Last month I went to see the new Footloose movie with the Cooke alumni, and I also went to a Cooke Halloween dance party with Aryn. I dressed up as a Pink Lady from Grease, and Aryn wore wings instead of a full costume, but she still looked cute.

..And so did I!

Here I am with my friend Jake, dancing the night away…What is Jake dressed up as though?

A couple weeks ago at Daniel's Music Foundation, I sang a song from Hairspray called "Without Love". Everyone told me how well I did on singing, and how I made good eye contact with the audience.  My aunt Deb filmed my performance, so I will try and post the video soon!

I'm also doing karaoke on Wednesdays, and on Thursdays I go to a drama workshop and do Improv and all kinds of fun, different exercises.  On Tuesdays and Fridays I have the JCC, which I totally love.  This Friday we made peanut cookies with Chef Irene and I played football (they say I'm pretty good at it).  

Don't the cookies look good?

Two weeks ago, we made tacos and I played tennis, which was a lot of fun. 

Mad props to this amazing woman and man. The first place winner in the women's wheelchair race at yesterday's NYC marathon was Amanda McGrory; she broke the record and finished in 1 hour, 50 minutes, 24 seconds! And she's only three years older than me! The winner of the men's wheelchair race was Masazumi Soejima, who became the first man from Japan to win first place in the New York City Marathon. And he was inspired to race for children that had been effected by the disasters in Japan.

Click here to check out the full article (I really liked it):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/amanda-mcgrory-of-us-sets-course-record-in-wheelchair-race-in-nyc-marathon/2011/11/06/gIQAAeXXsM_story.html

Two Saturdays ago, Lauren and I went to a Halloween dance at the JCC, where everyone got to dress up in great costumes (I came as a Pink Lady from Grease).  We had a great DJ took requests so of course I asked Randy to play some Grease and Hairspray tunes!  Everyone had a blast dancing and singing along, and guess what? There was even Wii sports!  I played Wii bowling, where I won every game (since I'm so good at it).  Hey, practice makes perfect.

Last Friday, I played tennis at the JCC, and hit every single tennis ball. It was so much fun. I also brought home the clay plate I made and gave the plate to my mom for her birthday– she totally loved it.

I also gave her a slap watch because she told me she wanted one. Also at JCC Connections, we had a self-advocacy group where we talked about bullying. I told them about how someone called me "the R word", which made me really upset and how I started crying. Steffi the director made me feel better about it by saying that she was proud of me for telling everyone even though it was really hard for me.

Last week at the JCC, the Connections group had a pottery class.  We got to make our own plates out of clay, design them, and paint them with lots of colors.  We also glazed the plates and now we are waiting for them to dry so we can take them home. 

Here are some pictures of our group in the pottery class–it was alot of fun!

 

We also have great doodling and drawing sessions at Connections!

 

Besides art, pottery, and photography, we take many trips around the city.  Every couple of Saturday nights, JCC Connections meets up and does different fun activities like movie night or bowling.  A few weekends ago, we got together at the JCC for a great dance, music party.  There was Wii sports games, food, drinks, music, and card games like Apples to Apples.  I got to bring in my High School Musical soundtrack and everyone sang and danced along.

 

We also have gym time at JCC Connections; we've done baseball, soccor, and basketball so far.  Here is a picture of me learning how to play baseball!! Who knew I was so good?

 

Hey guys! It's been a while since I last wrote to you all… I will update you on what's been going on with me.

I started my internship at SPOTS again, which I am doing two days a week. The other days I keep busy with Skills, Daniel's Music Foundation (I am singing the song "Without Love" to the group next week!), and my newest program: Jewish Community Center (JCC) Connections.

This program started a few weeks ago; it is a group of people who get together two days a week at the JCC for all different kinds of activities like art, gym, cooking, and much more. It's really nice because I have a few old friends in the program with me, but I also made some new friends as well. I must admit, we are a pretty great group! Two weeks ago at the JCC, we were doing photography, taking artistic pictures on the roof and inside the building.  We then learned how to upload our photos onto the computer, which were then put together into an album on facebook.  Check out the entire collection at The JCC Connections Facebook Fan Page.

 

Here are some of the pics that I took at the JCC:

 

We also made pizza with pesto and tomatoes, which was delicious (still not as good as Pizza Mercato though…)

 

 

Testing my balance with Dr. Dai at Mt. Sinai…
It really wasn't bad at all, even though it looks a little like a science
fiction movie!

and the totally fun MoMA Talk to Me show.

A day at MoMA with Kate. We saw the new Willem de Kooning show – I love his paintings. Here I am with one of my favorites. I like how he uses color.

Speaking of Broadway, a wonderful organization that works with people with disabilities, called Chai Lifeline, invited many of us to a wonderful matinee of Phantom of the Opera. It was amazing. Here I am with Lauren Plunka, my newest support person.