Countdown to Christmas

Despite the fact that the past couple of weeks have been extremely busy, and the school has been somewhat marred by tragedy, I've managed to get a fair amount of Christmas-related activities in. I've checked off some important Christmas movies, including Bridget Jones' Diary and Love Actually, as well as The Santa Clause, Elf, and Scrooged. Liz and I fully decorated our tree, and it was beautiful until we axed it this evening (we don't want to deal with a dead tree when we come back from winter break). AND we spent all of this evening baking Christmas cookies for an event in the elementary school tomorrow afternoon. They are beautiful, multicolored sugar cookies (Liz insisted on making them colorful, rather than normal sugar-cookie-colored), with a powdered sugar glaze and sprinkles. I've already eaten enough to know that I don't want any more. For now.

Talent Show

Last week was the after school program's talent show and comedy performance. It basically included a lot of cute performances of elementary kids singing miley cyrus and taylor swift songs. The junior high kids attempted to do improv; however, they're at that awkward stage where they are inexperienced (and therefore not real funny) and old enough that they're not exactly cute. Oh well, they tried.

Visitors

I have finally entertained visitors in my trailer! Adam and Kat came all the way from the east coast, and stopped in Morton as part of their epic road trip. It was interesting trying to host people in a town where there is practically nothing to do. However, we cooked dinner, then headed to the local bar. While it had its usual sketchy older men, it also had a fair number of young people, a demographic you don't find much in Morton (apart from the Americorps members). We had an enjoyable enough time, and I think those two can now say that they've seen what there is to see in Morton.

Cispus Christmas Party

At the beginning of our term our whole team got tacky Christmas sweaters from a local clothing drive, and I finally had an excuse to wear mine! The Cispus Christmas party featured all employees of the Cispus learning center (our americorps team's home base), and most of the team. So basically lots of old people, and a group of 20-somethings. It was all right; luckily there was fooseball and pool to entertain us young folk. On our way home, it began to snow, and we got a good 2 inches! Talk about a winter wonderland.

Quack

We ended our last team meeting by quacking, mighty ducks' style. I think it should be a regular occurrence.

2 quoteworthy quotes:

1. Teacher: "Why isn't Keisha here?"

Student: "She's here, she's just....retarded."

2. 7th grade English teacher talking to her class, whom she has told to put their heads down on their desks because they were getting too loud:

"Now, don't look at me! I know I'm the most beautiful thing you've seen all day, but don't--(gasp!) Did someone toot?"