Letter XXI: Volleyball and Photoshoot

Hello, Tim!

It still has been a loon week, and it would be strange if I weren’t busy.

I was busy.

I just got the email with your newsletter this morning, and I really like the part where we were mentioned!

I am still trying to keep down the word count of my letter, and I think this can also be a nice practice to write more compactly and just keep only the important details.

Contents of the Week

-Rehearsal Starts
-Still not Done yet
-Girls’ Volleyball Tournament
-Taking Pictures for the Poster
-Questions Answering
-End

Rehearsal Starts

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, the actors had to stay after school to rehearse for the characters they got. I got an old man called Gorgibus (maybe in the future I will be sharing the script on my blog) and I think pretend to be slouching and having a low and deep voice is very tiring.

I like being able to work out the details about what the characters should be doing, their body language, their stance, etc. with my classmates, not only because it is a new experience in school, but I like the process of our brainstorming and discussing.

We sure are about twenty days behind schedule, but I believe that the EHP students will be able to make it like we always do.

Still not Done yet

It has come to the end of April, but still, I have yet finished The Alchemist.

The theme of this book, I believe, is ‘omens’. Throughout the book so far, ‘trusting and following the omens’ is constantly stated in the book. When I first picked up the book, I thought that this would be a fantasy about the adventure in search of a legendary alchemist. However, this book struck me more like the book The Little Prince, which is actually offering some life-related philosophy through stories, changes in attitude of the characters. This isn’t a story read for the thrill, the mystery, nor the climax. Like The Little Prince, it is more like lessons wrapped up in packages and layers of coverings by the name of ‘stories’. It is a book that requires you to put the book down and think for a while; you have to try to understand what this author, Paulo Coelho is trying to proclaim, what he is working hard to express through his paragraphs.

I am quite enjoying it the way I enjoyed the book of Antonio Saint-Exupery; neither of them is like crashing words that tear emotions raw and open, but instead, it is a calmness that the authors and readers experience and celebrate.

Girls’ Volleyball Tournament

Since their previous victory I talked about in the last letter, the girls didn’t skip or let go of any chance to practice. However, on Tuesday, they lost their second match to the class of Nini (You still remember the girl who was also once in EHP, don’t you? :D) by only several points behind. It was a close match, but that doesn’t mean the end of our girls. Since they had already made it into the top eight, and that the school will be giving awards to the top six classes, the girls soon recovered from the defeat and grasped firmly at the hope.

On Thursday, our opponent was Red’s class (along with Samuel and Buzz. We didn’t see them during the match though)

Us.

The girls won the match against the other team, meaning that they are sure to get either the fifth or the sixth place. The girls in EHP, who were once so stressed about not winning after so much practice, beamed at the revelation. They are happy, the whole class is happy.

Their last match will be on Monday, and we will see how well they will go.

Taking Pictures for the Poster

It was a nice and beautiful Saturday when the whole class assembled at a metro station near the Taipei National University of Arts for the photo shoot for our poster, the poster for our annual performance. Melvyn was our photographer, and this is the first time we knew that taking photos for real purposes was very a tiring thing to do. You have to have a ton of self-awareness to mind your poses, your stances, your interaction with the others… there was just so much exhausting thing to mind that I almost believed that the camera was sapping away my soul :’)

Nevertheless, we had a lot of pictures taken for the program book and the poster, and in the future, we will be picking out the ones that are going to be used. I hope that they will look good.

During the break time, we took some pictures of our own, and here they are:

Me and my awkward stance.

Drunkard William.

Four cows in the picture.

Girls :D

Aubrey brought bubbles

Amy, who is looking better and healthier.

Questions Answering

Ten questions, ten answers. It took me about forty minutes to read through the whole thing and make long and complete answers to each of them. Here they are!

A1: American women used to use flour sacks as materials for dresses and clothing because the other materials might not be affordable or it would be too far for them to reach to the markets.

A2: Instead of trying to improve the quality of the main product, animal feed and flour companies presented different styles, different colors of sacks so that people would be more tempted to buy them, so as to make them into clothes with variety.

A3: The demand of such flour bags declined because families are getting smaller and smaller, and also the overtaking of the store sold clothes that lured the girls. Women going out and into the work field didn't make it better.

A4: Mr. Maher meant by his grandmother 'spinning in the grave' by the idiom that means "angry and fuming" for how girls used to think so less of the sack-made clothes and her being of a girl is the era might as well detest it thoroughly.

A5: The involvement between America and Taiwan included missionaries, aids and stationing in the armed force, and also shipments of many flour sacks, that are made into America-themed sack-made underpants.

A6: Since the sacks were considered too coarse for the girls to wear, only boys had to wear those sack pants.

A7: The funny thing about the sack pants for boys in Taiwan is that there were also logos and slogans that rejoiced in the close relationship of America and Taiwan.

A8: The bottled water companies usually claim that their water comes from French spring water in the mountains (that, of course, are not quite always accurate).

A9: Bottled water companies will try to convince that their water is healthier, and hence worth the high prices they offer.

A10: I would not buy basically all brands of bottled water because it would not be ecological when it comes to water buying. Of course, unless, if I do have a dire need for some water and there is no way I can get some other than going to the last resort.

End

This letter seemed longer because of the study questions, and I still have to go translate the script so that they can make subtitles on the projectors for our performance.

See you, Tim, have a nice week!

Sincerely, Hugo