The Musical

Last Years Musical Damned Yankees

Every year the Fenn and Nashoba school combine together and perform a musical play. Most years the musicals have been very exciting and entertaining plays. This year I was lucky enough to get The Musical as one of my arts. Our first audition was Monday and we have another today. On Monday they announced that we will be performing a play called Work. It takes place in the city of New York and from as much as I've heard I assume it is a play about people's jobs, and as it is a musical there must be much singing and dancing. I am very excited for it and hope all of you will come out and watch us perform in the late winter/ early spring.

Drama

"I never saw another butterfly that was the last the very last"

Terezin Children

Today was the final day and the final performance of our play I Never Saw Another Butterfly. Anthony Duane and David Nerrow took lead roles in the play playing Raya who was one of the survivors of the Ghetto Terezin. Other boys from our class had different non lead roles in the play such as Reid Monahan and myself. Ben Kelly was also a lead role playing the teacher who taught jewish children in concentration camps. The play was about the kids of Terezin who were not allowed to be taught but went to secret school. It may seem like a cheerful story but it wasn't in fact tens of thousands of kids went through Terezin only 100 survived. It was a very meaningful play and I feel it was well portrayed. Thanks to Ms. Toner who put it all together, the rest of the cast and everyone who came out to watch.

Winter

the time of year we most dread, oh that white winter spread

when treas leaves have all shed, and all the animals have found their winter bed

now you can smell the warm fruitful bread, and now you can takeout your winter sled

and off he sped

Unity

We are only as  strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.

[J.K. Rowling]

Times are tough, they are even tougher if you go through them by yourself. In the Poem Viking Warrior thirteen young boys Unite together as one. The boys all support this one boy as he is diagnosed with cancer, they go through the hardship together united as a whole. The way the poem describes it, it seems almost like they are all fighting the disease together. In the Poem Viking Warrior the author talks about how one of the boys is out of school for weeks and the other 13 boys can’t figure out why. And then the rumors get out, and all the boys are whispering the name of the disease; Cancer.

"Totally bald in a jacket and tie on Friday morning and I don’t just mean Tony Steinberg not one single boy in my class had hair that day;

the other 12 had all shaved their heads in solidarity. Have you ever seen 13 bald-headed seventh grade boys, all pointing at each other, all staring, all laughing? I have. And it’s a beautiful sight."

[Viking Warrior Poem]

What one boy may go through on his own the whole class goes through united together, until the end. The boys together unite and make the best of the circumstances. Instead of teasing the boy with the disease, they make him feel like he's just another happy normal boy, like everyone else in the class. Sometimes fear, of death mainly makes us push ill people away. Maybe because of the fear of losing someone close to you. Funny because we should be making the best of the time we have left with them, and that is exactly what these boys did. They united together and made the most of the time they had left. Then when worst comes to worst and the boy with cancer dies, together the others hand in hand mourn his death, torn up on the inside, but knowing that they had made the best of it, that they still were united and that they still had eachother.

Reflection

I never saw it coming, although it didn't surprise me. A couple years before, my moms parents had separated. Besides the countless times my parents told me that this would never happen to our family and all the times they would tell my brothers and that they would never get divorced, I can't say I was surprised.

When they first told us the news they said it in a very temporary way, they said that they were going to try something new for a couple months, that they were going to live apart. That we would live at an apartment with my dad half the time and with my mom at home for the rest. Although when the word divorce came up, me and my older brother knew exactly what was going on. He definitely didn't take it as lightly as I did.

I remember when my dad started renting a new house it had a pool; which was awesome because we had never had a house with a pool before. So we would swim almost everyday we were at my dads house, and while me and my younger brothers swam, my big brother would always sit in pool chairs talking to my dad about the divorce. He was really sad at the time and it was clear you could tell. of course my dad was too, but I remember he never showed it, although I knew. I was sad too on the inside, I can't say I showed it though. I want to say my little brothers didn't entirely understand it, even though they do now, they don't entirely remember when my parents were married, so it does not affect them as much. I wish I had known my parents were getting divorced, then I would have made the best of the time we had left together all of us.

I guess the reflection of the story is to appreciate what you have; because you never know when it might be lost.

Survey Results

With the results of the survey I have figured out that my most popular type of posts are videos, however my last post was a video so I'm not going to do that. So I'll try something new; with ThanksGiving coming up I am going to write a reflection on appreciation.