Patrick Far East Music

So many "Far Easts" were canceled this year due to the nuclear crisis. (Equivalent to State or Regionals back in the USA.) Remember that exchange trip to Yoron Island that Jake participated in last year? That was canceled this year as well. It was all very sad for so many kids...most of them Japanese kids from the mainland.

Patrick was so relieved when they ended up rescheduling Far East Music after it had been canceled. We were thrilled he had the opportunity to go. It was in Korea...which is turning out to be the go-to destination for Far Easts lately. Something to do with the facilities at the Olympic Village being perfect for it.

Patrick didn't take many photos because "it gets tiring remembering to take them" (like this is even ABOUT what he wants or feels).



Which is just one more example of why I am grateful for Facebook's tagging feature. Thank you, Patrick's friends!

I am also grateful for YouTube. I know this is kind of long, but if you like voices that stir the soul, I recommend you watch it. They did a fabulous job. I think I can pick out Patrick's voice, but that's probably just a mom thing. You can see him toward the middle of the pack.



Now this is one that Patrick did manage to capture on his camera. It is hilarious! Not the girls rehearsing...they were adorable and talented. I'm talking about when Patrick pans the room and you see the row of guys with their cameras out and mouths hanging open. Not to mention his commentary. Ahhh, teenagers.



And I guess turnabout is fair play. Listen to those girls scream! Of course Patrick is the most animated one, in front with the Members Only jacket.

Mama Don't Cook Concert

The choir director at Kubasaki High is a genius. First of all, he also coaches football, allowing him direct access to recruit much-needed male voices. Secondly, he fundraises in this manner: About three times a year, he puts on a dinner performance. He gets donations of food to put on the dinner (from parents) and "requires" students to sell tickets equivalent to the number in their family. Parents don't want their kids to think they are total losers want to hear their kids sing, so they pay $15 a pop to eat the donated food cooked and served by the culinary arts program. Oh, did I mention his wife is in charge of the culinary arts program? Genius, I tell you.


"Mama Don't Cook" is one of those concerts. (Can you imagine my "Mother of the Year" nomination for skipping out on a concert just for MOMS?! Calculating, that man is.)



This year I had two children in the combined choir, Patrick in show choir and Coree in advanced choir.



We all enjoyed our dinner...theirs steak and mine salmon. (It wasn't too bad, although it is really hard to do fish on a large scale. It just dries out too easily.) I got bonus flowers, though.



Once the show started, I had to move up and over to the side to get a good camera angle. I was able to keep both of them in the shot most of the time.



They did a great job, especially considering three choirs (that practice separately) were combined into one, and they were in such a confined space for so many of them.

I included a couple of samples here (mostly for grandparents). Hope you enjoy it as much as I did...and it's FREE for you!



50's Medley



What a Feelin'

Frustrating Day...and a Lovely Evening

Jake's first pre-op appointment was scheduled for this morning. After waiting over an hour past our appointment time, someone (a nurse, I think) came out to tell us we weren't going to be seen today. This was extremely frustrating. I understand stuff happens and emergencies come up...but making us wait over an HOUR? It wasn't like our appt. was at 0700...they had plenty of time to figure out that the Dr. was going to be in surgery to tell us when we checked in that our appointment was being rescheduled. The frustration was amplified by:

(1) My being a control freak
(2) The fact that we have been sitting around for an extra week, waiting to ask the questions we've had for four months.
(3) Surgery being only two days away and I feel like I'm being cheated out of time I need to prepare. See number one.

So, they rescheduled the appt. for 0700 tomorrow, to fit it in before he goes into surgery for the day...and before the 2 hour pre-op/anesthesia appt. we have at 11:30. I asked (snidely...I'll admit), "Sooo...no chance we'll show up at 0700 tomorrow, to wait for an hour to be told we've been bumped again?" She flatly said, "No."

We headed back to the room. I fumed. And watched several episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" and "Police Women of Maricopa County." {Jake is so happy to have his own TV, I'm sure.}

On the bright side, we had reservations for the Hale Koa Luau tonight. We left a little early to hopefully have some time to go to the Army museum beforehand, but that didn't work out because of accident traffic.



This is the picture they took as we entered the garden. Since I don't have a scanner here, I took a picture of the picture.



There were all kinds of crafts and displays as we walked in...and there was a "before show," with, Hawaiian guitar players, a tree climbing demonstration...



Yummy, fruity drinks...



And hula lessons! Like father, like son. {Ask Cliff about our honeymoon when they pulled him up on stage and made him put his hands on his hips, just like this.}



After the cocktail hour was over, we were funneled into the main stage area to find our assigned tables. The entertainment started right away.


And entertaining, it was. Not just heavy on the grass-skirts and coconuts...



Lots of muscles, too. {Hi, Cutie. Sorry...I'm already married.}



The food was all very interesting...most of it in a good way. Tried the poi, again...just in case my tastes had changed. Nope. It's still nasty.



We were each served a huge plate. Four kinds of meat. {What? No macaroni salad?} Almost all of it was fantastic.



This was dessert. I'm sorry to be a dessert snob...but this did not do it for me. Dessert either needs to involve chocolate...or crumb-top apple pie. Most every plate still had the flavorless pink jiggler on it when the server collected them.



The host was delightful. He's actually sort of famous. He had a couple of hit songs, one was a #1 hit in the 80s. I can't remember the name of it now, though. He sang it for us and I recognized it right away and it brought me back to the day.

Anyway, he went through a process to pick the couple who've been married the longest. This couple has been married 63 years! They were so cute together. They came up and danced while the host serenaded them. I was watching them, imagining being up there with Cliff, 43 years from now. As lovely as this show was, it felt so incomplete to be there without him..



I took many pictures and video clips, but won't include them all here. Just trust me, it was a great show. We had lovely table-mates from Indiana. The mom was a veteran, and she now works for the govt and was here on business. Her grown son and his girlfriend tagged along. He's thinking about leaving college and joining the Air Force. It was great to have the opportunity to tell him about my experience, how it was one of the best decisions I've made...and also go over the pros and cons of enlisting vs. finishing college and getting a commission. I hope he decides the take the plunge, either way...he seems great.



The show's finale was a very touching tribute to our military, past and present. In addition to the typical playing of service songs while people stood for their branch, for the last song, he called for anyone who had lost a close friend or family member in the military, to raise up a candle from their tables while he sang "Proud to Be an American." It was a very special experience.


Oh...and when we got back to the room? There was a message from orthopedics. They needed to reschedule that "sure thing" appt. from 0700...to two in the afternoon. *Counts to ten.*

The Best Little Theater in Town

Let me start by saying I was NOT at all in favor of Patrick participating in this POPs (Pacific Okinawa Players) musical when he presented the idea back in December. It's not that I have anything against POPs...not at all. Love me some community theater. But just not with everything else he has on his plate and the craziness that is our normal family life. I thought he was nuts. I told him no. He persisted. He went with a friend to the tryouts. They offered him a lead part. I told him he'd have to turn it down. He countered with a proposal that would not involve me having to drive him anywhere, ever. He'd have rides with a friend on the way there, and another family on the way home, and he'd do his homework in seminar period at school and when he wasn't on stage at practice and he'd still get all his chores done and keep up his As and Bs at school and yadda, yadda, yadda. I knew better. I knew it was never as easy as it looks on paper. Two hour practices every week night? Insanity. But against my better judgment, I let him accept the part.



This meant, he'd start his days at 5 AM to get ready for Seminary. Then after school, he'd have (fill in the blank here with Madrigal Dinner/Talent Show/Far East Drama Competition) practice, depending on what month it was...until 5 PM. Then, he'd eat a sandwich or something on his way to his 6-8 PM play practice. Then, he'd get home anywhere from 8:30 to 9, do whatever homework he didn't finish, and go to bed and repeat. M-Th nights, for two months. Oh, and did I mention he also was trying to earn money for his drama trip to NYC over Spring break? Yep. So, he had to squeeze in odd jobs between the cracks, too.



The whole "You'll never have to drive me anywhere ever" clause? You can guess how long that lasted. About a week. While Jeff's mom was completely awesome and did take him along with her son, from their after school practices to POPs practice, the rides home fell through right away. With 3 of us taking night classes, and practices rotating from Kadena to Foster, it made for some frustrating logistics. There were times when I wished for a time machine so I could go back to that night and say, "HECK, NO! Final Answer!" He did manage to keep his grades up, although I don't know how. It took a toll on his health...due to lack of sleep, I'm sure.



But as I sat there watching him tonight, I was glad that I said yes. He is good. And I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom...he is REALLY good!



And he was so obviously in his element. From the time he was little, he has loved to perform, and I really think it's when he's at his happiest.



This was his first musical, but he looked like a pro. His vocal abilities have really come a long way. I think show choir has been great for him.



The show was way too short. We knew it was a short show, but it really went by too quickly. I was sorry when it was over.



Some of these kids were just adorable! There was one boy that (as Coree puts it) sounded so inconvenienced by having to say his lines. I wasn't sure if it was part of his character, or just his nature, but it was SO cute, whether on purpose or not. That and the part where he was picking out his wedgie while he was delivering his lines, downstage, center. You can't write better stuff than that.



I'll just include a little clip of the curtain call here. I don't have a recording of the performance yet, but someone is getting it to me so that Cliff can see it, too. I'll try to post the link here, but to be honest, I'll probably forget.



"What? Why yes, I'd be happy to give you my autograph..."



And here's Patrick's "adopted" brother, Jeff. In the program bio, Patrick wrote that he was Jeff's white brother...among other "Patrick-isms." To be honest, I'm surprised they printed what he had to say, because it was not the usual, professional, "I'd like the thank God and my parents" fare. It was hilarious, for sure...but just not typical. Patrick is nothing if not original.



"Well I didn't get the lead...but I got the guy!" (Line from the play...not real life.)



And look at this little mini me! Isn't he a doll?



I love drama kids. They are totally awesome.



"Are we that awesome? Yes...yes, I think we are."



I love these kiddos...they are each amazing for different reasons. This experience reminded me that I need to be more of a cheerleader and less of a dream-killer. Not that I didn't have some valid arguments. Even so, if I remember correctly, it was me years ago, who gave the advice to Cliff (who was lamenting how hard it was going to be to go to full-time grad school at night to try to become a chaplain, while being a full-time Marine by day and trying to pay some attention to his family in there somewhere): "Name one worthwhile thing in life that's not hard."

With all of the hassles, this was still one of the most worthwhile things I've watched in a long time. Congratulations, Patrick. I'm excited to see where your talent and perseverance take you.

Friday...The Good...The Bad...The Awesome...and The Suckish

Let's start with the suckish, shall we? Suckish=1:30 AM musters for 6:30 flights. Seriously?



Put your hips into it, honey. Isn't it sweet that Jake wanted to be woken up to take Dad to the drop-off point? I thought it was. We dropped him off and went back to bed. At least we had that luxury...it was going to be a long day+ for Cliff.



Good=Kids headed out for a night of branch youth conference, including sleeping on tatami mats and climbing on poles and ropes.

Bad=Patrick having to miss out because it's the performance weekend for his musical.



Good=Just Troy and I getting an opportunity to spend time together. I offered to take him to dinner, since it was just the two of us. He chose Tony's, since he'd never been. We hadn't actually taken any of the kids there yet. It's just been our date night thing. This is just to show you that although I always get the same thing, there are other things on the menu. Especially if you like Spam.



Which Troy does. I do not. This is a Hawaiian omelet. It had spam and pieces of cream cheese in it. And Kimchee on the side, with the obligatory scoop of macaroni salad and a bonus Spam riceball. Would that be Spamnigiri? Anyway, he said it was great.



Good=Garlic shrimp twice in the same week. I think this makes up for the less than awesome birthday, actually.



Awesome=Patrick on stage. This was his first musical. We are going to see it tomorrow...and I will tell you all about it.

Far East Drama

Patrick has another great opportunity to travel off island for a performance competition. He tried out and was selected to go to the Far East* Drama competition in Seoul, Korea. It's been several months of practice every day after school, in addition to the other community theater production he's practicing for every week night...not to mention the talent show rehearsals he squeezed in there, and the Madrigal dinner before that. Oh, and Scouts (on occasion...lately!), and early morning seminary, and piano, too. And he's keeping up the required A/B grades in order to be allowed (by us) to participate.

I worry about him taking on so much, but Patrick feels like life isn't worth living if he doesn't have an opportunity to do what he loves....and school is not what he loves (it's just a requirement) never mind it's what allows him to participate in most of these cool opportunities. Anyway, being in the spotlight is what he loves, and he's sure had plenty of opportunity for that.

He left Saturday and will be gone for a week. We're so excited for him. Thursday night, they had a preview night for family and friends to come see the pieces they are taking to competition. All of the team is performing in the one act play (which is about 3o minutes in length) and then each of them also had to prepare, practice and perform either a monologue, duet or trio dramatic or comedy piece for the smaller competitions. The team got to vote and choose 2 of the smaller groups to represent them in competition, but the coach won't announce the results until they are on their way, so we won't know if Patrick is just competing in the one act, or if his dramatic duet will be chosen for competition, too...until he gets back, unless he calls us sooner.



Anyway, I am including the video of his dramatic duet here. I'm not going to lie, it is a little on the disturbing side...but not in the way you might think. If you are brave enough, you'll have to watch and see. I've seen Patrick in many comedic or otherwise over-the-top performances...but this is the first truly dramatic work I've ever seen him in...and I think it's really good. I was really impressed with all of the subtleties that went into making his character believable. I really hope he gets the chance to perform it at competition, even though I'm quite certain they'll choose the funnier, more lighthearted pieces. We'll see.

I do have most of the one act on video...except that the memory card was full with almost ten minutes still to go. I won't be including that here, mostly because the five minute video you see above took three hours to upload with our lousy Internet speed here. Can you imagine a 25 minute video? Also, who's going to watch a video that long? Besides maybe my parents? (Not that it wouldn't be worth it just for you guys, mind you...if it weren't for the impossible Internet situation.) Anyway, just trust me it's funny and really good. If I can figure out a way to just include a clip of it, I will. If I was filming, I would have stopped and started the filming several times to break it down into smaller bites (or bytes...hehe) but Jake was filming since I had to duck out the door before it was over to get to my computer class. (By the way...did you know you should capitalize Internet? Yep. Because there is only one. I learned that in my computer class last week. Cool, huh? Now if I can just master Access and Excel, it will be money well spent.)

Break a leg, Patrick...you're awesome! And have fun! But not too much fun. I don't know how much humor those Koreans have. Just sayin', K?

*Far East is a program which allows Department of Defense Education Activity high school students to compete in different events, such as drama, show choir, Model United Nations, photography, football, wrestling, tennis, baseball...you get the idea. Kind of like "State" or "Regional" competitions back in the USA. Our students travel around the Pacific to places like Guam, Singapore, Korea, mainland Japan, or here on Okinawa. The school pays for the travel and competition, we pay for the lodging and food. Definitely one of the perks of living here.


**BTW...if you normally read this in Google reader, I did something funky with Troy's Eagle Court of Honor post. It's a boring story, but basically I published the post before it even happened (for about 5 minutes) while I was making his slide show back on February 2nd. Then I erased the slide show photos I had posted there, but since I kept the original "shell" of the post, it published it back on February 2nd, even though I didn't actually post it until this morning. Get it? So, if you desire to read it (it's a good one) you'll have to either go to the actual blog, or look it up in your feed. And I knew all of this, because I received a friendly blogger tip to "follow" my own blog. This way you know how things look in the reader. So try it with your own blog. You might be glad someday that you did!

Kubasaki's Got Talent

Wow! Kubasaki High School really has some talented kids! We had a great time watching them perform tonight. This was not your typical school talent show, with one lame lip-sync number after another. These kids all had to try out, make the cut and commit to practices.

These photos are a sampling of the acts in the show. It's good to see so many kids passionate about the arts.





Patrick has had a LOT on his plate, with the Madrigal dinner, rehearsals for Far East Drama competition, a musical with POPs (community theater on the base) and this talent show. And although the piano piece was his main act, he's also gotten involved with one of the Kubasaki bands lately, singing and playing drums.



Ha! This clip is about 10 seconds of him playing drums. I thought I was still filming, but evidently hit the button without knowing it. Oops! Anyway, this was their edgy rendition of "Livin' on a Prayer."



This number, they literally put together hours before the show. It was something they'd been working on, but hadn't planned on performing yet. I didn't know that part until Patrick told me after the show...I thought they did great. I don't get the draw of Screamo...but I have to remember my teen music tastes were pretty exotic, too.



And here's Patrick's piano number that he practiced tirelessly, nailed in every rehearsal, but then got stuck on twice in this performance. A good example of what can happen when you spread yourself so thin. I think it's so funny how he talks to us as he's messing up. It's just so Patrick.



And even though the lighting is so bad on this one, I included it because it just highlights this fun group. This is the advisor over the talent show, and some of the kids begged her to sing, so she did, but only if they agreed to come up and dance. The teacher you see get up and dance her way out the door is Patrick's drama teacher, who the kids all love.

(Trivia: When I was in jr. high and high school, I lived for drama. It was the only thing I cared about. We moved around a lot (see...it's not just people in the military) and in Jr. high I had one awesome teacher, and one awful teacher...and high school was the same. My first teacher was awesome, and when I changed schools, that teacher was a nightmare. She sucked the fun right out of it, and with all of her personal problems, really needed to quit teaching. I am SO, SO grateful, that Patrick gets to experience having such an awesome drama teacher.)