Already there
Every time I thought about high school I said to myself there was a lot of time left for that. When I realized, there was one week left of middle school. It amazing how time passes so fast. Seriously, I feel that we are still in 7th grade and we are going to ninth grade. I can’t believe there are just four years left of school.
I was in my grandmother’s house with my uncle and he told me, “Wow Ale! You pass to ninth grade this year right?” “No haha I’m going to eight grade” I told him a bit confused. “Aren’t you going to ninth grade?” my uncle said with confusion too. “No, no” I said totally convinced. Then I thought for a minute and remembered I was going to ninth grade. This was hilarious. I swear I was like noo wayy I’m not passing to ninth grade. It was so funny.
I honestly don’t think going to high school will make a big change in my life. I think that the work is the only thing that will change. I’m going to work more since I have a feeling it is going to be harder. Another change that we will have is that we are going to be with different people that do different things from the people in middle school.
I have to accept I am going to miss middle school a lot. I was thinking about that and it is true. When I went from Elementary to Middle School it was different because I had only been one year in Elementary. I got to CDS in fourth grade so I wasn’t really used to being in Elementary as I am used to being in Middle School. There are some people from the other grades of Middle School that I will miss but I am going to miss like the building. For example, the lunches, snacks, the shack, everything, having to cross to the other side of the cafeteria. I’m also going to miss the teachers like Ms. Rumford. It is not because this is for your class, I am really going to miss her presence in everything. Always getting everything in order and being friendly. Also trying to get us out of school at 3:00 p.m. I’m going to miss saying hi to every teacher that I had in past years. There are soooo many memories I had in Middle School.
In High School, everything will be new. This is the worst part of getting to new things, that you don’t feel oriented. I hate this feeling. I know that in three or even two weeks, I’m going to be used to High School and I’m going to forget MS in a second.
I hope that when we get to high school they all welcome us in a good way. I know we are going to be part of High School but most of all I want to feel part of it.
80’s MUSIC!
You have all heard about the music in the 80’s. The people in that that time enjoyed hearing it and dancing with it. I was thinking, and the way that the people dressed in that time, matches with the kind of music in that time. This relates to the post I did last week. I talked about how the music of each country matched the people in that country. It is kind of funny how they used to dress.
Another interesting point is how the music changes through out the years. We don’t really notice when it changes. New music starts to come out but you don’t notice the difference from one to another. If I would have been in the 80’s, I think that I wouldn’t have noticed that all of the music they heard was alike. They have a certain beat or rythm that makes them from the 80’s. I mean, if you listen to a song you have never heard about from the 80’s and nobody tell its from the 80’s, you know that it is because of the rythm or tune. You can recognize it. Now, after many many years, we can see the big change in music.
Some 80’s bands are Michael Jackson, Weird Al, The Bangles, Bananarama, U2, Sting and The Police, Dead or Alive, Depeche Mode, New Kinds on the Block, and Billy Idol. Pop was the genre that was most heard. The others were too but not as much as this one. There were different dance moves in the 80’s. A good one, well not good but common on that time, was when you put you hand on your waist and then up and continue the procedure. Here is a link where they give you a lot of different dance moves used in the 80’s. http://www.inthe80s.com/80sdance.shtmlm. I don’t know what it is called. Another thing that I thought about was that the haircuts were very exotic and most of the women like curly hair more than straight. Many of the men had “afros” or big curly hair.
Think about the 80’s century. What to you picture in your head? I picture a lot of people wearing big campana pants dancing with this kind of music. Maybe if I knew about more things of the 80’s that is not music I would picture another thing. It is not that I don’t know anything else but the 80’s remind me of old fashion, hippies, and people dancing pop.
Music from other cultures!
Each country has a different type of music that represents their country. There is also a national anthem but I am not talking about that. For example, in Costa Rica the kind of music that we dance on September 15, is Costa Rican music. It represents Costa Rica´s music. Don´t think that if a person lives on a country, it mean that he or she likes the music that is played there. I had heard other countries´music but didn´t really know much about its instruments and other inofrmation. Each genre has its different history.
We were on the play of these people that come each year to our school to present a drama. This play was about that they went around the world in 80 days. It was so funny cause my friend loved the Indian music. When they went to India my friend was like, I love this music!!! Haha and then she started like dancing. It was so funny. I didn´t share her “atraction” for this music with my friend. I don´t really like Indian music but I accept it and I am interested in it. If you hear a sitar, tabla, shehnai, mridangam, harmonium, tanpura, you are hearing Indian music. I am sure that you are puzzled at this names. Well, this are different instruments used to play Indian music. One of the most important instruments there is the tabla. It consists of two drums which are called tabla and dagga. It is made of wood. There is a stretched skin in the top of the instrument and it has some stings. This makes a very pleasent sound. In general, Indian music is always very relaxing and calm. It is used in meditation a lot. Also, most of this kind of music has always a sound which is made with strings.
I was born in Costa Rica but my mom is from Ecuador. She has a lot of cd´s with Ecuatorian music. I don´t hate it. I think that I am so used to listen this music that I ended liking it. South American music is kind of different but alike. Music from Ecuador has influence from Europe. It also has a big Indian root. Andean music is very common on Ecuador. This is music from the Southamerican Andes. The Incas lived here. They use a special guitar to play Andean music. This guitar is very little compared to the normal one and it is fro high melodies. They also use the andean flute. It is very different from the original flute. Here is a picture of it. 
As I have said in other posts, I like all kinds of music. It depends on the song. For me, each song is different and I can´t generalize in types of music. I like to see the different types of music in each culture because when I listen to the music and then I look at the people from that country, they relate. I don´t know how but it kind of represented them.
Feelings !?..
When I hear a song, I feel an emotion. I don’t know if it happens to you but when something is happening and you feel happy or sad, when you hear a song you like feel inspired and you feel the emotion more. For example, there was a time that I felt hapy for something and then when I heard a song that kind of said what was happening, I felt happier. But it also happens when you are sad or with other feelings.There was a time that I don’t remeber in which house we were but me and my friends had put music. When they put a song called “Te mando flores” by Fonseca, we started singing like crazy people. I think that it doesn’t matter if you are in love or not, you still feel inspired by the song. Even if the lyrics have nothing to do with your life. The rythm of the song is also important but what makes people feel those feeling are the lyrics.Also, there are times that I am listening to a song and I remember things. Has it ever happened to you? I think that this happens because when something happens and you listen to a song or somebody sings is to you, you remember it and it represents that moment. When I was little, my mom always went to my room to tell me goodnight and sang me this song that now sounds ridiculous. I remember actually telling my mom to sing it and if not I wouldn’t stop telling her to sing it. It was this song in spanish and a mouse sang it in a t.v show. Now I think this is funny. Another song that brings me a moment is “Que Sera” by Diego Torres. For me, this is not even a really good song and it wasn’t before either. I don’t know why it reminds me of a moment that I was in the car and it sounded in the radio. I remember my mom told me that her friends dedicated this song to her when they left from Ecuador. I have no idea why I remember this. It is weird because those songs that make me remember things only remind me of little scenes of my life. For the one that I said about the t.v show, only brings me the moment that lasted about 30 second. Only of one day of all the days that my mom sang me that song. I mean, I remember all those days of my mother singing the song but not so good as I remember that day with that song. I came to a conclusion which has almost nothing to do with songs. I always remember random things and the ones that I should remember, I can’t remember them. Another emotion that comes to you is when someone dedicates a song to you.
Manuel Antonio!
Every year that we go to a field trip for a series of days, we have a lot of fun. This year, since it was the eight grade trip, the purpose of the field trip was having fun the entire time. In past years we had to write or do an assignment for the field trip. We went to Manuel Antonio which is a beach located in the Pacific Ocean by Quepos. The bus was leaving at 6:00 on Wednesday May 7, so I had to wake up at 4:30. When I arrived to the CDS parking lot, the bus was ready to go and there were a lot of people. We ended up leaving about at 6:30 waiting for some people to get to the school. I think that Ms. Rumford noticed my passion for music because Daniela and me didn’t stop singing. This was very funny because we could see the people’s face saying SHUT UP!! I noticed how everyone like music because we got to the time were Ms. Rumford asked if there was anyone not listening to their ipods and there was nobody. The first stop that we were going to make was at Turubari. Turubari is a park where we did very cool things. We had the option to do canopy, the superman zip line, or horseback riding. I chose to do the Canopy because it lasted a lot more than the superman zip line. The superman zip line lasted only like one minute. If we did the Canopy, we would do about seven different canopies. When we got to Turubari Park, they separated us into two groups. The people who chose to do the Superman Zip Line in one and the ones who chose to do Canopy in the other one. Nobody chose to do horseback riding. There were about 15 or 20 people in our group. The people working at Turubari started getting us ready to go to the canopies. I wasn’t nervous at all because I had already done it a lot of times. I knew what it was going to be like. I was like the fifth one to do it. We had to hold on with both hand to the rope that was holding us. The last canopy that we did was the best one. It was 700 meters long. There were two different zip lines next to each other so two people could go at the same time. I went with my friend Katie. When we were doing the last canopy we were trying to hold hands. When I touched Katie’s hand, she got my glove for accident. Haha it was so funny because we both were like, what do we do?? So I was with only one glove in my hand and at the end of the canopy I got stuck and I had to pull my self to the end. It was also scary because I could only hold with one hand because if I holded with the other hand it would hurt. Doing canopy with my friends was a completely different experience than doing it with my family. I have to accept that this one was better. After doing the Canopy we did different activities such as: seeing the cocodriles, going to the farm, going to a place where it was full of butterflies, going to the maze, and doing the teleferico. The one that I liked the most without counting the canopy, was the maze. We had to find the way out of the maze. I was with three other friends. It was very fun because the maze was huge and it was hard to find the way out. I also liked it because before going to the maze everyone was really hot and tired but since in the maze they threw us water, we all got refreshed. After doing all those unforgettable activities, the superman and the canopy groups got together. We were waiting for the other bus to come pick us up. While we waited the teachers gave us come ice-creams. Ms. Rumford had told us that she was going to tell us our roommates when we were in the trip. When we asked her for our rooms, she said that she would tell us until we get to the hotel. I was anxious to know, I was also nervous because I wanted to be with my friends. Finally, the bus arrived and we headed to the hotel. Ms. Rumford did tell us our rooms when we got there. I was glad that I got the room that I wanted. Ms. Rumford put me with Paola, Daniela and Katie. We went to unpack and then to have dinner. After dinner, me and my friends went to hang out at the pool. We stayed in the pool for about 20 minutes because we had to go to sleep at 10:00 p.m. The next day we had to wake up at 6:00 a.m to be ready at 7:00. This part was hilarious because the teachers forgot about our rooms and didn’t wake us up. We also figured that they also forgot to put tape on our room. We could have gone out and nobody would had noticed. Haha that was very funny. Each of us were in our dreams when Katie screamed: Hey! Its 6:58!!! Only me and Pao took a shower and Dani and Katie just put their clothes on. When we got outside of the room everyone was outside in the parking lot. Imagine if they would have let us in the hotel. That would have been really comic. This day we were going to do rafting! First, we had breakfast at a different restaurant. It was good. Then we went to where we went for. We made rafting at River Savegre. I had already made rafting too but I was still really excited to do it again with my friends. There had to be two girls, three boys, a teacher and a guide. In our boat there was: Ariel, Diego, Lucas, Mr. Jobe, Daniela, and me. The guide placed me at the end of the the boat with Dani. The guide told us different things. For example when he said “Al centro” we all had to go to the middle of the boat. There were other things that we had to do. When we started going on the river there came the first part of rafting. There were some that were harder and more adventurous than others. I like the ones that are harder. There was one that there was a big rock. Mr. Jobe, Ariel, and Diego fell off the boat and Daniela, Lima, and me didn’t. This wasn’t an obvious fall because the obvious thing was that Dani and me fell and the stronger people didn’t. Mr. Jobe was the one who separated the farthest. The guide had to throw him a rope for him to catch it. At the middle of rafting we stopped at a waterfall. This was very nice. The waterfall was really cool because we could go inside it and keep breathing since there was like a whole where there was no water falling. We stayed in the waterfall for about 20 minutes and then continued in the river. There were calm parts that the guide let us jump out of the boat to the river. I jumped like three times. The guide always threw Daniela to the water. This was very funny. When we finished rafting we had lunch at the river. We stayed there taking pictures and hanging out. Rafting was extremely awesome. Then, we went back to the hotel where they let us go to the beach. I had a lot of fun with my friends. We took a lot of pictures and got to the ocean. I also noticed how everyone has the passion for music another time. We were standing there, on the beach when a friend of mine was like: Where is the music?? Everyone needed music to make it a little more fun. That’s what music does. After going to the beach we went to the pool. Then we had dinner. After dinner, there was the fashion show. Ms. Rumford had planned a fashion show for us to model with the shirts that we did for the book project. Each of us had different ways to model. I modeled with Daniela. We made it the best way we could. I think that I’m never going to forget the fashion show. I could see that everyone had a lot of fun. This was a very fun day. It was full of different surprises and activities. The last day of the trip we also separated in two groups. Group 1 went to do community service at the park first and then to the beach and Group 2 went to the beach and then to the park. I was in Group 2. This was a different beach to the one that we had gone before. It was way more cleaner and it had blue water and white sand. I loved that beach, it was really cool. The community service wasn’t that bad. After doing this two things, we went to have lunch and then to the hotel to have a shower and get ready to leave. Leaving was sad. I definitely enjoyed this trip to the full. I think it’s the best trip I have ever done as part of CDS. I thank the teachers and Adventures Under the Sun for planning this awesome trip!!!
STOMP!
Have you ever been bored in class and start trying to make music or a rythm with your hands or with your pen? This is similar to what Stomp is, another kind of music. They make music with different kinds of objects. They combine the percussion and at the same time dance. I think that they thought out of the normal and were very creative. Stomp is all about rythm. They think that rythm is the basis of music.
Steve McNicholas and Luke Cresswell started with this incredible group in 1991. They showed the world their talent in London’s Bloomsbury Theatre. As the years passed, in 1994 they went from Hong Kong to Barcelona and then from Dublin to Sydney. They started growing and growing better and as a result they won two awards. An Oliver for Best Entertainment Award and another one in a West End Show that was for Best Choreography.
Sean Wards, Brad Holland, Jason Mills, Raymond Poitier, Marivaldo Dos Santos, Elec Simon, Jeremy Tracy, Dan Weiner, Fiona Wilkes, Camille Armstrong, Yako Miyamot, and Fritzlyn Hectoo are the people who were born with rythm. Each one of these people are unique and make a difference in the group. Everyone’s personality applies to the show. They experience with any object that is in front of them until they find the right mood of the sound.
“I started by hanging a single drum on a strap around my neck, but I also started to improvise on the objects around us: bicycles, lampposts, policemen’s helmets…” said Luke Cresswell which is the director. In some of the last show that Stomp has performed they have used brooms, lids, tall bins, short bins, poles, pounds of sand, blocks of Athletes chalk, drumsticks, litters of water, bananas, and boxes of matches.
I really admire Stomp for their creativity and for their talent. Not everyone can make all that sound at the same time. They are great musicians. As I said before, that they think that rythm is the basis of music, I agree with that thought. There can’t be music without rythm.
I posted this videos because I think they are amazing.
Technology in music!
Since November 2001, when the first ipod was released, the technology in music has increased a lot. Everyone was really exited. The first one sold was the “ipod”, the classic one. This was sold in $399 and had 5GB which means it could have over 1,000 songs. This ipod was only in white. Only six months earlier from when Apple got the ipod out, itunes was released. The reporters thought that they made itunes thinking of the ipod. Imagine how many people wanted the new ipod in that time if in December 125,000 ipods had already been sold. In 2002, the ipod had 10GB instead of 5GB. One year later they introduce the third generation ipod. The difference was that it was thinner and smaller than the one before. Every time the capacity of each ipod was bigger. In 2004 a new version of the ipod called ipod mini of 4GB was released. In that time it was called “tiny” compared to others. By July 24 this ipod was being sold through out the whole world. Then, in 2005 the ipod nano was introduced by Apple. It was thinner than a pencil and could hold 2GB or 4GB in colors white or black. In 2005 when I turned 12, my parents gave me the ipod nano in white. I was very happy. A while after, the ipod video was released. It was about 30% thinner than the other ipods and it was capable of videos. It also had more gigabits. Since the ipods were such a success, in 2006 the new generation of ipod nano was sold. It was a more aluminium model in six different colors. Recently the new ipod nano is available for everyone. This one is wider and smaller, it has high resolution and it can have videos and pictures. At last, the itouch. This is the most recent version of Apple. The itouch has internet, pictures, videos, music, games, and more detailed things. I am very happy that it is very useful for me since I am lucky to have it. This kind of ipod is sold in 8GB or 16GB. Livewire is also a very used source to download music. I used it. I know a lot of people use it. The technology the mostly Apple has provided us is very good and very entertaining.
Learning how to play music
When I started playing the piano I didn´t get anything. I was very confused with the different notes. I guess it was because of the age I had. In the academy that I was in, if you played the piano they forced you to get in separate classes where they teached you all the notes, I don´t remember what the classes were called. I remember I hated those classes because it was too boring. First, they teached me the scale. It is: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si. The Do is the lowest note and the Si is the hieghest one. I started playing only with my right hand because it is easier.When I got good at playing with my right hand I started playing with both hands. Since I write with my right hand, playing with my left hand was way more dificult. When you play with your right hand, you play in the Sol, and when you play with your left hand you play with the Fa. The Fa is from like the middle of the piano to the left and the Sol to the right. Using the compas is also very hard. The compas is a thing that keeps your beat in music. You always have to be cordinated with it. You can put the compas slow or fast. If you are very good or you are playing a fast song, you put it fast. The lower the center is the faster it goes. Learning how to play music was very difficult but now I can see the results of the effort I made.
FREEDOM
I think that freedom is principal in life. If life didn’t have freedom we wouldn’t live how we truly want and people would hide what they really are. Like when there were slaves. Only white people lived happily, the slaves couldn’t do anything about it and that wasn’t fair. If life would be like those times, there would be a lot of problems. I think that everyone should receive the freedom that they deserve. Freedom of speech is also very important. For me it means doing and saying what you want but most important feeling that you have the freedom of giving your opinion.For example in a class, someone is shy and doesn’t want to talk since other classmates don’t give that person the freedom to talk because they laugh at that person. That person would not feel the freedom to speak of his or her opinion. I think that that shouldn’t happen because everyone has the right to give his or her opinion no matter what. I consider that freedom too. I definitely don’t agree with taking a person’s freedom away. I hate when people make somebody lower than the rest. I like everyone being able to say what they want or think.
I personally love the ideas of Ms. Rumford. Doing Edublogs and having the freedom to write about what you like is awesome. We let people know more about ourselves and we interact with our classmates. The freedom that Ms.Rumford is giving us is very good because by writing about ourselves, we learn the habit of sharing and feeling the freedom of speech.We learn to not be shy about what we like or do. It’s also good because we do the work, write about what we like, and we have fun at the same time. I also like that Ms. Rumford also gives us freedom of speech in every class discussion. In her class I feel more like doing what I want and I feel that I share a lot more with my classmates about my opinion. Edublogs are excellent, I love having freedom of speech
and writing about us.
Playing music
Playing music is wonderful; I know it because I play the piano. I started playing the piano when I was 4 years old. I was in the “Instituto Superior de Arte”. This is an academy of piano of Russian people. When I was 4 I didn’t really decide to play the piano but as the years passed I started really liking it. I used to give concerts all the time, it was really cool. The bad part was that my teacher was very strict and angry with me. She practically never smiled. I perfectly remember a time that I had 7 years, and she gave me a long classic song and told me to learn it and play it. She left me alone in the room and I was struggling trying to play all the song. When she came back she was mad at me because I hadn’t learned everything. I seriously wanted to cry. I felt really bad. And she never told me that I was good doing it, instead she told me mom so I never felt happy with her. After some years they told me mom that they wanted me to start traveling and giving concerts in other countries. I was like 10 years old. They were crazy, in that time I definitely didn’t want to travel alone and even less with them. My mom didn’t agree either so we said no. I continued playing in that academy till I was like 12. I started getting bored and each time hating the piano more. I wanted to quit. I remember wining each time I had classes. I told my mo I wanted to quit piano like every day. After like one year of telling my parents I wanted to quit, they let me quit. I spent like six months not playing the piano because I was tired of it. Then, my parents told me that there was this person that could give me piano lessons in her house. I agreed but hoped she wasn’t like the teachers in the academy. She was extremely different. She let me decide what to play, in the academy they decided and it was only classic… ugh. I loved her and I loved the piano. I think that I got tired of the piano before because it was too much. I spend one year with her but when I turned thirteen Dance works was like the boom, dance classes. I didn’t want to be in it because of all the people but because I liked to dance. I had to decide whether to stay in piano or to get in dance classes. When I told my mom I decided to get in dance classes she was very sad because she didn’t want me to lose my tale. I told her that I wasn’t going to lose, that I was still going to play at my house alone, as a hobby. She said it was fine but that I had to play. I was happy. I still play the piano, I like playing it because I play it when I want to and what I want to. I think that playing the piano also gave me a lot of discipline in life. I was more concentrated and my mom had told that playing music helped in grades. I don’t know if it’s true or that she only told me to get me to continue playing the piano but I have to admit that it helped. Even though it was very hard and the teachers were very strict, I would never change that part of my life. Now, I thank my mother for getting me in piano lessons when I was four. I don’t regret all the years I have played the piano.
