May 30th

.. and so has one more day passed

The time flies away so fast, it's riddicules. Today it's 285 days since I was standing in the terminal at the Arlanda airport. Over 9 months has passed and it's not much left of my year in the states. But I'm not sad for that. I've experinced a lot while i've been here. It almost feels like i'm a new person. It feels somehow that i've found myself and that i know what i want (though I still don't know what I want to educate myself to).

I mean how could I complain? I've been to: Sierra Nevada mountains (Tahoe), San Francisco, New York, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles (Hollywood, Beverly Hills), Orange County, San Diego, Santa Monica, Monterey and the big shot: Hawaii.

(Yes I went to Hawaii. Pictures and a video will hopefully be uploaded shortly)

I've got to know so many different kinds of people from all parts of the world. People from: Brazil, USA, Japan, France, Thailand, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Serbia, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Germany and so on. I've met some of them only a few times while i've become really good friends with others. I've got a lot of friends from Brazil so I guess I'll go there for a visit sometime in the future. I've also got a lot of american friends. People that was in the same classes as me in school, people from the choir i was singing in and of course the family i've been spending the year with. It will be really sad to leave all of them but life goes on and there will be so many enjoyable things to be a part of in Sweden.

(I don't have a date for my return flight right now but my request was to go back in late july, around July 20th)

School is over.. finally. I've had a really good time there though it's nice that it's over.

As you might know, if you read my blog in the past I took two classes: "Elementary voice 1" and "Dance Workshop". Dance Workshop was a big challenge for me since i've never taken any dance classes before. After this semester I'm still not an awesome dancer but I can feel that i've improved a lot. I didn't have high expectations but I found myself really enjoying the class. For you who don't know: Dance workshop isn't a certain dance style it's when you choreograph your own movements, often together with a song. Most of my dance solos and group performances turned out good and got an 'A' in that class.

The second class i took was "Elementary voice 1". It was not a class where you improved your singing a lot but instead you learned other things. You learned how the voice is working, how to take care of your voice, how to sing in a healthy way, body posture, how to breath in a good way, how to read basic notation. Of course we were singing too. At the midterm we had to perform a song that we had been working with. I did "Caro mio ben" (As I posted earlier in this blog). It went fine and I got an 'B+' on that performance. We've had small written tests too but they've been so easy so I got an 'A' on all of them. Today we had our final and we had to perform a new song. I did "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen (Or the new version by Jeff Buckley). It turned out really well and I'm really pleased with my performance. Hopefully I'll get the video of that performance too and if i do i'll show you. By the way. One guy in my voice class did a song called "stars" (or "stern" in german), from the musical "Les Miserables". I really like that song and hopefully you'll like it too. Here's both the german and the english version:

Stars (Orginial, english)

Stern (German version)


So what will I do with the time I've left here? I'm not really sure actually. There are still many places i want to go to but it's impossible to visit all of them when i'm here now. I want to go to: Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Texas, New York, The Niagra falls, Florida.. and so on. I might go to Las Vegas just for a weekend but i'm not sure. Anyway we'll see what happens.

One thing that is for sure is that i'm going to Yosemite (national park) tomorrow. I'm going with Gabby, Omid, and a few other au pairs. It's a 3h drive but I think it'll be worth it. I've heard it's an awesome park with waterfalls and everything. It's a long drive so we'll probably stay over night at a motel.

I hope everything is fine with you and that you'll have a wonderful weekend!

Miss you all!

Robin

May 29th

This year is the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's song 'thriller'. The song who has been selling gold and is told to be one of the best selling singles through time.

Michael Jackson; what an artist...performer...singer...dancer...yeah you name it. He has really made history of pop. I mean what would pop be without him? I really love Michael Jackson though I probably love the old one more then the new one. It's not that his look has changed it's just his way of performing. Back then he had so much more feeling in his songs. You could really feel that he ment what he was singing. Today.. I actually don't know. He is still a great performer and singer but somehow it's not the same thing..

So anyway.. cause of this anniversary I started to listen to a few of his songs. I decided to listen to the songs I've never heard before. It ended up with me really liking a few of them! In these songs it's the words, the feeling and the compassion I like. Enjoy!


Michael Jackson - Give it to me



Michael Jackson - Heal the world



Michael Jackson - Gone too soon

Hej alla glada!

Nu är det så att jag har något att berätta. Jag kommer hem i sommar. Inte bara för två veckor utan för gott. Jag kommer nämligen inte förlänga mitt år här borta. Familjen jag är i var tydligen tvungen att betala $4000 (~25 000kr) för att jag skulle kunna förlänga och det är alldeles för mycket för dem. Jag kan förlänga med en annan familj men det vill jag inte. Känns ändå rätt bra trots allt. Vet inte när jag kommer komma hem men jag vill helst komma hem i slutet av juli så att jag kan vara med på unga örnars sommarläger. Det är ju trots allt sommarens bästa händelse och om jag ändå ska hem så kan jag ju inte missa det.

Hoppas allt är bra med er!

Kram
Robin

7;e Maj

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Här kommer en video där jag framför låten "caro mio ben". Sjöng den som midterm-test låt i sångkursen jag läser på colleget (detta var i mars). Hade precis blivit av med en dryg förkylning innan så det påverkade en hel del. Dock ganska nöjd. Första gången jag gjort nått sånt här så.. skriv gärna vad ni tycker! :)

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