Last Saturday Greg and I took a couple vans about an hour north to the city of Feldberg. Seven of our guys went along with three guys from Sonne, another boys' dorm. About half of us skied, and half of us snowboarded. I guess you could say I skied. All you need to know is that skis have never touched my feet before. And they may never do so again. It was exhausting, but all of the guys seemed to have a good time. Here is a picture of the group of us that went. I'm the one on the right in the Ronald McDonald costume that I borrowed from Greg.
Super Bowl
I wrote last year about our Super Bowl celebration, and this year we once again had a really great time. Yes, we are stuck without the commercials, and yes, the game starts well after midnight, but we enjoyed it. Super Bowl Sunday is the one night out of the year that the guys are allowed to stay up way past bedtime on a school night. I mean, how can we deny them the Super Bowl? Although when we asked at lunch on Sunday, at least four or five guys admitted they had never seen a Super Bowl.
This year we decided to hold our first ever "Super Bowl Snack Extravaganza!" We asked them before the weekend to get into teams of four, and to choose a recipe for a snack they would like to enter into our competition. Most of them turned in recipes on Friday so Danielle and Anna went shopping for all of their ingredients on Saturday while we were skiing. Now you probably know what a Super Bowl snack might look like, but I can introduce you to 24 young men who have no idea. Of the six groups, one of the snacks looked vaguely familiar - it was a dip made of olives, cheese, and tomatoes. The other five snacks were bruschetta, churros, cheese quesadillas with homemade tortillas, Korean pancakes, and smoothies. To be fair to the guys, the snacks were delicious and really reflected their home cultures, and overall they did far more than we ever expected out of them. Here's a pic of some of them working in the kitchen.
The prep work took place in the late evening and the actual event began at 11:30 pm. C.B., an RA at the boys' dorm Sonne, came down to drop off three guys who were watching with us so she was pressed into service as a judge. So the four judges from left to right were Danielle, Anna, C.B., and myself. Yes, I wore a Bears jersey for the Super Bowl.
Here are some of the reactions as we started announcing winners. After the judges conferred, I led off by saying, "Before we announce the winners, we should say that we were really impressed with all of you..." I couldn't finish because I was immediately drowned out by boos. BOOOOO!!!!! They didn't want to hear my sensitive, politically correct, mumbo jumbo preface - they just wanted to know a winner! (We gave awards to the bruschetta and the quesadillas)
This is the TV room upstairs where we were watching. I made a couple of my own snacks and Luke, the dorm dad from the girls' dorm Palmgarten, helped me carry them up. You really have to know Greg to understand the sour expressions on our faces reserved for the cameraman. And yes, not only was I wearing a Bears' jersey, but it was David Terrell's jersey. Go look him up. Shame.
We invited some students over from other dorms who wanted to watch. Everyone sits anxiously during the pregame and as the National Anthem is sung. They're all ready for the action to start!
Another group shot. You can probably point to a random person in this picture, and there's at least a decent chance they don't know half of the rules in football. But we had a really fun time! The game went from 12:30 til about 4 in the morning, but the most of the room lasted through the entire thing! (Go Saints!) (Sorry Greg.)
Super Getaway
Meet Austin.
Austin's birthday was Wednesday, but we celebrated it in the dorm on Tuesday because a bunch of people were going to be gone Wednesday. Austin did the unthinkable on his birthday. He escaped from his creeking. As many of you know, a major birthday tradition in our dorm is creeking. On your birthday, you get whatever cake you want, we sing a birthday dirge to you, and you are promptly hauled out back and thrown in the creek. Doesn't matter if it's sunny, raining, or snowing. You're going in the creek. Seniors are exempt from this practice, and they are also the ones who carry out the sentence. But on Tuesday, Austin got away.
Austin is a sophomore, and well, let's just say a lot of the seniors were really looking forward to this day coming. Let me give you a visual. Here's a picture of the dining room where everyone was sitting. The blue circle in the middle is Austin. The red squares around him are all of the other students, singing and yelling in his face, circling like vultures. All of the lights are off aside from the candle on his piece of birthday cake. After the singing and yelling is over, Austin blows out his candle, and it is pitch black. Immediately, there is a tussle like you see in a movie or cartoon where there is yelling and grabbing, but no one knows who is who.
The green circle by the door is me turning on the lights probably three or four seconds after the candle was blown out. The blue arrow represents where Austin was when the lights came on. He was scrambling on all fours straight out of the room, untouched. I couldn't believe it. He had quickly slid under the table and crawled out as everyone was lost in the confusion. He raced out the front door as a number of students chased him. In short, he made a getaway and eventually made it back up to his room on the fourth floor without anyone knowing. He remained in hiding for several hours until not long before lights out. The sophomores showed a video to the dorm interviewing Austin under his own bed, and the seniors took off to tear the dorm apart and find him. They found him hiding in another student's room and carried him outside to deliver the creeking that had been put off for most of the night. So although he made a spectacular getaway, he was indeed eventually creeked. And yes, it was snowing that night.
