Ministry of Dance

My friend Madison and I started a dance group together (inspired from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series) called Ministry of Dance.  We posted our first dance on YouTube today!  It is a dance about Bellatrix and Madison.  Madison was not in the book series but we really wanted to do a dance with a duel between them so  Madison did the choreography and we both danced to it. She is playing an older version of herself and I am playing Bellatrix.  This is a duel because I (Bellatrix) just killed Madison's husband Sirius Black and she is really mad at me so we have this really epic duel!  Here is the link to our Weebly website, there is a link to our YouTube channel on the home page:
Ministry Of Dance
I hope you enjoy it!  To watch more of our dances in the future please subscribe to our channel! We will be doing a dance for every book in the Harry Potter series,  I will post on here when we make another one!  Thanks for watching it!

Posted by Micayla 11/3/11

NaNoWriMo

Carly told me about this really awesome website for young writers called NaNoWriMo!
I just got an account on it and I am going to enter my story it it!  It is a thirty day writing challenge and on the site you can put your story up for people to read and they can give you feedback and you get to help each other with editing.  It is a really great website!  There are dares they put up on the home page fore people to put into their story, for example today's dare was:  "We dare you to have your main character get terribly lost while sleepwalking".  (I really like that one... I might use it!)  There is also a homeschool forum for homeschoolers to post questions about their story and just chat and make new friends!  There is a word count so you can keep track of how many words you write and you can set a word goal for you to reach at the end of your story!!  Here are a list of vocabulary words that I like to use in my story:

Abhor: to hate
Nefarious: evil or mean
Hector: to bully or talk not nicely to somebody
Discomposed: disturb or agitate someone
Divulge:  to make known

I'll add more once I have written more of my story!
I hope you like this website as much as I do!

Here is the prologue of my story:

Legend

~Chasing Fire

Thus you shall think of this fleeting world 

a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream

a flash of light in a summer cloud

a flickering lamp, an illusion... a dream.

The morning songbirds did not sing, on this cold autumn day.  The air was thick with droplets of  dew, alone at the top of a hill a creature was stirring.  A single star emerged from amiss the clotted cream dawn.  If bothering to listen... you could hear the gurgle of a stream from the far mountains.  From the deep above, a light struck atop the hill; the creature whistled as the lightning fell down upon her, she was expecting it.  She reached out a single hand, reaching out to the light, reaching out to the far mountain stream, reaching out to assist the world as she fell.  The light enveloped her and she floated up, joining that light as it flew up into the clotted cream dawn, joining the star as it shines down upon those who would bother to reach out to it.  Down past the hill someone screamed, a lamp flashed, the bulb popped.  And atop that glorious hill... the creature returned for half a moment... to bring on new life, a sorcerer was born.   

Never in their whole life had the people of Catalina Island experienced something so marvelous.  First it started out to be only a regular thunderstorm, but slowly as the lightning began to build it struck the top branch of their favorite picnicking tree at the top of Mount Orizaba. Or at least they thought it was a tree... Mother Orizba screamed as the lightning struck her temple, the people covered themselves and ran for shelter.  As the rain pounded down harder the chief spokes person and his crew made their way slowly up the hiking trail to where the bare stump of their great tree stood helpless.  “I’m Alfred Queensly and this is Midnight News atop Mount Orizaba.”  Alfred cleared his throat and looked at the camera continuing his speech for the news cast.  “Exactly twelve 02 midnight, we are here at the aftermath of this wet autumn storm.  It seems that the lightning came directly down from the high peaks of Mount Orizaba striking the tree that has had the most popular past.  Shall we go down memory lane, Bozard?”  The camera man gave him a thumbs up and he started walking in a slow circle around the tree to make it more dramatic.  “The great tree of Orizaba has been named the islands main tourist attraction for the last 56 years!  Why is this so?  Well,”  Alfred gave a little chuckle into his microphone, “Millions of years ago there was a tale of sorcerers and witches, they came here and planted this very stump... as a seedling.  It was said to have special powers that protected our island and kept us safe from the pirates that used to dominate our coves. “Now that it is only a burnt up stump we are predicting the end of the world on February second in the year of 3017,  good luck folks, keep hope and Good Morning Midnight!”   The camera clicked to off and Alfred sighed and smiled to himself as he brought his umbrella up over his head.  Bozard winked at him and they started down the steep muddy trail of Mount Orizaba.  They had mocked what was left of Mother Orizba.. they were going to pay.  No sooner had they reached the bottom of the trail the spirit of their great tree swooped them off of their feet and swept them away.  They have never been seen since.  An owl hooted, someone screamed, a baby laughed; and atop Mount Orizaba a young sorcerer was beginning his journey to save Mother Orizba, and possibly the world.  

Posted by Micayla 11/1/11

Happy Halloween

by Allie

I made this costume.  I am a 50's waitress.

Haunted House

Making my "trick-or-treat" bag.

This week I've been doing some fun Halloween crafts.  I'd thought I'd share them with you.  I sewed a 50's waitress Halloween costume that I am going to wear trick or treating (I worked on this with Ms. Hilde).  I made a haunted house out of two tea boxes.  I also used glue, paint, tissue paper and brown paper bags.  Every year we make trick or treating bags to put our candy in.  We take a brown paper bag and cut the bottom out of it.  Then paint the outside (I also used some glitter glue) and staple it together when it is dry.
Happy Halloween!

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Factory Tour

Last week we went on another fun factory tour;  this time to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.  Jay Isais, our tour guide, is the "coffee guy" who travels the world selecting and buying coffee beans.  We learned about the where the beans come from, about the coffee bean plants, and how they roast the beans, make blends, and prepare them for selling.

Hairnets required!

Beans roast @350'

Before and after roasting.

Here are some interesting things we learned:
*The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has 800 stores worldwide (2/3 franchised, 1/3 corporate)
*Their coffee beans come from 16 different countries (including Columbia, Costa Rica, and Cambodia).
*Each coffee tree produces 1 - 2 pounds of coffee per year.
*They remove all oxygen from their coffee bags and fill them with nitrogen before sealing so that the beans do not become oxidized.
*The beans come from their countries of origin and the roasting and blending takes place at the factory.
*It is a big process from the coffee plant to coffee in your cup.

Here are some things we learned about tea:
*All kinds of tea come from the same kind of plant - different kinds of tea depend on how much oxidation has occurred.
*For example - black tea is oxidized, green tea is not oxidized, and oolong tea is partially oxidized.
*The tea bags at the factory are sealed with sound waves
*One of their machines can make 20,000-25,000 tea bags per day.

A couple other favorite things were the smell of the factory (a much better smell than the guitar making factory) and the sounds of the machines.  The machine that filled the coffee bags had such a cool sound (from air pressure) it made us want to dance; it was very musical.  We also really enjoyed hearing Jay tell us about the different parts of the world that he has traveled to and his relationships with the farmers who grow the coffee beans.

Saltwater Fish

 ~Post by Carly~
In the past month I've been working on a new film project!  My latest short is Saltwater Fish, which follows a day in the life of two avid teenage surfers.  I entered it in the Big Shorts From Little Groms surf film contest (which I did last year, and won Transworld Surf Spirit Award:) and I am a finalist!  The screening of the finalists' movies is on Sunday, Oct. 16th at 1pm in Oceanside, and it's free!  Come down and check it out! The Brooks Theater 217 Coast Hwy Oceanside, Ca   It's their fourth annual festival, so the contest is pretty small but it is a ton of fun.  All of the finalists receive awards and an awesome goodie bag, and this year the overall grom winner gets all that plus a GoPro camera!  -which I already have, but it would be great to win another(;




Also another excited thing happened today in regards to my film!  I was given the opportunity to go down to the California Surf Museum in Oceanside (which by the way is around the corner from the theater) to be interviewed by Fox 5 News; live on tv!  And I had to wake up at 5am, by far my record so far.  I was super nervous before being interviewed, I've never really done an interview for tv before and it was gonna be LIVE!  But it actually went ok.  The spokesperson asked me a few questions, and I was on air for about three minutes at most.  I tried not to say 'like' a lot and to speak clearly.  I didn't get to talk that that much (she cut me off a couple times kinda) but that's probably because I don't speak as fast as some people do (i.e. my spastic sister...you know which one).

 
Overall it was a very exciting experience!  I'm so glad I had the chance to be interviewed, and I can't wait to see what's in store for Sunday.

 Here are some pictures...

Julie Cox the wonderful operations manager of the California Surf Museum

Posing by the 1970 exhibit

"We're going live in a second."  !!!

Anatolian Festival

Last week we went to the Anatolian Cultures and Food Festival.  We were amazed by all that we saw and learned.  The art, music, food, and displays helped us come away with a much greater understanding of Turkish culture.  We learned about the Legend of Akdamar Island (a turkish composer is working on a ballet piece honoring this legend with plans unite 100 Turkish and 100 Armenian artists on the stage).  We learned about the Turkish Van Cat that often has mismatched eyes.  These cats love water, swimming, and eating chocolate.  We saw beautiful displays of marble painting, quilting and felting.  We heard music from the instruments we had never seen before and watched a variety of dances including the famous "Whirling Dervish".  We treated ourselves to some of the delicious desserts and even bought a box of "Turkish Delight."  Here are some photos of our adventure:

Nate with a local Trojan

The Bosphorus Bridge - The first suspension bridge to connect Europe to Asia (divided by the Istanbul Strait)

Aspendos Antique Theatre

Cuneiform

Turkish Van Cat

Boxes of Turkish Delight

Romeo & Juliet

by Micayla
I had the most amazing opportunity last week!  I got to be in the San Francisco Ballet Company's production of Romeo & Juliet at the Segerstrom Theater Of The Arts (with two other girls from Maple Conservatory and two boys from a different studio).  We played the part of village children, we didn't get to dance much but we got to do lots of acting!  We got our hair and makeup done by professional artists and we shared a dressing room with the apprentices and corps de ballet.  We were in a few minutes of the first act and almost the whole second act.  While we were not on stage we played around in the performers' lounge.  They have four really awesome vending machines!  There was a whole vending machine for tea and coffee!  We played ' So You Think You Can Dance '  and telephone.  We had a backstage "Teacher" who stayed with us and helped us around the theater.  We all enjoyed doing drawing rounds, where everyone gets a piece of paper and a pencil and draws one shape on the paper then passes it to the right and then the next person adds something and it goes on and on until you get it back to you, we also like to do it with stories!  On stage we got paired up with a "Mother" who was an apprentice with the company and we got to meet a bunch of the principal dancers!  It was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again!   Here are some photos:

Right after hair and makeup ;)

Playing in the performers' lounge

Posing by the SFB sign!

My "mom" in Romeo & Juliet

A friend of mine from the corps.