Living Abroad and Thanksgiving in Spain

Have a seat, make yourself comfortable, and enjoy a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal on the Mediterranean

There is just nothing like living in another country to broaden one’s perspective. Since arriving in Spain, I’ve discovered that almost everything—from gestures and language to packaging in the grocery store—is a little bit different. It’s one thing to read about and study other countries; it’s something entirely different to daily encounter little differences that cause you to scratch your head and say, “oh…but I thought everyone did it this way”. For example, I enjoyed a delicious vegetable stew the other day, prepared by my wonderful host mother, only to discover (with a shudder, I’ll admit) that that “unusual” soup ingredient that she’d mentioned and which I’d eaten with relish was blood sausage. (It was probably for the best, because, had I known what morcilla was beforehand, I highly doubt that I would have enjoyed my meal so immensely.) When Puri saw the look of disconcerted comprehension dawn on my face as I looked up the
word for said dish after lunch, she calmly explained how black pudding is made and pointed out that we eat far more questionable animal products in the form of hotdogs and hamburgers. She’s quite right, of course, and it’s been interesting to think since, in light of that experience, about how the “psychology of food” works.

Allison and Cassie with the mashed potatoes!

Now, don’t get me wrong—when I say that Spain is “different”, I don’t mean to imply that it’s dramatically different from the US. As in most modern, developed countries, houses, clothing styles, transportation, and the amenities of life are all about the same, with the one exception in Alicante being the absence of heating and air in houses. You see, since the weather here is rarely extreme, there really isn’t all that much need for AC and heat. Even so, I confess that I sorely felt the lack of air conditioning during my first couple of weeks here. As the seasons have changed, though, and it’s become a bit chillier, the absence this particular amenity has been really made me think. Perhaps having buildings toasty warm—almost to the point of discomfort—inside makes our bodies less able to adapt to seasonal changes of temperature? Being without heating and air has also made me realize how often I flip a switch when I feel hot or cold when really, I could sim
ply put on warmer clothing or drink some iced water and get the same effect in a more economic and environmentally-friendly way.

The table set for Thanksgiving at the home of our beloved professors, Armando and Cynthia

Call me a comfort-loving American (guilty as charged), but when I was first adjusting to life in Spain, the idea of not being able to control the temperature of my surroundings whenever I wanted was rather disconcerting. However, as I’ve seen that yes, it is quite possible to live comfortably—albeit in an area with a mild climate—without heating and air, I’ve also become much more sensitive to body-temperature phenomena like these: Cold? Solution: more clothing, hot tea, and/or blankets. Hot? Solution: don’t drink hot tea, wear cool clothing, and sit outside in the breeze. All that isn’t to say that I’m going to stop using heat when I go home (hardly)…but the experience of living in an area where almost no houses even have a heating and air system installed in them has certainly made me more thoughtful about the way I view stewardship and the way in which something I consider a necessity may actually only be an unexamined habit of living. Really, then, as in a
ll areas of life, when it comes to our expenditure of energy, balance is the key; and I think I’ll return home a bit more balanced.

Another “little” difference that is obvious but which still struck me as odd at first is the absolute absence of a vitally important holiday, which is celebrated by festivities all around the world (right?)…yes, Thanksgiving. Well of course no one in Europe (or anywhere else in the world except in the US, for that matter) commemorates the first thanksgiving meal held by the pilgrims in the New World out of gratitude to the Lord for his provision. In fact, if you type the word “Thanksgiving” into Google.es (the Spanish version of Google, which automatically appears in place of Google.com when one is in Spain), you will immediately pull up perfectly natural questions like “¿Qué es Thanksgiving?” (“What is Thanksgiving?”) and the subsequent explanation. In fact, I just had a conversation with my elevator friend (dubbed thusly because she’s a delightful former teacher whom I always seem to bump into in the elevator in our apartment), and she was under the impres
sion that Thanksgiving was the American version of Christmas. My mother was also quite surprised to hear that, today, November 24th, was the day of my final exam for one of my classes. I will be celebrating the holiday this afternoon, however, by having a Thanksgiving meal with my study abroad group at the home of our esteemed professor, Armando. I’m also going to attempt to make buttermilk biscuits without real buttermilk (which, like cranberries, doesn’t seem to be sold here in Alicante) and using an entirely different system of measurements. So I think I’ll need 440 grams of flour?

Whodunit?

It was Mr. Green in the ballroom with the wrench!

Although the big fall play finished a couple of weeks ago, the semester was not over for the theatre department.  As a member and president of Erskine’s Alpha Psi Omega – a national honorary fraternity for theatre – I get to be involved in planning and carrying out other theatrical events in addition to plays.  This past week, for example, Alpha Psi Omega hosted a self-created murder mystery, the first ever edition of Clue: Erskine Edition.

Since the beginning of the semester the seven of us members have been planning this event, which is more complicated than you might think.  Luckily, one of our members, Bryce, took a class on detective fiction last J-term, so he took the lead in putting together the mystery.  We had to start by figuring out how to structure the game, give clues, and all the details of location, date, etc.  We ended up using many of the ideas of the game to set it up, as well as taking some from the Clue movie.

We set up six of the classic rooms from the board game in the areas surrounding Lesesne auditorium – the ballroom, study, lounge, library, dining room, and billiard room – and hid five of the six weapons throughout the rooms (the missing one being the murder weapon).  We had the six participating teams of students rotate throughout the six rooms, interviewing the six suspects who were stationed one in each room.  We also had clues hidden in the rooms, and through the interrogations of the characters the teams gained information to help them find the killer.

Six of the seven Alpha Psi Omega members played the main characters, the seventh being the butler (of course!).  We all dressed in black with accents of our color; I, for example, was the flighty and affluent Mrs. Peacock, and wore a blue hat and scarf over my black dress, along with some peacock feather earrings that I borrowed from a friend.  We also enlisted the help of five other members of the theatre department to play characters such as Mr. Boddy, the maid, the cook, etc.  All of us adopted ridiculous, melodramatic characteristics, playing up our roles to make it more fun.  We had an opening skit to introduce all of the characters and the plot, and after a group had submitted the correct suspect, weapon, and room of the murder, we closed with a dramatic final scene and awarded the prize money.

Overall it was a great experience; though there were difficulties in working out some of the logistics, we all greatly enjoyed it – both the actors and the participants.  It went over so well that many students have said they would love to play again, so we hope to do a sequel in the spring!

Just One Reason Erskine is Special…

In the nearby village of Elche, Spain…in a bookstore. You can always spot a humanities major.

If you’re either around college-age or have a student who’s beginning to look at schools, you’ve probably spent at least some time researching and visiting different universities, weighing the respective pros and cons of the institutions that interest you. One factor which I know I took into account when I was looking at schools is the difference in the number of resources found at a large university as opposed to a smaller one. I worried that, were I to go to a small college, I would be missing out if I didn’t have access to everything made available by a large university. Certainly, such a wealth of resources—primarily in the form of enormous libraries—is an extremely valuable asset. What I’ve found since coming to Erskine, however, is that, thanks to incredible librarians and a well-oiled interlibrary loan system, I never have trouble obtaining exactly the resources I need, no matter how specific or obscure the topic I’m researching.

Today, I saw a bit of the flip-side of the research process that I’ve become familiar with at Erskine when I made my first foray into the world of researching at a large university. Before I comment on this experience, I should note that I don’t mean in any way to disparage the University of Alicante by doing so—I am greatly enjoying my classes at the university, and all of my experiences and professors thus far have been excellent! It’s just that, my time in the library this morning helped me see that “the grass is always greener” is an adage because we often don’t fully appreciate the good things we have. You see, when I walked into the huge, multi-level library and saw the shelves upon shelves of books, I was enchanted. Had I gone to a huge school, such copious amounts of resources might have been at my fingertips as well. (Of course, such resources are at my fingertips within three to five days of requesting them from WorldCat…but the green monster is rare
ly logical.) I then commenced searching for books on the topics on which I plan to write my final essays. And gracious, I couldn’t seem to find anything. This was probably at least partly due to my unfamiliarity with the system of book cataloguing used in Spain (which, like measurements, temperature, and classroom numbers, is completely different from that used in the US). Nevertheless, I was quite disheartened to discover that the books I needed were scattered all throughout the vast library building and that some apparently weren’t even in the same building where I was seated. Sigh.

Inside the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid

So I did what I usually do when I’m confused (which, of course, happens only *cough* very rarely): I asked for help. Walking up to one of the librarians, I was met with what can only be described as something of a grimace. She explained—in rapid Spanish—where I could find the list of books I’d compiled and seemed quite annoyed when asked for further clarification on where the basement and the Law Library were. Later, after I finally wandered back to the front desk on that particular floor, I asked the other librarian on duty if I could check my books out then. Only, as I quailed a bit under his scowl, my Spanish vocabulary seemed to vaporize, and I stumbled over my words a bit before being told, rather gruffly, that I could check books out on the first floor. All that to say, the librarians were reasonably cordial, if not friendly, and answered my questions. But as I walked out of the library thinking that I would prefer to just do my research online, I couldn’t hel
p but think how spoiled I am to walk into McCain Library in Due West and to unfailingly be given swift, one-on-one assistance by one of Erskine’s well-versed keepers-of-the-books (surely “librarian” is too mundane a name for such an important job?). I’m not sure that the contrast between that possibility of “being a number” at a large university and the personal, close-knit-community feel I’ve come to enjoy at Erskine have ever seemed quite so stark to me. That’s not in any way to say that one can’t thrive in either a small-school or large-school setting or that each type of school doesn’t have its charms… I just happen to really appreciate my Erskine family and am thankful that God has placed me in it!

View of the beach beside my house in Alicante

In the end, when I arrived back at my piso (apartment) and attempted to use the online Erskine journal database, I discovered to my consternation that I couldn’t seem to log onto the website. Of course, considering that there are a number of US websites that are not accessible from overseas, I wasn’t particularly surprised, but I figured I would email one of the librarians at Erskine to ask about my difficulty. I also mentioned, in my query, the topics I was attempting to research. And what do you think I found in my inbox only hours later? The news that the aforementioned librarian had entered my student ID into the system and that I should now have access to Erskine’s databases AND (get this), a flood of academic articles on the topics I had mentioned in passing. Wow. All the way from Spain, I felt so blessed. And now, I’ve got some reading to do.

Musings in Spain

One thing I’ve loved about being in Spain has been the relatively extensive amount of time I have here to read, study, and contemplate. Granted, I miss all of the Erskine fellowship, activities, and other commitments that fill my time when I’m at school in the US. It’s been quite refreshing, however, to have a season much more conducive to studying certain topics more deeply, with the time to follow intellectual rabbit trails that peak my interest. At the moment, for example, I’m reading Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, a 6th century work of philosophy that had a huge impact on the development of the Western tradition and is referenced by later authors like Dante and Chaucer. Although this ancient work of philosophy in not written from a specifically Christian perspective, God is often referenced, and I’ve been fascinated to note how closely much of the wisdom contained therein parallels the truths of Scripture.

This weekend, a friend from Erskine who's currently studying at Oxford came to visit me and Lisa! We had fun, and we even made time to go to the Alicante "mercadillo" (Saturday market), pictured here.

It has also been interesting to note how pertinent Boethius’s musings are to the twenty-first century world of pluralism and moral relativism in which we live. For example, he declares that, “If God exists, whence comes evil? Yet whence comes good, if He exists not?” Here, in this sixth century classic, a philosopher wrestles with the problem of evil, which a number of friends her in Spain have pointed to as a reason for disbelief. And yet, Boethius concludes that, yes, the fallen nature of our world is puzzling; but that, apart from some outside standard, our innate concept of “good” and “evil” makes no sense. If there is no God, we have no ground to stand on from which to condemn heinous acts, and this absence of an outside standard would inevitably lead to nihilism if we were intellectually honest.

Joseph, Lisa, and I enjoyed catching up over coffee...three friends talking about Due West, SC in a Spanish panadería. Who would've thought?

Boethius also remarks that, “whenever a man by proclaiming his good deeds receives the recompense of fame, he diminishes in a measure the secret reward of a good conscience”, which echoes the Scriptural truth that, “when [we] give to the needy”, we are “not [to] announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (Mark 6:2). I also love the beauty of the author’s words as he addresses Lady Philosophy, albeit in the midst of his distress over being unjustly accused of treason: “Is this the library, the room which thou hadst chosen as thy constant resort in my home, the place where we so often sat together and held discourse of all things in heaven and earth? …thou didst trace for me with thy wand the courses of the stars, moulding the while my character and the whole conduct of my life after that patter of the celestial order…”

Anyway, back to Spain. A troubling dilemma that I’ve encountered since arriving is the question of how much I can reasonably cart back to the US. Namely, how many books will fit in my suitcase, along with all of my clothing and other necessities (oh, and a souvenir or two), without pushing it over the highly unrealistic weight limit (*cough*, please don’t report me to American Airlines). I empathize greatly with a remark of Ben House’s that I read the other day on the one of my favorite blogs, the Grantian Florilegium. This is his confession: “I start more books than I finish. I buy more than I start. I forget much of what I read… Mornings begin with reading and coffee. My light cannot go out without at least a few minutes to read at the end of the day. Beside my bed stand a dangerous leaning tower—the great mass of unfinished volumes looming over my bed.” I just hooted when I read this, because—as my family will tell you—I’m the same way. The only problem
is that I cannot realistically transport a mini-library across the Atlantic Ocean in my limit-of-fifty-pounds suitcase. My solution? I’ve borrowed books and gone to the library. Of course, as with Ben, my bibliophilic enthusiasm has rather outstripped my ability to read rapidly (especially in Spanish). Consequently, I have far more books in my room at the moment than I can possibly finish in a semester…and I only have four weeks left. I can hardly believe it! How time does fly.

A few of the books on my shelf...

Preparing for the Holidays

School work seems to get harder as the holidays round the corner. I guess this is because all I can think about it turkey, ham, Christmas trees, and football. Therefore, as the weeks near Thanksgiving break, I feel like I am racing to the finish line. During this time and the holiday fever that can get to us all, it is important, however, to remember the purpose behind the holidays. Aside from the family time and great food that accompany them, it is important to remember and serve others during this special time of year.

As I am doing my teaching field experience in a second grade classroom this semester, it is a requirement that we implement a service learning unit with our students. This involves teaching students about service in connection with the traditional academic subjects through the implementation of a service project. Because so many of my children have indicated ways they like to directly help others, we decided to serve others through Operation Christmas Child. This program supported by Samaritan’s Purse assists children in need at Christmastime by proving shoeboxes full of toys and necessities to them during the holidays. Ranging from over sixty different countries, this program truly shows how one person can make a difference.

As I taught the students about the different countries, about sending money to help with shipping, and how to write letters to send in the boxes, I think they taught me just as much about compassion. These young second graders served as a great reminder of the simplicity of life and how a smile can brighten one’s day. These sweet children offered gifts from their own hearts, and often their own closets, as their way of contributing to the project. Often bringing in items that could not be sent, such as a VHS tape of Old Yeller, I assured them that I would find a place to donate their gifts. This students did not think twice about offering of themselves which is something that us adults could use a reminder of sometimes. As these children expressed their joy in serving because they could help others who are in need, I could not help but smile. Aside from explaining to a few why Santa couldn’t provide all of the things the children needed, this project proved to be a s
imple success with the students. I thank them for reminding ME how wonderful it can feel to serve others by giving of ourselves. Therefore, I challenge you this holiday season to find a way to help another, either through a special gift, or a simple smile.

So many concerts, so little time.

This week has been full to bursting with not only classes, tests, and the normal business, but also many musical events – five in the last week!

To begin it all, last Saturday night my conducting class took a field trip to the Augusta Symphony.  Our professor Dr. Nabholz – who is also the director of the Choraleers – met us there, and we enjoyed an evening of four varied pieces by Barber, Takemitsu, Higdon, and Bernstein.  One of the highlights of the evening came after the concert, when we got to go backstage and meet the conductor, Shizuo “Z” Kuwahara!  It was exciting to be able to talk for a few minutes with someone who is making his living in the “real” world in music, and to be able to see a lot of what we discuss in class applied.  The entire evening was great fun, though, from the hour and a half drive to and from (especially the GPS troubles), to discussions of the concert as a class – the five of us and our professor – over frozen yogurt after the event.

My conducting class after returning to Erskine from the Augusta Symphony.

After the weekend, the week of concerts began.  Monday started with Erskine’s music department hosting a concert by Winthrop’s chorus; we began the event with Erskine’s Choraleers singing a few selections, then we let them take over the stage and sing several of their pieces.  As with the Intercollegiate Choral Festival the week before, it was rewarding and enjoyable to share music with and get to meet another college choir, especially in our own auditorium!

Tuesday night we hosted a Czech string quartet – the Talich Quartet.  They are professionals who are internationally recognized for their talents, and this showed – the concert was absolutely brilliant!  I do love string instruments, and their selections were well-chosen and exquisitely played.

Wednesday was the night off, and Thursday we co-hosted an organ recital with First Presbyterian Church in Greenwood.  Our organist was Dr. Craig Cramer from Notre Dame University, who demonstrated his great skill and experience on the instrument in the variety of styles of the pieces that he chose, as well as his expression in playing them.

Finally, Friday was a concert at home featuring our instrumental chamber groups and the Women’s Chorale.  Although we have more vocal than instrumental students in the department, it is always great to see what the latter can do!  None of the ensembles featured in the concert were very large – Women’s Chorale being the largest, at around a dozen – but they all showed that you do not necessarily need a large choir or symphony to make a great sound.

No one can say that there is nothing to do on campus on week nights!

Time for Senior Seminar

                I cannot believe that almost four years have flown by!  I have been working so hard the past few weeks to complete my Senior Seminar presentation.  I am chemistry major so; we also have to complete a Junior Seminar which includes a presentation and a paper.  I chose to keep the same topic from my Junior Seminar for my Senior Seminar.  My topic for my seminar is the use of Calcitonin Gene Related Peptide Receptor Anatagonists to treat migraines.  I know this sounds like a complicated topic but, it is very interesting!  The seminar classes that Erskine offers for selected majors are very helpful when you are preparing for the next step.  Whether that next step is a career or graduate school, you will have to give a presentation or speak in front of a group of your peers and superiors at some point.  These classes help students become more comfortable with their public speaking abilities.  My Senior Seminar pres
entation went great! I am so glad that it is over and now I only have to finish the paper portion!  This is a picture of the CGRP receptor which was the basis of my presentation.

Sharing through Song

Thursday night the Choraleers had the great experience to sing with five other college choirs from the Upstate of South Carolina.  We carpooled just over an hour to Southern Wesleyan University in Central, South Carolina for the Upstate Intercollegiate College Festival.  There we got to listen to, meet, and sing for choirs from Mars Hill, Clemson, Bob Jones, Presbyterian, and Southern Wesleyan.  Although it was a long afternoon and evening – we left at 3:30 and did not return to Due West until about 11:00! – it was worth the experience of being able to fellowship and share music with people our age who have a love of music as we do.  We get to sing for others all the time, as a choir, but it is not often that we have other choirs sing for us!

If you would like to hear the concert, it was recorded and you can find it archived on Southern Wesleyan’s website at:  http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18437444 Erskine begins at around 1:12:00.  Enjoy!

What’s Great About Spain?

For a change of pace, I’ve decided to post a dual list of things I appreciate about Spain and things I miss about home, caveat being, of course, that such a list necessarily involves generalizations. So don’t take my word for it—come for a visit!

A random odd thing: milk in stores in Spain is kept in the open, along with boxes of cereal and other such dry goods. The pasteurization process used here is different, apparently.

Things I love about Spain:

Everyone is friendly and most are extremely patient with language-learners

The weather is almost always balmy

Desserts like natias (a sweet type of pudding) and turrón (nougat made with honey, sugar, egg white, and nuts), and scrumptious traditional dishes like paella

One is never late (this is true even of me…which is saying something). If, for example, your bus is stopped for fifteen minutes because of some unidentified obstacle in the road and you are subsequently caught in the rain, all of which causes you to arrive at class twenty minutes late, no pasa nada (no big deal)—you’ll probably arrive *cough* before five or so other students anyway.

Cookies for breakfast. (Yes, every morning I eat cereal and galletas….You can also put butter and jelly on your cookies, but after a couple of weeks of this sweet breakfast diet, I switched to dipping mine in milk instead and only eat the butter-and-jelly combination on Sundays. As much as I love sweets, I just couldn’t feel at ease about eating cookies with such unhealthy toppings for breakfast. Although I suppose it’s not much different from the sugary varieties of cereal we eat at home…interesting how the psyche works sometimes.)

A completely different sense of time—the Spanish almost never seem to be in a hurry, and they always have time for fellowship. The tyranny of the urgent doesn’t seem to exist here…or at least, not to the same degree. I think this easy-going perspective on time is rubbing off on me, because I’ve found myself, for example, making the one-hour trip to an internship only to find that the office where I’ve been volunteering was closed for the day. The gals I work with there had forgotten to tell me not to come, and I consequently traveled two hours for no reason…and yet, I wasn’t at all phased or upset by this…strange.

Being in Spain, I think, is teaching me to better understand G.K. Chesterton when he says that “an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” Indeed, some of my best adventures here have come about “by chance” when I was searching for something or waiting for something…I mean, even going to the grocery store for the first time here was an adventure! Everything—not just the language— is just different enough to keep me constantly learning.

Going to the movies. This isn’t particularly unique to Spain, but it was so exciting to go to a recent theater a few weeks ago and to discover that I was actually able to enjoy and understand a movie in Spanish! Sure, I may have missed a few details…but the experience was a more tangible proof that some of the reading, speaking, and studying I’m doing is actually sinking in!

Meeting new people and experiencing new things. It has been both fun and fascinating to converse with young people from countries as diverse as Turkey, Italy, Germany, Spain, Kazakhstan, Finland, China, etc., etc. It has also been such a blessing to be welcomed into church family and youth group here in Spain. Finally, I’d better not go into too much detail, or this post will become a short novel…but one of my favorite “new experiences” has been seeing the numerous cathedrals in various cities (they’re everywhere here!). Whatever your beliefs, these churches are breathtakingly beautiful.

Things I miss about home: ice and hot tea (these may see like strangely incongruent items to miss, but I’m both Southern and a lover of hot tea; and neither of these ends of the beverage spectrum are very common in Spain. I was, however, excited, at long last, to find a tea cup in Barcelona to add to my collection. Perhaps that particular souvenir item would have been easier to find in Great Britain, but anyway…)

Peanut butter (This is one food that I eat with great regularity at school, but it seems to be a rarity here.)

My car (It’s quite strange to have not driven for over two months. Consequently, I actually found myself fantasizing about driving the other day…and I don’t even like to drive!) Riding the bus, as I see it, is part of my Spain-experience, and I like it most of the time. But it is nice to be able to hop in the car and to arrive somewhere ten minutes later. Also, for someone who’s borderline germophobic (I may or may not keep a large container of Clorox wipes in my dorm room), becoming accustomed to the daily use of public transportation was somewhat disconcerting. The bus lines in Alicante, however (and in Spain in general, from what I’ve seen), and remarkably well-kept and sanitary. Still.

Family and friends at home and familiar things. Need I say more? They’re just amazing.

All the world’s a stage…

What a week!  Last Monday through Saturday I spent at least four hours a day in our theatre and backstage, between dress rehearsals and three performances of our fall play, Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  Overall, it was a great experience, but there is nothing so tiring (and fulfilling) as the final week of preparations and running a show.

Amber doing aging make-up on Rebecca, the Lady Gonzala

One element of theatre that I do not have much experience with is special make-up, but for this show I got to work a lot in this unknown territory.  I am used to doing normal stage make-up, but this time I got to experiment with aging and color make-up.  My friend Amber and I were in charge of making a few of the characters look moderately aged, so we had the daunting task of making college students appear on stage to have believable wrinkles and grey hair.  Also, for two of the characters I experimented with special color make-up to give the former (my character) sort of flames or wings around the eyes, and the latter spots of scale-like skin.  It was a daunting task, but we learned and it became easier every time.

Working on fancy eye make-up for my character, Ariel

Something that I enjoy about doing a Shakespeare play (every two years at Erskine) is the chance to work with a larger cast.  Because we have a smaller theatre department, we tend to do shows with a smaller cast; but when we do Shakespeare, as in this play, we bring many new people into the theatre.

On the other hand, there are challenges as well, the main one being that we do not have a very extensive capability for our sets and lighting.  Although we have a fairly good number of committed actors who have experience and skills on stage, we do not have very many students who specialize in set design or lighting.  However, we are all willing to learn and do what we can, so somehow we always make it work; for example, in this play we experimented more with the lighting, adding a little more to the effects of different scenes.

Although it always seems to be over quickly, after months of preparation it is nice to have more free time all of the sudden!  Besides, there are always new projects to be working on, and more upcoming performances to be preparing for at Erskine, so there is no shortage of enjoyable activities to occupy my time.  On to the next one!

The cast of Shakespeare’s The Tempest