macbeth, MacBeth, MACBETH!

Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth...

Over the past week I've bee quoting Shakespeare in my head almost incessantly, having spent 5 hours every day in Parker Hall, performing, costuming, make-up-ing, practicing lines, and all in all having the time of our lives! This show is 10000000000x better than e-Volution, that's for sure!

Every night of our performances, we've managed to rip it out and deliver a better performance every time. Our dress rehearsal on sunday and monday were rather depressing, with lighting cues still being sorted out, costume malfunctions happening, actors missing cues, and general chaos with blood and props. Moday evening, we retired back to dorms at around 9:45 pm feeling ver despondent and worried about the week ahead.

I spoke to my mother about it, and she reassured me with the truism of "crappy dress=great show". I felt slightly better, but everyone was very nervous.

Tuesday night, we performed for outside schools studying the play. As people began to arrive, the tension mounted higher and higher backstage. In all truth, this tension gave us the boost in energy we needed. That night, we KILLED the stage, with everything coming together perfectly at the right moments, Shalaka and Tara (Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) nailing their monologues, and the Weird sisters terrifying the bananas out of the audience.

Wednesday was our official "opening night" in front of grades 10, 7 and 6. Feeling much more optimistic, we once again surpassed our own expectations. As Mrs Okie said "the only reason the light cues were a little off was because we were so mesmerized by watching you!". Last night (thursday) was our best show yet, with all the murder scenes going smoothly, blood exploding from Banquo's mouth and Young Macduff getting blood smeared all over his(her) shirt. We also had our residen photographer, Fuse, come in and take shots of various scenes, which I will post as soon as they are made available.

Tonight is our closing night, in front of grade 11's and 9's. I will admit to still having some trepidation, simply because everyone is exhausted (we get back to dorms at about 10pm every night) and we've had such a good run so far, we're due for a bad one... (touches wood surreptitiously)
We're also having a pizza party after the show. If that's not motivation, I don't know what is!

May there be blood,
Emily

Goodbye Ms Claire!!!

A sad farewell preceding Diwali break: AP Biology 11 is losing its beloved student teacher, Ms Claire Weiss.
Ms Claire is a student from St Olaf's liberal arts and science college in the US, Minnesota. She has been our part time teacher since the beginning of August, and has been teaching us full-time since September. She has been a fun, engaging and competent teacher, and we all wish her well in the continuation of her studies, and pray that she one day returns to Woodstock!

Some of you may remember Ms Claire as one of the female chaperones on our Darwa Pass expedition. She was understanding, supportive and funny. Such a great chaperone to have!

Ms Claire, you will be missed!!!

AP Bio 11 class, and Emily Steers

Experience the Himalaya: A Mountain Festival

Dear readers,

This week at woodstock we have had the unique opportunity to "Experience the Himalaya" in a new way. Over the course of four days, we hosted talks on mountaineering, a film festival, concerts, himalayan banquet, and concluding in the first annual Mussoorie half-marathon!

On November 1st, we were privileged to hear Rekha Bhardwaj, a singer from Bollywood (if you've ever seen a bollywood movie you'll understand how the actresses have GOT to be lip-syncing!) Unfortunately, I was once again in health center that evening, so I was unable to attend. By all reports, however, it was a most fabulous event. (Although as Ishaan said, it would have been 10x better if people had spontaneously started dancing in the last few acts). 

The next day we were excused from class at various points during the day to see videos and guest speakers featured in Parker Hall. One of the most notable of these was speaker Steve Swenson, a hardcore mountaineer hailing from Seattle. He described to us his experiences of mountaineering in the Himalayas throughout his life, and his experiences of climbing K2, Everest, and in making a trail up the second tallest unclimbed mountain in the world: Saser Kangri II (The tallest unclimbed mountain is in Bhutan and not available to alpinists). We also saw some mountaineering films, from Swenson about his experience climbing Saser Kangri II, and an award-winning video from an Italian cliff-climber.
A very awe-inspiring way to start the morning!

For lunch we got to have a Himalayan food festival, with Kashmiri rice, momos, nutty ice, naan, chicken kebab, pappers, and more, all of it delicious!

That evening we got to hear a performance from the Tetseo sisters, a group of three women singing Li music. The harmonies were beautiful, the songs sweet, and the sisters engaged with their performance. They traditional Li songs, and then surprised us at the end with their rendition of "Winter Wonderland" with their brother playing jazz guitar.

Read more anout the festival here: http://www.woodstockschool.in/page.cfm?p=717

Saturday I was unable to attend any of the events. Lighting crew had an all-day work job testing sockets and wires, hanging lights, labelling fixtures and making maps of every plug  and socket in Parker Hall. I have an enormous amount of respect for theater techies now! Actors aren't usually in a position to straddle ladders 20 ft in the air reaching up with a sharpie to laboriously label a light socket. Tall people definitely have an advantage over me there...

Bright and early on sunday morning, most everybody woke up at an ungodly hour (5:30 am) to get down to New Road and go to the starting line of the half marathon, as well as designated water stations and checkpoints along the way. Annabelle and I, not being what you might call "athletic" opted to run in the "Fun Run", a 5 km race from the Tibetan Bazaar all the way along the Mall Road to Woodstock gate.

 

The morning of: ladies getting ready to leave!

Finding our way to the starting line. 

Is it bad that we actually had no clue where it was until 3 minutes before the race?

Nearly there...

I made the mistake of bringing with me my camera, iPod, jacket, and water bottle, thinking that there would be people at the starting line to take the stuff. Little did I know that in the email where we were told we could just bring our things to the starting line, and that fellow woodstockers would take our things, that that opportunity was only being offered to the runners of the half marathon, not the Fun Run. I ended up running about 1 km carrying my things under 1 arm until I found Pauline's group at a water station and dropped all my things on the table whilst running by. They were more than a little confused!

In the end, I placed 2nd to Michael Wiggins, the uber buff dude in our grade. 

Coming in to the finish

 Post race, and with Mr Steve and Annabelle after he placed second in the half-marathon.



Over 101 people participated in the marathing, including a whole whack of Woodstock students. Runners of the race included Sarah, Kalki, Bendix, Asma, Jinoh, Teva, Megan, Maggie, Rowan, and many others! It was so great to have such active participation in the first ever half-marathon in Mussoorie (even if the route was changed the night before...)

Lots of love and 32 days!
Emily

Halloween at Woodstock

BOO!

Halloween 2012 has been a most excellent day! 
I've noticed some very distinct differences between here and home, but also with certain overarching similarities.

After we got back from play practice this evening, we received some trick-or-treaters from the junior school (resulting in a mad scramble from all the girls to find something suitable to give away. Devika eventually managed to find an unopened pack of Skittles.) 

We also had a Halloween party in the Midlands rec. hall, which included some magnificent cakes and candies, a pumpkin carving contest, and a costume competition.

My costume was somewhat unimaginative, due to my lack of costume material (I was a hipster, who didn’t dress up because it’s ironic), but some people really went all out.

Check out these folks!

Andrew as a ninja victim

Gypsy fortune teller (Juliana)

(A very cozy) nature spirit (Aya)

Rosie the Riveter (Ugyen)

Gypsies (Tanya and Tanu)

Little red riding hood (Deki)

"Nun"... (One of the grade 10's not sure who)

Costume contest winners! First place went to our lovely gypsies, Tanuvee and Tanya. Second went to the Cat in the Hat, and third place went to... well, I'm not exactly sure what they are.

The prize. Mmmmm...

Also, please enjoy the photos from our pumpkin-carving extravaganza. I gave some remedial carving lessons to Sonam, Ro and Tanya, and we produced quite a satisfactory jack-o-lantern. We didn’t win, the prize went to Lexine, Megan, Nutcha and Jesal’s group, who carved this pumpkin:

This was ours:

Yes, the teeth say "HALLOWEEN"

Sonam, Tanya, me and Ro

 Graduating class of 2014. This was Ro's idea

Here was the prize for our efforts:

We were hoping for the worms and dirt, but the Cat Cake was pretty delish. The dark icing also had the amusing effect of turning everyone's teeth, lips and tongue a dark blue.

One remarkable difference between home and Woodstock was the weather.

While folks back home are enduring the remnants of Sandy, here’s what the weather was like today.

Photos taken from the window in math class

Long sleeves, that’s the most we’re wearing at this point!

It’ll be an adjustment and a half to come back to Canada in midwinter. Already November and it’s still going up to 17 degrees C during the day!

Love to all,

Emily 

I have a new love: SLUTTY BROWNIES

Ingredients

         For the Brownie layer:

         10 tbsp unsalted butter

         1 1/4 cups white sugar

         3/4 cup cocoa powder

         1/2 tsp salt

         2 tsp vanilla extract (Thank you Tanuvee!)

         2 large eggs

         1/2 cup AP flour (AP flour? Advanced placement flour?          High          schoolers confused)

        

         For the Oreo layer:

         1 package of Oreo (regular stuffed or double stuffed) - it's even better if you use the chocolate ones

        

         For the Cookie Dough layer:

         1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temp)

         1/4 cup brown sugar

         3/4 cup white sugar (LOL nope, we used all the sugar in both          kitchens for the brownie layer: moar brown sugar!!!)

         1 egg

         1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract                 

         1 1/4 cups AP flour (???)

         1/2 tsp salt

         1/2 tsp baking soda

         1/2 tsp baking powder

         (Note: in India, these are the same thing. Weird :P)

         1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or you can substitute a          mashed-up bar of chocolate. Dairy milk crunchie works nicely)

        

Instructions

For the Brownie layer:

In a medium saucepan (microwave), melt the butter over medium high heat. Add the sugar and cocoa powder once the butter is melted. Whisk to combine and remove from heat. Add the salt, vanilla and eggs and continuously whisk until the eggs are combined. Add the flour and continue to mix. Set batter aside.

For the Cookie Dough layer:

Cream together the butter and sugars in a mixer (aka with your fork/hands). Add the eggs and vanilla, making sure to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl. Add the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and mix on low until everything is incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips. Set dough aside.

Assembly:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line the bottom of a 9x9 baking pan with tin foil and then spray the tin foil with a layer of baking spray. (or you can just lavishly butter Ms Maya’s pan)

Layer the cookie dough on the bottom of a 9x9 baking pan, pressing down to form the bottom of the slutty brownies.

Layer as many oreos that will fit on top of the cookie dough. No need to overlap. One single layer will do. (To fill in the gaps, crumble up oreos and out the crumbs in between_

Pour the brownie batter on top of the oreo layer and make sure it's evenly layers on top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes. Test with a knife to see if the center is done. If the knife comes out clean, let the brownies rest before serving. If the knife comes out with batter still on it, allow the brownies to bake about 5 minutes more.

Serve with ice cream :) (Serve quietly, else the whole dorm will want some! Oh no, here they come…)

Enjoy, my lovelies!

Introduced to me by Kalkidan and Monica

(In)activity week

Hello my dears!

As some of you know from facebook, I had a rather uneventful activity week. I left with the rest of the team to go trekking on sunday early morning, feeling super pumped about the week ahead. However, by midday, I started to feel off. I thought it was just carsickness, but as time progressed and we got to the campsite, I just felt worse and worse. By evening, I could barely walk.

I slept fitfully that night, and by morning was still feeling pretty rotten. Even with my bag tied to a mule, I was by far the slowest member of the group. Eventually we just split up into two: Ms Fiddler (Ashley) and Asma stayed with me and everyone else carried on.
By about noon, my condition hadn't much improved. I was cramped, exhausted and nauseous. The staff (Pants, Dane, Titu and Ashley) suggested I go back to school, where I could be cared for by the health center. Even though I REALLY REALLY REALLY didn't want to leave, I didn't have much choice. I agreed that it would be the safest option.

Most regrettably, girls have to travel in pairs wherever you go in India, for safety reasons as well as company. Kalkidan Amare, heroine, selfless, wonderful person that she is, volunteered to accompany me back to Mussoorie, along with a hindi-speaking staff member (Titu), who is equally wonderful and selfless and heroic.

We walked back down to our first campsite, where we called for a jeep to detour around to where we were. It was a hitch-hiking jeep, meaning that Titu, Kalki and I were crammed in the back of the bumpy, dusty jeep with about 4 other indian men, as well as our backs. With me being the stomach sick one, this just sounds like a recipe for disaster, dunnit?

Thankfully, nothing happened until we got to the jeep transfer point, and found another jeep willing to chauffer us back to Mussoorie. Best bit: we had it to ourselves!!!

We drove...and drove...and drove... for about 8 hours. Finally, we got to Mussoorie, exhausted and carsick, and plunked down in our beds as soon as we possibly could.

Tuesday (the next day), I was started on a rigorous medication regimen, 3 pills, 3 times a day. I was feeling plenty wiped, so I slept and read most of the day.
Kalki, on the other hand, was picked up by the lovely nurse Tara Kaplan (mother of Teva [previous trek]). She spent a good week with her, hanging out with junior school and going to bazaar.

I spent the week having down-time, reading a ton of books, and hanging out with Darcey Wunker, lovely lady and saviour that she is. She brought me a kindle!

So now I'm back in dorms, with PEOPLE!!! My extrovertness has been thouroughly starved, so I'm glad to be back!


And finally, some photos for you to enjoy:

We all remarked that they look rather like Toffla trees

First (and only) campsite

The oh-so-lovely Asma

The amazing room-mate Kalkidan

Waiing for the jeep

Time for healing and recovery

Not all bad...

Ok, I admit this seems a little random. I think oranges in Mussoorie are rather neat!

3 pills, 3 times a day!

Love and BIIG hugs to all,

Emily

PS Two weeks until I go to Delhi for Diwali!

PPS 41 more days until I'm back in Canada! Time seems to have flown by!

Recent events

Hello readers,
I ave not blogged in a whil: for this I am sorry. Being accustomed to daily life here, things are no longer new, the views no longer surprising, the activities routine. I will do my best to continue posting, even if I am feeling less inclined than I would like. :P

Something rather unfortunate happened at Woodstock last week. Two weekends ago was the Sadie Hawkins dance, where all the girls ask guys to the dance, everyone dresses up really fancy, eats good food and dances their butts off.

However, as usually happens at a high school dance, some students snuck in alcohol. 

They were caught, and all students involved have been suspended for 2 weeks-1 month. Mr Anderson has informed us that this is the mildest of punishments he will deal out in regard to this situation. If it occurs again the consequences will be much more severe.

If I ever needed convincing that drinking in high school was a bad idea, this would do it...

So that was intersting. I hope it dissuades other would-be drinkers not to do it at school!

In other news, Macbeth is well underway. Costumes and props are almost finished, lighting cues are being set up, and sword fighting is going full speed ahead! This should be a pretty fantastic show. Cannot wait for november!

In regard to performances, I got accepted into advanced recital!!!! I will be singing "When My Soul Touches Yours" by Leonard Bernstein.
EE!

Finally, I'm going trekking again tomorrow, this time to Braadsar lake. We're going 4000m up the mountain, for 9 days.
It'll be a very different trek this time, with 20 students in attendance, the majority of which are guys.

Should be a pretty rocking time!

See you in 9 days my lovelies!

Love,
Emily

PS I found out the other day that one of my dorm mates' grandfather was Tenzing Norgay. How freaking cool is that?