ALEX KOTAS

Erin turned 25 so she had a party at her house. She had a lot of guests over. I was one of them. I had some snacks. There were 2 princesses at the party, or should we say imposters? I wasn't the only one who thought they were imposters, Sheila thought it too. It's too bad Princess Elsa didn't make a guest appearance cameo. Oh well, you can't win them all. We sang Happy Birthday twice: once for Erin and once for Rachel. I celebrated Rachel's birthday with her the night after

SWIMMING I do 3 swimming classes: one at Rush-Copley on Thursdays at 5pm; the other two are at the Vaughan Center on Fridays. The Vaughan Center classes are Water Walkers and a regular swim lesson. Water Walkers is like the name says - we exercise in the pool using barbells made of styrofoam. We walk, run, jog. The water is about 3 feet deep whereas my regular swim class at Vaughan varies but is usually 3-6 feet deep. The regular swim lesson at Vaughan Center is pretty cool

I'm beginning to take photos of places I enjoy, people I like and things that are interesting to me. Hope you enjoy~! Springbrook Prairie 11/1/2016 These are my first photos with the FujiFilm camera. FujiFilm was founded on January 20, 1934. As early as the 1980's they started making the switch from film to digital. These pictures were taken after Stormy was at Gail's Groomerie, in the afternoon. The shadows are radical. Springbrook Prairie is a forest preserve in Naperville.

Basketball season is just starting. You can tell because the NBA started playing a few weeks ago. And not only that, but our Special Olympics team started practicing too. Two of the players dropped out but the remaining players are still on the team, although we haven't heard who is on what team just yet, me, Caitlin and Randy will be on the same team, hopefully with coach John. We did drills at practice. Shooting is my favorite drill. I don't like stretching and warming

I started singing some Beatles songs in the Magical Mystery Tour Cabaret show in 2015, which started my interest in the Beatles. I completed working on and recording "Yesterday" with my singing coach Giana. Working with a singing coach is not as fun and easy as you would expect. There's a cute hamster named Penelope Nibbles in the studio, I like to greet her. Occasionally I get to feed her. It's tough because my hands are so big, I have to bend them the correct way otherwis

Special Olympics has a leadership program called Global Messenger. You go for training for 2 days, 3 nights. We went to Bloomington-Normal, IL. There were presentations by the trainers (PowerPoint). There were people I knew there, there were about 25 or 30 total athletes there. Each athlete had to make a speech of about 2 - 3 minutes. I planned some of the speech ahead of time, but worked on it at the hotel using PowerPoint. We practiced the speeches the night before and the

Our Coffee House Cabaret Series continues with a celebration of movie music! Fan favorites such as “Land Before Time”, “Titanic” and a mash-up of the Marvel Comics movies. We will also create our own tribute to “Star Wars” with an original Star Wars Ballet. The Final Performance will be held on Saturday, November 19 at 7pm in the Theatre Studio. It's a dinner theatre style show. You eat, I sing! The Theatre Studio is in new space for the School of Performing Arts. It is lo

“Kids In Toyland” was written by Ms. Erin Feeney, a long time SPECTRUM actor, dancer and singer. Ms. Feeney’s story is a fairy tale that touches on the subject of bullying. Surging Films and Theatrics, under the direction of Billy Surges, led every part of the production process from turning the short story into a screenplay, directing the actors, editing the film to interviewing parents and actors for the documentary portion of the project. The film was entered into the Nape

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. (https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history) Labor Day became a U.S. holiday on June 28, 1894. The first Labor Day was celebrated in early September. They made the U.S. holiday on a

On Sundays I usually relax. August is the month of relaxing. August is the eighth month of the year (between July and September) and one of seven months with a length of 31 days. August does not start on the same day of the week as any other month in the year in common years, but ends on the same day of the week as November every year. During leap years, August starts on the same day as February and still ends on same day as November. In the Southern Hemisphere, August is th