First Week

School is back in gear!

All the girls are back!!

Plus 5 new girls!! We have 4 new sophomores and 1 junior, for a combined total of 21 students!  We also have a new RA, Sarah, who will be joining us in January. J

The school year started off with Flag Ceremonies on Tuesday, September 4.  It’s such a fun ceremony—always gives me chills: all the seniors line up and enter the auditorium carrying a flag that represents either where their parents are working/serving, their passport country, or where they have lived at one point.  In total, currently, there are 53 nations represented amongst the roughly 300 students that attend BFA.  That’s about the international demographics/statistics of APU, and there are thousands of students that attend there.  Isn’t that amazing?!  These students are so world-aware, and seeing them stand and represent all these different countries reminds me why they are here, and ultimately why I am here.  So many of the nations they come from do not offer the best educational resources for these kids, and it makes me so happy that they have a place like BFA to grow and learn.  

Come Friday, the school put on a Chillin’ and Grillin night where the students got to meet and greet with each other, play games, and enjoy some BBQ. 

Saturday, we loaded up our 3 vans and drove to a shopping center in France to do some school shopping.  Later, we ate some Malaysian curry and watched A Knight’s Tale in our newly decorated TV room. 

Sunday, after church, Kandern celebrated Budenfest, or the festival of new wine supposedly.  All the dorms went and got to eat bratwurst, schnitzel, and other German goodies.  And then later, the girls decided to celebrate my birthday (which was 3 weeks ago) with a chocolate cake and a tubbing—meaning they all picked me up and dumped me in an old tub full of water in the backyard. ;)

This is our newly remodeled TV room! 

Sarah, Emily, and I grocery shopping.  I don't think you're ever too old to sit on a cart. ;)

This is the first day when the 5 new girls arrived. There's the 3 of us RAs, and then 4 of 5 new girls. 

We played the game the Human Knot on the first night. :)

Opening Ceremonies. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th from the left are Witt girls.

Opening Ceremonies. 1st and 3rd are Witt girls.

The 2 in the middle are Witt girls at Opening Ceremonies.

Chillin' and Grillin'

Chillin' and Grillin'. Random boy popped into the picture.

All of our 8 seniors.

Over the weekend, a few girls and I painted our nails. 

Budenfest on Sunday.

Emily, Sarah, and I eating brats at Budenfest.

This is me getting 'tubbed' for my birthday celebration.  The all picked me up and dumped me in!

The whole gang: this was taken at our first dorm fellowship Sunday night. The girls might kill me for putting this up--many were in their pajamas and weren't so fond of taking a picture. ;P

This concludes the highlights of the first week of my second year!  

Easter-ness

We had a blast the weekend before Easter break!  Quite busy, but loads of fun. 

The weekend started off with a Talent Show the school put on.  Saturday, we all headed out to Lorrach for a full day of soccer games!  Burnt and Vitamin D filled from the sun, we all enjoyed a delicious meal in accordance with our theme of “What Would Jesus Eat.”  We prepared all kinds of grains, fish, bread, and fruits, and imagined we were eating right on the Sea of Galilee with Jesus 2000 years ago.  After dinner and clean up, we all resorted back to childhood and died about 100 eggs for our Easter egg hunt the next day!!

Come Sunday, we had a picnic after church on the school lawn by a creek and then drove to a nearby town called Schliegen to browse through their street fair.  Later that day, we finally had our grown-up-like version of an Easter Egg hunt.  We split the girls into 4 different teams, with 1 of our 4 seniors the head of each one.  Each team then had to find approximately 25 eggs.  Each egg had a letter on it.  Once they found all their eggs, they then had to play bananagrams with them.  (If you’ve never played bananagrams, the girls essentially had to make words out of their all their letters, with each word connecting to another—kind of looks like a crossword puzzle).  It was a blast!  Shorter-lived than I imagined, but a lot of fun.  Sometimes I wish I could be kid again; I loved those Easter egg hunts as a kid!

To finish the day, we prepared a Seder meal.  I had never heard of a Seeder meal before, but supposedly a Seeder meal, according to my dorm mom, represents Passover with each food item representing something (for example, the celery symbolizes the bitterness of slavery.  You should look up a Seeder meal.  Quite fascinating!).  I guess a true Seder meal last hours; ours only lasted about 15 minutes—just enough for the girls to get an idea of it).  Then we had a nice, big “Jesus” meal afterwards. 

Busy weekend, but lots of fun!

Spring Semester Update

Spring semester has so far been full of cold weather and snow.  I'm so excited for the sun and all the flowers about to bloom! Besides the everyday life of the dorm, the following pictures give a snapshot of some more unique times, like hot lunch and spirit days, pyramid making, and Famous Couples.  Famous Couples is a Witt tradition in which Witt girls invite guy dates for each other in the dorm.  Neither girl nor guy date knows who their going with.  The girl just picks a 'famous couple' to dress as, and let's her friend tell her guy date what to dress as, so when the party starts the two have to look for each other.  For example, one girl went as Jessi from Toy Story.  Once the party started and the guests arrived, Jessi needed to look for her date, Woody, who is meanwhile looking for Jessi!  It was a blast! The girls had a great time at dinner and doing fun skits with crazy props at the dorm.  One other fun thing we staff have been trying to for the girls is have themed weekends.  Each weekend we pick a country to cook like and then try to tie in a movie with that country in it.  For example last weekend, we had Greek weekend.  We had mousaka and gyros and a Mediterranean salad, etc.  We usually try to do Saturday breakfast and dinner and Sunday lunch according to theme.  Last week was definitely my favorite. Especially when we finished Saturday night off with backlava, Turkish delight, plenty of "Opa's,"and the movie My Life in Ruins!  This weekend being St. Patrick's Day, we ate made and ate Shepherd's Pie and mint brownies as well as all things green and watched P.S. I Love You, which of course was ClearPlayed through our DVD player.  I really need to take more pictures of these themed weekends for you all.

First, a few snapshot of winter in the area:

Behind Witt one January day.

Our backyard in some snow.  It got down to -1 F!

A barn nearby on a much sunnier day.

HOT LUNCH

We go to school the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month and give our students a hotlunch.  Quesadillas this day!

On hot lunch days, the girls usually like to have a spirit day.  This day's was twin day.  

Two sisters matching.

There were 3 of us, so we decided to do triplets. :) We wore Steph's clothes. 

SPIRIT DAY

We all got Witt sweatpants, and this Friday they all got to wear them to school for a Witt sweatpant spirit day!

One Sunday night, the girls tried to this sitting game, where everyone sits on each other--it's like a trust game.  I just walked in and saw them doing this! haha! I told them to freeze while I ran and got a camera!

So cute!

Then they piled on one poor girl.. hehe

And they wanted to build pyramid...

after pyramid.

It was hilarious.  Especially when they all tumbled. Look at the junior in the burgundy in the middle--fave face! Lol

This was the farthest we got and I cut off the top girls face on accident! Ahh! So close!

FAMOUS COUPLES

Elizabeth and Will Turner from Pirates: They were named Best Dressed, but tied with Beauty and the Beast

Jessi and Woody

Beauty and the Beast: Won Best Dressed, tied with Pirates

And I and a few other RAs, the girl RAs from the guy dorms, dressed up as some characters from Once Upon a Time--a new TV show.  A bunch of us RAs watch on Mondays, our day off.  I'm supposed to be Emma, if anybody follows that show.  From left to right, we have Granny, Emma, Mary Margaret (my co-RA Emily), and Regina the Evil Queen.