Pedro, ‘12

It was a boring Thursday when my girlfriend called me to remind me she had tickets for Circo Aereo, a French/Finnish group dedicated to juggling and other acrobatics.

Since it was already 6:30pm, and the show was scheduled to begin at 7:30, I hurried to the dining hall in order to get some food before sitting through the event that would hopefully improve my Thursday night. I met my girlfriend outside of her dorm and she gave me my ticket, which looked something like this:

The show was possible thanks to the effort of The Modlin Center for the Arts here at UR, and they’re constantly looking for artists that they can bring to campus. Before, I’ve seen Second City and Rockapella, both of which were very good, so I was excited bout this show as well.

When we got there, it was already a little late and the place was packed. It took place at the Alice Jepson Theatre, which is really big considering it has a balcony and all, but there were almost no seats left. I was extremely surprised by this, because I had never heard about Circo Aereo before, and they were having a show the next day too, so I wasn’t expecting to find that many people there.

Contrary to what happened at the Craig Karges show, I was decided to take pictures of the performance. I even had my camera ready, when I heard a deep voice through the speakers: “Out of respect to the artists, and in order to make sure the show isn’t disturbed in any way or fashion, please refrain from taking pictures or recording any part of this performance.”

I was definitely out of luck, and even more so after the show began. Most of their acts were really impressive, and though there were some parts I couldn’t understand at all, I just accounted that to the fact they’re foreign. Not to sound stereotypical or anything, it’s just that I’m sure they have a different perspective of what is considered artistic. I even stayed after the show for a Q&A session with them, and they seemed really nice people, haha. Still, they admitted that the styles are way different than what you would find here in the US. It also turns out they’re actually really famous, especially in Europe, and their performances are frequently requested, so I was happy I got to see them, and realized I’m extremely lucky to be at a place like UR, where we constantly get artists from all around the world to show us what they’re capable of doing. And even though there were some parts of the show that I couldn’t completely understand, the two hours went by fairly quickly, and I was able to say, at the end of the show, that my Thursday night had indeed improved.

As part of the RA training, the people in charge decided that we RA’s should have a scavenger hunt to bond with the OA’s who recently arrived. To say the truth, I’ve been waking up every day at 7:30am and getting back to my room at 7:30pm since Tuesday, so I was in no mood to be walking around campus during a really hot day just to look for some clues and bonding with people who will only be doing their jobs for less than a week. Some RA’s even have upper-classmen OA’s as their residents, so I thought this activity was a little unnecessary.

Still, I tried to have a positive attitude and be part of it just for the sake of training. Grabbed my ipod before leaving my room and hoped sunglasses and cold water would be enough to fight the heat.

Unfortunately, the people in charge didn’t have all the instructions ready and it took us a while to get in our groups. Then, they made us walk like 10mins to get to the place where we would find our first clue. And the 2nd clue happened to be on the other side of campus, so we walked 10mins to get basically to where we had begun. And the 3rd clue made us go on yet another hike. I was getting annoyed with all of the walking and the intense heat, to the point where I seriously considered just going back to my room. But I couldn’t cus the instructions clearly said that we had to take pictures at the different locations and all group members had to appear in at least 5 of the 10 pictures to be taken.

Then, we got to the best location of all. At the Greek theatre, we found the folder where the clues where supposed to be, but all the clues had been taken by somebody else. One of the other groups apparently had the BRILLIANT idea to hide the clues, therefore ending the scavenger hunt. At that point, we were still an hour from our next activity, so I got to come back to my amazing dorm and rest for a while in my amazing room.

So, I’ve been here for about half an hour already and I just had to write about this, cus it’s probably the best thing that’s happened during this whole training. Watching tv, listening to music and laying in bed when I should’ve been out in the sun, searching for a bunch of clues that would, at most, given me a $5 gift certificate. The group that stole the clues either reaaally wanted the prize or took one for the team and helped us get out of the activity. 

If they wanted the prize, then they can have it. It’s perfectly fine with me. And if they took one for a team, then I thank them, cus I seriously needed this break. I’m off to dinner now. Hopefully I’ll see many of you around campus real soon!