Early Morning Muezzin Musings

It's 4:21 a.m. and the muezzins at the nearby mosques have begun their morning call to prayer. It's more a religious battle of the bands (battle of the "brands"?) and occurs several times during the day. The fellow at the Shi'a mosque -- the Iranian mosque with the minarets that light up in green at night -- has the better voice: fluid and mysterious. His call evokes images of crowded bazaars in the casbah, women veiled from head to toe, and Sufis whirling like dust storms in the desert.

The Sunni guy from just down the street bellows like a cow giving birth. This tends to dispel the romantic visions which would otherwise be my payoff for getting up so early to work on this post.

I am drinking a cup of coffee flavored with cardamom. One of my colleagues (Ahmed) suggested that I try this Turkish style of coffee. It has an interesting flavor -- something Starbucks might try as a special for a month and then decide not to offer for several years. I drink it mostly for the caffeine. It probably also works as a breath freshener.

Soon I will have to end this post and get some material prepared for today's classes. At the American International School of Kuwait, classes start at 7:40 in the morning. School ends at 2:30 p.m. There are six periods a day with only a half-hour for lunch. There is also one 15-minute "nutritional break" in the morning for the high schoolers. Classes are about an hour in length and there are no study halls.

These folks are serious about pushing the curriculum, believe me. Because of this, I have yet to find a time that will work for starting a SEALS franchise here. Maybe later in the year. I've already been drafted to coach several events for the school's Forensics team. (Here, "Forensics" means "Speech and Debate", although with the number of kids I'm coaching — more than half the team of 20 — it may take on the CSI meaning if I don't survive all of the after-school practices.)

In less than two weeks, I will have another birthday. Since Oct. 12 this year falls within the Eid al Adha holiday, I'm flying off to Luxor, Egypt for a week. This is where, I'm told, the original inspiration for Shelley's "Ozymandias" poem can be found. Apparently, the poem has recently been used in "Breaking Bad," so I'm pleased that I will have a pop-culture reference to put onto Facebook for those who think that Luxor originated in Las Vegas.

Just so you know, SEALS also changed my life, but in ways that are hard for me to explain. Things like getting up at 5:30 a.m. so I could speed over to Safeway to buy doughnuts and bread before school started -- why would I do that? Craziness. Giving up three lunch hours a cycle so that I could meet with weird kids who did things like giving birth on the floor, blabbered in strange accents, and escaped from islands using spatulas and thumb tacks. Craziness. Continually having to put props back into the Prop Box because some of you just had to play with my toys, even after I'd already put them away. Craziness. An initiation ceremony that vacillated between a medieval inquisition and a sketch by Monty Python, topped off with the chicken dance.

Craziness.

I'm missing me some crazy, can't you tell? Keep posting. I can't say that your posts keep me sane, but I never was all that sane to begin with.

Missing you all very much.

Mr. W.

Academy Updates

Seeing as this blog is an improv blog, I thought it'd be appropriate to share some updates with everyone (people who haven't been to the meetings/people who aren't in the Academy/people who are on the other side of the world - you know who you are).

I figure bullet points will be effective. Am I right? I guess we'll see.

• The Academy chapter is now the KOALAs: Keiki Oka Aina Laulima Aloha to any outsiders who ask what it means, but there's actually a super-secret abbreviation that KOALA really stands for. Maybe we'll share it here eventually. Hint: the L is for Loser.
• I, Audrey, am now the meeting leader person because we still don't have an advisor; that means I send out emails and lead meetings and keep everyone organized. Michael is the diplomat communicator person; basically the Benjamin Franklin of the KOALAs. You know, if we were in the middle of a Revolutionary War. Which could be a good analogy for high school. Anyways.
• We're going to stick to practicing improv; no performing yet until we're either really professionally good or until we're seniors because at that point we'll have the advantage over everyone else so ha ha ha you can't laugh at us even if we fail gloriously. Although at that point Michael will be graduated. *head spins from thoughts about the future*
• We're not adding any new members because we don't have anyone to teach about improv yet and we don't exactly wanna teach it ourselves. Yet, anyways.

... that's kind of all we decided. Oh well. We knocked out everything on the agenda anyways, so we must have decided something important.

I'm really missing 7th grade improv right now. Those were the good, simple days, where I honestly didn't care what anyone thought about me. No, dang it, Audrey, this wasn't going to be a deep post to make all readers sob and applaud to their computers about your deep, John Green-worthy words. Yeah, I guess you're right, other me. I guess that's all for now. I'll continue to bring you all the updates and snark from the Academy improv club! (Although Keith would probably do snark better than me. Let's be honest, Keith does everything better than me. Keith does everything better than everyone. And he's not even paying me to say this. Let's be honest again, the K in KOALA stands for Keith. I'm serious on that one. It actually does stand for Keith. Not sure what we were thinking on that one. Well, maybe I do. Is there a limit to how much stuff you can put in one pair of parentheses? I'm supposed to be finishing my World Civ homework. Sorry, Mr. Peer. There are more pressing matters at stake here.)

A great man once said, "Farewell friends, thanks for reading my post. I'm out, lol peace." I'm pretty sure it was Aesop. Or wait, maybe that was me. (Let's be honest for like the third time, I'm pretty much the same person as Aesop anyways so what does it matter.)

Anyways, I'll leave you with two quotes:

"Thanks for reading all the way down to here. You're awesome." ~ Aesop

"Slow and steady wins the race." ~ Audrey Boyle

Signed,

Aesop Audrey Boyle

I Am...

I think I post here too often. Oh well. Hey guys, it's me. Happens to be probably the only 8th grader that checks this blog. I just want to say thank you. And here's why.

I know I wrote about how Seals kept me sane, like Erica, Mr. Wagon Seal, and probably you. But now thinking back, you taught me something valuable. Confidence. If you knew me in 6th grade, you probably knew I was an EXTREMELY socially awkward child, who tried everything she did to keep her sanity. Well, that ended up failing, and I went to 7th grade, with a sense of loss and failure. You know the rest, blah blah blah, Seals changed my life, yup. But the one value I overlooked was confidence. I mean, you can compare me now to my former self. I now have more friends, know how to lead, and be organized (to some extent). I can now stand up for myself and my own problems, contrary to what my parents believe (but they still are supportive!).

See, what made me realize this is last year, when I started to go to Church again, I met Chevas. He was pretty much the typical asian 24 year-old. Except he had a future that I wanted. Something that I wanted to strive for. See, while I was being an awkward child, he took notice of me (not in the way you think). He, for some odd reason, saw potential in me. So then while I'm playing guitar in the corner, he asks me to sing for him. At this point, I had never, EVER sung in front of anybody, let alone a stranger. But I do. Something just compelled me. And that small bit of courage has brought me here today.

I am a Monk Seal. I am a singer. I am a stage manager. I am part of the tech team. I am all of these things because of a bit of courage that CLS taught me. Something that we people call Fail Gloriously. Right now, I'm getting psyched up for a performance tomorrow. It's my first performance since 5 years ago, as a tiny 3rd grader. Do you know how scared I am? You probably do. And I cannot tell you on how blessed I am to do this, and how grateful I am for you guys for giving me the opportunity to join the Troupe. So I am. I am who I want to be. I am who I am, because of CLS.
-Marie
P.S. To all the freshman out there: Have fun @ the academy improv thing! Koalas I believe... We're coming after you ;)

All The Good Post Titles Are Taken

I'm adding to the spam of posts. Sorry, but I've been meaning to write this for awhile because everyone has some touching story about their experience so here's mine. (If you get bored halfway through, here's a fun game: try to guess who I am while reading this and you'll find out at the end.)

I remember signing up for improv because I like singing and acting but I was just never quite good enough for all the official performances. I'm one of the few people in improv who's never been in a Dillingham show before (except for 1 triennial in 5th grade but they couldn't cut me from that so it doesn't really count), and I decided to choose that as my elective because it sounded super cool. So I signed up! It was super fun and I really liked the people in my class. (I don't think any of you guys were actually in my class because I was in a completely different team from you guys. That was a HUGE HINT as to who I am.)

So when Mr. Wagenseller emailed us about the improv club, I was all for it. I wanted to just see what was up and see if it would be as fun as the class. Yeah, I was one of the few people there when it was after school on a Thursday. I actually cancelled my piano lesson just to come. So dedicated, am I right?

Then improv became a huge part of my life. You see, 7th grade wasn't exactly the best year for me. I lost a lot of things - friends, elections, competitions, and pretty much anything else I tried. Lots of tears were shed that year. I had to grow a thicker skin and I had to learn to be more mature and get over things a lot easier. I had to learn to not assume that everything would work out, and sometimes I'd have to fix it myself. I learned a lot in 7th grade from all of the hard stuff I went through. But even if you grow from a hard time and it ends up being good, you still have to have a respite from all the bad stuff. And improv club was that for me. I knew everyone would laugh with me, and it was the one thing that I literally couldn't lose at. I learned to fail gloriously - if you lose, lose gloriously. I learned to live without regrets. If you do something bad, if you regret something, you know what? It's just life. It's just something small that you probably won't even remember. So you gotta go out with a bang. If you're losing horribly anyways, why not make it the most bangin' failure that anyone has ever seen ever? Yeah, I lost VP. Yeah, I didn't make it to Damon Speech Finals. So what? I gave it my all. I failed. But I did it gloriously. And I learned that mindset from improv. (If you don't know who I am by now you're either in the class of 2018 or you should get to know me better.)

I also didn't really felt like I was good enough to hang out with the "musical theatre kids." I thought it was like an elite clique and you had to make it into musicals to hang out with them. But when I got to know you guys through improv, it really made me realize that you guys are just like normal people. And that made me realize that there are lots of other people who are also just like normal people. EVERYONE IS JUST A NORMAL PERSON!!! That was almost as good of a revelation as YOLO.

In 8th grade, I had grown a lot and I was changed for the better. I was more confident, but it almost made me grow away from improv. I felt like there was a while that I never really participated and I wasn't that into it. I was kind of intimidated and shocked by all of the new 7th graders that were suddenly dominating the stage. Maybe they weren't always the best, but there were just so many of them that I didn't know. Slowly we all grew to be a family, and then towards the end of the year I truly felt close to all of you. (I think it was after we established the troupe.) We became a family. A bread-hollowing, crazy, loving, teasing, mocking, and sometimes just really stupid family. But a family. We've added and dropped members over the years, but that doesn't change the fact that we're all a family. Maybe some members are on the other side of the world. Maybe just on the other side of campus. But we're still a family.

I couldn't be happier to be going into Academy with (at least part) of the improv fam by my side. I'm so proud of all of you, and myself. I really hope we can make this improv Academy thing work. Maybe we can even add some older kids, expanding the improv family.

I think improv is amazing for everyone. I think everyone should do improv at one point. And maybe - however cheesy this sounds, maybe everyone can join the improv family. We should stop looking for the cure to world peace in bombs and diplomacy - just bring a few Who's Line actors into the UN and everyone will get along. Trust me. And if it doesn't work? Then they'll fail gloriously.

I'm hoping this post wasn't a glorious failure. :)

You guessed it,
Audrey

How Every One of You Made Clever Titles So I Have to Make This One

*WARNING: THIS BLOG POST IS DANGEROUSLY LONG. IF YOU WANT TO READ THIS, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AT LEAST 25 YEARS OF SPARE TIME.*

Hi guys,
Because I don't like scrolling down to find out who the writer is (and because I might forget to put my name at the bottom,) this is Ian here. Hi! How are you? Okay, okay, enough. I need to talk. First and foremost, I'd like to say that all of you have put out pretty amazing essays. (Yes, I have read all of them.) You all made wonderful ways to express how improv club changed you. And now I guess it's my turn. Okay, okay, enough deep stuff.

It all started when I was in 7th grade and I took Improvisation as an elective. I wanted to explore theater and that was my first choice (fun fact, musical theater was my second. Lucky you.) When we walked in that deep, musty, Castle Hall basement, the first thing I thought was: someone better not turn off the lights. But anyways, class started and we all began that fantastic journey of improvisational acting. While I don't remember many of my classmates, I do know that Teava was in my class. And that he pretended to be a lover of someone at least once. Surprise.

Mr. Wagenseller was loud and crazy but wow, just so energetic and a great actor. He was wacky, out there, but fun. By the end of the trimester, I wanted more. It was fast paced and electric, funny, and a great way to express yourself and have a good time. Mr. Wagenseller let me in on a secret. He was going to start an "improv club." And he sent me one of his famous themed e-mails with the fancy backgrounds that I will never be able to replicate. The first meeting was with Erica, Michael, Mr. Wagenseller, me, and I think Audrey. More might have been there, and sorry I forgot you. We met after school (yeah, really,) in the room where all the musical theater kids danced and sprinted around or whatever. After that first preliminary meet-up, improv club was born.

Over time, it moved to lunch and us first generation kids clustered together. There were only three eighth-graders: Michael, Anna, and Max. But then Max and Anna left. So I guess one. Thanks, Michael! We had such a fun time doing whatever we wanted. In that room, we had a safe haven, a canvas which we could paint our own. Most of the time, that canvas looked like rainbow diarrhea, but sometimes it kind of resembled an actual landscape. Regardless, we did shows (which inspired the future CLS, yes, you eighth-graders, for now, are the future,) skits, and laughed our eyeballs out. In eighth grade, the torch kept burning, with show after show and member after member performing for a very small adoring, cheering crowd of fans. Every lunch was such a great time. Anyways, enough about you guys! What attention hoggers! Back to my feelings! By the time we reached our final performance on the beach, it was finally the end of an era. Middle School CLS had reached the end of its reign (with Mr. Wagenseller.) It was like the sunset to one of the funnest days ever. (Yes, my metaphors are getting annoying.) I was one of the first members and I am so glad I got in the fray. For my memories, I'm really grateful to you guys. You were the ones that supported me, cheered me on, and laughed at my jokes (and horrible sounds in the Alphabet Game. F'maybe!) Thanks for always being there. You guys kept me going and we were an amazing team. We were really like a family (minus the noisy dinner conversations) and I want you guys to know that. Everyone: keep improving! (Maybe we can have a reunion show soon...) Mr. Wagenseller: Thanks so much for being the founder and hard worker of such an awesome club. You've done so much for us behind the scenes that we haven't recognized you for, so we give our deepest gratitude. Kuwait is so lucky to have you. And don't forget: CLS is an amazing place, with no boundaries, no rules, and no end to what we can do. Thank you!

And I will keep this Oscar and never let it go!

"Insert Clever Title Here"

Well herro everybody. It's me. That awkward 8^th grader (for some of you 7^th grader *cough cough* Teava) now in the unforgiving world known as the academy. So since everyone is posting stuff about how CLS changed their lives I thought I'd take a crack at it.

My first encounter with CLS was in 7^th grade when, as Nathalie so eloquently put, someone dragged me against my will to your last performance of the year (and believe it or not that person was Alex Yam). At first I wasn't very enthusiastic to see a club I'd never even heard of. But by the end I was very glad I went. Some things I remember from that performance was Audrey's country girl adaptation of PowerPoint, Ian's jock impression in Dating Game, Keith screaming in Hitchhiker, and something about Doritos. All I could think about was that it must be scripted. There's no way people can come up with an entire performance without any written script or guidelines. But there you guys were, blowing my mind.

After that I didn't think about CLS much. But subconsciously that performance had planted a seed in my brain. 8^th grade came along and during the very first week of school I just so happened to be next to Ian in "the lunch line" in the cafeteria (sorry couldn't resist). We started talking about random stuff, as many of our conversations start out. Then he told me after he got his lunch he was going to something called CLS. Suddenly I remembered that little club last year I watched. Ian said I should come to the meeting and I was once again dragged against my will to a small room in bishop.

Now I would like to say that the moment I walked into that room I knew that this was where I belonged and all that corny stuff. But the truth is the first thing I saw when I walked into the room was everyone on their knees knocking their foreheads on the ground to what looked like a stubby stick that Erica was holding. As you can imagine I was a little weirded out. During the first couple weeks of the club I was actually very intimidated. I only knew about half of you from various shows and productions at the time and I was only comfortable with talking to maybe a few of you. I was pretty quiet and I rarely volunteered willingly during meetings. When I was forced to participate I pretty much sucked at improv. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I got the email saying I was invited to join the troupe.

To be honest I was about to say no. Not because I didn't like the club or anything. In fact I found myself looking forward to B and E days. It's just that I felt that I wasn't good enough to be around all you "improve veterans" because I was one of the only people that joined the troupe in 8^th grade. But again I said yes. That one little word changed my life.

Being in the troupe forced me to volunteer more. And at first I was really concerned about what people thought of me and I was terrible because of that. I thought that it took pride to act normal but it turns out it takes even more pride to embarrass yourself. I'm still not the best at improv but I think I've come a long way from being the girl in the corner. Also as Jadie said, being in this club allowed me to see a different side of these people I was performing with. I even discovered a different side of myself.

I'm not sure when, but somewhere along this crazy road I realized that I had unconsciously begun to depend and rely on this club. Not just as a place to hang out, but a place where I can stop acting normal for 45 minutes of the day and just forget about reality for a little while. Some of you I've known for a long time and others of you I had never talked to but you guys are seriously some of the most supportive people I've ever met. And even though I was never a part of the "improv in group" (Carter, Ian, and Audrey know what I'm talking about) I think of all of you as a second family. I miss you guys more than anything. My only regret about this club is that I hadn't joined sooner. Thank you all so much and thank you to anyone who actually bothered to read this whole thing :)

Sammi

How Every One of You Changed My Life (see what I did there?)

Hi.
         Recently, because I have more homework and therefore I have more time to procrastinate, I have been thinking about how Academy differs from 8th grade.  A few examples are: running with heart monitors (those things should just die), having to walk MILES just to get to your next class, long breaks in the morning when I really don't need them, but most of all, not having a CLS club that I could (figuratively) run to when my troubles overwhelm me.  Now that I think about it, I have not done a proper improv scene since last year.  Although we are planning to start a Senior CLS, I can already tell that it would never be able to compare to what I had experienced over the past few years.
          Contrary to the information written on Teava's blog post, I had actually not been at the first meeting of CLS.  Instead, I remember that about a week or two after it had started, I noticed that every cycle on the same letter day, everyone I ate lunch with disappeared.  I asked them where they were going, and they all simply replied "Seals."  Using this very descriptive answer, I magically was able to find my way into Bishop and to Kelley Lab.  Just kidding.  In actuality, I was silently jealous that there was a secret society that I wasn't informed about, and also slightly afraid that all of my friends were being pulled into a strange cult (I later found out that this true, and that there was nothing strange or dangerous about bowing down to clubs of power and receiving cookies and loaves of bread from a middle aged man).  It wasn't until a few days later that I found out the key details and went to a meeting.  There, I met some of the funniest people I know, or, should I say, I met the extremely f(p)unny and weird inner selves of people that I already knew.  Take Ian, for example.  Who knew that he was actually a racist black woman in labor?  Although this sounds cheesy, I also found and myself there, and discovered that there might be more to me than I previously thought there was.
         Lastly, I would like to express how much you guys mean to me.  Seriously, you guys are like my family.  I think I realized this during our final CLS performance.  It was always pretty obvious that we were a very close and devoted group of friends and improv enthusiasts, but I had never really thought about us as a family until that one moment after the show, where we presented Mr. Wagenseller with the only gift we saw fit to give the guy who got us all started: a presentation board full of inside jokes and our best memories of the past 3 years.  We then broke out into a spontaneous and gigantic group hug.  That was, and continues to be, one of the best moments in my life.  It was that amazing (or maybe my life is just that boring...  Whatever).
        So thank you, to all of you who have made my past few years enjoyable and memorable, and I am definitely looking forward to our first Senior CLS meeting (Is it going to be on Friday?  Will we ever start the Senior CLS?  Gosh we're so disorganized unlike the 8th graders...)

Thank you for reading,

Jadie, Former Monk Seal

Best. Accident. Ever.

Hi. It's me, Nathalie. I just spontaneously rhymed… Not on purpose. Though, it does seem that most of the good, amazing, life-changing things I do were a mistake. A slip of the finger, if you catch my drift. Including me joining CLS. Best Accident Ever.

I, like many other people in the club, was dragged to CLS against their will in 7^th grade. And, like most people in CLS, I will thank the person who dragged me into the wonderful world of Wagenseller (and improv) for probably the rest of eternity. For me that person was Ellie Feng. Ellie promptly forwarded me all the emails about CLS meetings after I first showed a tiny bit of interest. Including a fateful one, the survey (remember that!?). Which I took, accidentally put that I would like to be in a CLS leadership position, and submitted. Which led to me ending up on the leadership counsel for both years of CLS. I had no idea what improv even was when I showed up to the first leadership meeting. And I loved (most) all of the moments.

Okay. Here's the mandatory backstory that explains why CLS was life changing.

Even since I was a little girl, theater enthralled me. Every time I went to a DHT production or even the HTY's that were so much better than boring old field trips, I came out a whole new Nathalie. And what's more, I wanted to be that person performing on stage. Every year I watched jealously as selected 6^th through 8^th graders performed our annual Christmas musical. Until 5^th grade, I was just a jealous spectator and choir member.

In my 5^th grade year, something miraculous happened. The Christmas Musical auditions were extended down to 5^th grade. I think they just wanted to give us a chance but that year about 20 people auditioned. I think they only cut one or two people, for having no rhythm or something. And so, I was finally in my first musical. (See I was previously in an opera in like 4^th grade or something. HYOC's Na Uhane o Hawaii, if you were wondering.) To say in the least, it was amazing.

So yeah, that was one of the early steps in becoming a musical theater enthusiast. And this has to do with CLS because? Well, through CLS I gained more of a chance, parse of actually being an actress. Because of CLS, I gained the confidence to embarrass myself in front of my peers, actually learn about acting, and get better at acting and performing. Very subtly, even so I didn't even realize it, my best area of MT shifted from singing to acting. And, as they say, that has made all the difference.

And so Mr. Swag and all of you amazing, hilarious, talented, and crazy people out there, thanks. Because of you guys, my dreams are coming true.

Nathalie

How I Changed Every One of Your Lives