This morning I tried my hand (feet? legs?) at the Stairmaster. I must be doing it wrong because I didn’t break a sweat or feel any muscles working. I don’t think I will be signing up for that machine again anytime soon. I met Sam(antha) and Erik at breakfast but had to leave quickly because I was grossed out by Erik mixing his eggs, ketchup, and sausage (that looked and smelled like hotdogs) together.
In Ethnomusicology the teacher had a demonstration of how to learn music aurally and orally by asking volunteers to play two different instruments. One was a cowbell type instrument and one was a gourd with beads on the outside. The cowbell thing was played with a drumstick so the teacher demonstrated a rhythm and asked the student to repeat it. It was a complicated rhythm with long and shorts that I couldn’t follow at all. The first kid got it pretty easily and the girl played the gourd pretty well. Then Mr. Bean volunteered to play the cowbell. I laughed so hard and Andrew and I decided that there should be a new video called Mr. Bean Learns Music. The teacher said he would give Mr. Bean some candy tomorrow for participating. I happened to have some with me so I gave him a piece. About five minutes later Mr. Bean raised his hand, I thought to make a comment on the discussion, and told the teacher that the teacher now owed me a piece of candy. Well that was awkward and the teacher asked if I had any favorites that he could bring! I said no thank you. Additionally, I couldn’t stop laughing all class because we were singing a song the teacher made up that goes:
(to the tune of the Spanish National Anthem)
Andalucía, Iberian Peninsula, we sail to thee to learn your ways
Bull fights and street life, tapas and wine
…and it goes on, clearly I didn’t learn aurally very well.
Well, Mr. Bean was sitting next to me and he sang…bull fights and street fights. I laughed and told him it was street life and he was so confused and I laughed so loud the teacher asked what happened. It was a fairly lively class.
I sat outside for lunch with Jay, the Vandy guy, because it was nice and sunny again. They had ice cream sundaes for dessert which was quite a treat. We took our school photo after dinner and they are going to send it to The Hustler supposedly. I don’t know what Vandy will do with it because it is the summer and they aren’t printing the newspaper right now.
I went to the Sign Language Seminar tonight and met a bunch of people interested in or learning sign language. I went in thinking that I would just pretend like I didn’t know anything because I wasn’t sure what the other people would be like and how much they would know. Several of the girls were overly confident, saying they used to be fluent and now because they work with severely disabled children they have lost their signs because the children don’t use very many signs. (I didn’t believe this girl) Other people said they were fluent but then took about 5 minutes to formulate one sentence. The LLC (Living Learning Coordinator) Lissa talked about some ASL basics, some history, and some grammar. I had trouble keeping my mouth shut when their history was not correct but I just kept thinking that these people are not really here to learn ASL, they are just doing it for fun so it doesn’t really matter if they know the accurate history. I didn’t really learn any new signs because we went over the alphabet, numbers, and common phrases. It was nice to see who was interested so I can sign with them to practice. We are going to have a silent lunch on the 30th so we can practice conversing in sign.
After the Seminar I met up with my friends and we went out on deck 7. Once again I forgot to get a drink voucher so I didn’t get a drink. Sam was generous and gave me a sip of hers. I made a point to go talk to strangers because I don’t like that I see new people every day when we are in such a small place. I met Justin and Tyler who I are from California I believe. Then I talked to Michael and his two friends. Michael is from NYC and goes to Stanford, his friend and frat brother is from southern California, and the other friend is from Chicago and goes to Purdue. They were pretty typical fraternity boys. Shane introduced me to PJ who is from Boston and is majoring in psychology. He wants to start a microbrewery after he goes to business school. I also met Ian who is in my ethnomusicology class. He is from Philadelphia but goes to Pitt. He was the kid who was actually good at playing the cowbell thing.
We changed our clocks for the last time before Spain tonight so I got to bed a little later than usual. Hopefully we won’t be losing many more hours any time soon.
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I found some new friends to sign with and commiserated with Courtney about the annoying girl we met at the ASL Seminar.
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I looked like an idiot when I met a kid named Ki because Harry tried to pick me up for a picture and I almost fell on my head.
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