The flat of sighs...

February 6th 2010,

I am sitting in the kitchen of the Milan flat with Brandon, Kyle and Burnese. Bran and Kyle are going over the finances of our groups while an NPR podcast streams in the background... They are both the active accountants for our respective groups. I miss NPR. I also do not think that anything can ever beat this moment. This week went by really quickly. Things are getting easier, the scripts are memorized(almost) the parts are getting tweaked and the bags are getting lighter. We are about to move out of the flat and move into hotel living. We have stayed at two so far to be closer to the schools in which we are working. They were nice little stays. However, the eight of us in the flat have kind of become a family. Anticipating the times in which someone needs the bathroom, as there is only one for six women and two men, we have developed a system. If I am brushing my teeth and someone walks into the bathroom with a look (that I have become able to read) of "I have to poop/pee", without a hitch, I move my brushing to the hallway where I will finish brushing and by the time, whoever is in the bathroom is done, I am ready to spit. We have this system just as we are about to leave. This is one thing that I have always had trouble with. I am trying to get as much as I can out of this experience, the coming home to the warm, yet moldy, and stuffy flat to conversations and stories of the days performances, workshops and Milan traffic woes. I will miss the combination of our groups together. It has been nice to catch up with other groups as well. There is rarely only one group staying in the flat at once. I have a weekend off and I do not know what to do with it. It is so amazing and rare it seems. The last couple of weeks, we have been rehearsing like crazy, panicking about the next day, now, we have it down. Maybe... I had an English day the other day which means no shows, only teaching. It was to be a four hour day with one class and my group and I decided to split it up a little. We would each take a class for an hour and change and then we would rotate to another classroom when we were done and do it all over again. I taught drama, Bran taught Dance and Felicia taught games. poor Maren had to be in another school completely but she had done it before and she had no problem with it. It was easy as pie and the children really responded and were completely receptive to it all. I told the story of the Wizard of Oz and had the children fill in the blanks while viewing the picture cards. They all acted it out and I fed them lines from the actual story. It may have been my favorite day. To walk away from the school and see the children smiling and shouting goodbyes and thank you's was incredible. Just experiencing little Giovanni who couldn't have weighed more than 39lbs and his reaction to being the Lion in the Wizard of Oz, and his extreme joy to be speaking English and actually acting in a mini play in front of his peers, I felt fulfilled. Completely and honestly fulfilled...Whatever "it" is or was, I think that I have found "it" I repeat, I "think" I have found "it".