About Mabel Stafford
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The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid is going to be performed next week. AH! We are doing the preview this week! We’re probably going to have to perform She’s In Love or Positoovity. Maybe Under The Sea. Poor Unfortunate Soul is doing well.
Official China Trip Reflection
I enjoyed visiting China over break
It was smoggy, but that’s okay
I saw the Great Wall and I found out
It’s not as tall as I thought
But it wasn’t disappointing because
I was still enjoying it, though
It required a lot of hiking.
I was always interested in the Forbidden City
I was told China was pretty
I was correct.
I tried some new foods,
But not a whole lot
Yet it wasn’t quite as bad
As I’d thought
I got through,
Though it’s true
The experience wouldn’t have
Been so different by half
If I hadn’t had to try new foods.
We visited a school and got paired with a buddy
Her name was Amy
She was very friendly
The classes were in english, but the style was different
Now I’m a little more prepared for high school.
Bei Jing, Su Zhou, and Shang Hai
All had a different vibe
But they had different styles
Which made us all smile
I’m so glad I visited China.
China Trip
We started with a 15 hour plane trip. Delightful. We arrived in Shang Hai first, and we went to our hotel. After that, we went to dinner. We were going to walk around the city, but we were too tired, so we went back to our hotel early. We visited the french concession and the Shang Hai Bund. Soon, we were off to Su Zhou. We visited a school and spent the day with our Chinese buddies. Elijah broke his foot. Then we took a plane to Bei Jing. We saw the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and Tian An Men Square. We went to a Peking Duck place (not my favorite), and we went to a busy shopping street. Then we took the plane home.
Initiative in Workshop Prep
During this process, I have determined that we don’t have much (initiative). We are working on doing more earlier, and without being told to. I think we are definitely doing better than when we started, but we still have some work to do. I think we are just procrastinators. But we are working on that.
All-American Boys
We just started a new book called “All-American Boys”. We’ve only read two chapters so far, one from the point of view of both of the main characters. The story alternates between a black boy and a white boy: Rashad and Quinn. When Rashad gets accused of stealing at the general store (he was going to pay for the chips and it was all a misunderstanding), a nearby cop starts beating him up. He ends up in the hospital. Quinn was watching it happen. He and his friends were waiting outside the same store, looking for someone who would agree to buy them beer for a party that night (which Rashad was also supposed to be at, which is why he was at the store in the first place). Quinn went around the corner to wait outside the entrance, about to find the person he was looking for, when the cop pushes Rashad outside. The worst thing about it is that Quinn recognizes the cop. His name is Paul, and he is Quinn’s best friend’s older brother. They used to hang out all the time. Eventually, Quinn finds out that the kid he was beating up for no reason was one of his classmates, ROTC kid, even. Now Quinn has to pick a side, Paul, or right. Rashad has to keep himself alive under a broken nose and some ribs, and some false charges. The two barely know each other, but now they are part of history together.
My American Born Chinese Essay
The first thing I noticed was that I had way more typos than usual. We were given a week to write and edit this essay by ourselves, which I’m not used to. I didn’t have as much time or diverse opinions, so it wasn’t really up to my standards. My topic was love, more specifically, how it can be both uplifting and damaging. I talked about how it caused the fall of the main character’s science project (literally), and how he ended up hurting himself and his friends. His problem was that he tried too hard to be American, and he literally turned into an American boy. He said some nasty things to his friend right before he transformed. I ended by connecting it to some Greek mythology: the story of Echo and Narcissus (which works as two examples), and the story of Apollo and Daphne. But apparently I wrote more than I meant to about that. The connection was good, though. What can I say? I’m interested!
Drama Intensives
1/9/18
We started the first intensives of the year yesterday. I’m in Drama. We had to move all the desks in Suzanne’s room so we could start. We started by playing a couple games to get to know each other a little better, and to get the energy up. We finished by asking a partner 3 question and going around the circle and sharing our partners’ answers. We asked:What animal would you be and why, what human habit really annoys you, if you could have lunch with any living person, who would it be? I answered: a cat because that would be a really interesting experience, when people talk to you about random things when you clearly have your headphones in and are listening to something else, and Camila Cabello or Beyonce.
Science project 2017-18 (w/ Rob)
What we did was we made a trash can that tells people to not put their trash in it when it overflows. We would add a lid, but we didn’t have time. I can’t actually put it on the blog, so here’s a link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p4kcjeqFbE8NPRc-DzPq5nqMGUbN9gbn/view?usp=sharing
Winter Concert 2017
I thought one of our best songs was Africa, even though Sierra and I were a little unsure. The boys in the second verse were a little quiet, but we did pretty well with the rain sounds. I was very proud of Africa for the whole group, and I was also proud of the ‘I bless the rains’ descant. I think that went very well. My biggest challenge was learning the third verse, the dah dah dah part. We never really figured it out, and we tried to practice during the warm up, but we got interrupted every time we were about to get to that part. I thought we did okay overall, although it could have been better.
Twelfth Night
This year the play is Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. It’s a comedy that revolves around a love-struck lord, two separated twins (boy and girl), a lady in mourning, some drunk troublemakers with a scheming lady’s maid, and a whole lot of bad luck. I play Malvolio, who is the servant of the lady Olivia. She lost her father and brother, and pledged to mourn for 7 years and not love until it was over. Malvolio runs her household, and is the closest thing she has to a father at the moment. But Malvolio’s strict ways earned him some enemies. He gets locked in the closet because he’s basically the communal punching bag. Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are drunks. Sir Andrew wishes to court the lady, but gets nowhere. Sir Toby is Olivia’s uncle, and in a relationship with Maria (pronounced Mariah). Maria is Olivia’s maid, the secondary head of the house. She and the drunks dislike Malvolio, so they set him up to read a letter that he thinks is from Olivia. They do this with some aid from Fabian, who is a troublemaker in Olivia’s household. It’s totally embarrassing. Antonio has saved Sebastian, the male twin, but has enemies in the court of the Count Orsino, who loves Olivia. Viola, the female twin, is saved by the Sea Captain, and pretends to be a dude. She falls for Orsino. Our best show was Friday night, but we have a few mishaps. Overall, it went pretty well.
