"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