review

General review for the show

  On this Wednesday I went to see the rehearsal of the show of “ The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling bee”. I chose to go on Wednesday because I think I could see the true performance without actors and actresses getting nervous and anxious when they perform. It was the original show. As a result, the show was absolutely one of the best shows that I have ever seen in the United States. It was attractive and hilarious, and I had a lot of fun watching this show. The reason that I love this show is because of the coherent plots, the setting, and how the show was performed.

First, the content of the story is quirk but interesting. Although Spelling Bee is a formal competition, but in this show, they were not acting that it was something big, but it was a fun event to do. The plots of the show were very coherent. The plots were pretty organized including three parts: the beginning, vertex and ending. However, I like the beginning because it made me feel novel. It was a good opening that made me laugh. Most importantly, different personalities of characters were fully expressed in the beginning when the actors and actresses coming out of the door behind.

Second, the setting was appropriate for the whole scene. I have to say that the setting was as good as the setting in the real Broadway that I saw in New York City. The background was decorated with light yellow blue stripes around it, renders the audiences a fresh view. The costumes for the actors and actresses were fabulous, and they really fit the personalities that were going to be shown for the characters. My favorite part is when Julia tore her hair band and sang out loud with her feelings. She efficiently used her bands to express the character.

Finally, I want to talk how good the actors and actresses perform. I could tell that they perform this with their hearts because I could see their facial expressions. Their body languages also express the characters that they acted. They cooperate well too; when they talked and when they sang, they all see each other through eyes, which make the conversation so emotional. Sometimes, they even exaggerate the action and speech, and make audiences laugh a lot.

In general, this show is very good, but there are still some flaws. The first one is that the actors may lack some eye contacts with audiences. Although they have good eye contacts with other characters, but the eye contacts with audiences is necessary. Second, when one actor was speaking, other actors and actresses as background and act more vividly with actions.

All in all, I love this show not only because its original story but also the performance as well. After watching this show, I realizes that “Practices make perfect”, I believe they actors and actresses must have practiced a lot on singing and acting. Anyway, it’s a very impressive show.

The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a musical comedy with music and lyrics conceived by Rebecca Feldman, and William Finn. It was also a Broadway production in 2005. Plus, the show has spawned various shows including the musical tour in Canada. It had a wonderful success performing history in the North America. However, there were shows in other areas of the world as well, such as Australia. The first production outside the United States was at the Melbourne Theatre Company in Melbourne, Australia, from January 18, 2006 to February 25, and it had a great success. It is absolutely an excellent musical show because it was performed in Korea as it translated version.

The story is basically about a girl’s winning in the 25^th Spelling Bee competition. It attracts audiences’ interest because it starts with a flashback about her competition with six quirky adolescents run by three quirky teachers. The show is very organized in general; actors and actresses all sit on the benches and act vividly. Since the musical show has spawned various shows all over the world, it won a big success.

The most appealing thing in this show is that random audiences will be invited on the stage to compete with six young characters. This could drive the whole atmosphere energetic. Another thing is that an Improve comedian will use ridiculous usage-in-a-sentence to answer questions in th “Spelling Bee”, which would make the musical show more hilarious.

 In general, this show is fun and hilarious. The form that the show is acted, the actors, the actresses will make the whole scene extremely interesting. It is a very successful musical show that won great success.

Lyrics:believe

"Believe"

(Believe)
Believe, believe, believe

I don't know how I got here
I knew it wouldn't be easy
But your faith in me was so clear
It didn't matter how many times I got knocked on the floor
But you knew one day I would be standing tall
Just look at me now

Cause everything starts from something
But something would be nothing
Nothing if your heart didn't dream with me
Where would I be, if you didn't believe
(Believe)
Believe...

There were days when I was just broken, you know
There were nights when I was doubting myself
But you kept my heart from falling
It didn't matter how many times I got knocked on the floor
But you knew one day I would be standing tall
Just look at us now

Cause everything starts from something
But something would be nothing
Nothing if your heart didn't dream with me
Where would I be, if you didn't believe

[Gospel]
Where would I be, if you, if you
If you didn't believe
Would I know how it feels to
Touch the sky, if you didn't believe
Believe, believe

It didn't matter how many times I got knocked on the floor
You knew one day I would be standing tall
Just look at us now

Cause everything starts from something
But something would be nothing
Nothing if your heart didn't dream with me

Cause everything starts from something
But something would be nothing
Nothing if your heart didn't dream with me
Where would I be, if you didn't believe

[Gospel]
Where would I be, if you
If you didn't believe
Would I know how it feels to
Touch the sky, if you didn't believe
Believe, believe

Where would I be, if you didn't believe

timed writing

  Apparently, study should not only includes writing, listening, and memorizing, but also criticizing and understanding. The topic of canceling field trips or not is under highly discussion. From my prospective, Field trips are a good way for students to have fun while learning. So the school shouldn't cancel all the field trips, but instead, the school should provide students with more opportunity to travel around.
  There are many reasons for having field trips. The importance of field trips is noticeable.
   To start with, field trips are the enlightenment of students' thinking. When students have field trips in class, they always go to places like museums, aquariums, famous places. These locations people go would help them to have a better understanding of what they learn. For instance,  there was a field trip in biology class last year, and the teacher lead students to a physics classroom to interpret the life in the universe. At first, students were very confused about the formation of the earth and how the prokaryotic cell develops into eukaryotic cells. After going to the physics classroom, students had a better understanding of this evolution of cells. The field trip technically enlightened students and gave them a wonderful interpretation. Therefore, field trips are vey necessary for students' learning process and the school shouldn't cancel them out.
    Besides that, field trips can speeds up the efficiency of studying. What I meant by that is that students will have better mood to start learning after relaxation. Students should always try to balance their time of having fun and studying, because long time under high pressure will lead the  efficiency of learning. There was another example for that: in Cheshire Academy, some students were taken by their teacher to Cheshire Coffee, and they had fun drinking coffee, even talking about their questions in class. That's a win-win achievements; they learn things while relaxing. According to the research, people who know how to have fun are more efficiency in studying than those who study every day continuously. as a result, students are beneficial from field trips, and field trips literally accelerate the efficiency for studying.
     Last but not the least, field trips don't cost a large amount of money. And the school won't spend much on these. To be more specific, students usually go to café, museums, and places of interest, which wouldn't cost much money for schools. Approximately 10 dollars for each person, and even less. So, the saying of cost a huge amount of money doesn't make any sense. Many of the public places don't even charge fee on people since they are open to the public such as the public library. The transportation won't take them much money neither, because people mostly walk. They have to stay near the school  they need time to get back and to be prepared for the next class. Hence, the school shouldn't cancel all the field trips to save money because the trips won't even cost them much.
   In general, field trips are beneficial for students and they could be the motives of students studying hard. They make the students relax and have fun. Field trips are only good for students and don't have drawbacks. Thus, school shouldn't cancel all the field trips but encourages to have more.
 

Gregory, the cat

I have a cute gray Persian cat named Gregory. He has pride and grace; He slowly lifts and lowers each paw when he rambles, and his gestures make him a dancer. His pride, however, doesn’t show up in his appearance, he is keen on watching television and getting fat for most of the time. His favorite is TV commercials, especially those for Meow Mix and 9 Lives. After he finished watching cat food commercials, he refuses to eat some types of cat food; what he wants is the most expensive snacks. Gregory not only gets picky in what he eats, but also the visitors. He only has some certain friends. He may snuggle up against your ankle, begging to be petted, or he would act mean to you and bite you. Gregory’s main purpose of doing this is not to establish his territory, as many cat experts think, but to humiliate me because he just gets jealous of my friends. After my guests’ departure, I look at the charming old fleabag snoozing and smiling to himself in front of the TV, and I always forgives him for the obnoxious, but hilarious things he has done.

peer's writing

  The twist response

We wrote some twist stories last week, which were interesting and creative. There are three my favorite pieces of writing, which are Cherrie’s Amanda’s, and Sophia’s. Their writings attract me, and some of them even made me laugh for a while. I love this stories not only because the twist is fun, but also the emotions they carry within them make me feel dramatic.

To begin with, I want to talk about Cherrie’s story. Her beginning is very interesting, because she started with a greeting from her to her friend. This catches my eye and makes me want to know more about her story. In fact, she foreshadows in the first paragraph. According to her writing, “ The shadow there seems to be my friend.” She writes, “seems to be”, but we don’t know if that is her friend. She leaves us with a suspicion to let us guess what will happen in the latter story. She uses details to describe her friend’s reaction, and she uses many interrogative sentences to show her emotions. I love these sentences, they make the character very vivid. At last, the twist has a strong sense of comparison. And the last sentence is very concise.

I also like Amanda’s writing. She is very good at using the structure of the paragraphs to demonstrate the outline of the vertex. The beginning makes me feel mysterious, and keeps me want to read more. Her actions is very descriptive, such as “sweat in my palm”, these details make her writing vivid. In her story, she has some monologues, and murmuring; I love this part because I can know what she was thinking when she sas the “witch”, I can know better about her emotion. However, she uses the final sentence to gives the readers the truth of the “witch”. I asked her where the twist was the first time I finished reading her story. Thus, the last sentence pushes me to think more.

In the end, I want to talk about Sophia’s writing, in which the twist is quite interesting and out of expect. She builds a comparison of her father and her, in which she was frozen, and her father was warm like a polar bear.  Dialogues are widely used in this story; and these dialogues describe characters’ emotions as well. For example, “ Oh wait, it is not moving down but up!” This sentences describes how surprised and shocked she was. The strong emotion is oozed from this sentence. The strongest comparison is her father’s speech and the ending. According to the writing, “ his voice is full of love and care” and “He zips up the zipper from his chest to the neck.” The strong comparison makes the whole story very dramatic and funny.

            In short, these stories are all very interesting and the ending si always out of expect. After doing this writing, I realize that the emotions are a very important element in a writing because emotions fill in the emptiness of just a single story. I really enjoy making up a creative twist story.