Sydney (Part 2)

On day 3, we planned a cruisy day. We thought we'd sleep in, then catch a ferry to the suburb that my aunt's (Russell's partner) parents lived in and hang out with them for the afternoon. After Russell and Karen (my aunt) finished work they would meet us there and we'd have a big family dinner.

Tony and Julia (Aunt's parents) picked us up from the ferry terminal and we had coffee at a nearby cafe. We had Jack with us and thought after making him endure the boredom of adult conversation for so long we'd better do something a bit more on the fun side.

 Tony and Julia live across the road from a bay and have a boat house with several kayaks and a dinghy with an outboard motor in it. The oldies were quite content to stay around the house chatting, so I decided to go kayaking with Jack. It was a really hot day again, so paddling around the bay seemed the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

After dinner, another plan was hatched. Russell decided that he would take and Karen's brother, who had been with us at dinner, and I to town to give me a taste of the night life in Sydney and to see the Art and About Exhibitions that were only around at night. At this point, I hadn't even explored the Wellington night scene so I was quite excited to be heading into a big city after dark.

We got driven to the nearest train station where we jumped a train into the city. Nathan (Karen's brother) had a hell of a time with a self service ticketing machine which wouldn't take his card and when he finally got his ticket, the gate wouldn't scan it to let him through. Our train was at the platform as we arrived so we didn't really have time to mess around with it. He jumped over the barrier and probably looked pretty shifty doing it but we made our train so all was well.

The Art and About exhibitions were first on the agenda. We went to the park that the signs with faces and photo exhibitions were set up in because in a different part they had a night exhibition. The piece was basically three different projections of different peoples faces onto trees to make it look as though the trees had faces. To add to the spooky factor, they weren't still images of faces, they were blinking, sleeping, yawning, wrinkled, expressive faces. It truly was an amazing spectacle and quite freaky seeing big faces on trees. They looked so alive.

The other exhibition we saw was a series of projections at various locations around a city block designed as a recreation of the old Australia Hotel which was once a hub for societies elite and was demolished for more modern buildings to be put in. It was a cool concept but the projections were small and grainy. The execution was quite a let down compared to what they could have done with it.

The first bar we went to was a nothing sort of a place. We basically just went in to have a beer and think about a plan of attack. We tried to get into one place that Russell had thought could be fun. It seemed pretty cool when we started getting close, there were drag queens everywhere in massive platform shoes and most of these guys/gals would've been tall people without the help. Unfortunately they had a private function going on so that was the end of that plan.

Instead, we ended up at the coolest bar I've ever seen. Russell remembered that there was this hole-in-the-wall type place somewhere down a little side street so we went there. We spent a couple of minutes walking up and down the street before a guy who looked like just an ordinary guy came up and asked us if we were looking for "Shady Pines." We told him that we were and he opened what had previously been a wall but was now a door to reveal a busy little bar.

Their set-up was very small town American, there were license plates, deer heads and native american statues all around the place. It was the size of a small house but there must have been about 150 people in there. We had a couple of bourbon and cokes there and watched an awesome couple dance like pros for about 45 minutes. It was surreal being inside this place, a world away from Sydney and then stepping back outside into the silence of  the dimly lit side street.

For our last stop of the night we took a taxi to a different part of Sydney and ended up sitting in an Irish pub. They were screening an international cricket match which New Zealand and I think Sri Lanka were playing in. They had a guy playing covers in the corner there who was rather good as well. We had a couple of beers there and watched New Zealand get beat in an extra over game before heading home for the night.

I woke up bright and early the next morning to pack up all my stuff. We didn't have anything exciting planned for the day other than putting me on my flight home. Grandma, Jack and I ventured to an indoor market they have in Gladesville and bought some nice stuff to have for lunch. After lunch we had Tony and Julia pick us up to take me to the airport.

When we got to the airport I said goodbye to Jack, who was having a hard time pretending not to be sad at my departure and was on my own. I checked in, cleared customs and had a quality meal at McDonalds before heading to my gate and boarding what ended up being a smooth flight home.

My trip to Sydney was a much needed getaway from Wellington and put me in a good head space. I had a lot of fun seeing the public art around the city and being in a big place that reminded me so much of America.  It was also nice enjoying some summer weather as at the time New Zealand hadn't really come out of winter yet. All in all it was a lovely 4 day holiday. Next post will be about the premiere of The Hobbit.

Sydney (part 1)

As I briefly mentioned in the last post, In late September I was given the wonderful opportunity to travel to Sydney, Australia with my grandma. Despite being a short-lived venture as was also previously mentioned, it was a lot of fun and was definitely a much needed getaway. It also provided a sort of cosmic assurance that quitting my job was a good move as I would not have been able to go had I still been working at the time.

The night before our trip, we stayed in a hotel next to Auckland airport. I'd taken to insomnia like a fish to water from early September virtually until present (December 4th) so it was an awful night for me. I didn't sleep until about 3am and we had to be up around 5.00 to get ready and check in by 6.00. After check in and a McDonalds breakfast with my dad and grandad we cleared customs and eventually boarded.

We arrived to a wonderful Sydney day, the temperature was about 25 C (77 F) which was a whole lot better than the NZ winter temperatures we'd been getting at home at the time (somewhere between 10-14 C , 50-60 F) My uncle who we were going to stay with came and picked us up from the airport along with his dog Cherokee. We went for a cup of coffee with uncle Russell at a cafe not far from their house and spent the rest of the day relaxing at their house in the suburb of Gladesville.

Our first real day in Sydney we decided to take my ten year old cousin Jack over to Manly for a walk around the beautiful coast there and to have a look in a few of the shops. This was a particularly fun trip as we used the Sydney ferry system to get around for the day which is a novel thing for me. We took one ferry into the Darling Harbour area (pretty much the central terminal) and from there it was about an hour to an hour and a half's trip across the water to Manly. When we got to Manly, grandma surprised us both with a visit to a cafe that served chocolate exclusively. I had the best hot chocolate of my life along with the richest brownie I've ever eaten. Jack and I loved it but vowed never to eat chocolate again after that, a pact I'd bet we've both since broken.

After our chocolate overload we went on a long walk around the coast, which was absolutely spectacular. It was bloody hot out and so the beaches were packed with gold-skinned people mixed with water that sparkled in the sunlight. Jack enjoyed having the opportunity to run around and climb on the rocks while grandma and I enjoyed the sights and the natural beauty of the place. We spent a few hours in Manly before catching the ferry back to Darling Harbour and from there back to where we had left the car, near Gladesville. I think it'd be safe to say we all slept well that night.

On day 2 we sat down with Russell who had some ideas about what we could have a look at around town. There was an art festival on called Art and About which we thought could be fun, so we mapped out a couple of exhibits we could have a look at. We took Jack with us again and caught the bus into the heart of Sydney.

The first thing we wanted to look at was a piece featuring a house which had been set up in a public space and equipped with a holey roof and a sprinkler system so as to make it rain constantly inside. When we got there, Jack decided he wasn't keen any more but I was intrigued with the concept. I had to take off my shoes, roll my pants up to my knees and put on a raincoat to prevent myself from getting too wet. The place stank of rotting wood but it was interesting to see a fully furnished house this way. The sink full of dishes was overflowing, the toilet was filling up, the bed-sheets had puddles forming and it was extremely gloomy. Being inside the raining house even just for the minute I was in there for was actually quite depressing which was the artists intent. It was supposed to portray the hostile feeling when a relationship inside a household is bad and people aren't talking to each other, which it did frighteningly well.

Unfortunately, most of the other things that had looked interesting in the flyer were night pieces only but we did manage to see an excellent photo exhibition set up on big sheets of canvas by a park including a section of works by children which were awesome. There were also a series of electronic road signs set up in a different part of the same park which were programmed to display different "facial expressions" from : ) to o.O kind of thing. The whole festival was very well put together.

I didn't realise this trip would turn into such a long post so I'm going to split it into two to save you the trouble of reading a massive post in one sitting while still doing the trip justice so I'll end this one here with a to be continued...

An Update on Life

I haven't blogged in two months and that's partially because the things worth writing about happen too infrequently to post more regularly and partially because I don't very often have the motivation to write a few hundred words on things that have just happened. It's nice to take some time between living something and remembering it. Anyways here's an update on things that have happened in the last two months.

 In August I got a job at McDonald's which I worked roughly 3 days a week for a month before quitting due to a huge personality clash with one of the managers who ended up being rostered on all the same shifts as me. It was an interesting experience, I can't really complain seeing my bank account is $1000 up on where it would've been had I not been working there.

A couple of weeks after resigning from McDonald's I got to tag along with my grandma on a trip to Sydney, Australia which was awesome and I'll go into detail on that in the next post. Unfortunately I was only able to spend 4 days there, as I had to be back in the motherland for my grandfather's 70th birthday party.

I'd been a little bit depressed due to not having a job and missing Wisconsin which are an awful combination of things. Missing Wisconsin means I need money to get back to Wisconsin and not having a job means no income which means I feel awful because I'm not getting any closer to home that way. The trip to Sydney helped to take my mind off of that a little bit.

When I got back from Sydney, mum said that the research project she works for needed someone to do some data entry for them. To make a long story short, I'm now working there most days doing that. I have a stack of questionnaire things to enter into their database which should take me another 4 weeks from now.

As if that wasn't good enough news, I had another short term job opportunity come up doing office temp work for a company that someone I babysat for once works at. I'm working there Wednesdays 9 to 5 for 5 weeks. It's on the 12th floor of a building in the middle of the city so I get amazing views while I'm at work and I'm able to have lunch down on the waterfront which is pretty awesome.

Aside from that I turned 19 yesterday, an age at which nothing exciting happens whatsoever. I went out for dinner at a nice Japanese place with family last night and plan to go to town with friends tonight which could be a slightly dangerous venture.

That's about all that's happened in the last couple of months of life in NZ. The next post will be about my trip to Sydney.

One Month at "Home"

It's been just over a month since I touched down in Wellington airport. In all honesty not a whole lot has happened since I got back. It's a little weird having nothing to do for the first time ever and having to actively seek employment to fill in time as much as for the money. Nothing much has changed around Wellington in the time I was away. Friends have found new hang out spots and social routines that I'm enjoying becoming a part of.

It seems strange to be back in a place that's changed so little in the last year while I've changed dramatically. I see things from a new perspective so it's almost like experiencing them anew. Probably the easiest way for me to tell I'm seeing things in a whole new light is the amount of poetry I've written since I've been back. I've been writing almost every day and have at least 6 poems written in the last few weeks that I've redrafted and edited to a point where I'm entirely happy with them. Having a proper writing desk set up in the corner of my room is definitely helping that cause.

Exploring the bar scene is proving to be quite enjoyable also. There's a lot of live music around town on a weekly basis and it's generally pretty good. Aside from music, I go to a pub quiz in town every Thursday night which is a lot of fun. I also discovered an interesting pool hall down a side street which is an awesome hang out spot and pretty chill place. I went there with some friends when we were in town a couple of weeks ago on a Friday night. They have a bunch of free play pool tables set up and at the time they had a band playing who were decent followed by a DJ who also wasn't bad. All in all it's fun being a part of the night scene for the first time ever.

I really haven't been motivated to do a whole lot and pretty much all the socializing I've done has been people inviting me to things and me just saying yes to everything which is kind of nice. There are people I'd like to see that I haven't bothered to contact yet but it's taking me a long time to begin to adjust to being back here. When I'm totally comfortable with everything that's going on with me, I'll step out and initiate things myself. Until that happens, I'll do what I have to do for me and go with the flow whenever friends invite me out to do stuff.

Skype is a wonderful thing and I'm really enjoying being able to talk to Blair (girlfriend) and other people from Wisconsin to keep up with what they're up to over summer and such. I don't know what I'd do without it, probably mope a whole lot more. As they enter into their preparation camps for marching band and show choir I'm once again reminded of how much I love those things and how much I miss them now. It's a weird feeling after having lived 17 and a half years in total ignorance of their existence. Now, I'd do anything to be able to have one more season with either of them.

The most challenging part of the first month at home has been keeping myself entertained. After a couple of weeks, sleeping past noon and not leaving the house terribly often kind of gets old. The next few months of life are probably going to be taken up by work which hopefully means they'll go a lot faster than this last one has and I'll be able to put money away to go towards my return to Wisconsin.

Oh, I almost didn't mention that we got a kitten a couple of weeks after I got back. She's beautiful, mostly black with white feet and underside. I chose her and decided on a name that Blair suggested: Sasha. I think it fits her perfectly. She's annoying as anything and constantly knocks everything in the house that she can down from where it's supposed to sit but she makes up for it by being adorable.

That's pretty much the important parts of the first month covered. I'm excited to start work at Mcdonald's on Tuesday this week and excited to get paid this week for a couple of odd days I did temping in an office last week. I'm working 12 hours this week, so nothing at all strenuous but enough to get paid decently for it. Hopefully I'll pick up more shifts after I finish training.

Returning

As our plane began to land in Auckland, I was hit by an overwhelming mixture of feelings. There was excitement at being back in a familiar country and not feeling so brutally alone any more, there was sadness as I realised how ridiculously far away I now was from everyone and the amount of time it would be before I'd be able to return and there was pure exhaustion in every sense of the word. I very nearly cried as we touched down. It's nigh on impossible to try and describe the emotional roller coaster involved with returning to the land you grew up in after spending ten and a half months on the other side of the world.

By the time we actually got off the plane in Auckland, I had one thing on my mind, duty-free booze. Chelsea and I were both fairly anxious to put our new legality to good use as soon as we possibly could so we both stopped in at the first duty-free store we saw. I picked up a bottle of J.D. for my mum and a bottle of vodka for myself. Being able to walk into a bottle store, pull bottles off of the shelf and buy them was a hugely empowering feeling. At this point I was more than happy about New Zealand's 18 yr old drinking age, although it's little consolation for being so far away from everything I've grown to love about Wisconsin.

Once we had our alcohol, we claimed our luggage and cleared customs. I was extremely pleased to see that my guitar hadn't sustained any damage in transit. We didn't have much time after clearing customs before those of us that were catching domestic flights had to be at our gates. We said our goodbyes before rushing through customs as fast as we could without looking suspicious and walked the 15 minute trek from the international terminal to the domestic. Chelsea and Baylee were both stopping in Auckland, so walking to the domestic terminal with me were Lily and Laura. Lily was flying to the south island and Laura was flying into Palmerston North. 

The other two weren't sure on their domestic flight details whereas I had all my ticketing information with me so I left them at the information desk once we got there. I checked in my bags, said a quick goodbye to the other two who had managed to sort out their flights and went up to my gate, where my flight was due to board in five minutes. I was, once again, brutally alone. I'm not ashamed to admit that as I sat by myself for the first time during the whole travelling process, waiting for a flight to my final stop, I broke down in tears. Exhaustion set in and the excitement of plane hopping across the world had all but worn off, it's fair to say that this was pretty much the low point of the long trip back.

On the flight back to Wellington, I had another beer and a small packet of chips. As the city lights came into view and the plane began it's descent over Miramar, I had tears of joy in my eyes. I'd missed this place immensely and here I was, flying over the ocean, minutes away from reunion with my family and friends.

I knew it was going to be a long time before I got used to being back and that once normality set in, I was probably going to go through a relatively rough time but in  that moment, I was back after the experience of a lifetime. I was excited to have the opportunity to share the new and improved me with the people who had known the old me. I felt like a much more fulfilled person than when I left, I had found a part of me that had always been missing.

I stepped off the plane and was greeted by my mother and a group of five friends who had been at the airport to see me off back in August of last year. Emotion set in again and I cried in the arms of my mother, for want of a land I knew I would see again but would have to wait far too long to return to.

The journey back to New Zealand was physically,mentally and emotionally draining. I've never left so much, so far behind in my life and it's a tough thing to deal with. I know I'll go back, I left far too much of myself in Fort to not go back, I'm somewhat rooted there. I will also, however, make the most of this brief homecoming and take my time to reacquaint myself with the land I once called home.

The Long and Winding Road

Upon arrival in L.A. Chelsea and I found a comfortable place to settle right next to our gate and did the "you hold our place while I get food and then we'll switch" thing that we did in Chicago. The stopover in L.A. was about the same as in Chicago, we had about 3 hours to kill. We didn't have to clear security or anything at L.A. seeing we were transferring onto an international flight so that was good.

I found a burger king and bought lunch there which was somewhat ruined by my beverage choice of the worst iced tea in existence. When Chelsea got back from getting food, we found a seat outside our gate ( a flight had just left from there for London so it had pretty much cleared out) and I once again relied on crosswords to pass the time.

Around halfway into our wait we were met by another fellow New Zealander, to our knowledge L.A. was supposed to be our rally point before all flying back together through Brisbane to Auckland. Laura had spent  her time on exchange in Texas, not far out of Houston. We got talking about our different experiences and it wasn't too long before we were called to board. We were confused as to whether the other two girls from NZ would be flying home with us as they still hadn't made an appearance when the first boarding calls were made. 

On the way over to the U.S. Laura had always had the misfortune of being seated miles away from the rest of us, while Chelsea and I had a knack for sticking together. Laura's seat was in one of the areas that was called to board first so she got on the plane a good fifteen minutes before us. When the general boarding call was made for "all remaining passengers" we got into the cue and after a couple of minutes were met by none other than Lily and Baylee, the two remaining New Zealanders. Apparently their flight from New York had left late and so they only just made it to L.A. in time.We managed to sneak in a quick chat before boarding our flight to Brisbane, Australia.

On the flight to Brisbane Chelsea and I were seated either side of a woman from Virginia. She was interesting to talk to as she was part of an EF tour group that was going to be traveling around Australia and New Zealand for a couple of weeks. We were able to inform her of a few kiwi/australianisms (like lemonade meaning sprite in this part of the world) and recommend her a few sights to see around Rotorua which was one of the spots they were going to be visiting in New Zealand. We didn't get her name but she was a high school Spanish teacher and apparently this group toured a different part of the world every other year which was intriguing. 

I spent most of the flight listening to music through the in flight entertainment system and writing to keep myself busy. It was a 14 hour flight but the time passed quite quickly between sleeping and idly staring out the window at the wonderful night sky. Without ever getting to the point of being uncomfortable, we touched down in Brisbane, cleared security and found ourselves once again waiting around for a flight with bugger all to keep us busy.

Landing in Brisbane was an interesting experience. There were other New Zealanders on our flight so there was definitely a feeling of "we're so close and yet so far" with the familiar accents surrounding us. We all took a little bit of time to freshen up in Brisbane, I made use of the showers in the bathrooms and brushed my teeth which was an amazing feeling after over 24 hours of being in transit! We gathered outside our gate and had no trouble finding seats. Again my crossword book came out although at this point I was far too tired to get through any of them.Our flight to Auckland arrived after what seemed like an eternity and we boarded what would be the second to last flight of our trip for most of us and the last flight for a lucky two.

Only one significant thing happened on the 4 hour flight from Brisbane to Auckland. I had my first legal alcoholic drink, a beer of some kind, though I can't remember what. I'm thinking it was probably Steinlager which is a relatively good New Zealand beer. It was an interesting feeling being able to order alcohol for the first time, one which was somewhat liberating. Coming back from such a maturing experience as being an exchange student for a year, it definitely seemed like a warm welcome into adulthood "you've been around the world on your own, you're drinking a beer at the tail end of an epic journey, you're an adult now." 

I had intended to cover the whole trip from L.A. back to Wellington in this post but it's starting to get a little too long for my liking so I'm going to end it here. The point I've been trying to outline in these posts is that travelling home was a long and grueling experience in itself. I felt intense loneliness,  I cried on multiple occasions and I found companionship in people who knew exactly how I felt before finally being pushed back into the place I once called home. Next post will be about the journey from Auckland to Wellington, which really does deserve it's own entire post.

Leaving home

Towards the end of a month largely spent wishing that time would suspend itself indefinitely, came what is referred to in the world of foreign exchange as D-day. On Monday June 25th, I spent the day with two of my closest friends and my girlfriend, ate all the Taco Bell I could manage and said goodbye to home.

From what I remember we left the house late afternoon and headed to Horicon, a town about a 45 minute drive away, which was the meet up point for all the AFS students in Wisconsin. We stopped to eat at an Arby's along the way (Dick ate, I was full from the T Bell and very upset) and arrived at Horicon at around 6-6.30pm. We pulled up to the bowling alley (which was our meeting point), I put my stuff in the corner with the others that would later be travelling on my bus to Illinois and about a half hour later I said goodbye to Dick, my father for the past ten and a half months. 

The rally point in Illinois was Elmhurst college, a university about 20 minutes drive from O'hare international airport. Unfortunately for us, the buses weren't set to leave until 2.30 in the morning. I don't know why they couldn't have set the meeting time at 10pm and given us an extra few hours with our loved ones instead of making us arrive before 7pm but that's what happened. We were provided with a virtually endless supply of pizza and soda as well as being able to bowl for free. Regardless, the wait was excruciating. I spent most of it hanging out with Pinky (the Thai girl who was also in Fort), reading (Bill Bryson's Made In America seemed an appropriate choice) and sleeping.

At approximately 2.30, we were loaded onto our bus and at approximately 3am we left for Illinois. I slept for almost the entire bus trip and given the early/late hour have no recollection of the time in between boarding in Horicon and arriving in Elmhurst. When we got off, we took our bags and put them in an assigned area within the Elmhurst College parking lot. They were grouped based on flight times so everyone in my group was flying out at roughly the same time from O'hare. In the end our group ended up being all of the students from Spain and my New Zealand friend who I flew into O'hare with ten and half months earlier.

Our bus from Elmhurst to O'hare wasn't due to leave until around 1.30pm so once again I had a significant amount to kill. I wasn't sure if Chelsea would be at Elmhurst at this point or whether she was due to arrive later in the day. I decided to wander around to see if I could find her and sure enough, within five minutes of arriving, I found her sitting with people she knew inside the Elmhurst gym. We talked for a little while and then decided we'd sleep away the time until our bus left. They had a room set up with wrestling mats to sleep on so we checked ourselves in there with a proposed wake up time of 12.30 since we had to be by the bus a little while before departure. We managed to sleep through til just after 11, not too bad of an effort considering it was during a time when we're used to waking up and being energised, not settling down to sleep!

By the time we woke up properly, used the bathroom etc there was very little time left. 1.30 rolled around, I said a quick goodbye to Pinky and we went to wait in the parking lot. Among the Spaniards catching our bus was Luis, a boy who had also spent the year in Fort Atkinson but had been a sophomore (two years younger than me). It was neat having people from Fort around me as they had shared in the year that I had just experienced and knew more than any of the other exchange students, exactly what I was going through. 

Our final bus came to take us to O'hare pretty much right on time. We got to the airport, said goodbye to our Spanish travel buddies and checked in for our flight to L.A. After we'd cleared security we had about three hours to wait, so Chelsea and I decided we'd find our gate and then find food. We found two seats and  decided to go off one at a time in pursuit of food so as to save our spot. 

I left first and bought two jelly-filled donuts and an iced coffee (I wasn't too hungry at this stage) along with  copy of Rolling Stone magazine, a Cosmopolitan (because real men read cosmo) and a book of crosswords to keep me busy. I came back and Chelsea left, returning later with Macdonalds and a Cosmo. I spent the rest of the wait talking to Chelsea and doing crosswords before an uneventful 4 hour flight to L.A.

Monday, June 25th 2012 was one of the most emotionally strenuous days that I have ever had to endure but I look forward to returning to Wisconsin and seeing my friends and family there again. My next post will cover the trip from L.A. back to the land I used to recognise as home. 

My Last Performances With The Fort Music Department

I tried to keep everything on this blog in chronological order but recently it has come to my attention that I posted about graduation prematurely. I forgot (as one often does) about one of the most significant weekends of my entire stay in Fort Atkinson. The weekend of Jazz di pasta/ Jazz dizzert.

Jazz Di Pasta and Jazz Dizzert were two final music concerts that took place over the saturday and sunday before graduation weekend and marked the end of the musical year. The shows were run for the first part like a dinner theatre. There was a variety show  going on in which students performed pieces that had been selected for the show through an audition process. During the variety show the audience were seated at dinner tables and served food which I thought was a very cool concept. After the variety show there was a main concert in the auditorium (the variety show took place in the commons/cafeteria) which involved both showchoirs and both jazz bands as well as a brief acknowledgement of seniors involved in the fore mentioned groups and a few awards for a select few of said seniors.

I auditioned 3 pieces for the variety show and managed to get all 3 of those into the final show. I accompanied my good friend whom I went to prom with on guitar while she sang "Will you remember me" by April Matson. I also played with the percussion ensemble, we did a piece named "Ritual of the Tribe" which we had very successfully performed at the state solo/ensemble festival previously. The third piece I was involved with was definitely the most fun. I played bass and "sang" for want of a better word in a 3 person rendition of "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria which seemed to go over well with the audience. On top of the variety show performances I also played with the jazz band and sung/danced with the showchoir.

On Saturday the show ran fairly smoothly, although I was really tired and the last thing I really wanted to do that weekend was spend two days at school performing. On Sunday, however, emotion took its toll. I suddenly realised when I got to the high school for Sunday's show that this was the last time I would walk into the music department, feel those nerves, get up on stage and sing, pick up my guitar, the last time I would ever play as a high school musician. Honestly it felt like someone close to me had died. I spent almost the entire day bawling my eyes out. All that had kept me going all year was the music department. The best part of my day was always the half when I had classes down there. I dreaded Cook yelling at me during jazz 2nd hour and felt invincible on the days when he didn't. I couldn't wait to get to band to see Blair because I knew every day without fail she would put a smile on my face. I complained about not wanting to sing for choir and watched the clock for lunch to roll around. I was too tired to dance in showchoir so I always hoped we'd have a singing day or that something else would come up. That department was my life and on that particular Sunday, my life was coming to an end.

I think on top of everything I've already mentioned, that Sunday also brought crashing home the reality that in a month I would be leaving Fort which is something I'm still struggling to come to terms with as I write this from the warm comfort of my bed back in Wellington, New Zealand. It highlighted everything that I was soon to lose and while I was much more ready for it when the time actually came, that Sunday I wasn't ready to cope with those feelings. It took everything I had to get up on the stage during the variety show and play my way through those feelings without losing it entirely.

Jazz Di Pasta and Jazz Dizzert were definitely my favourite performances of the year and overall a fantastic idea for a music department fundraiser. I can only hope that the community will continue to support it and the high school music department and pray that it wont be long before I am back to sit in the audience and appreciate the vast talent of the musicians at Fort Atkinson High School. The music department at Fort did more for me than I think I could ever explain in words to anyone and it will forever remain embedded in a little part of my brain labelled "The Best Days of My Life."

Graduation and The End of High School

On June 10th 2012, I graduated from Fort Atkinson High School. The ceremony took place inside the high school gymnasium around 1pm. The graduates had to be there an hour early for a last minute debrief on how the ceremony was going to go. When we got there we had to meet in the auditorium in our caps and gowns. Guys wore black and girls wore red. After our quick debrief we lined up to walk into the gym with our walking partners. My walking partner was my best friend Beckett Callan, we were seated on the end of our row about 5 rows  (halfway) back from the front.

We proceeded in, from two sides of the gym so that four of us (two sets of partners) were walking in to our seats at a time. The way the seats were set up there were about 10 rows of 15 or so students and there were two sides to each row so all in all around 30 kids per row across the two sides. A few members of the high school band and a few from the orchestra were set up in the corner playing a piece called Pomp and Circumstance which is the standard graduation procession song in the USA. When we got to our seats we had to stand and watch as the others came in, supposedly a mark of respect to our classmates coming in still.
Once everybody had arrived at their seats we all sat down as a group.

With all of us seated the ceremony began. We had an opening address from the class president followed by a presentation of gifts to the foreign exchange students done by one of the other senior class officers. I was chosen by the other exchange students to give a short speech about life in Fort and the experience of living as a foreigner in the US. I very much enjoyed having the opportunity to speak at graduation. After my speech, the other exchange students were given the opportunity to quickly thank their host families for having them for the year which I thought was a really neat idea. For the record I made it about a third of the way through my delivery before bursting into tears, thankfully I kept it together enough to keep going through the whole thing.

There were a few more speeches delivered before the presentation of diplomas including: a student-elected senior class member, a student-elected teacher, the principal, the superintendent of the school district. Dr Zaspel (school principal) presented the class of 2012 to the audience at the end of his address and then we were called up on stage to receive diplomas which involved waiting a long time to walk across stage and shake hands with a few school officials. All in all the ceremony was about an hour and a half long which is pretty reasonable.

For me, graduation was the beginning of the end so it was a pretty solemn occasion. Luckily everyone else was so excited that I managed to remain relatively upbeat and only cried during my speech. I took photos with a lot of my friends, said one last goodbye to the music department AKA my second home and walked through the glass doors of Fort Atkinson High School for the last time as a student.

Solo/Ensemble

Solo/ensemble is a music competition which I had to do as part of my music classes this year. I competed in our district solo/ensemble competition which involved us and I think 3 other schools as part of a percussion ensemble made of of percussionists from the concert band (concert band is what the marching band does when it isn't marching season). The competition took place at my school in the auditorium on a Saturday. There was also a separate district solo/ensemble specifically for jazz ensembles which took place at East Troy High School which, if I remember correctly, is about a half hour bus ride from Fort.

Basically, the way solo/ensemble works is you perform at your allotted time, either as a solo act or as part of an ensemble. You play a piece picked out from a list of pieces decided on by the competition authorities at one of three class levels A, B or C. the judges get a copy of the score of the piece you are playing and they fill out a score card and give you an overall rating, the best of which being a *1 if you're competing in class A  or a 1 if you're in class B or C. Anyone who gets a *1 at district is eligible to compete at the state competition. They also give you a brief verbal briefing on how they think you played and what you could improve on and you get to keep your score sheet which they write comments on as well.

Both the percussion ensemble and the jazz ensemble played class A pieces, for percussion we only had to play one piece but for the jazz competition we had to play a set of 3 pieces. Both groups achieved a *1 rating, so I went to state with both of those groups.

The state competition was held at the University of Wisconsin's Whitewater campus on the day of prom. The  Whitewater campus is about a 20 minute drive from Fort. Percussion ensemble performed relatively early in the morning (about 8.45) while jazz was in the afternoon. Both groups again performed well and both received a 1 rating which is the best rating you can achieve at state. The judges comments ranged from praise about our playing to a comment about our professional conduct which was reassuring.

State and district solo/ensemble competitions were interesting challenges and it was exciting to achieve so well in them. Mr. Cook the director of the band and the jazz bands works us hard and solo/ensemble was a good chance to prove to ourselves that we are working at a high level. The Fort Atkinson High School music department really is one of the best in Wisconsin and I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to become so heavily involved with it.

"Winter Ball" and Prom

I just realized there are two dances that I have forgotten to mention so I'm going to talk about them in this post.

Winter ball actually ended up happening in spring and was aptly re-titled as "Spring Fling." It was relatively entertaining, I had a lot of stuff going on at the time and so was pretty disorganized about it. I bought my clothes during the day from the local goodwill store (which incidentally had the exact outfit I wanted) and went with a friend of mine which we decided midway during the week with the dance that weekend. I'm glad I went to winter ball but I was pretty stressed out, we had the district music solo/ensemble competition the day of the dance so I was pretty tightly wound with that experience, I competed with a percussion ensemble and jazz ensemble but I'll talk about that in its own post.

Prom took place a few weeks after winter ball (I'm not entirely sure on time frame, possibly a month-month and a half between the two.) I went with another friend of mine, she asked me so that made things easier for me. I had to rent a tux for that one but I looked pretty spiffy so I didn't complain too much. I had a black tux with a silver vest and silver bow-tie. Hannah (my date) wore a purple dress which was absolutely gorgeous (may attach photos later).

Prom is run by the junior class ( the ones that are in their 2nd to last year of high school) and they chose for the theme to be "The Lion King." They decorated the stage in the auditorium like pride rock and we had the grand march where each pair gets announced and walks across stage in front of everyone, it was all very exciting. They had music from "The Lion King" playing in the auditorium during the grand march too which was awesome.

Before the dance we went out to eat at a lovely little place just outside of Fort called Cold Spring Inn. It's an old restaurant/bar with a really nice homey feel to it. Unfortunately we had some car trouble so we ended up being a little later than we first planned on being to the high school. We got there on time for the grand march though so it all worked out.

I had a great time at prom hanging out with people, it was one of the best nights I've had all year. It was kind of similar to homecoming in feel, generally just a lot of people having a good time in the middle of the school. I should mention that on the day of prom we had state solo/ensemble which we qualified for at the afore-mentioned district competition. I wasn't as stressed out after that day though, we got really good results at state, which again I'll discuss in its own post.

Prom was great, we got cute little tickets which hopefully I'll have photos of at some stage that were basically little wooden discs with a neat lion head thing printed on them. Prom was an awesome American experience which I'd recommend to anyone who may ever get the chance to go (do it at least once).

Spring Play

During the spring I not only joined an athletic team but I joined an entirely different team of players. I auditioned for the school's spring play which this year was "You Can't Take It With You", a very funny comedy about an eccentric New York family who, through an unlikely marriage, are forced to play host to a snooty, high society family.

I was cast as the boisterous Russian ballet teacher, Boris Kolenkhov. My character is virtually part of the family, often turns up unannounced and is very opinionated, especially when it comes to ballet. I had a lot of fun playing him and received many positive comments about the show.

The whole process took roughly two months (at least as I remember it) and was very exciting. I haven't had much of a chance to do theatre for a long time so this was a welcome return for me to the stage lights. There wasn't too much drama behind the scenes, which was also a welcome occurrence and all in all everyone was a joy to work with.

We played four shows, including a sunday matinee, and rehearsed several times a week. During performance week I had to give up baseball to fulfill my theatrical commitments but it wasn't much of an issue. Our performances all went smoothly and everyone really stepped it up when opening night rolled around. I was extremely proud of all of our performances.

The cast and crew of the spring play became like family to me. We spent so much time together: fighting, sharing in frustrations, working and having fun. We grew a lot as an organisation and I'm going to miss people from the play just a little bit more than most other people. It was an awesome experience and I'm sure that it's not the last I'll see of my fellow cast members.

Baseball season

Spring came with warm weather and an all new athletic season. I decided to go out for baseball, a sport which I had no prior experience of and really didn't understand very much at all. The coach of the varsity (best) team was nice enough to give me a spot on the squad for the season and so began what could be the only season of baseball I ever experience.

The guys on the team were all very accepting of me and it was easy to assimilate into despite being vastly under skilled by comparison. I decided to become an outfielder and thus practiced largely with the outfield team and coach who are an interesting bunch of people.

Results-wise the season started relatively poorly, we seemed to pull wins from every non-conference (not important) match we played but couldn't salvage anything from our conference (very important) fixtures. About mid-season we found our groove and picked up a few wins where they counted. We progressed to play-offs but unfortunately lost our first play-off game narrowly. I was somewhat glad to see the season end there as at that point we were in our last week of school and I didn't really want to be tied up with baseball until graduation.

I improved a lot over the season and finished with the ability to actually hit the ball out of the infield during practise as well as being able to catch fly balls without getting hit in the head (which by the way happened 3 times). The coaches decided to give me the most improved player award which meant a lot to me and when I come home will go up next to the other two trophies I have picked up in my 13 year athletic career (I believe the other two are a most valuable player award for rugby when I was 7 and a most valuable player award for the second XI hockey team which I got when I was 16).

Baseball was a really valuable American experience for me and will be something I will definitely remember and cherish. I'm more than grateful to the coaches and to the team for taking me on as a know-nothing liability and giving me the opportunity to learn such a fun game and tradition.

The End of Showchoir Season

Showchoir season flew by in a rush of short weekends spent entirely at competitions and long rehearsals during which it took all my patience not to punch out the guy behind me. I'm still conflicted about the end of it all. It's great to have weekends back but it's sad to think I'll never be a part of a competitive showchoir again.

There were big ups to it: the friends made, the great performances, seeing other great shows, making finals, as well as the big downs: frustrating results, long rehearsals, getting mad at each other and making the director mad at us. Overall, it's definitely a commitment I'm glad I made (as well as an easy A!).

I think selfish as it may be, the highlight for me was my solo. It was awesome having so much support from our group and getting so many compliments from people about it. It was also great to see how much I improved over the course of the season as I got more comfortable with singing by myself in front of gymnasiums full of people every weekend.

Our home show was also a highlight for me. Meeting groups from all around the midwest and getting to feel like a pro showing people how to get to places around MY school was pretty awesome and totally worth being at school for 18 hours straight. The group we were assigned to look after was a good one and it was neat seeing them at shows after that because we had our own secret bond going on.

Showchoir (and marching band too) is definitely something NZ schools should look into, it's a lot of fun and I'm pretty sure a lot of high schoolers would love the opportunity to be like the people on "Glee." Personally I got a lot out of it and I'm going to miss it now that the competitions are done.

We still have two more performances this year and a whole new show to learn for them so it's an ongoing thing until graduation in June. Singing and dancing with the showchoir is an experience that I'm sure my grandchildren will hear about one day!

Jazz

This year I've been the guitarist for Fort High's jazz ensemble among my many involvements. We have taken two trips so far this year to perform at jazz festivals, one of them being an overnight trip to UW (University of Wisconsin) Lacrosse and another being a day trip to UW plaiteville. Both were amazing experiences and were great opportunities to see not only some great high school musicians but some world class professional jazz musicians as well.

We arrived at Lacrosse in the evening, from memory around 6-7pm and had the night to hang out in our hotel with the festival at the university being held the next day. Most of our group found our rooms and hit the pool within 2 minutes of arriving.

Our group made friends with a bunch of neat people from Badger High School in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. They were all there for the jazz festival as well. It was cool being able to meet new people and hang out in the spa and pool for a few hours with them. I probably wont see them again because we don't play them in any spring sports and they play different places to our jazz group for the rest of the year. Also they live about 2 hours drive away from us.

The festival itself was pretty exciting. There were high school bands (large groups) and combos (small groups of 4-7 people) playing in competition throughout the day and in the evening we had a concert from an amazing jazz trombone player named Wycliffe Gordon. The level of jazz played by a lot of the high school groups was very high and it was great being able to watch them and compete against them.

Our group took 2nd place for our class by about 2 points per judge (out of 100) and played extremely well. Our friends from Badger won their class (they were in a different one to us).

At the evening concert, the winner of each class played. The UW Lacrosse band also played and were pretty incredible for a college band. Wycliffe Gordon played with a bass player, drummer and piano player that he had met in high school. They were the most amazing group of musicians I have ever seen.

They played songs that they were making up on the spot without any sort of verbal communication, they just listened to each other and played. Wycliffe sang as well as making all sorts of impossible sounds from his trombone. He played a sort of funky rhythmic thing which sounded a little bit like someone beat boxing through an instrument. They were all very genuine and the music felt like a true expression of themselves. They were very natural and relaxed on stage and had this wonderful presence and sound radiating from them. It was absolutely incredible and totally inspiring.

The Plaiteville festival wasn't as exciting. We took third and most of the other high school bands weren't very interesting. We did get to see the village vanguard jazz orchestra from New York though which was awesome. They are one of ( if not the) best jazz group in the world today. They weren't as interesting in my opinion as Wycliffe Gordon but as a group they were extraordinary in their level of musicianship, Wycliffe just has an amazing and untrainable ability to pull in an audience that Vanguard lacks. Vanguard are incredible though, the history behind them is amazing (they've been playing with essentially the same members for a few decades now) and they are just world class musicians.

Playing in the jazz band here has been an extraordinary privilege that I've treasured. I've seen some fantastic players this year and we've had great times as a group. Some of the closest friends I have over here are from the jazz ensemble and the trips we take are really great for that level of bonding that doesn't always come from just hanging out with people at school or at home.

Winter and the Start of Showchoir Season

Winter has officially hit Wisconsin. The ground outside is white and the weather is around 30-35 (-1 to +2 celsius). I'm loving the snow, it's the first white winter I've ever really experienced. Along with the cold weather and beautiful snow everywhere comes showchoir season. We have had 3 shows so far with one of them being a competition. Music is proving to be a good way to see the state as between marching band back in fall, showchoir and jazz I have managed to get around a lot.

The competition we went to was in a town called Onalaska which is about 3 hours drive from Fort but took us about 5 hours to get to because it was snowing pretty heavily when we left. We stayed the night in a hotel there and competed the next day which was a saturday. It was neat hanging out with people from the group that I usually don't talk to much, overnight trips are great for bonding.

At Onalaska high school it was weird because they had a bunch of photographs and news clippings of ice hockey players, it's strange to think there are high schools here with their own ice hockey teams. We didn't make finals for the comp but it was a really great experience and we performed the best we had yet so can't complain much about that.

That same weekend we had a show at home as an exhibition type thing to show off the showchoir from Fort middle school and the two high school groups (We have an all girls showchoir as well as the one I'm in which is kind of like our second group and is made up of freshmen and sophomores). We were all super tired from the travel but we still performed it pretty well, things are always easier when you're performing at home.

Onalaska was a really good opportunity to see some great choirs perform and to hang with some awesome people from Fort. It snowed most of the time we were there so I got to enjoy that too. It's funny because I get really excited and roll around in the snow and make snow angels while everyone looks at me weird because they've had it all their lives. I love being the foreigner sometimes. Next post will be about our jazz trip to Lacrosse, Wisconsin which happened last weekend.