Insanely Wonderful...

I suppose that is how I shall summarize these past two weeks (which have also come and gone without a post....until now)

Homecoming was just that- insanely wonderful. Insane because of the sheer volume of work and tedious details I attended to, and wonderful because it was all worth it!

Homecoming Week 2008 became what many people are telling me is the best homecoming Red Cloud has had in several years. I would attest that it definitely was better than last year... in several ways. From my own personal perspective, I knew much better how to instill a sense of responsibility among the student council members (rather than what comes naturally to me, which is taking over)... and it proved to be quite successful. Over 1/2 of the student council students (now thinking about it- I might even say MOST of the Stu. Co. students) put forth amazing effort and responsibility in every Homecoming Activity- and it showed! Student participation was the best it has ever been (according to reports from long-time teachers) and the level of enthusiasm throughout the week with class competitions and dress-up days was phenomenal!

Speaking of dress-up days... I thoroughly enjoyed these- and will post pictures soon. I'm envisioning more time this week to work on getting those pics onto my computer- so if everyone crosses their fingers and holds their breath- I may in fact post pictures next time! (one issue I'm having, though, is an inability to access this blog from my school computer, which possesses the necessary pictures). On Monday we had pajama day, which was comfy and fun. Tuesday was 'dress-the-decades' or 'old-school' day. I thoroughly enjoy seeing the variety of outfits, mine being a funky 70s style dress. Wednesday we celebrated Super-hero day, for which I became 'Cupid.' Throughout the day I assured everyone that Cupid is a super-hero EVERY day! :) Thursday was perhaps my favorite day- Formal wear day! I serendipitously found this great green poufy early 90s style prom dress in a closet at my house- and it fit perfectly! I of course received several comments like, "You look like a mermaid!" & "are you trying to be seaweed?" & "Did you wear that to your H.S. prom?" Sadly, I didn't take a picture all day, so I cannot reveal this special dress via photo- but I'll work on that.

Actually, the dress was reintroduced to the students by my housemate and football coach Dan- who decided to stealthily take it and wear it during the FB skit (which depicted the VB team at their 'best'). :) You can imagine the laughs from that!

I have so much to tell regarding the Homecoming week. Wednesday we had a great evening with a cookout, class pyramids and games, and burning an "RC"- in addition to a wonderful fireworks show & several drum-group songs. Wednesday & Thursday after school each class busied themselves with decorating hallways. On Friday we had an all-school parade, a H.S. talent show, a dodgeball tournament, and one of the best pep rallies in the recent history of Red Cloud. (Okay, I say that based on reports from students and faculty). The boys won a solid victory during the game, and we finished off the evening with a dance. All in all, Homecoming week was spectacular, the student council members stepped up to the challenge, and we also raised quite a bit of money for Leukemia patients and research. Not bad for a whirlwind week!

I am doing quite well, after getting caught up on sleep this weekend (even though I did referee 10 matches (appx. 25 games) of middle school VB on Saturday. Let's just chalk this week up to stockpiling Americorps hours, shall we?

I am happy to be posting again, and I know that several of you continue to follow my blog, even when I am so busy I barely have time to write updates, let alone be updated on your lives... yet I am thankful for this avenue of sharing- and I thank you all for being interested... It is such a wonderful place here, and I cannot express well enough the amount of care and love I possess for these students....I truly wish you could all meet them in person... and hear the many conversations I am granted each day with these precious students...

In other news- the VB team is doing alright- some rocky areas, but it's been fun thus far- I'll be more involved again this week, as I wasn't able to much last week. Also, two weeks from yesterday I will be running another 1/2 marathon. Evidently my brother (who ran the last one with me) thinks I'm crazy. And I guess I am- but I am mentally prepared to walk parts of this one, since my training has been severely lacking this time. Yikes!

Okay, this will end my post- much love to you all, as you continue to seek and find the work God has prepared.

Written with a smile on my face and a warm glow in my heart,
Emily

Scattered, yet Happy

Hello again, for the first time in two weeks.

For some unknown reason, I have been unsuccessful while trying (time and again) to log onto my blogsite and update you on the inevitable excitement of Red Cloud. Finally, today, the site actually let me on, so although this post will contain no pics, I do promise an abbreviated version of the last two weeks....

Gosh, I suppose I could use the one word I happen to hate so much- busy- to describe my last two weeks. For one week (which also happened to be my first week of school) I had a visitor here. Matthias, my friend from HS who lives in Austria, happened to come back and visit the U.S. for the first time since leaving 6 years ago from his foreign exchange experience. It was absolutely wonderful to have him here, but I must say it took it's toll on my energy level...

I feel a story emerging... The Sunday before the first day of school, I took a brief (5 1/2 hour) :)drive to Denver to pick up Matthias. I was feeling happy and ready for the blissful moments of reunion in the airport, then bracing myself for the long travel home... Well, the brief moments of reunion quickly became 2 hours of waiting (until 8pm now) before his delayed flight was scheduled to arrive. Still fairly optomistic at this point, I went to buy a taco when I heard my name projected over the intercom. What could this mean? I became nervous and quickly went to find out what matter of importance would require me being paged at the airport. Turns out Matthias had left a number for me. I proceed to call this random number- and leave a voicemail. Well, as I'm eating my taco, which I was finally able to order, Matthias calls me- and somewhere in between the poor reception, airport noise, and his accent, I ascertained the fact that he missed the flight entirely and would now be coming in on the very last flight of the night- 11:30pm. Whew, it took me a moment to comprehend this idea, then I bought a book.

Without further detail, I'll let it be known that we managed to leave the airport at 12:30am and drive back to Pine Ridge by 6:00am, just in time to catch a 1/2 hour nap before I began my energy-demanding day with freshman orientation. The rest of the week became a bit of a blur, considering the lack of sleep which began it all, yet by the next weekend I was recovered enough to make a trip to the Black Hills and then back again to Denver to drop him off. And of course all the while he was visiting, I continued to pursue my regular duties of activity planning, Stu. Co. meetings, volleyball practice and games, bus driving, and teaching class.

Yep- that's in fact why I must use the word 'busy' to describe my previous two weeks. Last week I was able to work hard on many Homecoming issues, and while I know it's good to get things sorted out (and the Stu. Co. is really going well)... we did have a big 'to-do' about the bonfire, which was cancelled, then petitioned for, then reinstated with stipulations of absolutely no hazing (as happened at last year's bonfire). So, really my head is still spinning with so many details to work out with Homecoming week, and this year our after-school program is beginning two weeks early (tomorrow, actually) which means my workload has significantly increased for these first few weeks. I love it, and I am finding a bit of time to be with friends and such, but at the end of each day I am exhausted and not exactly the most conversation-friendly person I could be.

Yesterday I had a wonderful day- and it was a bit relaxing, even though I spent some time in the office (as I will today once I finish here) getting caught up on work for the coming week. Okay, so the wonderful part of yesterday is the fact that I participated in my first ever mini triatholon!!! I think this will make a few of you chuckle, when I share the details...

So Friday night, my friend Bryan and I decide that this triatholon would be an excellent idea- and so we agree to meet at the Boys and Girls Club in Pine Ridge at 9am to get registered. Well, I arrive at 9:15am and only a few cars are there, which wasn't extremely surprising... so I go inside to register, and I am the first to sign my name. Well- surely I'm just early and others will come, right? So about 30 minutes later, another woman shows up (whom I was expecting to come) and still no Bryan... he did eventually show up, explaining that he came awhile ago but was confused by the lack of cars. (rightly so). The scheduled start time was 10am. Which came and went. Then 10:30 was announced as the official start time (still with us 3 participants). Soon 11am rolls around, which is the time the police could come and escort us on the highway. Finally at 11:15am, approximately 2 hours after I arrived, the race began to become a bit organized, and one of my high school students even showed up to compete. And we were off... all four of us...

Now, I must mention this for the sake of the story- I was initially told that the course would include 2 miles of running, 150 meters of swimming, and 2 miles of biking. I thought to myself, "rather odd combination, but alright." So I began the race fully expecting a short 2 mile run.... yet it didn't take me too long to realize that we were on a much longer run. I got to the turn-around point, and I thought to myself, "2 miles? They got to be kidding!".... I finally drag myself back to the boys and girls club as the last person to begin the swimming competition. As I entered the building I loudly remark... "Gosh, that was definitely more than 2 miles!" Remember that I was last in the race? Yeah, well- I decided to simply enjoy the swimming and biking- which turned out to be extremely easy....and I finished my first triatholon with a huge smile on my face! It wasn't until after I was driving home that I clocked the actual mileage of the run- 3.6 miles! Yep, I'm sure they mixed up the running and biking portions of the race. If you know anything about triatholons, it's pretty clear that you should definitely NOT run twice as far as you bike! :):)

Well, that's about it for now. I am off now to the high school to prepare 1st round homecoming royalty ballots, after-school program flyers, write up class meeting agendas, and calculate my 8 girls' weight-lifting routines. Yes, that is my life here- but thank goodness I've done this all before and I know to expect chaos before the calm of, say, November :)

I appreciate anyone that may be reading this- and also if you'd like to share your blog site with me- I promise to check it out sometime. Perhaps not until we've crowned the Homecoming King and Queen... but you never know when procrastination might set in!

Sending much love from a semi-calm, semi-crazy soul,

Emily