Doing The College Dance

Like many of my fellow juniors in high school across the country, I have officially begun the college fateful process. It’s very daunting and mildly depressing. It involves asking yourself a lot of big and scary questions like, “Can I successfully live here for four years of my life? Does this school have good food? Are my grades good enough? Am I working hard enough? What if I don’t like the food?” and other existential questions like that. It also can be a bit repetitive as well. A lot of the liberal arts schools that I’ve visited in my Northeastern area have a lot of the same things to say. For example, if I hear another tour guide make the joke that their “football team is undefeated since 1978” (because they haven’t had a team since then), I may throw up a little bit. Also, many of these schools seem to think that they’re very unique in that they have the blue light safety system. I’m afraid that you’re not special in that sense. You all have blue lights so give yourselves a pat on the back and have a gold star. 

While the college process is painful in some of these respects, it’s also quite exciting and interesting. Many of the schools I’ve looked at seem to be providing some great programs for young adults to benefit from. As I walk around the campuses of all these colleges, I get really excited by the idea that the people attending these places are going to be our future. And I get to be part of that future. The whole thing gives me a positive outlook on the future generations of the human race. Instead of sighing and saying, “Ugh, kids these days”, it makes think, “Kids these days? Hell yeah!”.

Theatre Memory Lane: PART 2

Sixth grade arrived, and along with it, Bye Bye Birdie. I was delighted to find that in the town of Sweet Apple, Ohio, I would be playing Kim herself, for the (entire!) solo song, How Lovely to be a Woman. That was my biggest part yet! Next year was seventh grade, and with it first was Guys and Dolls, a real classic. At first, I was cast as the Master of Ceremonies, who announces the Hot Box girls twice and then never returns, but the girls who played the Hot Box girls thought that they had awful parts, and so they quit and I got their parts. So I ended up getting their parts, and thus about three times the part I would’ve gotten. So it all worked out in the end. And, as luck would have it, since Guys and Dolls was the junior high show, and I go to a Jr.-Sr. high school, and the high school musical that year was Sound of Music. Lucky for me, they needed children in 7^th grade and 8^th grade to play the younger children of the Von Trapp family, and I tried out and got the part of Kurt, the younger son. That was a HUGE accomplishment for me, even though I had already been Brigitta 3 in the same show, which is a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (sarcasm) better part. Finally, as a tribute to my first show, my last show that I performed with this theatre program was Wizard of Oz. I had the much bigger role of Auntie Em this time though, and she sings (who knew?!) a big introduction to the finale. Even though I’ve had some big parts and some not-so-big parts, I always love my journeys in the magical world of theatre.

Theater Memory Lane -- Part 1

I love to sing and act. I have been in every school show since first grade, plus some camp shows. Although I had two repeats, almost all of the shows I’ve ever been in take place in somewhere different, whether in this world or out of it. In first grade, I was a munchkin (one of the only ones with a line) in The Wizard of Oz, and I spent all of my time in Munchkinland. Second grade brought Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, as the chorus again, but the setting featured both Jerusalem and Egypt. In third grade, we traveled to Austria in The Sound of Music, where I had my first big role as Brigitta 3, and I sang the song, “My Favorite Things,” (which you can read about in one of Frosty’s posts from a past year) with my “siblings.” Next year was Peter Pan, and I was delighted to be playing Wendy in the scene where she, Peter, Michael, and John all have various solos (yay) in the song “Flying.” As that character in that part of the show, I was only in the setting of the Darlings’ house in London, and the clouds and stars in the sky on the way to Neverland. Fifth grade arrived and along with it came Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I played Mrs. Gloop, first in Germany, and then again once inside the chocolate factory in England. 

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2…

(Sorry! I have homework!)-Holly

It's In The Genes

Have you ever taken one of those genetics ancestry tests?  They are really cool at first swipe, if you will.  Once you get past the gross part of spitting into a tube, sealing it up and mailing it, the rest is just sitting back and waiting for your results to come in the mail. 

My husband did this recently.  It turns out his ancestors are pretty much from where he thought they would be: 98% from Eastern Europe.  But lo and behold, 2% were actually from Ireland.  And when he finally stopped walking around greeting everybody with a “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!” we started to discuss what this actually means.  When you delve into what this number implies, it is somewhat of a mathematical conundrum. 

If you’re 2% Irish, does this mean one of your predecessors from your parents on up to your great, great, great, great grandparents was a full-blooded Irishman?  And what does it mean to be an “Irishman”? Does it mean that your ancestor was born in Ireland and stayed there and then met and procreated with one of those aforementioned Eastern Europeans?  And how do the Ancestry people identify an Irishman from say, an Italian?  I am guessing it is a string of genes found in the majority of people who live in that region.  But doesn’t every region have people who migrated from somewhere else?  There are lots of variables to consider here…

It gets even more confusing.  The Ancestry people say that as more and more people get tested, your results can actually change.  Which says to me this moving target has a learning curve.  Yeah, we think people like you were from here, but now there seems to be even more people like you waaay over there so now we think you are from Africa…

And to add a whole other layer to this, the Ancestry people say they can identify your cousins with great accuracy.  This part seems a bit dangerous to me: if you do not know who your cousins are, then somebody did something secretive and illegitimate somewhere and does not want anybody else to know, and has managed to keep anybody else from knowing.  Until today.

Now the rest of the family needs to get tested.  But until then, top o’ the mornin’ to you?

-- Eve

The Alien Issue

I was discussing with my Mom the other day how there's an large amount of illegitimacy in movies and books when depicting aliens. For some reason, as a species, we have assumed that if we were to come across foreign life, they would be similar to us in shape and ideas. 

Let me rephrase this: from an evolutionary standpoint, there is no reason that aliens would be bipedal, have any limbs whatsoever, or even have any recognizable features for that matter. The only reason that humans share these features with other earthly critters is because of a common ancestor. A creature from a different planet would not have that evolutionary ancestor in common, and so it most likely would not have any similar traits. It could even very well be incomprehensible to us, beyond our imaginations. 

Another point to consider is that our concept of life could be different from the existence of something else. What is life as we know it? I don't mean to be philosophical here; I mean it literally. Something that is considered alive by us is made up of organic and cellular matter. Who is to say that something that we would perceive as an existing being would be made up of similar materials? There is no reason for it. If there is life of some sort in the universe, I don't think it will come forth in the form of tiny green men.

Peace.
-- Rudolph