party", and so we needed a house or something that looked like it. In fact, we were very close to being granted permission to use our President's house. Unfortunately, the house, which belongs to the school, has white carpets...and we did not want to ruin them. Instead, we managed to get hold of the Sasakawa Center on campus, a lovely building next to the library on campus...which happens to be our teacher lounge. Yes, we did party it up inside our school's teacher lounge...we were quite pleased with ourselves. Typically, students aren't allowed inside the Sasakawa Center, so being allowed to have a party in there was quite an achievement.

It took us about an hour to set up all the sound equipment and prepare the DJ table. At cultural day parties, the DJs are typically from that region. Unfortunately, none of our normal second-year DJs were from NAD. Instead, we had to go to first-year DJs from NAD...which meant Eric and me. Somehow, I found myself accepting the offer to DJ...and so I was slightly nervous as I set up the party. DJing can either go very well, or very badly. After I set up the party, I had a slight rest while I ate brunch. Immediately after brunch, it was time to go to yet another rehearsal...this time specifically for tech. We worked our way through the show, getting used to the transition, and working with the cues that we had programmed in the previous night. We also had a couple of skits do some last-minute rehearsals, so that we could sync up tech with the performers. By the end of the rehearsal, the whole tech crew felt reasonably good about the show after feeling very nervous about it earlier that week.

My next engagement was with the kitchen. As part of NAD, the NADers cook a big dinner for the whole school and then serve it. In order to pull off this massive effort, a whole bunch of NADers worked in shifts starting on Friday afternoon and stretching through Saturday. I had signed up to help with the cooking and thus was given a shift on Saturday afternoon. I arrived at the kitchen slightly late (due to the tech rehearsal), but I was immediately thrown into the final preparations for dinner. It was pretty cool working in the cafeteria kitchen, which is a massive industrial kitchen, producing a lot of food each day. Working in a commercial kitchen is a very different experience that a small home kitchen. The experience was pretty positive overall, and I enjoyed it a lot. Once my cooking shift ended, I sprinted back to my dorm, so that I could get changed into my server outfit. I was actually really excited about serving. I have never waited on tables before, so this experience was going to be an interesting one. All the servers had to dress in a 1920s style, which meant white shirt, black pants, and a half apron. The theme of our dinner was a "1920s Speakeasy". To pull this theme off, the dining hall had to be decorated. To prepare the decorations, we placed old alcohol bottles all over the cafeteria. Combined with some simple table decorations, dimmed lights, a live student band, and a really cool entrance, the dining hall looked amazing. To further complete the speakeasy theme, we closed off the main entrance to the dining hall and let everyone in through a side door. To get in, students had to utter a "password". Just inside the entrance, in a little antechamber, sat Don Morgante and his mobsters playing poker. They "ran" the speakeasy. Ultimately, everyone loved the theme, and the dining hall looked amazing. Serving was pretty intense, as we had to get all the food out and then cleanup inside of an hour.

We had exactly an hour between dinner ending and the show starting. Needless to say, that was a fairly hectic hour. I had to get changed out of my formal clothes and back into jeans and a t-shirt for my first skit. Before long, I found myself sitting in the tech booth, awaiting the start of the show. The beginning of show came off without a hitch, with all the tech coming together. My first skit was only 3 skits in, so I had to leave the booth only 15 minutes into the show. During one of the transitions between skits, I sprinted down the stairs and out a side door...and ran around to the back of the theater. As I waited in the wings for my skit, I was incredibly nervous. My performance was pretty easy though: It was a skit on High School Stereotypes and I was the loner...I only had one line. I managed to get through it and soon I found myself back in the booth, with the entirety of Act 1 to relax. The show progressed really well and by the intermission, nothing had gone wrong! I mentally prepared myself for the next two skits that I had to do.

Act 2 started off well and before long, it was time for me to go backstage to get ready for my next two performances. I changed into jeans and a flannel shirt ready for my square dance skit. I had somehow gotten involved with square dancing early on and had actually come to enjoy it. My partner, Hannah, is a really good friend of mine, so we actually had a really good time performing it. The dance came off without a hitch, but immediately after the dance, I had to sprint back to the changing room in order to change for my next skit, which was one after the square dance skit. Dressed in all black, I made my way onto the stage, mentally ready to perform in the most mold-breaking skit ever. As the music came on, the curtain opened, and we moved to our positions, I couldn't think about anything but the dance. Why was this skit so nerve-wracking? Well, I must say, Lady Gaga certainly has some....overtly sexual dances. I mean...just watch this video and you'll understand. (I'm the person on the right) Once I'd finished that skit, I felt incredible. Doing something that different just gave me an amazing feeling...I certainly smashed some stereotypes that night!

The rest of the show went very well and the audience clearly loved it! The finale was great--it featured everyone in the cast and crew dancing to two very simple dance. All in all, the show came off really well and everyone was very impressed. For me, so many of my friends were impressed, pleased, and surprised at my Lady Gaga performance that I don't think they'll ever think the same of me again! (That's a good thing!) Immediately after the show, I headed back to my dorm to prepare for the after party. (Keep in mind, at this point, I had been on the move for nearly 12 hours and counting). Dressed in jeans and a hoodie, I got to the Sasakawa Center at around 10:30, ready for the party at 11! I had never realized quite how much fun being a DJ is...we played all-American music and got a lot of compliments for it. Several people I spoke to after the party absolutely loved the music, the atmosphere...everything really.

The party ended at 2 AM, a grueling hour even for the most rested of souls. By the end of the party, I had made my way through 6 cans of Diet Coke in an effort to stay awake. I was awake, but only a faint margin. The party organizers (which included myself) stayed behind after everyone had left to help clean up. The Sasakawa Center was a MESS! We did our best to clean up and once everything was back in its normal place, the center looked a lot better. If we had had a vacuum, it would have looked even better, but alas, there wasn't a vacuum available for us to use.

I left the Sasakawa at around 2:30, and made my way back to my dorm. I was exhausted. I was finally starting to feel the strain of the past week. Although I was tired, I was so happy. The day could not have gone better and I had survived NAD! The experience will remain part of my UWC memories for a long, long time. I don't think I could have imagined a better outcome.

With this post, my blog is going dark for at least a week. I have semester final exams coming up this week, and alas, I don't have time to post until at least next Saturday. Wish me luck on my exams!