October 7, 2008: Observations in Chaos?

Dear Friend,

Today was a rather crazy day. Not necessarily unlike any other day, but crazy enough. I was able to get some work done, but not the work I had been planning on. That’s somewhat typical, making plans that are in some way foiled. In some respects, though, it wasn’t such a bad thing that plans got foiled. I’ll let you be the judge, but I’m of the opinion that quite a few of these things weren’t so terrible after all.

Iris’ mother got up early to do more cooking, so breakfast was just as large as last night’s supper. Iris buzzed around the flat trying to plan out how the day was going to go. She had to go to a meeting, which meant she wouldn’t be able to take me to the office. Paolo also had to go to the office because he was supposed to meet Ana (the one who led my Viaţa group) for a photo shoot that would be incorporated in the work we would do in Cluj, or something like that. Paolo is an accomplished juggler, as is Ana, I think. They do a lot of street performing.

We finally left the flat around eleven o’clock. I was also supposed to meet Ana, as she was assigned to be my language tutor. We would meet around noon, or that was the plan at least. Our first stop after we left the flat was a store where Paolo needed to buy some kerosene for fire juggling, or something like that. Iris was making phone calls as we walked to the store. At one point she set her bag on the hood of a parked car, and while unpacking some of the contents to find what she was looking for, dropped it on the hood, which set of the alarm. The entire street was now filled with electronic, beeping noises that sounded a lot like the noises those old, toy ray guns make when you pull the trigger. The car’s lights were even flashing with the alarm, the way the ray guns light up with the noises. Paolo and I, who were standing a ways off from the scene, couldn’t help but laugh.

Buying the kerosene took awhile. Apparently there are different kinds of kerosene, so Paolo needed to make sure he got the right one. He was having a hard time finding it, though, so I think he settled for the next best thing. I simply tried to stay out of the way while this all took place. The store, a kind of Home Depot department store on a smaller scale, was pretty busy. At one point I thought Iris and Paolo had left me because I couldn’t find them in the store. Eventually I did.

After the store, Paolo and I hopped the tram to get to our bus stop. This was the first time I went to the office without Iris and I’m happy to say it turned out rather well. I managed to remember everything she had told me and was even able to recognize my surroundings. I had a pretty big smile on my face as I got off the bus at our last stop and walked the rest of the way to the office. I was becoming, in some way, acclimated to my surroundings.

Ana arrived at the office a little later than expected. While we waited, Paolo took a little nap on the office’s little couch (he’s only an inch or so shorter than me) and I worked on some things. The preliminary draft of the curriculum is due in a couple days, so I had to produce a draft from where I’d be able to spring board once I begin fleshing it out. Once Ana arrived, I began doing language lessons with her. I brought the course book Iuliana had made for me and we decided to use that for our lessons. The lessons were somewhat difficult to return to, but we ended up covering quite a bit. We also came up with ways I can practice vocabulary outside of lessons.

I continued working on the curriculum after lessons. Building a curriculum on forum theatre for high schools in a different country is hard to do. I had to think of where I should even begin and then what would be essential to incorporate from the great ocean of theatre studies and information. As the curriculum is meant to focus on forum theatre, it seems somewhat simple, but forum theatre wasn’t created in a vacuum, so there needs to be a base of general theatre knowledge in order to understand how to use forum theatre. At least, that’s what I think.

I got a break when Ana and Cristina (another member of A.R.T. Fusion) invited me to go with them to buy train tickets to Cluj. I had wanted to go and find prices for a ticket that to Kosice, Slovakia, where my friend Kristen is tutoring. The three of us walked to the ticket agency. It was a beautiful day, but in the city that can sometimes be marred by everything else. Traffic, of course, was crazy. I also noticed once again the patchwork architecture of Bucureşti, where buildings of polar opposite designs are thrown together. Areas of the sidewalk are ripped up and covered in some form of trash.

At the ticket agency I discovered there were no train tickets to Kosice. I would have to figure out a different plan. Ana and Cristina got the tickets to Cluj, after which we then had to buy some paint. It was closing time by now for most of the stores in the area, so we ended up walking all over the place looking for one which had what we needed. Some stores were open, but didn’t have the paint. We eventually had to split up, because Ana needed to get Paolo to the photo shoot and Cristina needed to get the paint. I needed to finish the curriculum draft, so Ana and I returned to the office.

The rest of the evening I worked on the curriculum and finished the draft. I emailed it to Carmen and called it good. I continued, though, to rack my brain on how to make the curriculum work. My challenges, as I saw them, were to make something engaging, enjoyable, and also educational. I wanted the students to have fun with what they were learning and not get bored with it. That was the key, to make it interesting. Hopefully I can. A good challenge to have.

Blessings.
Kailen