Basic Schedule

The next day we had to go to our first day of classes. This was interesting. First I had practice so I went to the nearest practice hut to practice since the hut on my schedule was To Be Announced. As the supervisor came along she knocked on the door and asked me, “Did I sign you up?” Oops. “Uh, no,” I said, “I didn’t know I had to sign up.” “What is your practice hut number?” she asked. I showed her my schedule and she told me which practice building to go to. I thanked her and went where she told me to go. A couple times when I was here this happened and I tried not to feel like a juggler’s ball. I walked to the practice hut that was open, and started practicing. Soon a junior girl knocked on the door and told me she was supposed to be in here. I asked her the time and she told me it was 10:00. I thanked her and tried not to panic. I was supposed to have had my next class five minutes ago! I didn’t know where to go so I was just wandering asking people where the chapel was. Soon I met some people who know where it was I needed to go to. They also had to go there so they walked with me. When we got there, it was 9:55. The girl’s watch had been off. Whew. So I went in with the people and had my next class. This was master class for piano. I think it was a very important class because not only is it required for my major, but it is also a good time to play in front of others without performing in a recital. You also get constructive criticism about your pieces.

My next class was 11:00 organ. The organs we played in this class were electric but we did get a tour of the United States second largest pipe organ which I will tell you about later. I had no idea where this class was supposed to be so I ran all the way back to my cabin to look at my schedule and map. After locating the organ building on the map I ran and found it. There were two organs and a piano in the small front room. There were about twelve chairs and thirteen people. Apparently, there were too many people there so the teacher dismissed two people. We had a really fun class, but that first day we didn’t get to play the organ. Instead we learned foot exercises and looked at a book that had pictures of all the different types of pipes that were in the organ. We played the next day.

After organ I went to lunch. Then we had rest hour. This was when we had to be quiet and we got to rest or we could write letters. It was basically private quiet time. I have to say that was probably my favorite time of day! I wrote a lot of letters to my friends and family. But when I didn’t sleep, I was really tired in my next class.

After rest hour I went to 2:00 piano skills class at Frohlich. Here we did sight reading, scales, and musical dictation. After the first class we went to the scholarshop to get books. I still didn’t have my ID card that let me access my account, so my teacher paid for my book. As we were walking back, she told me that she was bumping me up to the next class. I felt really happy! 3:00. After I got my books, I went to Intro to Acting. In this class we practiced stretches and various improvisational skills, such as the game “Freeze”. In this game we just chose a scene and picked two people to act it out. Then someone said, “freeze!” and when they froze the “freezer” chose a place to take and started another scene etc. We didn’t do much the first day, but we did play games like “Kitty wants a corner” and stuff like that and do exercises. I knew I was going to like it here.

After acting I had another practice session, but again I was in someone else’s room. So I just went back to the cabin and cleaned my area and waited for an hour. After that hour, E got back from teaching archery and waited for every one else to get back before we all went to dinner. After a few days I figured out my practices, and memorized where my classes were. This made life way easier. On Mondays we went to breakfast in our pajamas and later in the day we went to mixers. Mixers were where the Intermediate boys and girls got together and danced and talked etc. Our week of classes started on Tuesday, and ended on Saturday. On the school days and Mondays, we had to wake up at 6:50 am to go to the flagpole that didn’t have a flag and hear any announcements. Sometimes there were no announcements and the cafeteria wasn’t ready yet! This was rare though. This was my basic schedule for the next three weeks.