Some photos!

A brief photo album of some of the fun things I've been up to!

Jan. 25 On our way to our first CI days...one of many sleeping Amilee pictures!  Our bus ride was an hour and a half long even though the place was only about 15 minutes away because we got on the bus in the wrong direction...oops!

Jan. 25 Charlie from Trinidad and I at our first CI day at Florida Baptist Children's Home, sorting food donations.  The children live in houses of about 10 kids each, with "House Parents," who live there as a full-time job, caring for and raising the children.  This given children the chance to experience a typical family life, with responsibilities, older bothers and sisters, etc.  House Parents can just come to the "grocery store" and just take anything they like to cook for dinner!

Jan. 25 Taking a quick break on CI day with Larissa from New Hampshire!

Jan. 26 Our host family in Lakeland took us to go swimming with the manatees in Homosassa River.  We got to pet them and play with them, what an awesome experience!!

Jan. 27 Doing homework in the sun...we had to sit partially in the shade so we could still read our e-textbook....it's a rough life.

Jan 29 Me, Mallory from Colorado, Molly from Vermont, and Sanne from Belgium with a  Boa Constrictor.  The "Dean of Gator Wresting" came to talk to us about all different Floridian reptiles and we got a chance to hold them all!

Jan. 30 Me, Diana from California, and Charlie from Trinidad in matching green dresses and official name tags!  Apparently "emerald" is in this season!

Feb. 3 McKenzie from Utah, Me, Mallory from Colorado, Montana from Canada, and Misa from Wisconsin
We had a great day together at the beach!  It is always so special to be able to spend time with Uppies when we have nothing scheduled for us to do!

Feb. 3 Misa and I at the end of a beautiful beach day at Clearwater Beach, the most beautiful beach in Florida!

Feb. 4 The Study Abroad group...we decided to make the day we had class "Pigtail Day"
Abbey from Colorado, Tara from Colorado, Mallory from Colorado, Me, Misa from Wisconsin, Amy from Colorado, Claudia from Mexico, McKenzie from Utah, Frank from China, and Ambrea from Minnesota

Feb. 4 (Clockwise from bottom) Me, Cecilia form Sweden, Mallory from Colorado, Conny for Germany, Diana from California, Dylan from Colorado, Misa from Wisconsin, and Tara from Calorado  taking a break from a long day of rehearsal!

Feb. 6 My hometeam, the Sevelociraptors!  We split the cast into 7 hometeams  for both practical reasons, and so that we can all get to know each other just a little bit better.

Feb. 6 Sometimes we have serious discussions about our feelings as a hometeam, and sometimes we play silly games.  I was dared to "whisper sweet nothings" to the tree for a full minute.... I guess that makes me a tree-hugger!

Feb. 12 Second CI day at the ACT Abuse thrift store.  While cleaning out the  storage area, we found some body parts...
Ambrea from Minnesota, Erin from Virginia, Larissa from New Hampshire, Norman from Belgium, Misa from Wisconsin, Wouter from The Netherlands, Joanna from Portugal, Me, Cecilia from Florida (an alumnus of UWP and one of our sponsors for Fort Myers who joined us for the morning), Conny from Germany, and Caroline from Colorado

Feb. 12 While we were sorting and organizing books at the thrift store, I found a science dictionary that was about 5 inches thick...what a book!

Feb. 15 Our reaction when my current host cousin, Sage from California, and I realize we have a mutual love of opening things!  She also is both very musical and very logically-minded, and from a family of 6...it's been great fun getting to know her.

First show, new city, and Valentine's day!

So I clearly need a new method of keeping up with my posts, seeing as it's 1:15am, and I haven't posted for weeks.  I'm going to try to post shorter posts every few days so it doesn't get so overwhelming...the idea of posting one a week became a really daunting task after it took me 2 hours the first week, and that was the week that not that much happened in comparison to the rest of my time here!!  I'll make it part of my Lenten promise :)

So, we had an absolutely WONDERFUL first show last Saturday night!  It was such a wonderful experience to finally be performing to a real crowd of hundreds of people, instead of to an empty auditorium, as we had been doing day after day for the previous week and a half.

Here is an except from the journal I keep for my Interpersonal Class....I wrote it last Sunday night :)
"Tech week....always a stressful, sleep-deprived week, but always with a wonderful ending.  I think UWP tech week was more extreme than any I’ve had before...more stress-filled, less sleep-filled, more painful for my feet....but what a high the night of the show!!
It’s amazing to think back to last Monday, how far we were from having a full show, and how surreal it felt to have a show in a mere 5 days.  Even on Tuesday, Misa (my roommate) and I were sitting in bed and I was chatting to her, and she stopped me, took my hand, and said “Amilee....we have a show...four days.”  It was such a hard thing to fathom that she couldn’t even get the words out right!
We were in full costume almost every day, which meant nice hair, makeup, show costume, heels, the whole business.  I don’t think my feel will ever be quite the same again, but they still work, and only one of my feet has been a little numb for the past few days!!  It hardly matters though, because once we got on stage, the rush of having a real (big!) crowd, and the lights on us, and the applause...nothing else mattered.  I took the show more seriously, too.  Certain songs that we had practiced over and over invoked more emotion in me, and I’m sure in the audience as well, which is such a wonderful feeling, to know that the message of our show is really coming through.  There were people in the audience from both of the volunteer site's I’ve been to so far as well, which I thought was an awesome thing to share with them.
I also got my first experience as a Merchandise Assistant, working the table at intermission and after the show, which was great fun, and I can’t wait to learn more about it in the weeks to come...Veronika ("Veronika from Sweden, Marketing Coordinator") told us it would be true “experiential learning,” and she was absolutely right...I don’t think we got any instruction at all before we were thrown into the fire!  After the show, I was trained to be a CI (Community Impact) Crew Leader, with my first day being Tuesday!! I’m really excited to be able to have the opportunity to lead a group with more experiential learning...that’s my favorite kind of learning! This last weekend with our wonderful host family has been absolutely lovely, but definitely bittersweet.  Misa and I have been working all day to put a scrapbook together of all the things we’ve learned from our Host Parents over the month...we’ll be up late tonight, and up early tomorrow, but it’s so worth it.  I feel so truly blessed to have Maureen and Kevin as parents for this month.  We will say goodbye tomorrow morning, but I know I will always have a home to come back to in Florida."

So yes, Misa and I DID stay up until 4am, and we WERE up at 6am the next day, but the scrapbook turned out really well, and we really enjoyed spending out last night together as roommates, singing, packing, and alughing.  I was blessed not only with a wonderful host family, but also a wonderful roommate during Staging, and I am so very thankful for that!

Monday was our first travel day, and so we all packed our suitcases up and said our (tearful) goodbyes.  We were all ready to finally get on the road, and to really start our tour.  I miss Lakeland already, but I know  it's not Goodbye, but See You Later.

We arrived in Fort Myers accompanied by a police escort as we drove intot he city and media all around as we got off the bus...it is so exciting to know that Fort Myers is so happy to welcome us into their city for the week!  My host mom and her sister for this week actually live in Naples, FL, which is about an hour away, but both families are hosting two of us Uppie girls, and so the car rides are full of interesting conversation (that is, if we're awake!)

My first day as a crew leader on Tuesday went very well...a group of 10 of us went to a thrift store whose proceeds go to a program called ACT Abuse, which helps young women who have been abused to get back on their feet.  (Read more about ACT Abuse here.)  We had a great day sorting donations and getting to know one another better.  But unfortunately, I left my sweater there...and a thrift store is a very bad place to lose a gently-worn sweater...

Wednesday was our first "class" day on the road, and so this week we had time for some independent study.  Other weeks, we will have online sessions with our professor.  It was a great opportunity to get some work done, especially since I haven't had as much time in the evenings to do my homework.  I sat outside for quite awhile, reading my textbook and soaking in some sun...I couldn't have asked for a better morning!  Alone time is something that is very rare in UWP, so you have to take the opportunity when it comes!!

Valentine's day with a group of 120 people who are all genuinely happy to be together every day is a wonderful feeling, and the amount of love expressed throughout the day was really heart-warming.  Valentine's Day is often a day that is resented by people, either because it is super cheesy and they don't see the point of having one special day to let people know you love them, or because it's a day when being single is a "bad" thing.  I think that's really a shame though.  My family has always celebrated Valentine's day, and I think it's important to remember that love is so much more than romantic love.  I have so many wonderful family and friends in my life to cherish, and I appreciate the day to remind me how blessed I am.  I think it was an especially great way to start off Lent as well.

Well I guess I've chatted enough, it's now 1:45 and well past my bedtime!!  I wish everyone a Happy (belated) Valentine's day, a blessed Lent season, a Frohe Fasnacht, and a great day!

Much love,
Amilee

It's been such a long time since I last posted, I promise I'm not dead!  Putting together the show has been crazy in good and bad ways, and schoolwork on top of learning lyrics and dancing and everything, it's been very busy!  I am absolutely loving it though, and I cannot WAIT to get on the road next week!

I'm really in Florida....I ATE alligator!!

This week has been exhausting in the best possible way...every day we're working from 8 to 5:30...lots of singing, lots of dancing, lots of learning, and lots of playing. We have already learned almost half the songs for the show and quite a few dances!! We've had a lot of workshops about a range of different topics...from cultural diversity to team building to the history of Up with People. The workshops are always very interactive, which is really beneficial to learning about the different things we all need to know before traveling. We've also been doing a fair bit of auditioning...on Tuesday we split into lots of different groups and had "modules," which were like stations for different aspects of the show (singing, dancing, learning about tech, costumes, and discussing admissions). Everyone had to sing solo for the music director, who told us he has heard every single person sing who has been in Up with People for the past 20-some years. From there, we have been leaving the cast in smaller groups to sing or dance more, so that they can get a feel of everyone's different talents and strengths. I was chosen to be in the first dance of the show...a high-energy but very simple dance, which was really exciting...especially because all this dancing has made me remember why I decided to stop dancing 10 years ago! I'm really enjoying it though, and I'm working hard tog et all the steps down right...I think I'm doing a pretty good job!

My evenings are normally pretty relaxed...we bike home (only a few minutes bike ride!), get changed out of our sweaty dance clothes, and hang out...then dinner (usually at least an hour-long event...our host parents are so fun to talk to!), often an episode of Lost (we started watching in class and are now hooked...), and then bedtime!! Bedtime has become one of the best parts of the day, and normally happens around 10:30...earlier if possible! I know, I know, how could I possibly be the same Amilee?? Well, they say Up with People is a life-changing experience!

We did have some pretty exciting nights yesterday and the day before though! My castmate Amy was on Wheel of Fortune on Friday night, and her host parents were wonderful enough to open their house to the cast to watch her episode when it aired! Unfortunately, she had some bad luck and only won 1,000 dollars, but it was great fun to watch her on screen and to hang out with everyone without having to follow a schedule!!

Amy is the one on the right!

Last night was possibly my favorite night so far...it was one of my roommate's last night in Lakeland, since she is a Promotions Representative, and left this morning to go to Statesboro, GA to help prepare the city for our arrival in a month or so.  Our host parents decided to do something really special and really Florida for her last night, so we drove a half hour to the "best" place to eat....alligator!!

Host Dad Kevin, Me, Misa, Nikka, McKenzie, and a stranger
who was sitting next to us...Floridians are very friendly!

I don't think I've tried so many new things before in one sitting ever...we ate raw oysters on the half shell for appetizers...

First with crackers:

And then we were back for seconds and thirds, straight from the shell!

We were really proud of ourselves!!  We also had scallops, catfish, shrimp, oysters, frog legs, and.....alligator!!

Okay, not this alligator...

...This one!  Clockwise from the dark circle is a conch fritter, shrimp, catfish, frog legs, alligator, and the middle is an oyster.

 We weren't so sure about the frog legs once we realized what they actually fired was a whole frog butt....turns out they really do taste like chicken!!  ...except flavorless, kinda water-logged, and not yummy.

All in all, it has been an absolutely wonderful week, with Up with People, with my castmates, with my host family, and with my roommates....I really couldn't have asked for more!

Yes, this is the result of my over-exhaustion...

...Mac looks tired too.

Finally more people are here!

What an incredible week!  I can honestly say that every day was not only a good day, but a great day.  I a so happy to be down here with Up with People, I know this is absolutely where I'm supposed  to be :)

My last post was only a little over a week ago, but it feels like a month ago...so much has happened!!

Last Friday, the ten of us who are taking classes got the opportunity to go on our first CI, or Community Impact.  We went to Lighthouse Ministries, a Christian homeless shelter and personal rehabilitation center in downtown Lakeland.  The shelter takes in residents, and helps them by providing education, job opportunities, and counseling, as well as meals and daycare, as a lot of the residents are women with children.  

Mom, I know you were probably wishing I was home to help take down our Christmas decorations, but you should know that I definitely did more than I would have at home!! Even with 11 of us (10 students plus our Leadership professor, who was able to come along), it took us all morning to un-decorate the place. We probably took down more than 50 strands of lights, at least 3 fake trees, a blow-up snowman and all of his blow-up friends, and anything else you can imagine.  

Working hard....

   
   

Or hardly working?

   

We found some great princess dresses at the thrift
store...Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, the
Wicked Witch, and Cinderella!

Only some of the Christmas lights we took down!

We really had a great time working together and it felt great to help out Lighthouse Ministries, since this would have taken the staff even longer than it did us, and they were able to spend that time on more necessary tasks.  They were very appreciative of our work, I think everyone was done with Christmas...it's hard to stay in the Christmas spirit when it's 80 degrees outside!!

Misa, Abby, Amy, Mallory, Ambrea, Amilee, McKenzie, Tara, Claudia, and  Frank

We got the chance to meet one of the residents and hear her testimony.  It was truly a moving story to hear how many times she had come clean and then fell back into addiction again.  After a few cycles of that, and a few months in jail, she finally found Lighthouse Ministries and has been able to begin to turn her life around.  We got a tour of the facilities as well, and heard more about their ministry, which was really nice to know that we were helping such a wonderful place.

 

There was a beautiful wall mural...the idea is that at first, the there are many paths that are crooked and in shadow, but then they reach the lighthouse, and the path widens and becomes more lit, and then eventually there is only one path that leads to the cross.

Then in the afternoon, the rest of the cast arrived, which was the most exciting and happy and overwhelming experience!! Everyone was so excited to meet everyone else, and as each busload arrived, there were more people to greet and shake hands with and kiss (only the Mexicans!) I had such a headache after a few hours of constant smiling...but it was so worth it :) Over this whole week I've gotten to talk to more people and it is just so fun to hear everyone's story...where they're from, why they're here, their goals, dreams...

    

So excited to be here...and this is only about half of the cast (plus some staff)!

We took a well-deserved sleep-in day on Saturday, and on Sunday I went to church with my roommate from the Philippines and my host aunt, since our host parents went to the beach for the weekend. After church, Host Aunt Noreen took us to a great little bistro on one of the many lakes in Lakeland, with a great view of the beautiful swans, which were originally donated to Lakeland by Queen Elizabeth.  

Nikka, McKenzie, Host Aunt Noreen, Me, and Misa in front of Lake Mirror

Later that afternoon, we had a welcoming ceremony, which of course was a lot of introductions and applause, but the best part was when some of the staff and the second semester students performed a few songs from the show...very moving, very inspiring songs. And when everyone started to sing together, I cried a little (thanks, Italian genes)...it was so special to be able to experience a little piece of the show that I am so lucky to be a part of.

I'm really in Florida, I saw an alligator!

Hello all!

So a lot has happened since my last post, I will do my best to remember everything!

Our days have been largely taken up by our classes, since we are trying to "front-load" now before we go on tour.  I am SO excited for these classes...the professors are very much aware of the UWP program and what we do during our semester, and so a lot of assignments will have us reflect on our experiences and use our experiences to inform our papers.  As someone who really values practical education and hands-on learning, this is just a wonderful addition to everything else we'll be doing.  There is (and will continue to be) a lot of overlap between both the individual classes and what we'll be learning on the road, and so I am really enjoying the cross-curricular aspect of it as well.

Here's a great picture of the 10 of us taking classes through Florida Southern College. (Note the railings!)

In other news, I finally got around to taking some pictures of Lakeland, which are on facebook.  For those of you without a facebook, you can view them here.  There is a beautiful lake (Lake Hollingsworth) right near Florida Southern's campus, and my host family's house is about a quarter of the way around the lake, which is about a 3/4 mile distance.  We have really been enjoying walking to and from "school" every day, and the weather has been PERFECT.  In fact, yesterday and today were record high temperatures for Lakeland in January--a balmy 82 degrees!

Yesterday we took a walk all the way around the lake (about 3 miles) after we finished with classes.  It was really interesting to see the variety in the architecture ..a lot of the houses were more typical, like the one I am living in, but some looked more like Italian villas, and some were just not to attractive...I took pictures of a lot of them if anyone is interested :)  But the most exciting part of the walk was definitely when we saw our alligator.  He was real big, about 6 feet, which is actually the biggest they can be before they have to be removed and either shot or relocated.  They are no longer endangered so they'll often shoot them if they get too friendly (within 10 feet of a human) or longer than about 6 feet.  Here's a picture!  (For those of you who know the story...that's my monkey face, too.  Thankfully the alligator didn't see it, or I would not be writing this!)

I have really enjoyed spending time with my host parents, Maureen and Kevin.  They both grew up in the northeast/midwest, but have lived in Florida for abut 30 years.  They have three children, all grown, and a black lab, Mac, who is absolutely the sweetest dog I have ever met.  He is definitely turning me into more of a dog person...and I'm not allergic to him!  Quite a change from Fat Stella.  The way they run their house is very similar to what I am used to and what I am comfortable with, so it has been an easy transition for me...I have to remember that's not how it will always be!  The fun fact of the day yesterday was that one of Kevin's patients (who is the senior cardiologist at the hospital clinic in Lakeland) lives part of the year in Whitehouse, NJ!  I was pretty excited to here a little piece of home had followed me here.

That's about all for now.  We are all getting really excited for Friday when the rest of the cast arrives!!  We got some brochures the other day to distribute about the show...

...it's all terribly exciting.  (Vanderhoofs, note the earrings...I love my Epiphany gift, thank you!)
[sorry the picture is backwards!]

I send all my love!  Thinking of all of you in the cold dreary winter while I enjoy myself by the pool :)

I am so incredibly blessed!

Day One is ending and I am starting to feel settled...for now!  My host family is an older couple who live in this MANSION with a beautiful view of one of the many lakes in Lakeland.  Their house is a five minute walk from campus too, which is lovely.  The weather here is super gray and icky today but I've been promised that will not last...I hope that's true!

I'll be with this host family for the first three weeks here, with (eventually) 3 roommates.  So far I just have one roommate (the other two had their flights delayed).  So far we get along very well, which has been very comforting to me.

There are about ten of us here early for the credit program (I over estimated before, oops!)....strangely enough, I am in the minority because I am not a female from the mid-west.  Out of those of us here early, there is only one guy and I am the sole East Coaster...so far!  Our first set of classes is tomorrow, but we'll have a half day, so I am very much looking forward to enjoying the sunshine (hopefully!) and taking a nice walk around the lake tomorrow afternoon.  There's about a 3 mile loop around the lake, and it sounds like it's a bit of a destination (my host mom stressed how people drive here to walk around the lake!).

And as if I was not already lucky enough with incredibly friendly and outgoing and INTERESTING host parents with a beautiful house in a beautiful location, they are also very involved in the Catholic Church, and so were quite happy to hear that I wanted to go to mass.  (And we said grace before dinner!) My host mom said she wanted to be a nun before she wanted to be an elementary school teacher...but that was all back in 1st grade.  We had a great time tonight telling each of our life stories!


Sorry my thoughts are all over the place...it's late but I wanted to share SOMETHING before I got distracted with all the new fun I'll be having :)  I promise I'll try to be a little less scatterbrained in the future!

Pictures to come!