3 days till Spring Break! I think we're all starting to chaff a little bit...it's awkward to start Spring Break on a Thursday. We had a lot of work last week... history tests, math tests, ESci chapters, English essays ... it just wasn't fun. Hopefully this week will settle down. Monday and Tuesday were nice and ordinary ... I think. I'm having trouble remembering that far back. Now, Wednesday, Wednesday was a fun day. In outdoor program in the morning, we did the highlight activity of the season... Find Your Way Back to Campus. This activity driven around blindfolded then being dropped off with your group a few miles a way from campus. Then you have to use your map and compass skills to figure out where you are and how to get back to campus (No following roads! We go through the forests!). I was with a group of four other... Carmen, Shani (one of my awesome dorm mates!), Livi, and Sara. We were loaded up with cookies, water, a sleeping bag, and a GPS that couldn't send signals in deep forests and valleys.... It was pretty easy to figure out where we were and to start hiking ... but then we hit a mountain. Now, we've been doing a lot of exercise here and I'd say I'm in a lot better shape than when I came ... but we couldn't climb this mountain. So, we went to the pass and lost our bearing. We were able to find the end of the stream we were at on the map and take another bearing, but it was not nearly as sure. So we kept walking and walking and eventually decided we didn't really know where we were. Thus, the wandering in the woods part. Eventually we found the brook that ran through our campus, but ended up walking the wrong way for something like 20 minutes. We finally turned around and found the confluence. Luckily, this was a point I was well acquainted with, so I could lead us back. In the end, we arrived back on campus about 2 hours late. We had been in the woods for 4 hours. But we found our way back!!
Later that day, my dad came to visit. Luckily, we have a lot of free time Wednesday afternoon so I was able to spend about 3/4 hours showing him around. He met all of my animal buds, #304 and Dave especially. I think he enjoyed it .... but you'd have to ask him.
Thursday passed and then Friday we had the Garden Hill Fund event. The Garden Hill Fund is available to TMS alumni who are fulfilling TMS goals in their own community. I've been on the committee trying to decide who gets grants, and it's been hard. There are so many great proposals. On Friday, we briefly introduced them to the rest of the school in order to get the community's opinions. The fun part .. each group had 100 dollars in ones to designate to the projects they chose! On Sunday night, the committee met to discuss the results .. and we think we know where we're gonna suggest the money should go to. Now we have to meet with the Alumni Board and agree!
Saturday I did virtually nothing... Saturday night was the TMS Beach Bash! We dressed in our hippest summer clothes and got ready to party. Activities include sand castle building out of yogurt cans, ping pong, four square, and limbo! To end the night, chocolate chip sea salt cookie ice cream sandwiches!
Last thing to report ... some of you may know that I've been taking swing dancing classes once at week... well on Sunday before brunch, we culminated our weeks of lessons with a performance of the Shim Sham!
Monday, March 9, 2015
Sunday, March 1, 2015
TMS Snow Day
Currently sitting in the art studio, with nothing to do. That's a rare thing at the Mountain School since we're always laden with homework, chores, work, and exhaustion. That was generally this week... Monday, like all Mondays, was absolutely freezing. The heavy weather did not carry on, so I was able to continue onto wood crew and outdoor program on Tuesday and Wednesday. In outdoor program, we had to trespass along someone else's lawn and we spent the whole time freaking out ... and then we realized we were on Mountain School property ... so that was fun. Thursday came and everyone was exhausted. Thursday night at check-in, one of my dormmates was talking about how worried she was that she would have to be doing work over the weekend, since her parents were coming to pick her up. Our dorm aunt, Gwennye, responded, "Well, what if you didn't have school tomorrow?" And we all laughed and then she replied with "What would it take to convince you? A signed letter to Alden?" and we all continued laughing until she pulled a letter out of her pocket -- at which we all began screaming.
The screaming lasted for 5 minutes and the letter was ripped in half (thanks Ginger and Fran) before we finally read the letter. It said, in short, "You guys have all been working really hard and it's really cold so we're going to have a snow day tomorrow! No work is due, no work period, nothing." So Friday morning we all woke up naturally at 9ish and had a late brunch. Then, on a whim, I decided to join the cross country skiing adventure even though I really can't ski. We to a town called Lyme right across the border to a park called the Greens (which by the way is privately owned. Mr. Green is just an awesome man who lets people come ski on his land). Once there, we immediately skiied up to the first "Warming House" or break cabin and immediately regretted my decision to come. We did go skiing onto the frozen lake and took a group picture while some boys tried to carve TMS into the snow (and only succeeded in carving TM....). That was exciting. Next, we embarked. The path us "intermediate" skiiers were taking was five miles around the lake and was supposed to take one hour. There was another group who were going on a 9 mile ski ... and spoiler, they only finished 20 minutes after us. I stayed in the back the entire time with a teacher named Kathy. She very very kindly waited for me and actually taught me how to go downhill! So I can actually ski pretty well now (not like in terms of downhill and not fast, but for the most part I can stay upright in XC skiing). I was so sore afterwards!
Yesterday, I had science hike in the morning, so we hiked out to our spots and recorded data on them. So just more soreness. The afternoon of Saturday was dedicate to .... BROOM BALL! We had our broom ball tournament.... Round Robins in the afternoon and the Bash at night. My team was the Hemlocks and we were by far the best. Black Cherry's might think they got something... but they also got beat... For those of you who don't know, broomball is similar to field hockey, except its played on ice in plain shoes. The ball is a soccer ball and you play with either a stick with foam wrapped around it or an actual broom. The goal is pretty simple - get the ball into the goal. We play in helmets and knee pads because if you don't fall in a game, you're amazing. Falling is just a thing. We won 2 of our three games in the round robin ... and all of our games at night! HEMLOCKS WON! 123 HEMLOCKS!!!!
The screaming lasted for 5 minutes and the letter was ripped in half (thanks Ginger and Fran) before we finally read the letter. It said, in short, "You guys have all been working really hard and it's really cold so we're going to have a snow day tomorrow! No work is due, no work period, nothing." So Friday morning we all woke up naturally at 9ish and had a late brunch. Then, on a whim, I decided to join the cross country skiing adventure even though I really can't ski. We to a town called Lyme right across the border to a park called the Greens (which by the way is privately owned. Mr. Green is just an awesome man who lets people come ski on his land). Once there, we immediately skiied up to the first "Warming House" or break cabin and immediately regretted my decision to come. We did go skiing onto the frozen lake and took a group picture while some boys tried to carve TMS into the snow (and only succeeded in carving TM....). That was exciting. Next, we embarked. The path us "intermediate" skiiers were taking was five miles around the lake and was supposed to take one hour. There was another group who were going on a 9 mile ski ... and spoiler, they only finished 20 minutes after us. I stayed in the back the entire time with a teacher named Kathy. She very very kindly waited for me and actually taught me how to go downhill! So I can actually ski pretty well now (not like in terms of downhill and not fast, but for the most part I can stay upright in XC skiing). I was so sore afterwards!
Yesterday, I had science hike in the morning, so we hiked out to our spots and recorded data on them. So just more soreness. The afternoon of Saturday was dedicate to .... BROOM BALL! We had our broom ball tournament.... Round Robins in the afternoon and the Bash at night. My team was the Hemlocks and we were by far the best. Black Cherry's might think they got something... but they also got beat... For those of you who don't know, broomball is similar to field hockey, except its played on ice in plain shoes. The ball is a soccer ball and you play with either a stick with foam wrapped around it or an actual broom. The goal is pretty simple - get the ball into the goal. We play in helmets and knee pads because if you don't fall in a game, you're amazing. Falling is just a thing. We won 2 of our three games in the round robin ... and all of our games at night! HEMLOCKS WON! 123 HEMLOCKS!!!!
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