From Hamilton we made our way to Boston before we continued on to Concord. We spent the afternoon exploring the city and following the Freedom Trail, which is a walking path that hits all the major historical sites of Boston.
This week I lived with Paulette and her 16-year-old son Sean in a small city outside of Concord. Sean is very involved in marching band, so it was a lot of fun to spend time sharing my memories of marching band with him and hearing about his experiences.
Tuesday and Wednesday some of the cast facilitated anti-bullying workshops in all the middle schools in Concord. Anti-bullying is a large part of the curriculum for middle school students so we facilitated a 90 minute workshop that allowed the students to reflect on bullying in their school and stand up against it.
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I was so amazed at how well the students responded to the workshop and how much they appreciated our time with them. One of the most memorable moments was when we were working in an 8th classroom with students who were not at all interested in hearing yet another presentation on anti-bullying. The two other facilitators and I were very frustrated with the lack of participation with the students. However, halfway through the workshop, when we were doing an activity that required the students to take a stance on a particular statement about bullying, something changed in the students and they began listening to one another. I was blown away at how engaged the students became and how they openingly shared personal experiences with their classmates. It’s moments like that where I am reminded that I can help make a positive impact in someone’s life.
This week was an extremely exhausting week with four shows in three days. Thursday and Friday night we had shows in two different locations.
Saturday was host family day and Paulette wanted me to have a relaxing afternoon after having a busy week. I slept in until 11am which was so great and I spent the afternoon catching up with friends from home as well as organizing my presentations for the next week for my education internship. After a much needed relaxing afternoon, Paulette, Sean and I went into Boston to have dinner in the North end. We ate at a delicious authentic Italian restaurant and ended the evening by walking around downtown.
Sunday was the first time that we had two shows in one day. It was so tiring, yet we all had so much fun performing two shows together. Because we are getting ready to head to Taiwan, we spent some of our rehearsal time working on our Taiwanese songs for the show. We will be adding two songs to our show-one is a folk song and the other is a popular boy band song in Mandarin.
I had a wonderful week with Paulette and Sean. Paulette told me the first night I met her that her husband had passed away two years ago from cancer and I could see how much he was missed in the family. The most special memory that I will never forget is when Paulette sat with me and told me about her wonderful husband and all of the fun memories she had with him.
