Fun Day Friday

Day #13 Journal

Friday, July 22, 2016

For Art of Acting today, we were given scripts for the play Dracula Bites to act out for the final showcase. In this play, the director, Gregory, wants to put on the Dracula play based exactly on the book. In mine and April's particular scene, we play as the characters, Flora and Nattie. Nattie is in charge of supplying the props for the play, while Flora is her assistant, and we are both supposed to act stressful because Gregory is asking for the most ridiculous and extravagant props. From reading a part of the play, I think it might be a little hard to remember the lines because we have so many other assignments to keep track of too.

We're preparing for showcase in Performing World Music too. We're still figuring out how to perfect Rose Rhythm. The pressure is on because we have only about a total of 2 hours to learn it, and we also have to prepare to make instruments for one of our final assignments.

Dorm Life

In PhotoLit, we're just now turning in our dorm life portrait assignment and analyzing them in class. My photo was a picture of my friends Cody and Samuel taking a selfie while Leanna is in the foreground. It was funny because I took the photo without them knowing and I think it turned out good because they're not acting the photo out, but they're just living their "typical dorm life". I was told that I could do a bit better on the lighting and the angle, but it otherwise looked good.






Since we have a little extra time today, we got to choose an organized optional activity. Some chose a yoga class, while others chose an engineering class, but because I was behind on some assignments (and some blogs), I decided to spend my time in the library (this place is starting to feel like a second home!).

After doing all the hard work in the library, reward finally came because tonight we went to Malibu Jacks. At Malibu Jack's there's go-cart racing, laser tag, mini-golf, arcade games, and more! The best part was the fact that we got unlimited arcade games for two hours! The arcade games I played were a roller coater simulator, a basketball game, a whack-a-mole game, and---my personal favorite---ski-ball! (I kept playing so many times in a row, that the machine kept reading please play a different game).

Hiking and Rappelling

Day #12 Journal

Wednesday, July 21, 2016

For communications class, my group and I presented our starting line-up video. Sure, it was kind of last-minute, but we got it done! Our video mostly consisted of us goofing around in the library and talking about what we learned about each other. It was good that we got to hang out, even if it was a little bit, and it was really good to get to know Ethan, Megan, and Bray better. In the video we also had to include our group logo. Our logo is a dabbing Squidward with a pineapple, and it reads, "dabbing is the way of life." This project taught us how to collaborate as a group, and I thought it was very effective.

In EDU class, we are working on the bibliography for our infographic. It was a little frustrating trying to figure out how to format it, but it was relieving to know we finally got it done.In GUK 101, we had a couple of speakers come to teach us some interviewing and attire tips. These tips were very helpful and I'll definitely keep them in mind for when I interview for a job.

Miguel's Pizza!

For our final day in Water, Wildlife, and Wilderness, we went rappelling and learned how to backpack at Red River Gorge! After hiking for about a mile into the woods, we reached the 80-foot-cliff we were going the rappel off of. We were separated into two groups: one for rappelling and one for backpacking. I was the last in the first to rappel down the cliff and was very nervous about it. But once I slowly stepped my way down, I felt great for facing my fears. In the backpacking group, we—you guessed it—learned how to properly strap on a hiking backpack. Our instructor, Geri, told me that she once had to carry a backpack that weighed at least 70 pounds with how much supplies she had to bring! Once we were all finished rappelling, we all hiked a mile back to the vans and went straight to the pizza place, Miguel's, for dinner. There, we got to order our own personal pizzas with a limit of $10. Some students actually bought a whole pizza, but I only got two slices.

Water, Wildlife, and Wilderness!

I've Got Lots of Work to do

Day #11 Journal

Tuesday, July 20, 2016

My partner, April, and I performed our open scene in acting class and it turned out to be pretty funny and amusing. In our scene, April represented a person who was simply trying to enjoy a book while sitting in the library. On the other hand, I'm supposed to represent "that one annoying friend" and won't stop bothering her while she is reading. The actions, objectives and obstacles are different for both characters. For instance, my character's objectives were to just get my friend to talk to me, my actions were to annoy her until she pays full attention, and my obstacle was April's concentration on her book. For April's character, her objective was to finish her book, her action, obviously, was to read each page, and her obstacle was my character trying to direct her attention from the book. When we finished the class clapped and said we did good.

In Performing World Music, I'm working on a part of Rose Rhythm that's a little bit harder than what I played before. We're now finally able to use sticks with our drums which makes it even better. The song is sectioned out into several different parts that, of course, require both stick and hand. It's very difficult to learn, but I know we'll get the song down by the time Show Case comes.

In photographic literacy, we're going over our next assignment, which involves taking a portrait picture that is supposed to describe life at the dorms. I don't know what I'm going to take a picture of yet, but hopefully I figure out soon. Once pictures are uploaded though, we get to analyze each others photos and critique them.

I'm a little stressed out about GUK 101 class because we have to do a cover letter, resume, a college application, and a 300-word discussion post! Though a bit overwhelming, I know it's good that the work is hard because it prepares me for what college will really be like. I'm relieved that I got plenty of library time to at least get half of the work done. I'm especially relieved that my group's starting line-up video is finished!

Water, Wildlife and Wilderness was interesting. Today we went over to UK's Natural Resources and Environmental Science building and tested water in two different locations using various tools and chemicals. We first tested water at NRES's rain garden and then tested water in the nearby creek. The results, of course, showed that the water was healthy (though I still wouldn't recommend drinking it). After the class, we still had at least thirty extra minutes, so we took an impromptu trip to UK's Commonwealth Stadium where they actually held a Pokémon Go session. Unfortunately, there were so many people under the server at once that hardly anyone in our group could play. But it's still amazing that UK had the stadium open for FREE. This usually doesn't happen...or at least not often.

Snakes and Salamanders

 Day #10 Journal

Tuesday, July 19, 2016.

Today's classes were Communications and Education. In communications we didn't do much, but go over our upcoming assignments. The one I'm a bit nervous about doing is the starting line-up video because most of the people in my group are busy, including myself. In education, we are starting our first assignment, which is creating an infographic for a specific topic. My group is Hannah, April and I  and our topic is about endangered languages because we wanted to go for a unique topic and it was something we all have a common interest in.

In Gear Up 101, we went over a couple of insightful presentations about making a Resume and Cover Letter. I'm glad for having Gear Up 101 because it is very helpful for learning important information about college that I would otherwise not have known.

Water, Wildlife and Wilderness was interesting. Since yesterday's animal was the raptors, today's animals were amphibians: salamanders, frogs, tortoises, and snakes. Many people are afraid to touch these kinds of animals, but I really like holding them and petting them. There were so many different kinds of salamanders that I can't really remember all of their names,  but I remember one was called a Tiger Salamander. We got to look at two little frogs, a small tortoise and a snapping turtle, and we also got to hold a corn snake and a hog-nose snake. The snakes were really tricky to hold, but once they got comfortable, they were nice to hold. A lot of people fear snakes, but I just think the harmless ones are cute.

Amphibians Galore!!!

Lunch was at Bowman's Den, which makes me really happy every time we go because I like the Chic-Fil-A and I like to grab some Starbuck's while I'm there. For the rest of the day, we really didn't do much, but study hour and dinner.

Ahhh! Raptors!

Day #9 journal

Monday, July 18, 2016

Today in art of acting, we were given our first acting assignment: an open scene. How our scenes worked was that we were all given the same lines, and we had to act out those same lines differently depending on what kind of scene we chose to act out. We also had to write about it, listing the objective, action, and obstacle of the scene and tell a little bit about what its setting is. April and I are working together and didn't perform our scenes today, but I just know that ours is going to be a lot of fun to work on.

In Performing World Music, we are starting to really make progress in playing our song, Rose Rhythm. For now, the only difficult part about playing it is trying to keep a constant rhythm without slowing down or speeding up too fast.

I like my next class, Photographic Literacy because it's the class that I feel the last amount of pressure in. In all the other classes we have a lot of assignments piled up that are a little stressful to complete at times, but in Photographic Literacy, we simply get to take pictures and discuss the good things about them and what can be improved.

Today starts my first day of my first elective: Water, Wildlife and Wilderness. I've been waiting since the first day of Gear Up for this class because I really appreciate nature and animals, and I love to hike in the woods. The start of the class wasn't really much because it was all introductions, of course. But I did like learning a little bit about my lovely instructor, Geri Philpott. From her presentation, I learned that she is a part of UK's Natural Resources and Environmental Science (NRES) program, which is a interdisciplinary, environmental science degree.

The best part of this elective, though, was the fact that we got to me some live Raptors! We were able to see all of these owls because most of them were injured in some way, but were rescued.

This first raptor we saw was a A Red Tail Hawk Owl named Kentucky. He is an owl that's been trained for
twelve years.

The next owl we saw was an Eastern Screech owl named Valentine. One of his wings was injured from being hit by a car, but he was rescued a few years ago.

The last two owls were a Barred Owl who went by the name Luna and a Great Horned Owl named Howard. Luna was a little shy at first, but eventually cooperated when she got comfortable. Howard is an owl known to eat other raptors' eggs and eat other birds much bigger than himself. I described these two owls together since I wasn't able to take a picture of them separate.

The last thing we did today was go to the Lexington Legends baseball game. The sweet part about this was that we got one of the best places to sit at in the stadium: the Pepsi Party Deck. There, we ate dinner, which was hot dogs, chips, cookies and some drinks. During the game, I hung out with my friends Cody, April, Leanna, and Samuel. We weren't really interested in watching the game so instead we played our own game, Hangman: Sponge Bob References Addition. We played this for a majority of the game until we decided to just walk around and explore different parts of the stadium while singing classical Disney songs. At the end of the game, I checked the score and the Legends ended up losing 2 to 4, but they did however, get 11 strike-outs. I was expecting for there to be fireworks at the end like last year, but there weren't any, I'm assuming, because it wasn't a Friday.

An Okay Sunday

Day #8 Journal
Sunday, July 17, 2016

This morning I woke up at 7:45 and was disappointed to find out that I missed the group leaving to church because everyone was leaving at 7:45 for their Sunday activities. Since I didn't have anything else to do (laundry already done), I decided to stay in my room until my mom was to to pick me up at 11 to spend time with her and have some lunch. With so much time, I spent the morning exercising a bit, reading the bible, listening to music, working on my assignments. I was content with this, that is...until I received a text from my mom. I opened my phone to see that my mom wasn't going to be able to visit me because one of the tires of my aunt's car got punctured. When I saw the text, I was really sad about my mom not being able to visit, so I prayed about it for awhile. I was happy to hear that my mom was near home when it happened, though.

After spending the whole morning in my dorm alone, I finally came back into civilization when it was time to go to lunch (ha-ha). Once lunch was over, me and a small group headed over to the Will T. Library for about an hour to do some work. In there I was able to get a lot of work done, including my blogs.

Around two o' clock, we got back into our small groups and began our annual Gear Up Summer Olympic games. The games were made up of a bunch of different activities: basketball, football, Frisbee, hula-hoops, tic-tac-toe, and a sponge game. The object of the games is that whoever performs each activity the best for each team gets to move on to the final Olympic games for next Saturday. My group both started with basketball, where we each got three attempts at making a three-pointer. No one in my group got it, but Jason was very close at it. The next thing was a version of Frisbee where we had to had to throw it in a goalie about 10 to 20 feet away. The best ones at this activity were Mercy and Samantha. The next few games we played against other teams we lost, but I was okay with that because we at least got to come out and have fun working as a team.

After all of the Olympic Games, we went to dinner around 5:30. After dinner we had free time from 6:30 to 9:30, which was later time for a hall meeting. I don't quite remember what I did at that time, but I think I decided to stay in my dorm. After a full day of being around a lot of people, I  like to stay alone for awhile.

My First Saturday

Day #7 Journal
Saturday, July 16, 2016

Ahhh, Saturday. The best day of the week...to me, at least. What I really appreciated about this morning is that I got a little bit extra sleep than usual because we didn't have to be downstairs in the lobby until 8:30 instead of 7:45 as usual.

 Today we did some community service by branching out to different groups called FUSION placements. We had different kinds of work to do depending on our interests and our choices. My FUSION group was at the St. Agnes House, which is a temporary home for people to stay in when they or a loved one have a medical condition and are unable to take care of their self. It is a very generous organization because people who stay can pay $10 a night, or if they're having financial troubles, they can stay for free. The St. Agnes House is also centered mostly on prayer and even has a small chapel in the very front of the building. At this FUSION placement, we were to clean up and/or organize every room and common area. We mopped, dusted, scrubbed, and vacuumed. My role was to be in charge of everyone and make sure they had enough supplies in order to clean everything properly. It was difficult at time to run up and down the stairs, but I enjoyed this because I like to organize and clean things and I am skilled at this. I also liked this because I felt great and accomplished knowing that I was helping such a good cause.

After this, my group went back to Woodland Glen IV to eat lunch, which I'm very glad was a Jimmy John's sub and some potato chips. During this time, we had plenty of time to just chill, hang out, do laundry, or maybe catch up on some homework. Since I was downstairs, I decided to join the "coloring group", a group in which another student, Juniper, hosted. She was very kind as to let me and many other students borrow her colored pencils and markers, and let us color pictures from a coloring book she had. This was very generous of her and I'm glad we got to hang out.

The picture I chose to color was a dragon. I worked on it for probably over an hour, using colors such as a pretty sea blue, orange, pink, red, and some gold. Some people may think that coloring is a bit childish, but frankly, I think coloring has a calming effect and is good for stress.

Later, After dinner, my friends Leeana, Erica, and Jillian and I all decided to have a make over. Since I had a lot of make up, I went over to my dorm really quick to grab all of my makeup and we all joined in Erica's dorm. In there, we listened to music and did each others' make up and hair. The best one at doing make up was Erica because she learned all of her skills from watching YouTube videos. She did Jillian's makeup really dark because Jillian wanted the marvelous "Gothic look", and she did Leeana's makeup very delicate and beautifully as they would on Broadway. I didn't really have my makeup done because I don't like how cake-y it feels on my face, but I did however like Jillian and Leeana's looks.

Even later that night, Leeana and I decided to go downstairs and to see what movie was playing for movie night. Since we waited a little late, we missed the first movie, but by the time we got there, another movie was just starting: The Addams Family Values. There really wasn't many other students down there, and pretty soon enough it was just me, Leeana, and another student, Samuel watching the movie until it ended. After the movie, we decided to watch Gabriel Iglacias until it was curfew. I liked the movie and the three of us had a lot of fun watching it.

Sick-ish Day and Some Art

Day #6 Journal

Friday, July 15, 2016

My three classes today didn't go as well today. And no—it was not because the classes themselves were bad, but it was because I wasn't feeling very well, which made it harder to enjoy Acting class. When I moved on to Music class, I was still feeling under the weather, and participated until I couldn't tolerate my aching stomach any longer. I then had to have an IA drive me back to my dorm so that I could lay down and rest through my next class. A little bit upset about missing photography class, I felt so much better from resting up anyway.  Once I got up, though, I had to throw on my outfit and high heels really quick before heading out to go to the art show planned for today.

When I got on the bus, I was surprised when a lot of other students complimented me on my high heels. They're gold and silver with small studs and the bottoms are red. When mom got them for me, I knew I liked them myself, but I didn't think so many people would like them. I even had pictures taken of them. Since I was rushed, I also realized that I'd forgotten my camera and couldn't take pictures. But I tried not to be too upset because I know I could always blog about my experiences or just commit the moments to my memory.

When we went to UK's School of Visual Arts building near downtown Lexington, we did three different activities: taking pictures using the old-fashioned pin-hole cameras, listening to a presentation about all the degrees offered in art at UK, then painting chinese characters with brushes. Each activity was very fun and interesting. Overall, I think that the art show was such a good idea because this means that GearUp is really making sure to include the interests of some of the artistic students. I, myself, love to draw, paint, and do any other visual art activity, so it makes me feel that UK is considering my interests as well as other students that love not only to create art, but ones that like to view it as well.

After the art show, it was finally time for the Lexington's Gallery Hop. My group, group 10, went to a couple of different galleries such as one called Sparks and Marks, which was a gallery that consisted mostly of these really cool metal statues. We also went to an art gallery that took place in the Christ Church Cathedral, which had a lot of abstract art made from spray paint and some funny digital paintings of cartoons. All of the printings were for sale, and I was sad that I hadn't brought any money to buy any. But it was okay because it's probably best to save it anyway.

 The last art gallery we went to (we had gone to a couple of others between these three galleries) was a very neat display in the Lexington Public Library called Interpretations by Angie Lister and Tom Monarch. What these two artists do is take a photo and transform it into the way they each see it, except they both have different methods: Monarch recreates the original image using photo-manipulating computer software, while Lister uses a physical paint brush and canvas. The artists developed this concept in order to settle the argument about whether or not painting is becoming obsolete or whether or not digital art is lazy. Using their skills, they've shown us that art created either way takes just as much effort and creativity and the outcome is just as stunning.

Over all, I'm really glad that I went to the Gallery Hop because I got the chance to view other beautiful and unique art pieces. It's amazing that many of the paintings and statues have different meanings behind them that are either yet to be discovered or left for the viewer to decide. I may never understand the artist's perspective, but that's what makes art so interesting to me.

The Next Two Classes

Day #5 journal

Thursday, July 14, 1016

Today started my last two classes: Composition & communications class and Education class (hooray!). In my communications class, we took a quiz to test and see what kind of group member we would be when it comes to group conflict. (eg. Are you a group member that always has to be right or are you one who likes to completely avoid conflict?). When I took my quiz, my results showed that I was a turtle, or someone who hates conflict and always runs from it. These results, I leanred, are not the best because sometimes conflict is essential in group projects. For instance, if everyone all agreed on an idea just to avoid conflict, the end result wouldn't be as good as it could be because no one argued for something better. Another thing we did in this class was get into groups to work on our first project: a starting line-up video! In my group were Ethan, Megan, and Bray (I don't know all of their last names).

My education class was a lot of fun. The very first thing we did was a "get-to-know-you" kind of exercise. What we did was each say our name and list one item we'd bring to our Red River Gorge trip. We were to do this and remember everything else everyone had said. This memory game was very tricky but nonetheless helped me to actually remember a lot of people's names. After this activity, my group and I were given our first assignment for EDU class: finding persuasive techniques used in commercials.

Today, for the first time for lunch, we got to eat at Bowman's Den-- an eating place similar to The 90 (our usual place to eat at), except at this place, we have Chick-Fil-A, Panda Express, Subway, and Starbucks! The first thing I got was Chick-Fil-A's yummy chicken sandwich and some waffle fries. When I was finished eating, I went over to Starbucks for a nice tall s'mores frappuccino (this may be my most favorite thing to get at Starbucks from now on).

After lunch, our whole group gathered into a building to learn about the ACT and different strategies to use when taking each part. Three main things I learned were (1) never let one question burn your time, (2) don't stop to read directions, (3) look for key words in reading passage and pay attention to style and structure.

After this presentation, we moved onto one where a professor came in to teach us about our different kinds of personalities using the Myers and Brigg's method. This method gives you four letters that estimate your personality type. My results showed that I am an ISTJ, or introverted, a sensor, a thinker, and a judge-r. This means that I'm a very analytical person and I think logically. I also like to take on big responsibilities and be a leader. Most of the information about an ISTJ was accurate for me.

The last thing I did today was Trivia Night. During trivia night, anyone who wanted to participate all got into teams to play a game that reminded me a lot of the game Jeopardy. In this game, we were given three different categories for each round that each had one question to answer. For instance, if the category was food, we'd get a question about food. In the start of the game, my team was in last place, but at the end, we jumped up to 3rd place (out of four teams). This was actually very surprising since we were at least 10 points behind third place.

As every day, this day was a lot of fun. This makes me really happy about the program because we are always kept on our feet and there is always something planned for us to do. This can actually be very stressful at times, but at least it's a challenge that will build us up for when we actually start college.

Three Classes

Day #4 Journal

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

I'm glad that we finally got to begin our classes today, as yesterday I'd mentioned that I couldn't wait for them to start already. For my first class, my group, 201, went to the Art of Acting in UK's Fine Arts building. In this class, we did some interesting warm-up activities such a moving around in random circles while having to keep track of a few people at the same time. This warm-up seemed a bit odd to me, but I'm assuming it's something that any theatrical actor is used to.

Moving on to my next class, Performing World Music, my group got to play djembe drums, which I learned are originally from West Africa. The song we are currently playing is known as Rose Rhythm. This song requires not only for us to play drums, but some of us are allowed to play a double cowbell (I don't remember the specific name for it). I remember playing this particular song last year, but I also remember it being kind of challenging, and taking good rhythm skills to play it just right.

My final class for today was Photographic Literacy II. We haven't really done much in this class yet, other than introductions, but I know it's going to be a lot of fun once we get started. However, we did get our first homework assignment, which is to post our reactions to the Gallery Hop in a discussion. What I'm most excited for in PhotoLit is to go outside and take pictures around the library, of course.

After all three of our classes, we got to get a good tour of the William T. Youg Library and discover the resources available all around us for homework help. First, we went to Presentation U to watch a presentation (ha-ha!) about the many ways we can get help with homework and final projects specifically related to speeches and public speaking. The next resource we learned about was the library itself, which of course we can use for pretty much any kind of research (after all, I've been told that UK is the college of research). We also learned that there are multiple libraries on campus and that we can also use UK's online library to find books as well. The third source we learned about was the Media Depot, located in WT's Hub. Media Depot is a place where we can come to get help filming, producing, and editing any video assignments. This place served to be a good resource for me when I really needed help completing a group video project last year.

The last thing I did today was enjoy the two hours of free time. During this time, I got to spend time with a new friend I've already made named, Leeana, who happens to be very fun person to hang out with and to talk to. In my dorm, we decided to work until we finally finished some assignments and, to celebrate, we had a mini dance party until it was time for our hallway meeting.


Though this day was a bit exhausting, it was still a lot of fun and also very insightful. I was kind of nervous, thinking about all of the new responsibilities that I'm going to be taking up, but knowing that I'm going to have a lot of resources around and a lot of people to assist me, I feel a lot better.

A djembi drum

Rec Center and Pocky

 Day #3 Journal

Tuesday, July 12, 2016


Even though it's raining today, I'm still enjoying all of the activities we're doing so far. Firstly, I'm actually very happy to have breakfast in the morning, as usually I don't eat breakfast because I don't usually have time to. Lunch was also great because we have many options to choose from such as the 90 (usually our food for breakfast and dinner) or from places like Taco Bell, La Madeleine, or anything from the grocery store.

Now, I should talk about something that isn't about food: the rec center. Today we went to the rec center to do yoga, rock climb, play corn hole, and discover our goals. Since all of us were separated into groups, my group first went to yoga. Yoga was very relaxing while our goal setting was very inspiring. The competition for corn hole was a lot of fun. I didn't rock climb, as I'm not a very adventurous person, though I did have fun watching how fast other people climb.                                                                                                                        
The last thing we did today was go on a Kroger Run. At Kroger's, l bought a couple of items: Pocky and Panda cookies (Japanese candies) and sushi and Gushers.... Yeah, I'm definitely a candy fanatic.                                                                                                                  

Eagerness

Day #2 Journal

Monday, July 11, 2016

This is my first official day of year two at UK's GearUp Summer Academy! Well, it's technically my second day, but yesterday doesn't count since I had only been here for half a day...

Anyway, One of the first things I noticed about the program this year is that there is certainly a lot more people than there were last year. I enjoy this because it's good to see a lot of new faces as well as some familiar ones. I really can't wait to get out and get to know other GearUp students, though for now I am a little shy about it, as I'm still hovering around my friends a lot more (I sure hope they aren't getting tired of me). Some of the opportunities I had to make friends, however, were when we held a rock-papers-scissors championship, when we were introduced to our small groups, and when we found out our "true colors" in our personality test. Those activities were all fun.

Another thing I'm a little eager about is the classes. I can't wait for them to start already! I'm most excited for the Water, Walking and Wilderness class because I absolutely love to hike and to get out into nature. The Chinese class also interests me because it's always fun to learn about the cultures, foods, and traditions about a country thousands of miles away from here!

Tonight was very interesting. For the last event of the day, we got to dress fancy for the Chinese restaurant the Panda Cuisine , as a kick-off for our Chinese Language & Culture class. I very much enjoyed the restaurant as far as the food, the music and the atmosphere. I especially enjoyed listening to a musician play live. But the best part of the restaurant was the karaoke because anyone was allowed to go up and sing for everyone. Some people sang well, while others were funny when they chose silly songs and danced to them.

Over all, I had a really good time. Because of my time so far and my experiences last year, I'm setting my expectations high for this program because I just know I'm going to have fun all the way through, and I know I will improve most of my academic skills in the classes.

P.s., Team Victoria!