Spookes Day in Ylvi

This week, the hall council finalized the plans for the Halloween party in Ylvi. After holding an extensive meeting on Sunday to decide what games to do, fundraisers and items to buy, and delegating responsibilities over the various activities, I realized that we had a substantial amount of work in our hands. On Tuesday, we went knocking on doors in Ylvi to register people to participate in the games and to also raise funds for the hall council. On Thursday, we went to Wal*Mart to pick up the remaining supplies for the party, including drinks, popcorn, candy and decorations. So, by Friday, all that was left was to set up the games and decorations and put up the signs.

The kids started coming around 5:00pm on Friday. In the study lounge downstairs, we had games like Fishing Pole, Spin the Wheel, Quarter Toss, and Nintendo Wii. On fourth floor, we had Face Painting and Sucker Pull. So, Ylvi was actually bubbling yesterday. We had kids trooping around, playing the games and 'trick or treating' on the floors. An interesting thing also was the spread of Halloween costumes around Ylvi; people's costumes ranged from The Grim Reaper to Iron Man.

My RA, Bryan, was dressed up as a pumpkin and my roommate and friends on my wing were 'Joe dirt.' Mine was a slight variation of 'Joe dirt.' I wore the 'Joe dirt' wig, but I stuffed a balloon under my shirt so I was a pregnant woman instead. It was really funny. There was also plenty of candy of different kinds literarily flying around (A parent actually confessed that Ylvi had the best candy among all the halls). After the kids were gone, around 8:00pm, we cleared all the games and decorations and set up the lounge downstairs for a movie. There were drinks, chocolate and, of course, candy. I slept slightly exhausted but fulfilled yesterday; I think the hall council did a great job organizing the halloween party and social.

Last week, I tried to make sure I slept before 12:00 midnight each day. That enabled me to get an average of 7 hours of sleep. It was really amazing how much more work I could do and how much better I felt with myself. It got really cold early last week, though. It even snowed [mildly] and rained on Sunday. I remember feeling very shocked as I came out of the dorm to face the unexpected rain, snow and cold. It took two jackets and multiple layers to keep me warm. The weather is more tolerable now, anyway.

Right now, we have our most challenging Paideia paper so far. We're supposed to develop a thesis on our own and write a paper involving two books. It sounds a bit scary so it's something I have to start thinking about. Apart from that, classes seem to be going well so far. I took a Calculus exam on Friday and it went okay. Nevertheless, with all this talk about registration for J-term and spring semester, I'm beginning to realize that I will actually miss taking classes with my current professors. Although I would like to have them next semester, due to the classes I'll be taking, I'm likely to be able to keep only one professor - Storm Bailey - my Paideia professor [and he's awesome]. Well, on the brighter side, I'll be able to meet more professors, and I think that's a good thing...

Cheers!